001we have everyone right yeah yeah um if everyone wouldn't mind standing for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america thank you all okay we have four applicants this evening uh due to the resignation of joseph britton um so if you could kate let um our first one in please sure thing that would be bridget gordon hi bridget how are you good how are you good thank you for coming today thank you for having me yep thank you for your interest in applying for the vacancy on the board of education we have um quite a few interviews to go through we have a half hour for each and we have about seven questions for for each candidate that we'd like to ask you um to save time i'm just
002going to ask all of them and if we were in person we would share and and everyone would ask questions but i think just to to be more efficient i'll just you know run through them so we can stay on our schedule okay so our first question as a candidate seeking to serve on the board of education please describe how you view at this time the roles and responsibilities of the position so on the board of ed uh the board event as a sitting board has the role of helping to set policy for uh the city school system which is a critical role but it is not done by itself the board works in conjunction with the administration of the city school system which is critical so a good board and a good cooperative relationship
003with the city's chosen administrators of the school system are critical and uh so that's number one uh the secondary role uh or an equal role of the board of ed is to make sure that uh we have a good administrator in place and uh that is a role that the board has fulfilled for decades and it's something that i know all of you take very seriously and making sure that we have the right people in the right places uh doing the best that we can for the students of our community it's also the board of ed it's responsibility to reflect uh our community voices and so the board of ed is a reflection of danbury in totality bringing together those ideas and backgrounds and context uh that make our city come alive and what i
004mean by that is that we all come with all these different backgrounds and we all know all these different things about our city school system about our city and so we bring that wealth of experience in a way that hopefully helps to create a better decision making as decisions are put in front of the board thank you please share with the board the initial steps you have taken to prepare for this position such as awareness of educational issues involvement with educational groups etc have you attended any previous board of education meetings or had an opportunity to read any of the board minute so i'll say yes in an overarching way in my work position i am incredibly familiar with the the weave and the weft of how danbury's public school system was created and how
005we came to be what we are today i am intimately familiar with the construction with the uh with the uh women the hundred women's committee with the women the thousand women and how we got the buildings that we have today and the history of all of that in more relevant ways i have been um a on and off uh attendee at pembroke school pto meetings uh for almost a decade um although we've graduated uh out of that and my my students are in different schools at this moment um so that has been you know both a pleasure i volunteered for pembroke school uh extensively during my time there and it was a wonderful experience uh for me and uh really opened my eyes to some of the intricacies of how the schools are run things
006that i didn't know which were you know as tremendously useful as i helped navigate my students my children uh through the district i have spent some time on zoom recently and before i don't always watch the board of ed meetings when they take place i am so excited that one of the positive things about the pandemic is that we are seeing so much more that there is so much more available to us i love the fact that we can do deep dives into all kinds of things uh and that we have um these modern ways of reading and understanding what's happening in the board uh in real time and maybe a couple hours later so i have spent a little bit of time on uh understanding what is before the board i wouldn't say that
007i am cognizant of every issue i don't necessarily know your social mores yet how the board interacts in person um what uh you know i think those are those are part of a learning curve of sitting on a board and quite frankly i think it would take me several months to get up to speed to the knowledge base that you have now some of you have sat on the board for years and so that kind of contextual knowledge isn't uh always learned um by watching or by reading sometimes it's really learned by listening uh at a meeting or being in conversation before or after meetings so i would anticipate that if it you know if it was me i'd be listening a little bit more than i would be talking because i think you all
008have a lot to say are you aware of the time commitment required for effective board functioning please provide information indicating personal time available for board training special meetings committee meetings community events as well as our regular scheduled board meetings okay so i did take a look at the calendar uh the calendar for the last several years and the more recent calendar and what it might look like moving forward um i understand that at some point and i hope this is true for all of us we will move off soon and and into in person so that changes a little bit of the commitment value i did talk about it with my husband his schedule uh recently changed which made it a possibility uh for me to even have this discussion about time commitment so i
009have the family support to make the time commitment i am available in the evenings the only exception is i have a standing commitment on the first sorry the second thursday of each month for several hours and so that is the only time i would not be available in the evening but i am i am enjoying a point in my life where i have flexibility after my work hours for training uh for discussion and i have some flexibility within the workday uh if this is something that uh is is necessary i'm happy to make time during uh this course of a normal work day as well uh to you know to catch up to have conversation and to learn what it is you need to teach me okay would you as a board member recognize your
010duty to represent impartially all the people of the district rather than any special interest group be it political social religious or economic and can you elaborate yes i do think i can be impartial i have three boys and i am an impartial judge of a lot of different things on a regular basis but aside from that i have spent the majority of my career in danbury walking a line of impartiality i am a registered democrat that does not necessarily mean that i vote along party lines it means that i'm active and that i care and that i registered and i vote and i am part of our danbury community uh am i a roman catholic yes very proudly i belong to st joseph church and i'm happy for that uh doesn't mean that i would
011judge based uh by the color of the lenses on my catholic glasses no i do feel that i can be impartial in in various ways but i do think that having a background context of connection to different groups in town is a positive and i think it helps me see in totality some of the issues i think it actually helps me be more impartial in your view what are the most critical issues facing public education in general and the danbury school system in particular at this time how would you look to resolve these issues so in general uh nationally i think some of the biggest issues is a critical look at what it means to have cooperative cooperative curriculum so curriculum that is matched state by state that we work on together that is that
