001two i like to call the meeting to order so we all stand for the pledges three seven four opposed present arms i pledge allegiance to america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all ordered arms posts right race forward march [Music] public participation the board welcomes public participation and asks that speakers please limit their comment comments to three minutes the speakers may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them the board will not prevent any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about board of education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the danbury public school system look at that do you have anyone for okay please come forward thank you and the reason why i'm here is i'm
002just a little confused with clarity as far as the nasty mandate i received a notification on the seventh letter from superintendent boston and at the end of the letter he was talking about copic procedures as far as testing and quarantine and at the end it says the district will continue to enforce universal united states and maintain the mitigation strategies we have used throughout the pandemic we also continue our ongoing collaboration with the city of danbury's department of public health now the confusion for me arises with the fact that um on monday as well the governor said that he is a mass mandate for the entire state and it will it'll happen on the 28th i'm sure that's what it will said but my question is um what is danbury planning on doing as far as
003mass mandate um he says it'll keep it up to the individual districts so uh with respect to that i'm curious as to how this decision is going to be made will it be me from city hall equality paid through the superintendent's office will be made through the board of education so i'm just looking for some clarity with respect to that um and basically as a parent coming out and i'd also just like to state that i would like the mass mandate lifted i think that he put um so one reason why i want the school system to remove the mass mandate first one most of all is that the children are at completely such a low risk and we should be thankful for that as as far as you know that they really aren't affected
004and [Music] we shouldn't put that burden on them anymore second reason vaccines have been available to the ages now for the children in the denver public schools so they're available for five-year-old of the health department just looking at her just so you know you're over three minutes so if you could just okay thank you so basically i just want um you know my opinion uh that you know we should really stop mandates just from the fact that uh kids are at low risk vaccines have been available to everyone who wants them um there's treatments out there and that they've done a lot of collateral damage that no one had anticipated thank you is there anyone else on the list no is there anyone that would like to speak who did not sign up no okay
005we'll move on uh consent calendar would you like to read sure and make a motion that the board of education approved the items on the consent calendar exhibits 22-13-22-19 as recommended second moved by lauren seconded by joe any discussion on the consent calendar seeing none would you do the roll call please absolutely teresa buzzaid peter rachel scholaski aye michelle colello i kate canetta i gladys cooper here lauren bailey aye jodi silva right bridgette guertin aye catherine hodgdon jackson albert russo louisa britton aye thank you uh moving on i don't see any of our staff representatives this evening um no okay so that brings us to our student representatives the floor is yours thank you for having me um just some updates basically from the end of the first quarter and the first semester here so
006um the schools are doing voice of change projects uh which are community chain partners and through uh government ap government politics class and civic capstones as well as peer leadership is doing enforcement just other communication projects spanish national honor society is selling bracelets up on both of those together um and uh uh semester one is finished um sports teams are entering like championship seasons for the winter sports um and teams are here back in their colleges we have seven athletes if we just play college sports so far um in the lost testing uh um in addition to that for peer leadership we've been hosting fun boxes some of them consist of horrible tournaments and crafts and cookie decorating also we've used six snow days so graduation is june 15th uh depending upon the april beginning
007um also our school fair will be the first week of march march 7th and probably kevin the going to be may 27th at the amber room and the junior club is going to be may 13th before she needs about in addition to that national honor society have been sent out or will be sent 247 juniors are eligible they need a gpa of above 3.5 and in addition to that um i'm sorry i couldn't hear the last bit we would like to know what's the plan for the new academy oh oh we all would like to know it's a 64 000 question you may have to hang around a little bit more is that it for your update yeah that's great thank you so much thanks for being here you're welcome to stay but feel free
008to leave if you left thank you so action items would you like to do the the big one the big one sure thank you and make a motion that the board of education approved and set the budget for the 2022-2023 school year in the amount of 1 million to 50 152 million six hundred 406 one dollars the board of education is also proposing to utilize an increase of eight million seven hundred thousand dollars in local funding three million from reserves and one point one two one five two four from esser and other grants in accordance with 22-20 second seconded by kate is that you any discussion thank you to john and kevin for last night's workshop and presentation which is why i have no questions but thank you it was very well done agreed agreed
009really appreciate the work of our finance team and all cabinet members for their input the many presentations um being accessible to us during you know the past few weeks so that we could ask questions um the binder [Laughter] all your your work to to guide us through this process is appreciated but this is just one one step and and just the beginning of a longer process that we will go through so with that is there anything else anyone would like to say or questions okay would you do the role please absolutely teresa yes rachel chaleski aye michelle colello hi i'm gladys cooper yes lauren daley i joseph da silva bridget burton aye albert russo hi louisa burton hi unanimous motion carries mr russo would you like to do action item b action letter b ellsworth
