001i'm sorry that's okay technology is awesome except when it's not yeah right um okay this is a meeting of the policy committee i'm assuming everybody has the agenda for tonight's meeting um it is my understanding that miss punty has some uh follow-up from our last meeting i think the superintendent does as well kevin you want to start good evening joe good evening with everyone um and thank you joe i am happy to put the agenda on a screen i believe kathy is here with us and carapanti as well um if it's okay joe i have please okay the [Music] the agenda of course i have discussion on action on temporary policies and that's here number four but i thought it would be appropriate that we hear from carol first in addition to the recent cdc
002recommendations for the requirement of face mask on buses and transportation i wanted to make sure we had an opportunity to review that with the committee um and then also review that um with the full board and the community so first the state recommendations of course this is just alluding to the fact that um local school boards will be making decisions about masking in their respective districts and i've asked if um cara punty on behalf of the local health department could join us this evening with any recommendations she might have or for masking and i believe she is here with us cara if you wouldn't mind jumping in sure good evening uh thank you kevin and thank you for having me at this policy committee meeting um the danbury health department has made data-driven recommendations to
003the school throughout the pandemic at this point the city of danbury coveted case rate has dropped to 8.3 per 100 000 and a positivity rate of 4.2 danbury has one of the lowest case rates among all the cities in connecticut additionally our 5 to 11 year old and 12 to 17 year old vaccination rate is above or very close to cities of similar size as of friday the cdc loosened up indoor mask mandate recommendations in following connecticut state tph cdc guidance and continuing with our data-driven recommendations it is my recommendation to go mask optional as of march 1st this is from the public health perspective and ultimately the decision is what you as a board believe is the best for the students but i'm happy to answer any questions regarding this thank you kara um
004kevin you were mentioning the cdc came out with different or or additional guidance related to buses i saw that actually late this evening because that was actually in addition to the guidance they sent out last week is it my understanding that they have relaxed their advice on masks related to buses as well that is correct joe um so as of friday the 25th um you'll see this line here effective the 25th the cdc does not require the wear and the mask on buses or vans operated by public or private school systems thank you um in light of the i mean kevin and kevin or unless you or kara or kathy kathy do you have anything you want to add on top of it what we've heard from cara cara and kevin you're on mute you
005think after two years i'd have this by now the story of our lives yeah i know um nothing really new to add um just to say that you know i want to again thank uh cara uh for her availability to us as a district um that our local health department has been an amazing partner throughout this pandemic uh karen and i are in very frequent communication and um i support everything that she's uh said tonight thank you kathy and that and and for sure actually kathy you and kara both deserve a hearty round of applause and thanks because you guys have done a lot of the hard work here um it unless kevin unless you have anything additional i'll i will entertain and make a motion that we recommend as a policy committee to the
006board the repeal of the temporary covered policies 12 1250 514 1.8 and 6114.82 those now the big one here obviously is 5141 is the one that concerns masks um by repealing these three policies we will effectively make masks optional obviously any student or teacher who wishes to wear one can but this will repeal the mask mandate effective march 1 which is tomorrow but it would be my motion that we repeal those and make that recommendation to the board um do i hear a cigarette i'll second that uh i made mesha i made the motion bridget guertin seconded it um kate could you call the role of the policy committee sure although i just want to be clear that i seconded that unless richard you seconded it also sorry i saw i saw bridget seconded on
007screens it's fair enough okay no problem uh so let me just go back here kate would you like me to do it no i got it joe uh joe da silva aye theresa posade yes misha cuello [Music] michelle are you there hi sorry yes here uh kate canetta i and bridget curtin aye the motion carries five zero um i believe that was the only agenda item uh kevin do you have anything else that you need us to address at this stage no joe that those are the only agenda items and any any discussion or questions that the committee might have but it sounds like we're good yeah and we obviously have to do this as a full board in 22 minutes or so um so that's the recommendation the policy yes i can't i'm just
008looking at the screen so i don't know who's talking can you see me joe no hang on a second i should be here uh hang on i i need to i need to get to the gallery view sorry that's okay and yeah i have my paperwork up so i can't yeah i just wanna i just wanted to ask if um uh any of the recommend like for an instance of parents now are they able to go into the schools is everything kind of going pretty much back to normal or is that do you see that we are recommending as a policy committee to the board these three policies be repealed to the extent that people can or cannot go into a building for any reason or whatever is really suing up to the superintendent and