012is a difficult decision as to what we teach when we teach it and in the state of connecticut we do a very good job establishing curriculum guidelines we've done an outstanding job uh in danbury adopting those curriculum guidelines and i think it's an imperative part of the board of ed that we help the district adhere to those guidelines and get the funding so that they can do so so one of the other biggest issues uh one of the most critical issues is the funding issue whether you're talking nationally whether you're talking locally so how do we acquire the funding that we truly need within the district to create a stellar educational opportunity for our children well that's a that's a multi-faceted answer and uh it's a multi-faceted question so you're talking about um changing funding
013streams or adopting funding streams in a way that is challenging in a community like danbury where uh money is always tight so do we advocate for more money from the state of connecticut i know that's been a discussion point for the last several years in the city of danbury and yes i would say that we don't get our fair share and that advocacy on the statewide level is critical and should be one of the prime one of the prime motions of the board uh to focus on that advocacy so that we can get our fair share of the educational dollars here in danbury one of the other big issues that is facing our community i think is the lack of space and this is not this is not just a danver issue it is a
014national issue it's a city it's a statewide issue but it's it's more critical here i think many of you might have heard me talk before and and and i think i sound like a broken record when i say danbury since 1684 has not gotten smaller we have only ever grown and our exponential growth is one of the greatest things about our community but understanding that exponential growth and planning for it uh that is something that we are maybe not doing as well as we could and so the current plans in place uh or the current plans that are in discussion to expand the educational buildings that our students use are critical and i would say that that is a big part of what i foresee as board advocacy in the next several years is helping
015the administration of the debris public schools expand the physical campuses or expand into new physical campuses so that we can meet the growing needs of our community what contributions can you bring to this board and why did you decide to apply okay so um contributions uh i'm a good listener i'm a very good reader and i am fairly decent with numbers but i think what i do best is really find consensus i am committed to seeing danbury continue to grow and i am committed to make sure making sure that danbury's growth is positive in nature that we across many different aspects of the community are supporting that growth and doing it in a way that's healthy and one of the things i think i can bring to the board of ed is a differing look
016a context of the city that is expansive goes back several days several decades and looks several decades into the future so i'm sort of a big picture looker uh which i know is something that the board is focused on because you're not just focused on the minutia of what happens this particular year you're focused on what's going to happen this decade next decade and the decade after that and i think that i can bring some contextual awareness of what we've done in the past and how it's worked what hasn't worked to those discussions why did i choose to send my letter in well i thought about it for a while and i wasn't sure i was in the right position uh to do it but we had some changes in our lives at home and
017i realized that for the first time in a long time i had the time i apologize for bringing phone in the background i can't do anything about uh but i realized that i can make that time commitment and that i have an understanding i think i have an understanding of the community that would really help the board make different decisions and different choices and and to just be part of that discussion and it's um it's not an easy choice uh to decide to spend a significant amount of time on any board in danbury but you all have done it uh you're doing it effectively and i think that i am more than ready to join your ranks and devote that same amount of time to the community to our students and to our administrators and
018lastly we have to ask are you employed by the board of education in any capacity no correct good job [Laughter] that's those are all of our seven questions thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us and for your interest in the board um and uh i think you can watch on the live stream okay um thank you for the opportunity uh and um interesting part of the process uh as well so i appreciate the opportunity to talk to you all tonight and i wish you lots of luck and i know that there are four good candidates so there's no wrong choices so good luck to you i'm sure i'll see you all individually at another point we'll be in touch thank you bridget bye okey-dokey we still have everyone yes okay
019just make sure we didn't i just want to let you know uh dr selig was in the waiting room but i asked uh cara to convey to him that it would probably be more appropriate for this particular meeting to watch via the the live stream yes thank you very much for that yeah it helps it helps us to know you know who we're interviewing and stay focused that way um so do we have carl in the waiting room no so okay so he'll be back and we'll just hang tight for a second uh i believe the interview was scheduled for 6 30 so i'd expect he probably would okay all right all right is my connection okay can yes okay thank you and thank you for handling the waiting room kate no problem at all
020so we're in a holding pattern for the next 12 minutes rachel we are yes yeah if he pops in let us know and we can take him i will certainly let you know if i see him pop up so sorry oh my dog is so jumpy these days i don't know what what it is he's still a puppy right yeah he's one and a half he's he's much better than when we first got him but um yeah maybe he's hitting his terrible twos yes rachel does he get enough outside exercise i mean it's tough weather to be doing this past few days no yeah but um he does go to uh doggy day camp on wednesdays wags wags on wednesdays maybe wag certified so you have a very sociable dog really we first phoebe had
021to go in for an interview and then it was then it was a half day session to see how well she got along in the long term and it was so nice they had the app on my phone so while we were on vacation we could watch her romping in an uncaged atmosphere [Music] rachel you'll appreciate this mike's cousin is amy who owns wax oh really yeah and i um took i took apple there my dog and um he wasn't allowed back can you believe that because he was so excited i know he was so excited that he kept going after the dogs little ones you know as in like a boyfriend and they kept putting him in the in the jail and she's like he took it like a champ he'd come right back
022out and so he never got he wasn't allowed to go back oh yeah when he sees other ones he can play with he gets so excited so yeah and that's family so funny so funny yeah it's like nerve-wracking going in for that interview that first visit daycare now estranged family [Laughter] should have added a few more questions maybe um do we want to let folks ask um us questions if they have any at the end i i considered that i considered that but i didn't with the limited time it's hard to know from your beauty interviews if it sailed down because we didn't give candidate number one that opportunity yeah right yeah yes okay i think you folks would enjoy hearing in my travels from work to home i went west street to uh under
023the lake avenue bridge it was a tie-up one of the large u-haul trucks was attempting to go under he made it but it took a couple minutes longer than i had hoped oh my god yeah he he must have scraped the top of the truck he had to it was unbelievable this is all the times oh boy i've seen that a few times on the hutch i'm glad you got through though can you imagine what the backup would be like if you got stuck it was i was wondering what it was and i'm looking out the window and i go oh my god hmm the moving boxes make me nuts i'm just keep counting like one two three are we ready for the ice tomorrow no are we ever no my yard was a complete