010specification phase two as soon as the fox leaves my classes motion the board of education authorizes the chairperson of the board of education and the superintendent of schools to approve the final plans specifications and costs estimate for furniture fixtures and equipment phase two of the ellsworth avenue school and board of education district registration projects and sign the seo scg-04 forms for submission to the state of connecticut office of schools construction grants and reviews for approval in accordance with exhibit 22-21 page 53 second the move by al russo seconded by joe disilva any discussion just discussion i i had the opportunity to sit in with the building committee today with mr ivy rowland mr hughes mr petrovic uh director sean hanley chick vaulty of purchasing and mr visconti and i was pleased with the clarity uh
011on which they move forward uh because we need clarity at this point because uh there's a lead time to get the furniture in between 16 and 18 weeks that's of today and we're shooting for an august 22 opening and and also through the efforts of mr idea roles department my understanding they came in under budget thank you any for other discussion please teresa mercedes yes richard koleski aye mr paulillo hi kate canetta hi gladys cooper yes lauren bailey i joseph de silva bridget gordon aye albert russo aye lisa britton aye it's unanimous motion carries that brings us to the superintendent's report you'll see us a little more we got two more faces okay excellent thank you for being here antonio tom dan thank you thank you for your partner yes thank you so superintendent to
012report i see our students are waiting around so we will start with the i'm sorry seeing that stan berry career academy update and i'll do this while the fine gentlemen are behind you so let me just share like you i have read the newspapers and i just want to acknowledge in front of you and all families on tv that this that danbury public schools right now we are still optimistic very optimistic that our work all the work behind the danbury career academy is still moving forward however we're in a transition in that we're still trying to find a venue and so the venue that was initially planned which is the building at the summit um it appears to be appears to be some challenges in negotiations and so the city has um is looking into
013different looking into different options at this time it is my understanding whether it's at the summit or a different location or venue in the city that the opening of a new school is very much still part of a plan what you should also know is that there are a lot of staff members in this room most of them to your left and some of them to your right who've worked really hard to get us to this position to be able to open up that building from an academic and academic experience perspective and then there are more you know more who are not here tonight uh we're all determined to make this happen um and equally important so is the city of danbury um so i we don't have concrete answers for you this evening um
014but i i think in the next couple of days our path will be a little bit clearer so just ask you to stay tuned i honestly i think we'll have a lot more answers before the next board meeting but i think no later than the board meeting i think the path will be a little bit clearer for all of us in this room because i think we've all been a little anxious about what's next so we were all a little surprised by the stalin negotiations and a little confused about what that meant for us moving forward but we've been assured by the city that a venue is their top priority and we will find them so just just stay tuned um the team and i we're working really hard to make sure your academic experience
015is going to be top-notch that is not going to change but the venue might and we will be prepared for that so i just wanted to i'm glad you stayed for this update geography can be you know malleable we can go through those five has the city given us any indication as to whether they believe we are going to meet our goal of being open fall 24. i think that's actually the important thing yeah that's a good that's the opening day so i think i think it depends on what the event where the venue is but i think once that is solidified my understanding is that will help determine if um and so they i was not given the impression that 2425 was not a possibility um but i think they need to decide on
016where first and then go from there have they given us any estimate when solidity might come yes great question so today's wednesday i was kind of left with the impression move this will be a little bit more crystal by the end of the week and so i'm hoping in the next couple of days we're going to hear again like that path i think it'll be a little clearer thank you thank you that's all i have i'm sorry you're welcome to stay over there i did the best i could he can't tell me what he doesn't know and so um the next report i just want to speak to is i'll start from the top now superintendent goals update family school and community partnerships i did share this update in our community relations committee last night
017but i want to ask dr selig to provide an update regarding our district website survey many families may have seen this survey and i just want to provide an update for the board and then also for our community the intention behind it so the district just embarked on a beginning of a fairly long process of reviewing our website and the first one was to put a survey out to the community to get some feedback about what people want to see and more importantly how they're going to use the site to make sure it's optimized whether it's prior to mobile the languages that we want the information to be available in if there's certain things that should be available to download versus repositories so that survey went out to parents in our letter uh two days