009the building principles so i'll defer to mr wallston um and more importantly the board hasn't actually acted yet i assume we will be momentarily but technically we haven't acted yet but okay thank you access i think it's really up to the superintendent and the building principle at this stage right i'm sorry joe i did not hear the question um what what effect does this take us back to basically like normal operation pre pre pandemic is that basically your question michelle yes it is yes that is correct um and yeah that would be miles if we repeal policy 1250 that is correct in terms of businesses goals yeah that's that's the motion so board members so board members can go and visit schools oh you can get your tour of the high school and your elementary
010school that you went to yeah and i'll defer to rachel on that but i do know that rachel has asked us in the past if we want to go to our school the police coordinated through cara in kevin's office and then she can make the arrangements so we can go do that excellent thank you you're wonderful you're welcome uh if i if there's no other business for the policy committee meeting i will entertain a motion to adjourn a joke i'm sorry rachel please yeah um i just want to um address you know a couple of um please uh things that came out of you know that that might have that might be good to review uh in policy committee at our next meeting absolutely um the um our bullying police policy yes and also i'd
011like you know the committee to consider reviewing our bylaws around public participation yes so perhaps we could do that at a at a subsequent meeting um we tentatively had policies set for march 16th if that still works for everybody um i'm happy to have a meeting that day as well okay rachel that that's if it works for you and if we're ready we can in theory we have that kind of penciled in if that works we can do it then if not we'll just no that's perfect that's that's great if we can do it then just to you know go over you know those two policies that would be great and then just and just a question for um kevin is you know how are we supporting those students who or ants i guess yeah
012students who chose to wear masks while well mask optional right so we we met with principals today and we will uh one we will be sending the communication out after the after the board makes a decision um around um around the policies um but that but that letter number one will just remind the community's responsibility for respecting any choices that our students families and staff make and also reviewing with the principals and building leaders today making sure that they're a little extra vigilant in supporting that right to choose um and so that that that's certainly first and foremost will be on the minds of all of our leaders and staff um who are responsible for kids and kids supervision in our schools um but then but then also um we will we will [Music] hello
013you're there okay sorry and so we and then in addition we will send out a communication to everyone also reminding families as well of the support we will need from them um and make sure that they review this decision with their kids um our staff themselves certainly will will serve in a supervisory role in classrooms as they always do but ultimately the decision and the monitoring of the mask wearing will be up to the children and the families at home um so of course as supervision we'll make sure we support our kids in classrooms and um again our admin and we'll be asking them to get that message to their respect the teachers um but all of us have to support the right to we're right not to wear a mask in our buildings it's
014just an option we're just all going to have to respect um and we are aware that it could be an issue and if it is the expectation is we're all supportive of each other during this transition thank you jeremy terrifying question of course actually hang on rachel are you i'm all set thank you yes yes kate uh kevin can i just confirm that that is an optional policy both for students and for staff members yes thank you thank you um may i ask a question of course i thank you um this bullying that's being brought up now all of a sudden isn't bullying policy already being handled or is this just specifically to point out face masks but isn't it our general like we just had last week somebody commenting on extreme bullying and fighting
015and things of that nature is that why this is coming up or is this maybe rachel you can answer the question specifically for the um assumption or that you know there might be bullying for those who decide to keep their masks um is this completely just pinpointed at that or are you are you referencing the policy from last week's um word meeting all of the above i think you know from i've heard from teachers that you know there's been you know behavior issues more than more than normal so i think it's something that we should review just to have the discussion um and and see where you know if if anything comes of it i don't know but at least you know we should review the policy for the sake of communicating that out to