024glacier yesterday now it's just us like swampy mess mud puddles yeah and now and tomorrow it's gonna be back to the glacier i'm sure it's been a rough few weeks the box [Music] is nothing but the very best thank you for talking with us we really appreciate it when it's time for you to purchase your new appliances make sure who's listening to sj labor thank you no meetings tomorrow we have the day off tomorrow just looking at my calendar next week is a different story so carl just popped up in the waiting room oh great if you're okay i will go ahead and let him in yes please mr hustler did i say that correct yes hello hello how are you very well thank you thank you for your interest in the board vacancy and
025thank you for being here this evening well thank you for inviting me i'm the i'm the chair of the board rachel chaleski and i should let my fellow board members introduce themselves i did not do that last time i apologize so um would you all like to introduce yourselves sure i'm terry bizade i'm lauren daly i'm katharine hodgson joe de silva michelle scooper and louisa britton and i'm kate canetta and i'm el russo welcome very nice to meet you all virtually wow so we have about a half hour with you and we have seven questions um so i'm normally when we're in person we'd share questions but just for the sake of time and efficiency i'm going to ask all seven so to begin and i apologize my phone i have the answering machine in
026the background can you hear me okay okay good as a candidate seeking to serve on the board of education please describe how you view at this time the roles and responsibilities of the position um i feel the roles and responsibilities of a member of the board of education is to really support what's happening on the ground and look into the future at the same time these have been some very challenging couple of years with all the changes happening i think uh some uh you know some of the things will return to normal but everybody talks about the new normal so um being part of that and bringing my experience to the table about i'm actually a director of educational technology so i've dedicated my life to education i work for a public school and have
027been there for over 20 years so uh bringing that experience to the table imagining how you know the future can look like for education supporting what the teachers are doing at the same time making sure that the student experience is um it's the highest quality that it can possibly be so being all part of that i find very exciting and uh would like to be a part of and that's why i applied for uh the open position please share with the board the initial steps you have taken to prepare for the position such as awareness of educational issues involvement with educational groups etc have you attended any previous board of education meetings or had an opportunity to read any of our minutes okay i don't have children and i know none of my children are
028i don't have children so i don't have that vested interest in following what's uh happening at the danbury board of education however however i invested in the danbury community i've been living here since and i graduated from westcon so i have some roots in this community of course i followed the news the local news the patch the news times all of those reports but uh because i'm in education and i'm very keen on you know learning what's going on it's actually part of my responsibility to just keep abreast of you know the latest trends the latest uh development research and so forth i've been you know i think following uh news about education very closely and in particular since uh when i noticed this position opening i've paid more attention to specific reports about the
029danbury board of education have i read any minutes no and i apologize about that it never actually occurred to me however i was working for the wilton board of education more than 20 years ago um so i feel like i'm uh fairly familiar with how meetings are run and how they're organized um that's the quorum that rules and all of that i'm very familiar with because i was the guy videotaping them back then i was the media specialist at work in high school so i was part of many of those meetings thank you are you aware of the time commitment required for effective board functioning please provide information indicating personal time available for board training special meetings committee meetings community events as well as our regular scheduled board meetings okay again i'm not fully aware
030of the expectations or the time commitment however um i don't like i said i don't have children and um the so i'm free on the weekends i work you know 40 hour job in greenwich connecticut so that's uh commute time and everything else uh starts early so i'm usually back in danbury around 5 5 30 like everyone else i have like i said weekends i'm available i enjoy participating community events i'm actually very much looking forward to that after you know sort of being cloistered for the last couple of years and just the engagement with the community and like-minded uh volunteers who you know have a vested interest in education i would like to be part of that exchange and you know those events and raising awareness about some very important issues surrounding education and
031public education in particular would you as a board as a member of the board recognize your duty to represent in partially all the people of the district rather than any special interest group be it political social religious or economic and can you elaborate uh absolutely in my role as a technology integrator and technology director i work with a lot of different constituencies students parents uh other administrators teachers of course and so i'm very comfortable uh promoting the the greater picture so to speak and not any type of you know narrow agenda um i think it's very important to build consensus uh around you know important issues and to get buy-in uh and have you know hear as many voices diverse voices as possible and then once we have you know a vision uh we all
032support that whether that's exactly how we whatever consensus we arrive to whether it's exactly how we feel um you know our personal views don't really matter i think it's very important that we're all pulling in the same direction as an effective committee in your view what are the most critical issues facing public education in general and the danbury school system in particular at this time how would you look to resolve these issues so to the second part i think uh the size of the danbury public school and the facilities i think is a challenge right um i read something about you know looking in the possibility of sending some of the students uh you have over 12 000 now so sending some of the students to the neighboring schools so obviously expansion getting that through
033getting that approved funding for you know facilities seems to be one of the top priorities um and again building momentum around the idea that education matters and that it's very important and it affects all of us um and you know a good local strong public school is uh to everyone's benefit uh the in general i mean it's obviously staying abreast of all the challenges that you know due to covet uh due to the new normal due to returning to some kind of semblance of uh you know normalcy uh perhaps analyzing what the what lessons we learned uh over the last couple of years and uh incorporating that you know into the vision of our new of our future i think those things are very important uh funding finances and awareness about our mission and our
034goals is paramount thank you what contributions can you bring to this board and why did you decide to apply wow um again my experience uh in education itself uh my root in the community uh and really the idea that you know after um so many challenging months uh we need a reason to rally together and come together and uh you know rally around causes and and that's personally my issue i want to be involved in a cause that i i believe in i want to be feel connected and dedicate my volunteer my time to something that i feel is important and that matters um i have many links to the community as i said i've been living here for um you know many decades i'm uh an immigrant i came from i was actually brought
035through the german uh school system so i have uh the european perspective i have the private school perspective and i have uh you know i've obviously also been involved in the public schools i'm a strong believer in public education and so that seemed to be good reasons for me to apply for this position to become involved great and lastly we have to ask are you employed by the board of education in any capacity no you have to believe many years ago but not anymore okay great well that is all from us thank you so much for applying for being here this evening and spending uh the time with us to get to know you um we will be in touch okay thank you so much thank you you um so schools are closed tomorrow really
036yeah i just got the notice they're predicting freezing temperatures starting around 10 so yeah the kids are going to be thrilled yeah unless they do uh you know online stuff i steal those days yeah i can't wait for them to authorize us to do remote snow days because this way this way you don't lose the day in june yes yep this is kids i don't think kids will ever understand that right they still want the snow day i want a snow day a snow day should be a snow day unfortunately my boss is of the opinion that if we're not coming into work he has we have the technology i can work from home i think it's supposed to get cold tomorrow because i think they pushed it off a little later didn't they the
037last time i had checked it was supposed to be getting cold in the evening like right after the commute but now they're saying temperatures are going to drop around 10 a.m oh joy awesome fantastic [Music] michelle i just put you on mute briefly so we didn't hear any of your conversations sorry about that and this is by the way this is coming through loud and clear and i'm in the very loud sports stone while my son is playing baseball yeah it's coming through great good i will of course mute and turn the camera off when we get an actual interview and so i'm not disrupting everybody so here you [Music] wow mike al i like that background that's really cool [Laughter] i can't get the virtual backgrounds to work this is some sort of a
038filter i figured last we were in a quiet time i would experiment with merry christmas al christmas for me is every day of the year oh now let me shut it off oh my god very good this okay rachel i'm going to do the interviews tuesday and wednesday oh good i am too it's you and me great yes thank you for doing that i do enjoy that process it's just a long process and in the middle of the day yeah yeah it's it's just tough for me because i have to use my vacation time yeah yeah i know my understanding is we had quite a few applicants too good yeah so that's good it was um that st joseph center is wonderful yes yes i get to spend some time speaking with the founder it
039was nice yeah excellent yeah that's going to be a great resource for families so you now we don't have anything monday but tuesday correct and wednesday and thursday right those who are on we have citywide pto on monday but that's not for everyone we have our budget workshop on tuesday community relations and board of ed wednesday hey it uh okay so [Music] you so okay rachel the next uh interviewee is great thank you hi juanita hi rachel how are you good how are you i'm good thank you for being here and for your interest in the board vacancy thank you for having me thank you hi everybody hi so i don't know if you know everyone um but so we'll just introduce ourselves really quickly i'm the chair rachel celesti terry bizade i'm lauren daly
040cooper kate canetta and al russo's on mute very good so again thank you for being here and for your interest we have your half hour to go over we have about seven questions okay okay so to start as a candidate seeking to serve on the board of education please describe how you view at this time the roles and responsibilities of the physician so did i freeze or did she freeze i mean she did i think she froze student miss harris i'm sorry you were you're frozen there could you start over i'm okay can you hear me we can hear you now yes okay so i think that the role of the public school board member is to make sure that our focus is on our students and oh you froze again miss harris am i
041still connected with you no you froze there again we heard the focus on students and that was about it and so then i just expanded it to the school community students in the school community okay i'm sorry it seems like my screen is freezing okay go ahead so i can it's just i think rachel i have your screen that is freezing but kate yours is fine and catherine everybody else's is fine can you guys still hear me though i just can't hear rachel she's frozen so i'm gonna go try to go ahead if that's okay yeah so um again i think that our focus has to be on our public school students um and the school community so when we talk about community we talk about students teachers faculty um families and then out into
042and including the danbury community so with our focus on that we try to set up systems of support and we are certainly um to me the anchors and the supports to the danbury public school system in our role of meeting with the administrative level folk who we put in place to run the school system okay everybody okay everyone can hear okay i just want to make sure we're still connected okay please share with the board the initial steps you have taken to prepare for this position such as awareness of educational issues involvement with educational groups etc have you attended any previous board of education meetings or had an opportunity to read any of our board minutes so i have had a long history of being involved um with board issues and watching board meetings um
043also um watching com common council meetings and being on top of minutes um one of the and i'm just going to give you a couple of areas if you've read my letter um i have been involved in the danbury public schools for many years and so i feel like i would be coming to the board with a lot of knowledge and um being able to speak to the issue of the overcrowding the issue of the upcoming please career academy uh speak to the issue of funding and um coming with the experience of having already worked with administrators already have worked in key positions of working with principals and superintendents working with our support staff such as our school psychologists social workers working with our special ed staff um i would be also um coming to
044you with experience of having been appointed a few years back on the task force the governor's task force um and so and that was i'm sorry and that was on common core um i've also worked in the district on the committee for the team supporting our new teachers i've worked with curriculum um and so also as a licensed school counselor i've worked with families and parents students um and not just on academic issues but on certainly mental health issues emotional issues and also knowing that our students and families needed to be in touch with community resources so i've also been key in knowing what our community resources where they are how they can be tapped how our schools and families could use them so i feel like i come with um a lot of skills
045and collaboration a lot of skills in communicating a lot of skills of sitting down at the table um but mostly skills in listening listening to the details being able to sort out what is most effective also looking at coming down the line are what are we listening to are we listening to um the those who have their feet on the ground those who are in the trenches are we meeting their needs and if not why not so you're frozen again oh we lost her steve what the mission is for the board what the vision is for the danbury public school and what the goals are um that our superintendent has set forth and how we might support those goals okay we lost you just uh uh very briefly in the middle of that i'm so
046sorry um but we i think we heard most of it correct i think so okay thank you rachel i apologize i just wanted that's okay go ahead catherine dropped off the call as well oh okay oh lovely technology do you want me to continue uh hold on one second i'm just i'm going to reach out to katherine and see if she can get back on i apologize uh kate can you let her back in is she there okay okay yep that's her there she is okay sorry about that juanita that's okay okay where were we okay our next question are you aware of the time commitment required for effective board functioning please provide information indicating personal time available for board training special meetings committee meetings community events as well as our regular scheduled board meetings
047frozen oh yeah i can't hear anything no and i just need to know that you're hearing me no now we are yeah we are so i i am familiar with time that goes into boards um time that goes into positions and roles um i did chair a committee for the um on the state level and so i knew i have been involved with um the hours and the time that needs to be put in one of the reasons that i did extend the letter for this position is because i'm newly retired and my son is 36 and does not live here so um i believe that i do have the time i have the commitment i believe that i have um the knowledge that i can put in with the board and share and um
048i don't foresee that being an issue um i currently sit on the board for a condo association um and so i'm pretty aware of time that goes into committees and long-term commitments great thank you would you as a member of the board recognize your duty to represent impartially all the people of the district rather than any special interest group be it political social religious or economic and can you elaborate um you know what i thank you for the courage to ask that question um and um i i don't have any witnesses here but i i can certainly tell you that i am very impartial i come to any table looking at what is in front of me and staying focused on who do we represent and how will it benefit those that we represent regardless
049of um political affiliation religious affiliation lobbying it is important to me that i present myself as one of integrity accountability and it will be to the danbury public schools um so i think that i can give you an example of that as um chair when i chaired the advisory committee to the superintendent it's not always a pleasant position to sit in the middle um city of danbury danbury public schools and our professional staff members and present issues and come up with solutions and look at facts and stay focused when you have people who want things to answer to their likeness to so that it only benefits them so it was important for me that we came to the table and our and we had to bring to the table all of the players the city
050of danbury danbury public school administration professional staff members here's the issue how can we address it to benefit all did everybody always walk away satisfied no um but i know that i could go home and lay my head down on the pillow and say that i stuck to what i believed to be the best answer to the issue having looked at the facts and having stayed true to myself so that's how i would answer that question thank you very much in your view what are the most critical issues facing public age public education in general and the danbury school system in particular at this time how would you look to resolve these issues wow resolve okay i don't know what powers i have i i do have some key issues um and i and i
051and i'm gonna say that it's probably across the board in the state and you know what um and danbury in particular is the funding and each year it appears as if danbury is underfunded now i may have to dig deep and do um a lot more research but it appears to me that the issue is not that there isn't money but it's how the money is allocated and so i just think that we have to really take a good look at that it may mean that we have to advocate and rally and write and um get out there and make a community effort um to increase that that funding um certainly danbury is not funded at the rate that other districts around us are um and so i would funding is a big issue for
052me the other issue that i would have is um i just heard somebody on a podcast say that public education is the great equalizer and yet we have areas in our nation that are still struggling struggling um and of course with the pandemic we can say struggling to stay open danbury has done a to me from outside looking in a great job with keeping our schools open remember you know the reduction in staff um not being able to get subs danbury has worked very very hard to be where we are right now and i applaud them for that i do think that we have to look at the the equity issue within our schools i think that that is being addressed as i've sat in some of the community meetings with the um that the
053superintendent held and i think his name is john john was in on and so i understand that the superintendent's budget should be going in soon submitted soon um listen i think that the board has to take a good review of that budget and um one of the things that was said is that the community has to speak to the building principles so that they can put prior let them know what they feel the priorities are i'm not sure um i i love the community meetings with the superintendent i'm thinking perhaps some of the buildings or the principals might have had some of those types of them community meetings um that may have had some input from parents when i think about uh public education the other focus that i just think that we have to
054look at is the technology we have to be in the game we have to make sure that our technology is up-to-date it's in there um the access is there and um you know it is the direction that nationwide we are going to but we have to have the access the homes have to have the access and um i i happen you know i go through our website or public school website quite often and i'm i'm always impressed with the information that is on there for families um i think that we have to encourage them more to get on there and access that information i know families are going to say to us you know i work two jobs i'm not and so i know that they too are bogged down but danbury public schools i'm
055just going to tell you guys have go oh darn froze froze at like the pivotal moment students and parents i'm sorry everything from making sure that they are fed miss harris um to the district of course distributing the books and so forth so i i guess i could go on and on but um good job thank you you broke up a a tiny bit um you were talking about the danbury public school website um and the resources yeah and the resources on there that are available for parents and students it is it's exceptional and we just have to some way get word out that they have to access that you you have to there's just so much information that they could have at their fingertips okay thank you our next question is what contributions can
056you bring to this board and why did you decide to apply you implied a little bit already can you elaborate um i really think that i can bring to this board the knowledge about the core programs and the core running of the danbury public schools now i can't say individually and each one but i have been in most of our elementary schools in the roles that i have had i have been involved and taught in our special ed department for 22 years and went on to teach in the school counseling program for the remainder of my tenure in the school system um in those roles i have made sure that i haven't been involved with advisories to the principal making sure that i have been um representative for uh teachers making sure that i am
057familiar with curriculums and programming and scheduling making sure that i am familiar with all of the portals that are being used within the school system um being an advocate not only for um support programs like read 180 and the tutoring but making sure that we have programming like ap classes that are available for our students making sure that we have online classes that are available for students who need it for the credits for graduation making sure that i am involved in the support programs for students and parents making sure that i'm involved in the community so that i can bring those community resources into the school system and uh back and forth being involved in uh the structural needs in our school system having um been involved with um the city of danbury because i
058don't know if you're of course you're probably familiar that there are some um items that are the responsibility of the city of danbury and some that are the responsibility of our school system and so um being involved at that level um encouraging student participation in our summer learning programs being involved with um so many of our programs over the years that i could only come in and be a support and a team member that would be able to either research information bring forth information or collaborate with new projects new resources thank you and lastly i know you were employed by the board of education are you currently employed by the board of education in any capacity i am not i didn't answer the call for retired teachers to come back sorry [Laughter] that's funny well
059thank you very much that's that's all of our questions all of our time i appreciate your your time and your answers and your your interest okay thank you all have a good night you too okay oh foreign uh just you know rachel eric is in the waiting room now okay everyone ready for eric okeydoke hello everybody hello how are you doing great thank you all for being here at 7 30 on a uh a windy kind of dim night so i really appreciate all your time yes thank you for your time as well and your interest in the board vacancy absolutely i'm rachel chaleski i'm the chair of the board and i'll let my fellow board members introduce themselves hi i'm terry bezzade patriarchy lauren daley hi lauren joe de silva hello gladys cooper catherine
060hodgston hey kevin hi pete canetta hey kate louisa britton always uh let me get everyone to michelle okay hey nice to see everybody okay so we have um a set of seven questions and a time frame of about a half hour so to begin as a candidate seeking to serve on the board of education please describe how you view at this time the roles and responsibilities of the position sure um you know i i've done um a pretty hefty amount of looking through all of the minutes all of the agendas um watching a whole bunch of the board meetings one thing emerges and even in a lot of the kind of details of the board goal plan and everything is student achievement and you know as fitting under student achievement for me is obviously academic
061achievement social emotional well-being safety supporting our students that need additional interventions etc um so that all is made possible by um a budget that's gonna support uh all of the uh supports that we need for our students for our teachers for our administration that includes sites and facilities uh that are going to be amenable to our students learning that includes a superintendent and leadership that is going to be effective uh and be passionate about their approach and creative in their approach uh to working with our teachers students and for our stakeholders in the community um you know the board also is a collaborative body and i think it's really important to establish a culture on the board and from everything i've seen uh in all the board meetings that i viewed uh there's a really
062good rapport on this board and a lot of respect for other board members and for the process and for achieving consensus and for moving forward so that to me is super important and then um you know community relations so you know i look through um kind of the subcommittees that exist for the board and kind of walking through um you know especially things that happen this year hiring a new superintendent uh i love the solar panel project which is amazing uh you know the superintendent evaluations uh the school reopening plan of course keeping our students safe and our faculty safe uh and so you know there's a lot that falls under that um but it all really falls under the umbrella of student achievement and that is um really thinking about our students uh achieving
063academically and then beyond that you know i was able to take a look at the portrait of the graduate and there's a a more broad holistic view of our students entering the world as ready to attend college if that's their route we're ready to uh be prepared for careers uh ready to enter the society as productive citizens and i think that the board sets all the conditions for that um you know all the policies that that are created and voted on uh all of the budgets that are approved uh really does all fall under or falls under the idea of our students achieving in a variety of different ways so the board is really responsible for setting up uh all the conditions for our faculty and staff and administration to thrive for our teachers to
064thrive and for our students to thrive uh and so that's broadly um you know my understanding of the board's responsibilities uh you know everything from sites and facilities to policy making to community relations but again it all equals our students achieving in a variety of ways thank you so you've you've kind of taken away from our question number two but um to be fair i'm going to ask it again and then you can maybe elaborate sure so question number two is please share with the board the initial steps you have taken to prepare for this position such as awareness of educational issues involvement with educational groups have you attended any previous board uh meetings or had an opportunity to read any of the board minutes sure i'm happy to address this even more thoroughly i'm
065a planner i just plan for everything i can't walk into something not knowing um as much as i could possibly humanly know um so i've spent the last few weeks uh basically reviewing every board meeting uh i have reviewed all the minutes and the agendas i was uh just recently watching the the budget workshop um and as i'm watching these things um i just am dying to be part of it uh you know i i think the the beauty of the board is that um we get to create the conditions for success in our town and i think that danbury is such a wonderful place i love living here uh and our schools are are fantastic but the potential in our in our town is incredible so um everything that i've done so far um
066you know looking at the board's goals i think is fascinating you know what what are the priorities for the board um another thing i'll kind of get into because i i like i like this approach i tend to say what we expect from our students and staff we should expect from ourselves as well uh and so you know looking at the portrait of the graduate thinking about advocating that's what we do but that's what the board does uh collaborating that's what the board does you know getting together to debate to to present evidence information to come to creative and productive and efficient solutions communicating with each other with the district with the superintendent teachers support staff all the faculty i love this next one innovating you know the whole idea here is that we come
067up with creative solutions to problems um you know budget issues funding issues uh issues with support staff intervention for our esl and ell students fed students uh all of that falls under you know let's come up with creative solutions uh to these issues and then the last one is learning uh which i do as a as a life plan i'm currently getting my my doctorate from westcon uh i will have that march first uh so i'm really excited about that and everything in my classes that i've done in theory um i'm just so excited to have the opportunity to potentially put them into actual practice you know i've taken classes on budgeting i've taken classes on curriculum design across the board you know these are things that i'm deeply passionate about and i have studied
068and practiced in theory and i'm very excited for the opportunity to potentially put these things into action with the board thank you hey rachel can i add to that just a little bit sure go ahead yeah i also know a bunch of teachers in the district and i know some former teachers uh so i've done some talking with teachers and as an educator myself i'll give you a little bit of my background at some point during this uh conversation um you know my heart lies with students and teachers um that is where i spend every single day in a school building in wilton working with students and teachers i'm an instructional coach and a technology il i was in the classroom for about seven years i taught college before that so my every day is