018ago and we've already gotten about 160 people to respond to it across all three different languages spanish portuguese and english that survey is going to be open until the 16th of february at which time i'll close and the reference we have doing this it's an agency at a program called looney they're going to run the analytics on it and incorporate that feedback into the proposal so from february through may we're basically going to see a whole lot of mock-ups wire framings and you know sort of test test pages and to get a sense of what it's going to look like and how it's going to feel i can tell you it's going to feel a lot more like the danbury city website and a lot less like the current school website which if you've been
019on that homepage lately you know it's a very busy page and there's a lot of different things competing for your attention so we're going to have a very clean very modern design and it's really going to be optimized around the way people really want to use it so you don't have to go clicking five six seven levels down to find a little bit of information so yeah the uh surge will be open for about seven eight days and uh thank you mike so the the next area i want to focus on is voice for change and next time i need to do a better job coordinating with students because greg had also provided an update but let me just share when i put my glasses on because i wrote some notes for myself so voice
020for change number one is a first of its kind student civic engagement invitation offered by our commissioner of education uh charlene russell tucker um in this invitation is over 1.5 million dollars of federal relief monies available for districts across the state of connecticut as part of the invitation students are invited to write a proposal on how to change schools um and and modernize schools in the way in the post post pandemic and we have a number of students here at denver high school have who have written a proposal students who the winners at a school will receive twenty thousand dollars on behalf of danbury high school dan barry i think we have eight or nine students who have submitted a proposal i'm making the board aware because i would like to invite principal donovan and
021some of the students who may submitted a proposal and share some of their recommendations uh for change at our next meeting so just wanted to provide that update for you voice for change is a a great initiative for the state of connecticut and it's been a wonderful it's been wonderful to see our students right here in danbury high school engage in a civic civic opportunity so i just want to provide that update for you the next one is the legislative agenda mr ryan bingham who is our lobbyist he has agreed to join us at our next board meeting on the 23rd and at that time he'll speak to some of the conversations with some of our local legislators and obviously the city of danbury and kind of give us a forecast on number one reviewing
022with you some of our focus areas for this year i have pushed really hard again for the state to escalate our payment schedule given which has been well documented in our presentations our enrollment growth over the last one two three five years and as we continued as enrollment and danbury continues to grow we will continue to see a decline across the state of connecticut it was made very clear to me by the legislators that um you know it was made clear kevin if danbury is um escalated on his schedule that means someone has to receive one last year of funding and i then made it clear then we could make a very good case that given our enrollment in a declining enrollment across the state of connecticut i think someone could lose a payment uh
023while we are awarded um an escalated payment um so i don't know how well that's going to go over with some school district that might miss it but i think it's our our job to advocate for danbury and then certainly the facts are there that enrollment continues to grow while they decline across the rest of the state so he will be here for the next meeting and kind of walk through maybe i don't know if he can really forecast how reasonable it is how reasonable the ask is in terms of we won't be awarded any additional monies um but he felt confidently like if it was gonna happen this would be the year given the surplus at the state with some of the release funds across the districts in the state of connecticut so i'm
024looking forward to having ryan at our next meeting and it's always a great opportunity to ask some clarifying questions as well and then last but not least this was not on agenda but we did have um just want to acknowledge the governor's announcement on monday afternoon um and i know we had a question from one of my parents earlier and frankly it may be many families in the danbury community we actually prepared the letter that went out on monday on friday and it is true that our masking poly as of right now is still the same until at the very lea until the board makes a decision otherwise but you are right and i can understand how there may have been some um mis-messaging given the timing but we are i will be working with
025the board to schedule a policy committee committee meeting as soon as possible certainly prior to the 28th and hopefully in time before the 23rd of february with the policy committee i think will be important for us to review um and and work with and speak with our local health department get feedback from the local health department and and hopefully also invite have an opportunity to invite someone from the mental health community get get some feedback from both agencies across stanbury um and inform the best decision for us you know and i it's my understanding that a lot of districts are you know some of our bigger urban districts have already made a decision some other districts are made other decisions to mask or not mask and certainly i understand right here in our community we're
026going to be divided over this topic um we're going to do what's in the best interest of danbury and so i'm hoping with our policy committee meeting we can have an opportunity to discuss those things um and certainly invite in the various viewpoints and then ultimately we have to make the decisions in the best interest of our danbury community and so i'm looking forward to scheduling and my office will be working on some dates with the policy committee and we can get started with some discussions and i'm hoping we can have a some a clearer clearer understanding of next steps uh no later than unexplored um and i know we had a question this even from public speaks but from my office we'll be pushing something out to the families regarding the next steps in
