001call the meeting to order and if everyone could stand for the pledge of allegiance please i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one named nation under god thank you i thought i saw lauren is lauren on with us hi lauren uh would you like to do roll call sure absolutely let me just grab my other device here so theresa bosade present rachel chalefsky here michelle colello here kate canetta here gladys cooper here lauren daly here i'm joseph de silva here bridget gordon here catherine hodgson here albert russo here louisa britton here moving along to recognitions um march is board member appreciation month i certainly appreciate appreciate you all i appreciate working with you all um mr walston
002you added this to the agenda would you like to say anything i do i do so so for one i would like to begin with um cave has provided a gift for all the board members for the service that you provide um here in danbury and so we are not in person this evening so i'll just give you a little taste of what you should expect i hope you can all see this it's a note from cape and inside the gift there's a token of appreciation saying thank you and as many languages as you can possibly find uh so at our next board meeting you will have this um on your desk um and available on behalf of cave um and then of course um everyone here in danbury um and chairperson scholeski if i
003may also have a couple of words um for you and the board as well so one i understand that the board is volunteer-based and we certainly thank you all for your service we do this work because we know the importance of ensuring the next generation of danbury students are educated properly uh we've seen in so many places first and foremost like our career academy which we will talk about tonight and in our attempt to continually expand opportunities for danbury students and families received through our school system i'm also just want to mention i know that when we look back on this era of board leadership i'm confident they will see us on the right side of these issues of the day and have confidence because of the good people that sit around us at this
004table every two weeks so i just want to thank you all for your leadership uh your service and as always your partnership and helping to lead our schools thank you so much and again thank you from kate thank you very much that's very nice thank you thanks um public participation it was a very last minute to um to move the meeting remotely due to the weather um as of you know a minute before the meeting we had no public comments via email um lauren would you make the motion for the consent calendar absolutely i make a motion that the board of education approved the items on the content calendar exhibits 23-29 29-22-32 as recommended all second move by lauren seconded by kate uh would you do the roll call please sure theresa bizade yes rachel
005chalefsky i michelle colello hi kate canetta hi gladys cooper yes hey uh sorry lauren daley i um joseph de silva hi bridget guertin i catherine hodgdon hi albert russo hi louisa brinton hi it's unanimous motion carries i apologize was there any discussion on the consent calendar okay thank you i apologize a little bit out of order um do we have um any um staff representatives this evening i don't see any on the screen but please shout out if you're here no okay um any student representatives don't see any students with us okay moving right along to action items i apologize these are quite long we do have to read them out loud um kate would you do the first motion please certainly thank you i'll make a motion for the healthy food option pursuant to
006cgs section 10-21 215 f the board of education or governing authority certifies that all food items offered for sale to students in the schools under its jurisdiction and not exempted from the connecticut nutrition standards published by the connecticut state department of education will comply with the connecticut nutrition standards during the period of july 1st 2022 through june 30th 2023 this certification shall include all food offered for sale to students separately from reimbursable meals at all times and from all sources including but not limited to school stores vending machines school cafeterias culinary programs and any fundraising activities on school premises sponsored by the school or non-school organizations and groups moved by kate is there a second second seconded by joe any discussion i believe um barry gave us a brief kind of summarization in our board
007packet correct okay and chairperson celeski if there are any questions mr spang is available for any questions the board might have great are there any questions or discussion from board members no okay lauren would you do the roll call again please absolutely um theresa bizade yes rachel chaleski yes michelle colella yes kate canetta hi gladys cooper yes lauren daley i joseph de silva hi bridget gritten i catherine hodgson hi um sorry i lost my place albert rousseau louisa britton hi it's unanimous motion carries uh teresa would you like to do the next motion sure um motion uh food exemptions the board of education or governing authority will allow the sale to students of food items that do not meet the connecticut nutrition standards provided that the following conditions are met one the sale is in
008connection with an event occurring after the end of the regular school day or on the weekend two the sale is at the location of the event and three the food items are not sold from a vending machine or school store and quote event unquote is an occurrence that involves more than just a regularly scheduled practice meeting or extracurricular activity for example soccer games school plays and interscholastic debates are events but soccer practices play rehearsals and debate team meetings are not the quote regular school day unquote is the period from midnight before to 30 minutes after the end of the official school day quote location unquote means where the event is being held and must be the same place as the food sales moved by teresa seconded by joe any discussion on this one or questions
009saying none can i do this by um just all those in favor saying i i i i any opposed unanimous motion carries um i would like to do the next one luisa would you like to read the third sure okay exemptions for beverages the board of education or governing authority will allow the sale to students of beverages not listed in section 10-221 of the connecticut general statutes provided that the following conditions are met one the sale is in connection with an event occurring after the end of the regular school day or on the weekend two the sale is at the location of the event and three the beverages are not sold from a vending machine of the school store an event is an occurrence that involves more than just a regularly scheduled practice meeting extracurricular
010activity the school day is the period from midnight before to 30 minutes after the end of the official school day location means where the event is being held and must be the same place as the beverage sales second thank you moved by lisa seconded by kate all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye and he opposed it's unanimous motion carries mr wilson the floor is all yours right thank you chef person chaleski um so one i'd like to just provide a reminder for the board and then also for the community the mayor's office in city hall has released the meeting notice for the education education budget it will be at april 11th and then the second backup day is april 12th um at the moment april 12th is in conflict with our finance
011committee uh so we will reach out to uh mr russo to see if we can't find an alternate date and so with the superintendent update i'd like to start with an introduction of our four newest administrators to the district all currently serving in administrative and coaching roles in their respective districts and so i would like to start with miss katherine calabrese she is currently working as an assistant principal in new milford we are very excited to have her as part of the process all of our candidates had to go through a very rigorous uh interview process in which there were two panels uh one which had board representation the other one had had representation of administrators in the district and then the final stage the finalists uh were presented to the superintendent and his cabinet
012and we landed on the four wonderful people in front of you this evening and so i'll just start by introducing all four and then i'll circle back to catherine um so alexandra pacheco is our very own she's um at the moment serving as a psy up coach around the district k5 supporting schools and supporting bilingual instruction fatima susanna desjardins is an administrator of special education in norwalk welcome and i opened with kathy calabrese she's currently in new milford and last but not least there's alicia james who's currently serving as a literacy coach in new haven uh we're excited to have all four of them join us this evening um i was hoping to do a meet and greet in person uh prior to the board meeting so hopefully we can get to meet the board
013members and have an opportunity to meet the administrators at another time but um currently just circling back to kathy she's currently serving as an assistant principal in new milford very excited to have her comes with a wealth of knowledge and curriculum experience and expertise that we feel is going to really benefit um stanley ruff which she's going to be assigned and working with principal cerlik so really excited about that assignment um and on boarding her as soon as possible and fatima is going to be joining us again from norwalk and will be um assigned to ellsworth elementary school um it's not only does fatima have a special ed background that i'm quite confident we will benefit from but is also multilingual and um skilled administrator for years and we're really excited about her coming aboard
014alicia james again is currently working in new haven and serves as the literacy coach and we were all very happy about her kind of passion for education and literacy and equity for students um and we're very excited about her assignment she is going to be working side by side uh with principal martial at shelter rock elementary school and last but not least our very own alexandra pacheco is currently again working as a psyop coach we are very excited i think every administrator whether they had a vacancy or not wanted alexandra and there's only one of her right now we are very excited i i know i've said that a couple of times already we're really proud of you and you alexandra is going to be assigned to park avenue elementary school and she will be
015partnered with principal kraftic at park avenue so just wanted to provide an opportunity to say thank you i'm looking forward to working with you all and give you guys an opportunity to meet the board i know we didn't get to meet uh live in person but i just wanted to thank you for joining us this evening and uh chairperson celeste i don't know if anyone has any questions for the assistant principals but i just wanted to do a general introduction that's great thank you and welcome welcome any um questions or anything from other board members no it no it's great great to see you all at least virtually i think i saw you through the screen in the interview process so it's nice to see you again and uh just a warm welcome on behalf
016of the board thank you so much thank you all right so we're going to work you really hard when you start working here in danbury so you should probably get off the line right now thank you everyone have a good night to meet you and so next up on the agenda danbury high school graduation date by policy by a calendar and just in terms of protocol we will confirm the graduation date in our first board meeting in april um and just want to you know we were very happy that we did not have to push our graduation date or end of school day back today so we're very happy to be able to get the school day in today um and so just before the april break we will be finalizing the last day of
017school and graduation so i'm looking forward to that and hopefully we do not have any more inclement weather before then and then almost wrapping it up in terms of the update before i hand it off to cara and that is danbury career academy and i just want to acknowledge um uh the city of danbury mayor esposito his team antonio uh for for for leading us to this point and positioning us uh for quite frankly an absolute ideal site uh for a new high school um i think all of us were very excited about the idea of being at the summit and frankly we were excited about having a new building space but the space was very unique and because we were going to be providing a very unique educational academic offering i think we were
018generally all excited about that but frankly cardis is the ideal site for us um it's probably an ideal site that we can find in danbury um some of the team and i we had an opportunity to visit cardis prior to the signing um this is i believe in the end of 2019 where we were looking for space to lease and you know secretly behind the scenes we're saying what wow we as much as we love the summit we wish it was the cars because that's really the ideal site and so for this to circle back um two and a half years later and that opportunity presented presented to us we are very excited and and very thankful to the city on how we they made this happen so quickly uh so we just want to
019acknowledge that and say thank you with that said um it presents some new opportunities which creates some decisions i'm not even going to say problems but it just creates a different set of thinking for us and as part of the update regarding the academy planning it's pretty pretty good timing this month i had no idea we would be here talking about academy action plan um and we'd be talking about a different site here in march but here we are and so the team and i we've had several discussions behind the scenes what does this mean will this change our academic focus what opportunities do we need to maximize right now given this new space we've talked to our architects we've talked to antonio talked to the mayor quickly and cara is going to provide an
020update and just share with the board kind of where we are we um appreciate that there might be some questions and so we'll be ready to answer those okay um thanks kevin i'm just going to pull up the a little sideshow that i think will just help with the visual visual especially for new board members who may not have kind of heard the academy explanation more than once so i think it'll be helpful so let me just pull that up all right just let me know if you can see that we can see it great okay so um in some previous presentations that we've done on the career academy um we really maybe didn't do enough justice in really under getting folks to understand the broader concept and i want to be really sure that
021we understand that this is larger than just a building site um and i echo i echo kevin's sentiments on how excited we are in terms of the opportunity to be at such a location i think all of our jaws just really dropped when we heard what the exciting news was so with the exciting news came an opportunity to rethink a few things um and in terms of some possibilities and i'll talk about that a little bit at the end but the reason why i wanted to put denver high school and the career academy site side by side is because this is really about transforming our high school program into academies so these are really about the academies of danbury high school um and i'll i'll show you a little bit about kind of what that
022what that looks like in particular so just a reminder about our our vision and mission um that this is really about all learners this is again not just about a building this is about transforming learning for all of our students right in our mission statement we state that we're providing those transformational learning spirit experiences designed to nurture thoughtful and prepared graduates so how are we preparing our students for the workforce for college for additional opportunities beyond once they leave our doors what sorry about that so the career academies are really about creating a career connected learning experience for students to really engage them to give them a purpose for learning um one of the benefits of forming academies is that we really engage in this idea of small learning communities taking our very large high
023school one of the largest in the state and breaking it down into smaller learning communities where it's really personalized for students it's interest-based and kids get a little bit more attention and feel connected to a smaller group of like peers who are all exploring uh similar interests this is still a college preparatory sequential curriculum all of our this is not just a preparing for workforce this is an opportunity to integrate and to do both but to have that college preparatory um sequence in a in an exciting and purposeful manner for students that is um that that involves them being able to plan their futures beyond beyond denbury high school in addition to this there's an advisory board that helps to forge these partnerships with our with our community so this is really a community-based program
024where we're reaching out to our business community our corporations our industry partners and our educational institutions that we have here in connecticut some of which are right in our backyard to maximize all of the opportunities for for our kids and to work together as a community to support our students and in turn have these same students return back to the community uh as very highly skilled skilled workers um and professionals and so just to be clear danbury high school is part this is all together part of this academy transformation so students will come out of eighth grade they will all enter danbury high school the main campus for grade nine exploration so all students will come to danbury high school and engage in a college and career exploration course as soon as they get there
025they will be they will have additional opportunities with their guidance counselors for planning and they'll create multi-year plans beyond graduation in ninth grade um they'll engage in team building career and pathway research so all of the academies that we're offering um will identify and show them what the opportunities that exist in all of each of those pathways what are the career trajectories what are the salary and what are the opportunities what are the skill sets that are needed and really get students to understand where their interest lies but also where opportunity lies and again the academies that were selected and designed are intentional um to maximize the national and regional and local career clusters that are in demand so anything that is that we're putting together has been research-based has been vetted and we used
026a department of labor statistics and thinking about local opportunities for students uh beyond 12th grade um students will learn organizational employability skills digital literacy and financial literacy and these are some of the things that you don't often see in your uh in your common core state standards or your ngss right so these are things that are beyond a typical curricular content that we want to make sure kids have some facility with um so that they become employable uh employable and um understand what what is of will be required of them when they leave uh danbury high school um they'll engage and have a college and career exploration fair so we'll bring all of these industry partners together representatives from different types of jobs and corporations give an opportunity for our students to talk to folks
027and get a sense of what what's out there and the different businesses that are in the community it's great for the business community and it's great for our students and then at danbury high school by coming to the high school students are kind of inculcated in this environment so for six or seven months they'll have an up close view of at least four of the six academies in action and then planned opportunities to go visit the alternative site which would be at the carda site which would be named danbury career academy to visit and see those academies operation as well and to sit in some of those classrooms and to see what may be the best fit for them so in ninth grade students will take that college and career exploration course that i mentioned
028and engage in the college career uh career fairs and we'd like to create some college visit opportunities um but they'll make their pathway they're a cat they should say academy uh selection in the spring and so they'll engage in a lottery process where they will identify the academies that they want to to be a part of and then um kind of rank order some of the pathways that they'd like to that they would prefer to be in so we're still work out that lottery process once we nail down all of the exact pathways and we'll continue to refine what that lottery process looks like but students will be given their selections opportunities in in the spring possibly late winter and then they'll get notified before the ninth grade is out so um and i'll explain
029where those different academies are at each site in grade 10 once they've made those selections and they begin their they begin their pathway um they'll start with a foundational course so those are your basic essentials for whatever academy that they're in and we'll try to couple that with some industry field trip opportunities and bringing guest speakers into those academies and so really provides an opportunity for okay let's talk to some engineers let's talk to biomedical engineers let's talk to civil engineers let's talk to different engineers in different fields that students are not typically exposed to in grade 11 they uh increased those pathways electives so they get into really more hands-on very content-specific electives potentially here also uh starting to work towards certifications so industry recognized certifications in the pathway that they've chosen so students
030can take opportunities to to complete that along with these core sequences and provide some opportunities from job shadowing this is something that we think is is very important this is part of the building that relationship with the business community so we establish where those partnerships and job opportunities exist so we can align those those opportunities up for our students and then grade 12 these would be advanced pathway electives so um this could be a really high level engineering course it could be a very high level um course in our pretend like a cna program or our emt pathway and students would engage in a capstone and possibly an internship experience if they wish to do that as well we would start to carve these out and so you know all of this is in addition
031to their graduation requirements that have your typical your math your social studies your science humanities um these are a series of potentially five or six courses along the the 9 through 12 journey that students would have and so this is um new in the sense that you have been seeing me present um a slide that looks similar that has these same colored boxes across the top so these haven't changed right but what i did was i made sure that we grouped these so that it's a little bit more clear to the to the public or to the board and i know it's small um but to really get folks to understand that really this is really about the academies at denbury high school all students go to an academy of exploration in grade nine at
032denbury high school and then a select number will make a choice to participate in these two academies here right and they will go to the danbury career academy or the new building which would be cardis the other four academies are at danbury high school in the existing building and that's the part i wanted to make sure that was a clear distinction because i'm not quite sure if everybody understood that and the reason the reason for that is we started to get a few calls after uh sort of some of the press releases hey where can i sign my child up to go to the danbury career academy which is great because it generated a lot of excitement but i wanted to make sure that folks knew that really this is a transformational model of our
033high school experience for all kids and it just so happens that we have an opportunity with a new site and location will that will house these two academies here and that will have an opportunity to be reimbursed which is wonderful for all of these specialized pathways that will go into that location um we'll have we have work to do at danbury high school so we'll be working on identifying where these pathways uh and academies will be located within the high school and how we can uh do a little bit of cosmetic refreshing and making sure that we have uh you know equal and exciting learning spaces at denbury high school as we build this over time so um kind of question is where do we stand now so in the last uh probably two weeks