069being surrounded by students and teachers and i see what is happening on the ground in education especially now during a pandemic during time when technology plays a critical role uh during a time where budget becomes a major issue with funding um so i really do get to see the struggles that occur on the ground and and i i want to be able to bring that to the board and represent our teachers and our students and our staff uh administration and especially our our parents and and other stakeholders in the community uh so i've talked to a bunch of people that i know to get a feel for what it was like to be a teacher previously in in danbury or to be a current teacher in danbury um and that's going to be one of
070my primary mo's is to say what is our daily life like for our teachers and students um and to bring that into the meetings and to really really be able to kind of give an empathetic uh and uh connected view of what is happening in our schools currently in connecticut are you aware of the time commitment required for effective board functioning please provide information indicating personal time available for board training special meetings committee committee meetings community events as well as our regularly scheduled meetings sure uh well one thing you learn rather quickly when you're looking at your calendar when you're looking at your minutes your agendas is that um you guys have a busy schedule and you commit a lot of your time and energy to this process i definitely would not have put my
071my name in the batch if i were not ready to do that um you know to be honest the way i see it i've spent the last five years as a doctoral student and i've i've dedicated a lot of time to that and to my work in wilton now that my doctorate's coming to an end um i i'm just a a busy bee i like to um be involved with others i like to collaborate i like to be involved in committees i like to um you know debate look at evidence analyze data and come up with creative solutions to problems um and that is uh what i enjoy doing so i don't think i you know as much i have a family i've got a son i've got a wife uh uh i live here
072on payton aaron road uh and um i've talked to them as a family about what the time commitment would be uh they all know my passion for education uh so my family supports me uh and i'm um pretty well aware of what the time requirement would be and i think considering the fact that i enjoyed this uh these are things i'd be excited to take part in um you know i'll uh i've i've i basically take every opportunity to join every committee at the high school i work at in wilton um you know whether it's the long-term planning committee we went to uh a new learning management system recently and my job as a technology instructional leader was to basically implement that uh that switch in technology it's a bear and we need to support
073our teachers when we do it so uh teaching and learning committees uh knee asks tristate capstone uh equity and inclusion i just love being part of everything and for me uh education really is my life at the moment that i it kind of dawned on me that i want to go to school for teaching get my master's go to get my doctorate become a teacher i set out to learn everything i possibly can about education uh and so you know i love where the kind of macro meets the micro and i feel like i have a really good eye on on where those meet um you know macro being big budgetary issues policy issues how are we going to evaluate our teachers our superintendent you know those bigger bigger more broad issues and then all
074the way down to the individual classrooms you know how are our teachers experiencing the day-to-day uh and and my expertise i think lies where those come together and so in my position in uh in wilton i basically take district initiatives uh strategic plans and i make them as palatable for teachers but hopefully get teachers really excited about these initiatives get behind them and then make them work for our teachers so you know i i love that place where the rubber meets the road and that we get to see big policy issues um really uh impact classroom performance for our teachers and impact learning for our students would you as a member of the board recognize your duty to represent impartially all the people of the district whether um of the district rather than any special
075interest group be it political social religious or economic and can you elaborate sure um i really have no affiliations um i i i tend to like to find myself in the middle um and really hear out every position um i like to really just uh base decisions on evidence and data not on um who's trying to convince anyone of anything or uh who's lobbying for for anything but what does the data say what does the evidence say let's make our decisions based on those those pragmatic uh pieces um i uh i i really enjoy kind of being in the middle of uh political conversations that time and trying to find that middle ground you know whether it is politics or any other any other issue and say where do we meet um you know where
076do we have common ground uh and that that i tend to pride myself on that and and you know i've been in plenty i've led a lot of these committees and of course we have disagreements you know i was on the block schedule committee to move to block schedule there were some serious disagreements about how to proceed there and very uh adamant voices on both sides and in that process in that committee it was well let's hear everybody out uh let's come to a consensus and let's move forward also with a united belief and i think the board does that really well you know not everyone votes for every policy unanimously but i believe it's really important to get behind every decision the board makes and support it um so so you know i have
077i have no alliances uh and and i and i tend to enjoy being that mediator and being part of that process to get people to come together uh really to make decisions that benefit others you know all of the decisions the board makes aren't for board members necessarily it's for the families in this town it's for our kids uh it's for our staff so you know thinking about the stakeholders who we're making decisions for uh and and making the best decision on behalf of those those stakeholders thank you in your view what are the most critical issues facing publication public education in general and the danbury public school system in particular at this time how would you look to resolve these issues i will pretend to resolve them right here um so i think the
078most pressing issues that really rise to the surface and again all of this falls under under achievement for our students um funding and overcrowding seem to be issues that are really prevalent currently um i love the idea of of the career academy for our students to have other options i think that's really vital and i love i love the fact that there's there is creative problem solving going on to think about these issues um but funding is is really important i think the board you know needs to advocate for creative budgeting um you know where we can save money uh where we can move money uh in order to really provide for our students you know i know uh their staffing issues currently really across the board in every school uh but especially in danbury
079and you know i think a lot about our esl students our ell students our sped students that really need support and we seem to be um at times underfunded for those interventions which i even see in my school in wilton and i know how important it is uh to get skilled staff in order to work with those students and help them to succeed um i'll say right now too uh you know where i'm gonna cross my fingers hopefully coming out of this pandemic but you know the safety and well-being of our students always is a priority uh you know i i think in the future we're going to have to be kind of ready on a whim uh to adjust to uh safety issues that arrive arise for our students uh so for the board