027the process because i understand that question um not only the parent from this evening but we may have many parents who are asking questions about next steps so we'll make sure we push something out from my office to the community and then for me that is it in terms of my the superintendent's update um if there are any questions i'm happy to answer are there any questions for the superintendent from board members we'll move on to chairperson's report so on my report actually i did want to check a date or policy meeting i have the 16th that may work i'm trying to find my policy list rachel to the extent that we were talking about it before i can make it work okay okay so that is theresa michelle kate joe and bridget so i'm
028i'm looking at uh wednesday the 16th at 6 30. i'm hoping that works so save that date please yeah are we doing that remote are we doing that in person um does that work for everybody um other dates uh this friday february 11th at noon at the new 7-eleven on federal road miss kisha smith had invited board members to celebrate with the great plain elementary school community um in celebrating being nominated for a donation from them um so just if you'd like to come this friday it's in the middle of the day of course at noon but i'll be there and if you'd like to join me i'd love to have you where is this is that the 7-eleven the old bennigans well they're having an open house they're having um it's it's some kind
029of they were nominated do you want to talk to that right i i believe on teresa and everyone uh it's a combined ribbon-cutting um activity plus an opportunity to kind of celebrate one of our schools in the district and great plain as being honored um after round cutting i think i think of free slurpee or free coffee it's lunchtime going backwards a little bit uh the ap interviews were completed today thanks to teresa i was on them and theresa and i have been like marathon interview panel panelists but it's a again i enjoy that process and it's a we had a great great panel with other staff administrators um so that is done also last week theresa and i along with dr mead and several several other staff we attended the ribbon cutting of the
030saint joseph parenting center on stone street by the sacred heart school that was a nice a nice event and will be a good resource for our families um and lastly for me i just want to welcome our new member bridget guertin thank you thank you for your interest and and stepping up to fill a role and thanks to all the board members and uh cara p for all her help and and setting up the uh the interviews for us so very excited to have you thank you and so that's it from me are there any other board communications and comments okay um i just wanted to give a little shout out to west side middle school academy they had their science fair last week on tuesday and wednesday and i had the honor of being
031one of the judges on wednesday for the 8th graders we saw some really excellent projects a lot of them were centered around the environment which i think is really forward thinking on our students part but i just want to congratulate them on a really successful event mr john newhausel is the coordinator for that and he always does a fantastic job so i just wanted to to give him some recognition for that it's a lot of work for him to poor date i also want to ask do i understand correctly we're not allowing public comment via email anymore okay i guess i would just encourage reconsidering that decision just because i know that there are people in our community for whom it's a real hardship to get to these meetings either they don't have child care
032there's a job conflict or other meetings that are going on so i just want to put that out there thank you thank you any other board comments updates questions here i don't have a comment i sort of want to ask a question and and i apologize i didn't attend the last meeting and i'm going to keep talking about this until something is done granville avenue as far as a sign stating that this is a school i took my grandson to school the other day a parent was getting out of the car and you know how small children they sort of run away from their parents and the people are flying up that street one two and three and i think you know they don't realize that that is a school and we need to do
033something uh before something really happens to a parent of course in the street and the teachers inside the outside might not be seeing what's going on but it's very dangerous mr there i could um we have made a request to the city um and underneath i am under the impression that a sign will be installed um i have continued to follow up with them and will continue to do so as it it's not as you know promptly as i think we all wish to but there has also been a safety advocate uh placed at that school which was not the case the first year we were there um and part of that is to ensure safety um as students are coming and leaving the property but i will continue to reach out to make sure
034that that is on the top of their list the other schools have crossing guards now there wasn't a pass there was an issue with safety advocates going on the road because of the contractual issues or whatever training uh yeah i suggest we put a call into the daily police department who is i guess still coordinating the school crossing guard program and they can station there we'll do anything else from board members any comments updates questions i'm going to kind of look to you joe i would like to amend the agenda to include an executive session regarding uh personnel so can i entertain emotion may i just refine it just a little bit yes um the exception that we're looking to go into executive session is because of the disclosure of a matter that would require
035discussion in public session regarding law enforcement or dcf records that are otherwise protected from disclosure okay and we can amend my understanding of robert's rules and kim will correct me if i'm wrong we me and not just robert's souls is also foia we may amend our agenda with a two-thirds vote because this is a regular meeting so i'll make the motion to go into executive session in accordance with what you would mention rachel and in accordance with the particular provisions of foia that were just mentioned by mrs thompson so there's a motion on the floor to enter into executive sessions for that purpose seconded by kate any discussion uh would you do this theresa yes rachel toleski aye michelle colella hi kate canetta hi gladys cooper yes lauren bailey i joe da silva bridgette guertin
036aye albert rousseau aye melissa britton aye unanimous motion you