034it feels like a whirlwind um that has kind of befallen on us so we went from um you know meeting all of the time and spending what seemed like a year on the on the design of the summit uh site to quickly having to pivot to say whoa we've got this new site and this new opportunity um and looking at the plans that were put together the ed specifications the the the existing footprint of a totally different building and i want to commend um just you know antonio idarola and some of the architects that that were in consultation because they kept coming up with some amazing amazing uh designs and and configurations um you know in the process of this you know kevin i had gazillion phone calls back and forth with each other like
035this site this site actually has the ability to be its own high school when we originally designed the at the summit location um that that particular site really did not present any opportunity for it to be its own high school there we didn't own the land there are no facilities there it really was kids were going to come there for the classes and we'd get them back to denbury high school um and so all of the planning all of the designs all of the ed specifications really centered on this 10 through 12 experience and that and that would have been a limited um you know without facilities at that site when this opportunity came up we really had to take a step back and say what could we do differently to maybe prepare this site
036for the future um and i think about when i think about ellsworth avenue you know way back when that building was designed there was an opportunity in a crossroad to design it so that can have a second floor or or not and and you know choices were made so that you know at the time um and then here you know adding a new site to that building when maybe we could have gone you know a double decker uh you know in in with this current model so you know how do we take a look at the building space that we have to make sure that we're maximizing it for potential future growth so small tweaks that were cost neutral such as i'm taking a look at the gym floor that was designed for the summit
037location that was really not a regulation size and making some tweaks so moving it from a middle school size uh gymnasium to a regulation size so that basketball games could be played there so if down the road this became its own high school that would not be a a very expensive you know that would be would have been a very expensive uh project to fix that that situation um same thing with looking at some of the existing space that we had carved out um to now include some um room for band and music down the road again so that if this became a comprehensive high school their space is carved out within the existing footprint cost neutral that could be serviced well in the future without large remodeling expenses um and so you know in
038the current plan the way that things have have fallen out this project was never designed to develop a comprehensive high school um so we'll still working within the confines of that budget and the confines of those of those education specul specifications um but again being mindful of the opportunity to grow and being intentional about what we can do to be smart in the way that we're envisioning some of that space if that makes sense um so right now we are looking at finalizing some of the ed specifications for the city and the state and then we are also constantly refining we have a group that meets every friday at 7 30 in the morning denbury high school and then i have a small team of our curriculum administrators that we're constantly working with at crc
039we've constantly revising and examining and researching the pathway options and the opportunities um what i can tell you what is absolutely amazing what's happening in the state right now is that the state is starting to position and this uh idea career connected learning is really catching on and they're offering opportunities for uh collaboration that didn't exist before and bringing um folks to the table for us to work with and so as we every it seems like every other week we're learning about new opportunities uh that exists and and you know going back to the table and looking at our pathway options to make sure that we have the very best uh plan in mind so that will continue um and as the pathway options uh you know develop and take shape then that will inform
040you know continued spacing and staffing at both locations and that'll be an ongoing process to review those um and also too what's really important to to know is that you know and this was this was true at the summit site as well is that transportation logistics are going to be a huge piece with this um anytime you add another building uh particularly you know one with over a thousand students in there um you you're gonna have to have another transportation uh tier you'll have to have either additional buses additional bus runs or you'd have to tear your busing differently and so you know our goal is to make sure that all students have access to the comprehensiveness of danbury high school in terms of their extracurriculars athletics anything that's happening at that school and so
041that would require bringing students back um to that site uh at the at the conclusion of the day and that would be a transfer transfer location for students so that requires some tricky logistics that will have to be worked out um and no doubt that will be something that's in part of the budgeting for for this in the future and so um as the details kind of finalize on on this on the both space sites um that transportation piece will come into play and we'll be talking about that probably in depth in the future i think that's it for me i have a question when it's appropriate sure um first great presentation um and i really excited about the fact that we're thinking ahead in terms of making sure the gym is regulation size or
042you know planning ahead for what rightfully i think you pointed out is a chance for a second whether it's a second actual high school like it's now the kenosha you know kenosha high school you know the home of the fighting whatever but it does even if it's part of danbury high school it it seems like this presents the ability to accept a lot more students or possibly more students am i right than the 1100 plus or minus we were talking about at the summit because my concern is this 360 middle school students or 350 middle school students does nothing really to alleviate any significant component of our middle school overcrowding um certainly not by the time we get to 2024 when this is hopefully going to be open that may address the number of student
043middle school students we get between now and then um and i'm also a little concerned that 1100 or 1150 high school students by the time we get to 2024 that this won't this will it'll help but it won't meaning really meaningfully for a long period of time address you know really solve the problem for an extended period of time is there any serious consideration to just expanding this the high school component of this beyond the 1100 even even if we move the middle school component to another building because state of connecticut what we really need is a middle school um and a high school um is there like the chance that we could do that sooner rather than later um is that in the thought of thought i hope yeah joe i'll i'll start um
044it's i i always smirk when i hear you talk about enrollment and building schools because you always talk about the fact that we always outperform the projections of our demographers and i know you're aware and just for the community as well um we can't build schools without a demographer that helps the enrollment study justifies the school that we build and so right now where we stand and the answer to your question is yes uh but right now where we stand we can justify a building of 1100 and in terms of space 360 kids we had we had our uh a capacity of 400 i mean it justified 400 but just in terms of overall numbers we would be able to get about 360 students in there um but but to your point if and when
045the numbers justify it i'm going to say when because i'm sure we'll be back here again soon um it i i'm i'm sure we can pivot and move this building to a high school right just 912 and then if there's growth opportunities um i i think that was the mayor's point like if we get there no we are well positioned for it now given this investment in the land um certainly premature now but but you know we've been i mean i've been here four years not even four full years yet and i feel like i've been in this discussion three times with the board uh regarding construction and enrollment growth and and what that means for construction um so we are there uh just a update for the board um this project does require an
046updated enrollment study and so we have that work has uh will be underway very soon um but when we submit our um submit our ed specs along with the architectural updated architectural plans um in enrollment study uh will have to be concluded as well so i'll make sure the board has that update as well and kevin i and and thank you for that answer and your answer is exactly after we've had this conversation three years in a row and three years ago we exceeded our demography and we've done that for a decade now and maybe this is the time and maybe this is something we could address with ryan and i've certainly spoken to rachel about this before uh this may be the time we need to approach our legislative delegation and make the state
047understand that we keep exceeding our demographics and maybe building to our eight-year high demographic estimate enrollment is insufficient for our needs and maybe we need to be able to exceed that for you know certain certain levels certain grades at certain points in time that's at least something that i think we should probably consider investigating whether we can get the state to do that for us because you know if the state sets the rule there's no reason why they can't change the rule and you know we built the freshman academy it's beautiful but it was too small the day we built it um and i'm afraid what we're going to do is we're going to build a space for 11 or 1200 high school students it's going to be too small the day we open it
048um and at the summit you're right we were limited in here we have the world is our oyster and i agree with the mayor i think this is a great purchase for the future um and hopefully we can make some of that future sooner thank you thank you any other questions now that the floor has been opened um thank you rachel theresa go ahead i just want to say to kara uh concerting buses uh maybe uh consider something like what westcon does with its midtown and west side campus running a looping uh bus situation during the day and you know something along the way just a suggestion you're um and obviously that's far down the road but i just just thinking of what westcon does with the split campus yes no i appreciate that yeah
049we're looking at all options we getting kids to to that site and then to travel to danbury high school and and and same thing with the way home um so it's it's quite a bit of quite a few students um so we'll have to figure out you know the best way forward that's the most economical for you know for the plan thank you any other questions from board members i can't really see anyone so you're just gonna have to unmute and should i stop sharing is that better yes yes karen thank you sorry that's okay so cara my question is um about the existing academies at danbury high school will those still remain do they fit in with the you know will it just kind of these just kind of expand upon those yeah so
050we have you know like we have a cna program at denver high school so that would get moved over to the new site um the new location and and the uh the design build of the of the they call them collabs which were the collaborative learning spaces will be suited to house um i think it was maybe 12 hospital beds and all the equipment that goes with it and you know if you've ever been to the cna program um classroom at denver high school it's in one classroom and it's jammed with equipment uh it's an exciting room to be in with with the kids but it is it is tight and it's one of our most popular programs there and so really how do we expand on that and provide more opportunity and then we'll
051have a space for the emt so we'll grow that out and you have a certified staff member who actually can teach those courses so um that will also go so all of the medical type things will go over on on the new campus and we'll have some expanded room to to to actually work and to grow and um and so yes and then our engineering we're going to keep the engineering pieces uh at danbury high school um you know we're talking about there's some exciting choices you know the things that we wrestle with is you know do you keep a biomedical engineering with the health group or do you keep them with the engineers and there's really exciting opportunities to to do it both ways but um some of the some of the the way
052that certifications run with teachers and how we should staff to get maximum efficiency in in staffing right you want to fill teaching lines in a building and so there's it's very intricate in terms of a jigsaw puzzle with certification staffing and then the number of sections that you run and so we keep going through different scenarios to see how that would play out and then you know where would those students be best served in on in which campus and and what are the facilities that would that would support that so um it's a constant jigsaw puzzle it's an exciting puzzle that curriculum people love to work on but um so we'll continue to update you but yes um we do have some seedling um seedling pathways that will grow out and um you know we're
053looking to expand on those and build and over time you know i think it's important to say that you know this is really this is really uh what we want to make sure that what we're providing for students is current is fresh it's progressive it's in demand and it's going to prepare them for something and so that's going to require us revisiting and monitoring the outcomes on a regular basis and so you know how are students fearing how are these pathways serving our students and you know every probably five or six years we'll probably have to go through a cycle where we say does this pathway make sense or is it going to be is this something obsolete is there something that's more emerging that would be that would better position our students and then
054how do we how do we inch to get there and and to build up and to build that program so um it has to be a responsive program to to meet the demands of a very rapidly changing uh you know workforce right yeah and student insurance and student choice all right any other questions on the career academy okay and you and you answered the admissions question i times from parents rachel you're frozen all right i know i'm frozen okay i'm sorry i didn't hear the question sorry no um i received the same question from a few different parents about admissions which you touched upon and it would be kind of the lottery process that's currently in place for the existing academies um but they're more info to come it sounds like correct yep great okay
055moving on then and so one more item on the superintendent's report and so i just wanted to update the board and the community that on behalf of the district uh we did submit um written testimony for house bill five i believe that is five eight two three to fully fund um that's 5283 to fully fund um alliance in 2025. um and i think this is a perfect segue of acts uh zach and ryan bingham our lobbyist um to join us this evening and provide update zach dendis and ryan bingham provide some updates not only on that house bill but some other house bills that we um might be of interest strong interest to the danbury public schools so ryan just wanted ryan and zachary and thank you for joining us this evening and uh providing
056this update thank you great um everybody can hear me okay yes sir cool um i'm ryan bingham with sullivan and lashane and we've had the pleasure of working with the danbury board of education in the city side of the um city of danbury for several years um i like to say we're sort of the eyes and ears you know you guys do most of the the hard work and and we try to play intermediary or uh in some ways a filter to help you understand the the system you know where things are and put you in touch with the right people um when necessary in addition to that we are your tracking resource for legislation that could um positively in the case of uh 5283 impact the district um and also negatively and so i
057think um i just briefly introduced myself and then zach um you know i want zach to sort of give you a high level overview of where we are on the budget because that's the biggest chunk of dollars outside of the career academy of course um and uh and then i'll talk a little bit about some of the the bills that are of of note and we do provide every friday a tracking report to kevin and to the mayor and staff um so you know there's some other bills that are um you know not yet filled in yet there's what we call placeholder bills and and substitute language and amendments come and sometimes towards the end of the session we get frantic and you know our car and kevin and before kevin s dr sal and
058saying all right what does this mean you know is this good is this bad you know can we run and chase down one of our legislative supporters delegation members to track it down so um so just briefly my background i served in torrington as the mayor for eight years um so you know certainly have a lot of experience in my past on the education side and and more importantly understand the countless hours of work that you all do on behalf of your residents and so uh i thank you for that um and i've been with sullivan lashayne uh for the last five years and then in between then i worked at what is now oak ridge recycling and waste uh then winter's brother so i was at a danbury [Music] staple at one point in
059my life um and you can make the you know connection between garbage and politics you know but i won't do that um and then we just brought on zach dendis uh which we are really excited about zach comes to us from senator murphy's office having served with him for 10 years um most recently doing outreach for the senator so he has a really good understanding and especially now with so much of an influx in federal dollars to to the state on some of the questions that come along with those dollars that sometime are sometimes are unclear and so we've tried to be a resource to the city and the board of ed most recently and determining you know what can be used um uh you know for some of the projects that are ongoing so
060i'll turn it to zach to give you the you know um eagle's eye view of where the budget is um what the impact is on the danbury board of education the city um and then i'll take it back and and run through some of the you know where bills are where we are in the session and uh and take any questions thanks ryan um everybody can hear me all right cara thank you very much for uh that overview of of the school project that's actually super helpful stuff for us to know um kevin and and john i really appreciate uh your guys willingness to to bring me on as a part of the team and obviously as ryan alluded to uh spent a lot of time see a lot of familiar faces i spent a
061lot of time with senator murphy half the time uh in washington the other half in the state of connecticut uh of which i grew up in so happy to be back up here and working with uh the great team at sullivan and lashane so as you guys probably heard in february the governor um had his big speech about the budget we're in a oddly a very good place since he took office we've had an influx of about um six billion dollars in federal injection money from um coveted stimulus we are in as i said a really just great place in terms of surplus and june 30th we'll have a two and a half billion dollar surplus i think part of you know what the governor has has really alluded to when he talks about what
062he wants to spend this on it's going to be conversations around tax cuts um conversations around the rainy day fund potential conversations around sale tax sales tax cuts but ultimately the process for which this works is now the appropriations committee is going through the agency hearings and um your delegation has been wonderful we had the opportunity to meet with them a few weeks ago to chat with them about the priorities as they head into the session of which you know there are many um and they were really a wonderful resource and always happen for us at sullivan and shane so we're really excited to continue our our work with them basically the largest overview of this is there's going to be a lot of opportunity for connecticut towns and cities for statutory statutory formula grants
063what that means is that as the appropriations committee goes through their work through the legislature you're going to see implementer bills bond authorization and essentially just the the finance revenue schedule for likely around april may um early may is most likely and again that goes through all these agency hearings that we're hearing about right now but the biggest thing um and i'm happy to send this to you because i know it's a lot of numbers i'm happy to send you this information after we hang up tonight um but the biggest thing is is then this year and the next few years um the covet money that came from the federal government unfortunately has an expiration date which might seem odd but that means that it needs to get spent and the treasury department is allowing
064that money to be spent in a lot of different ways under the governor's proposed budget danbury would see would receive about a plus up um of about 2.45 million dollars in fy 2023 which is a 4.7 um percent plus up again i'm happy to send this information i know there's a lot of stuff going on so um all good news uh to report from that and i think what we'll see and what we can certainly get you guys in terms of background in the next few weeks there's more appropriations hearings tomorrow but as this process goes to the implementer bills um you're going to see a lot of people kind of asking for this money so we'll figure out exactly what it is that we want to prioritize through the budget process but again you're
065going to see in the next few weeks after these hearings proceed the budget coming out and making it relatively official so any questions that you guys have um please you know let us know i i had the opportunity to work in both both sides of the spectrum being in washington watching the appropriations process work and as we can see this week sometimes not work at all but i think connecticut's in this rare rare place rare opportunity we've done a really good job of cutting down our operating expenses making payments to reduce pension debt um so there's going to be a really positive outcome hopefully in the next month and a half as we get down in the nitty gritty of the budget but happy to take any questions happy to follow up after this and
066again thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to you guys tonight so so we're in um the mid-year of a biennium budget and i think what zach's uh alluding to is that in the past in the biennium budget because the state's been in fiscal disrepair you know historically is we're up there you know fighting to say you know hold us harmless don't take rescissions away from the board of education they're midway through their budget process and um i think you know we're very confident that the the minimum increase as zach mentioned is has been posted um you know the the great news is that um there's a groundswell of support to uh kevin's uh bill that he supported through testimony in trying to get to that uh 20 by 2025 that accelerated ecs
067um grant formula which would be a huge boon to the board of education we've been advocating on your behalf and so has your delegation to accelerate those uh statutory payments back to the board of education to the city so so we know that that's a top priority it is 100 on our uh our radar it certainly is on the radar of your delegation and and the mayor so um so i think you know we can sort of say at the very least that um it does appear that there's um there may be i should i you know i don't have a crystal ball but there may be maybe the time is right to finally get to that point where you're accelerating faster than that the 10-year phase-in that was originally anticipated which would obviously benefit
068the city of danbury which has unfortunately been underfunded as a result of um you know sort of kicking the can down the road on on ecs uh is there anything else we can do in this regard i mean obviously this is a particular interest to the board and the city obviously yeah i mean i think there's a time and a place for it for sure your testimony is a marker that suggests to certainly to the danbury delegation but to to other like districts um and i think you know off the top my head norwalk which also submitted testimony in support of it stanford as another example these are communities that are in similar situations where they've got a you know a growing student population to joe's point outpacing um you know what all projections could
069be and so he constantly sort of lagging behind even as the accelerated payments phase in it's in the education committee now they are they have a deadline to get all the bills out of the education committee by the end of this month march 28th and so i'll take your testimony have it in hand and make sure that we have three members of the delegation that are on the education committee senator kushner um representative um harding and representative callahan uh to make sure that they're aware that this is uh critical to the district and so i think you know if i'm a board member i'm certainly advocating i know i've seen rachel up in the building prior to covid advocating on behalf of the board so you know don't don't be shy to to let your
070delegation members know um that you support it you'd like to see it uh be successful um you know and and tell them you know that you'll work with them in in any way shape matter for them and and we'll sort of broaden the net to other members certainly the leadership of the committee and and we'll find representatives from those like cities to team up with and advocate on your behalf or so um and we'll you know if if it's in danger or if it you know starts uh becoming something that we have to raise the red flag you'll be the first to call um on that so okay um yeah for sure and then um just two other deadlines so i've mentioned education deadline is the 28th into zach's point um the appropriations and finance
071committee which is the you know both sides of the budget revenue and expenses those deadlines are uh april 8th for the appropriations committee and april 7th for the finance committee and so what you'll see at that point is um you know the semblance of a budget um coming together knowing that what comes next is essentially a negotiation between leadership and appropriations finance leadership in all the caucuses and the governor's office and the office of policy management to try to final finalize the budget knowing that there's you know i don't know 100 bills out there that could potentially impact the budget um through additional spending decreased revenue or or the complete opposite of that so um so those all sort of take shape and then the final deadline that you should be aware of is um
072what we refer to as cnda the end of session where all bills uh either have passed or or will die at midnight may 4th and so that's the end of session this year um and it's a short session that's the actually the shortest uh legislative session in state's history just by way of the calendar 84 days and so if zach and i look tired now um call us up on may 4th at midnight and you'll see two people with um not very clear eye but you know happy to do it um and so you know i don't know you know obviously don't want to take a whole lot of time but if you don't mind i'll just hit some of the other bills we have tracked you know just as a a placeholder you know
073to alert you to some of the things that that's that's happening and there are still bills being filed as we speak so um these lists change rapidly um so one of the bills that i think we should have on our radar is um the goal of having all zero emission vehicles and school buses um 100 by 2030 so something to be fully aware of as a potential certainly a laudable goal to reduce carbon emissions but but something to be aware of as a potential cost to the districts and that is um both in sb 92 and sb4 both dealing with zero emissions vehicles and you can stop me if i'm going too fast but i just don't want to take too much of the board's time and going through some of these where you know
074if we send the um tracking sheet you can always ask us um the other uh the department of education bill there's a lot to it um certainly to to parse through but that's one on our tracking sheet that we are always going to be watching to see if there's anything that comes in there out of that bill that could potentially impact curriculum um how you hire teachers um and a plethora of other items that's sb 226 an education committee um the uh i know the charter school has also been a topic of conversation in the city of danbury and the board of ed for quite a while there's a bill uh sb 229 that has the support of the department of education which essentially instead of having the charter schools receive their charter and then
075receive funding at some other time i think is attempting to consolidate that system where in it may not be able to put the horse back in the barn for the danbury charter school but i think contemplating in the future that um you know to offer a charter doesn't necessarily mean it offers funding to go along with the operations of those schools and so i think it's just something to to be cognizant of and that's um sb229 i think one thing that could potentially be problematic for the board of education uh and certainly warren's further discussion is uh sb 232 which changes the way that the ecs grant is formulated it does put more weight on property wealth and i think one of the issues that danbury has had historically is that you've got great property
076values and it doesn't sort of jive with some of the student population issues that you have and so i think that could be potentially something that you know could be harmful to um to ecs or to special education funding so something that we're keeping an eye on um and then you know obviously the the budget bills 5037 5038 which we went over [Music] a couple placeholder bills we're watching there's a perennial climate change curriculum bill there is a request in s and hb 5287 to change the dates for the state to provide a plan for remote learning currently law um suggests that by july 2023 there should be a plan it's asking the state department of education to accelerate that to january 2023 which will allow you all to have time to to review those
077that those plans and potentially implement remote learning options and then last but not least as we mentioned several times but something i think we're going to certainly rise to the um to the top of the pile is 52-83 which has been heard last week um and and there was you know i think kevin could probably um speak to this i think there was a hundred pieces of testimony and most of it was in support of the bill and that is um that's certainly important to see so um so that's sort of the high level um the the other one the other piece i wanted to mention just you know sort of that non non-legislative but um we worked with kevin and john uh early on in the city side and david st lair and the
078mayor recognizing that there may be expenses that could be classified as covid related expenses that um that we didn't get reimbursed for not because we weren't eligible but the city and board of education you know spent everything that they were allocated for and we acknowledged that um or unless we had the feeling that there were communities in the state that weren't going to spend all of their money and so we tried to put a marker down and and the mayor sent a letter uh in january to to then secretary mccaw um requesting that if there are towns and cities that are not spending their uh allotments and instead of turning it back to the federal government that danbury uh stands you know ready willing and able to uh to get that uh get that money
079and have eligible expenses right so um and i think that was somewhere near three million dollars as a request so um we'll we'll keep track of that there is a new opm secretary uh jeff beckham you know he certainly has his handful in that department right now with the budget negotiations in the legislature but um but the market's been put down and and we'll you know certainly circle back on that when uh when the time is right and we're starting to hear rumblings about um that being a discussion uh in the very near future so hopefully that that comes through and then um the other piece of the budget that we're certainly going to be digging into is a 90 million dollar investment that the governor set forth in the budget for air quality in
080schools so hvac upgrades uh filtration devices um etc um so you know there's still some meat on the bone there that we gotta dig down for you on but it's certainly something that could be helpful you know that could relieve some of the capital constraints that you have now and into the future so um that is a mouthful i won't take any more time uh but certainly willing to answer questions now or or at any point in the near future so ryan i just want to reiterate um of course as the superintendent here of course i'm going to say this but i i think the ask is justifiable some of our board members were here at the time uh when they recall we had to we we had to make sure our sta and our
081drivers in transportation are still paid throughout the pandemic even though buses were not running um and then the same is true for food services despite the fact that we lost considerable revenue from food services and so that's why we had these kind of outstanding costs and we made sure and we use cobic monies to help um pay those those those commitments that we made um and so if there are districts out there with leftover money who didn't have to do this for whatever reason uh we feel strongly that it is justifiable so i i couldn't help myself ryan i i had to just get that in yeah for sure for sure and i i don't again i don't think that anybody could argue that it's um a justifiable expense and i certainly don't think that
082the um the state wants to be turning back federal funds if they you know have other districts that like danbury that they could support so um so we haven't gotten any negative feedback for sure um that's they're still trying to figure all of it out yeah okay thank you i saw two hands up i think joe and kate okay i'll go ahead no go kate go ahead uh thanks rachel um ryan thanks so much for joining us tonight and kind of giving us a scope of everything that's that's going on from your perspective i wanted to ask about hb 5280 this is about bilingual education which would increase the per pupil grant amount for bilingual education and also establish a dual language seed grant program um have you heard anything about what's going on with
083that um i don't have it on my list i did have a um i can follow up with you i had a uh where is it i had a danbury is probably already doing it note on it so i didn't address it but it had you know and ryan while you're looking i i can share kate um that fran rabinowitz on on the on behalf of caps it send out support at 5280 a number of superintendents to sign off in support of it um dan barry was one of those districts thank you mister i don't have it but i will add it to the agenda and i will follow up and give you a summary on where we are that would be great ryan thank you and we've got 25 of our students who are
084english learners so that's a substantial portion of our our student population um i also wanted to just go back real quick if i could to which you talked about the climate change aspect of that bill i note on here also that they're also trying to start a pilot program for teaching financial literacy and establishing a connecticut civics education task force um and i'm just wondering how you know are those things that were just sort of tacked on to the bill was it done with intention um you know i don't know off the top of my head but i can tell you that um a lot of times when you know because the bill has been heard and and we've seen that bill come in and out and a lot of times it gets you know
085sort of very political um as you can well manage um and so in some cases you know as a way to try to move a bill there could be additions to it that could appease the other side um so i don't know off the top of my head but i can certainly find out if that was maybe a negotiated portion of the bill to you know let it move a little bit further this year okay thank you so much joe uh yeah ryan thank you um you certainly reminded us that the jf deadlines get here in a hurry in a short session for sure uh question this is not the earth shattering importance but there was a move at one point where they were looking to extend some of the governor's executive orders the beginning
086of the session to basically allow covet cancellation days to be exempted from the 180 allow you not to just basically not have to not have to make those days up i know it didn't pass earlier in the session it came out of i guess it's special act 22-1 um or while the bill that became 22-1 is there any do you sense anything that that's coming back either by way of horse or rat as they say um so yes 22-1 no it wasn't in there i have not seen any language that would have put it back in um we do track bills that are what i would refer to as a placeholder bill um that's you know always opportunistic for um a lot of different language a lot of different sections from bills that maybe didn't
087make it out of committee or or were heard in previous sessions so if we do see it i will uh put it on my radar and let you all know again it's not a huge deal i was just wondering thank you are there any other questions from board members for ryan or zach seeing none one last thing oh sure one last thing um i just done a fun fun subject in the past uh pre covid we've also been your coordinators for danbury day um there i would say probably not this session not just because it's um you know sort of still in flux although we're in the building uh on the first and second floor now which is a great help to us and what we do up there but um but just you know
088i think put a marker down for 2023 to to bring back danbury day and there's so much great news from all of you and what you're doing with the career academy and i know we've talked about this in past danbury days events and so i think legislators will be really excited to to see the progress that you're making and so just put a marker down um you know bring the hats back and hope to have you up in the building next year you know advocating on on your behalf awesome thank you anything else mr walston for our lobbyists no other than get back to work well thank you for sitting yeah thank you for sitting through our meeting i think you've sat through longer right it's been great very efficient thank you yes thank you
089so much all right take care thank you yeah ryan zach thank you is there anything else uh from you kevin that no that that that is all for us regarding a superintendent report and a discussion night great thank you um i don't have much in the way of a board chairperson's report except that i do want to um thank ms volpe from mill ridge primary for inviting us to read to her classes last week during read across america day you know one of the one of the few joys of board membership i i really do enjoy reading to the kids and so um you know thank you for thank you to the board members who who did the same um so that's it from me really um are there any other board communications or comments
090i'm just like to say that uh [Music] today i don't know if we had what members own uh it was an excellent workshop and if you have the time i think cave offer us excellent workshop to take advantage of and uh yesterday's workshop was let's keep it simple and uh very interesting and it gives you an opportunity to look at how we're structured and how we're conducting our meeting how we should be conducting ourselves at board meetings and one of the things i thought that always sticks with me uh when you're coming to a meeting to at least prepare yourself and we prepare ourselves then when the questions come up that we feel like we need to ask then you will have some type of feel as to what you're expecting and uh i enjoyed
091the workshop i want to thank the board chairperson in uh cara for uh sending uh and getting me registered for that workshop and i just want to say to other board members when you have the opportunity it was only and i know most of us work during the day it was from 12 o'clock until 1 30. they start on time and they end on time and just take advantage of those workshops that they give you thank you yes thank you gladys i did attend that one as well how to keep it civil and i i really appreciate hearing from other board members and other board chairs um and how they conduct themselves it really does just a quick comment okay i'd like to echo last cooper uh i believe last night took that last year
092and as far as boards go i i think we're pretty civil to consider what i've seen in the bigger cities and on the major news that works well kudos and congratulations to us all thanks alex we are civil but we don't get an opportunity to see how other board uh you know you should have seen some of the things that came out of the handling board when they were talking about um their mass and you know it was almost uh police were there and uh you know and it will give you a thing as to how you should be conducting yourself and what's going on around you so yeah yes we are civil you brad any other board comments or um communications no okay with that um a motion to adjourn second moved by al
093second seconded by kate i think i can give that to joe too okay oh joe dragon boy executed we are adjourned thank you all right everybody