080to be flexible to say you know we're ready to move in this direction or this direction based on the evidence that's before us so you know critical issue being safety and well-being of our students i often think about social emotional learning uh there really seems to be a almost an epidemic of anxiety of depression uh and you know we really need to think of our students and their their well-being uh you know among their academic achievement that that's got to come with you can't learn uh if you're not well uh and so you know also really focusing on supporting our students uh in their social emotional learning uh those are some of the more critical issues that that i think are pressing right now um but you know overall i i'm i'm hoping i'm hoping
081to look forward to a time where the uh covet issues kind of subside and the focus of the board of education at large can get more back to student achievement uh to curriculum design to uh you know moving forward with capstone projects and with um a portrait of the graduate and really really focusing on the day-to-day education of our students and helping them succeed so they're set up for success in life what contributions can you bring to this board and why did you decide to apply all right um i've had a i've had a google alert going for about i think it's about three years now uh for danbury board of education vacancy um because i've i've always been interested i i love my job in wilton i love those kids i love our staff
082um but this is my home uh and i want to contribute to the success of schools here in danbury uh and i love big picture thinking so you know i'll give you a little bit of um some details into what i do because i think that gives some insight into what i can contribute to the board so not only do i have the day-to-day of being with students and teachers i uh i run srbi at my school so i work really closely with the counseling staff with the sped and support staff um i have uh see um you know i think that the the key is being positioned between district initiatives and and uh you know teachers day-to-day lives and really really being in that place where um the decisions that the board of education
083makes seeing how they impact our teachers on the daily basis how they impact our students and being being able to also kind of translate between district initiatives uh and how that appears in the classroom and getting our teachers on board with um with initiatives that take place whether it is the portrait of the graduate or capstone projects and really getting the support of our staff that we feel like the board and our staff are aligned that they're listened to so those are things i do every day uh you know working with our school principal assistant principal i'm in the superintendent and assistant superintendent's office often um i'm often asked to do uh uh a lot of the curriculum design work uh i've helped redesign the district's evaluation plan for our teachers this year you know
084the state kind of gave us a protocol for what it could look like i helped design a uh evaluation plan that really fit for our teachers and kind of created like a plug-and-play version for our teachers so it just wasn't that painful and it felt like teachers were getting something out of it and it was beneficial um so i i always have an eye towards um the success the well-being the efficacy of our of our teachers and how decisions that get made uh on the board level superintendent level even on the city and state and federal level uh how that really impacts our teachers on the day to day um i'll add to that besides my general love for education this is what i want to do with my life i want to be involved
085in any way possible and learn this field inside and out um you know i i approach everything uh with care i'm doing my dissertation actually on care through feedback um i approach everything with the positivity i like to bring a good uh a good vibe to everything uh i tend to uh be a uniter i tend to bring levity to things um i love being productive uh you know one thing i do often in my school is run uh iet meetings i'll run um committee meetings and there's nothing more that teachers don't like than an unproductive meeting where nothing gets done and they feel like they're spinning their wheels i feel like what i could lend to the board is part of this team to say to be part of this decision making process to
086say less you know i'm here to help look at the evidence to make educated decisions uh i tend to uh i'm quite organized i'm a good communicator and and i really believe in communicating with the public and being out front uh being transparent and really listening to our stakeholders you know listening to our parents uh you know looking through the board meeting notes i i find some of the most fascinating parts the parent comments you know i think it's really important to listen to what our stakeholders are saying what our teachers are looking for and keeping that line of communication open so that the board feels like it's part of this team um and we're all part of a uh an entity that's moving forward together so a lot of my experience in my job
087in wilton would come in pretty useful here i would i would hope great thank you lastly we have to ask are you employed by the danbury board of education in any capacity i'm not great not an easy question well thank you very much that was it for our questions great i just i just want to take a moment to thank everybody um you know no matter what the results are from from the interview process i i have a feeling the other candidates are profoundly um uh uh capable and really experienced so i just want to thank everybody for what you do in danbury you know uh leading into this i know what i know what it's going to take um i think it's wonderful just watching the meetings and seeing everybody collaborate respect each other
088work towards um our our the success of our our district really envisioning a future for danbury um you know i know our god our enrollment enrollment numbers are coming in and it's it's it's it's intense uh and you know do we have enough do we have the budget to meet that um so there's a lot of issues that you all handle um and i just thank you for doing it on behalf of our community that's very nice thank you very much george it was a pleasure everybody thank you yes thank you have a good evening okay dope and that concludes our our interview portion of the meeting um so we have another uh link to go into executive session to deliberate um and after oh hold on one second and after i just want to
089make sure everyone knows that we have a link for executive session and then we go back into public session so we'll come back to this original link after executive session everyone's good with that okay five minute break yes let's let's make a motion uh to convene an executive session for the purpose of discussing board candidate and act on an appointment in public session and then we'll take a five-minute break and go into uh executive sessions so can i have a motion so moved second by joe da silva seconded by al russo all those in favor signify by saying i i okay so we'll now go into executive session and we'll meet back can we say eight o'clock it's 7 54 and we'll be on at 8 o'clock okay thank you great thank you all oh
090um bye that's a strange view right um we have the screen somebody sharing the board will return screen oh there we are okay yeah that's good okay that's ken in the background he's nicki minaj okay thank you ken yes hey one two three all right that looks good uh everybody's here okay great and luisa is here she's in the room her her video's not on maybe that's why you're there she is okay okay so i will entertain a motion that the board of education returned to public session for the purpose of voting on the candidate to be appointed to the danbury board of education so moved moved by joe okay seconded by all those in favor say bye bye saying hi i will entertain a motion that the board of education appoint bridget guertin to
091fill the vacancy until the next election of board members in november 2023 is there a motion i'll make a motion motion moved by kate is there a second second seconded by terry i will do a uh roll call teresa yes rachel i michelle you're a mute nope yes lauren i joseph aye catherine i l i lisa i it's unanimous motion carries i will now entertain a motion to adjourn move by gladys seconded by joe all those in favor say goodbye by saying aye