016the public will you be sending out that policy to us yes yes we'll get kara to to forward it in there if it's on the in the agenda she'll she'll have it in there i just want to point out we still don't have our policy book yet all of our policies are available off the district website and generally speaking we have a policy meeting when the agenda comes out by email the agenda reference to the policy will be linked um if you want to if you wanted to print the policy book out it's about 430 pages a single single document pdf i thought we were waiting for cabe to uh update it the cave is they're updating it and uploading it they actually host the website that hosts our policies so like when you go
017to our website you click on policy it brings you to caves hosted site for our policies and they're all there as you know currently updated obviously it's you know when we when we repeal a bilateral policy tonight it'll still be there into for a day or two delay take it down but they're all there right off the district webpage i mean i have downloaded them all as a single document and merged them as a single document pdf i'm happy to email that to you if you'd like me to thank you joe i appreciate that no problem i'll try and email it as one document it might be too big we'll see may i add something before we uh close of course uh i just uh a point i want to make about the masks um
018should the board vote that we go mask optional um i think it's important that everyone knows there were there will still be a couple of occasions where mass will be required um the public health requirements for quarantine for someone who has coveted has not changed therefore um whether it's a staff member or a student if they've had covid and are returning to school on day six they are still required to wear a mask days six through ten okay and uh the other thing is that the nurses will need to be able to use discretion in their health offices uh there may be situations where a student may be asked to put a mask on um depending on their signs and symptoms of illness so those are are the two exceptions to the mask option thank
019you kevin there's nothing else i'll entertain a motion to adjourn motion carrying midnation i'll say no wait hold on i was trying to ask something joe okay can i squeeze that in there shall we quickly because we got to get to the other meeting we got a whole bunch of guidances today um regarding delegating and transf you know transferring from mass list to optional are any of those policies that have not been discussed whatsoever today from what i can see other than just these two recent ones that might be now added to the our current policy any of that being introduced or considered we just took policy away we're recommending repeal policy we're not adding anything we're not right what kathy's referring to are regulations composed by the department of public health we don't control
020those and those aren't subject to this okay i just wanted to be clear because i know they just sent stuff out i just want to make sure thank you very much appreciate it and as a legit question like cdc only came out with their bus guidance tonight so yeah um theresa made a motion to adjourn and kate i believe seconded it okay um kate theresa michelle uh and bridgette all those in favor aye she carries see everybody at the board meeting in a few minutes thank you would everyone please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance [Music] thank you i know that's a little choppy over over a zoo okay we have just one item on the agenda this evening and i will look to our policy committee chair to give us a
021recommendation and make a motion um this is mostly for the record because i think most everybody here was also on that call um but for the record madam chair the policy committee met at seven o'clock this evening um we've heard from cara puente the city of danbury health director uh from kathy o'dowd and from our superintendent mr wallston regarding the emergency covered measures that had remained in place um we repealed one policy a couple of months ago if everybody recalls um but the policy committee voted to recommend to the board the full board that we repeal policy 1250 four one policy eight six one one four point eight two um the most important one of those is five one four one point eight which is the mask requirement um with the repeal the choice to
022wear a mask would then be optional for a student or a teacher they obviously they'd retain the right to wear one if they wanted to but the mat the mandate would be gone um i will make a motion of that effect that sucking it thing got a little cloudy there go for it i'll make a motion that the uh to the board that we repeal policies twelve fifty five one four one point eight and six one one four point eight two um which will eliminate the mass mandate and make the wearing of masks optional or voluntary by teachers or students madam chair i'd like to second that motion i already seconded it show the silva moves whatever as long as it happens [Music] any discussion um i will do a roll call out of out
023of alphabetical order because that's what i have in front of me uh rachel chaleski is an i lauren daley is absent catherine hodgson yes theresa bouzain i vote yes to repeal thank you teresa yes michelle yes for choice kay canetta hi gladys cooper hi joe da silva bart bridget guertin hi albert russo yes and louisa zagoras britain aye it's unanimous motion passed all right um i do just want to thank everyone for their patience and doing their due diligence and awaiting all of the guidance that we said we were going to receive i know we were all under um a lot of a lot of pressure so i do appreciate all of you in your in the thoughtful discussions that we were able to have so uh with that i would like to uh ask
024for a motion to adjourn by kate seconded by teresa all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye you