001okay [Music] thank you dr mead thank you dr wallston i mean mr walterson hello good evening everyone okay so i think we have everyone here let's go ahead and start welcome everyone i'm ann mead i'm the director of family school partnerships and we are so happy that you are here with us tonight we're going to hear from many of you but first we'd like to hear from a stella who's going to give us some basic rules of the road if you would like to call them just to make sure that um we're all on the same page and so this will enable us to be able to hear from a majority of you in this two-hour time period recording in progress hold up do you want me to go ahead and start i don't know
002if you can yes please if you can mute others okay i know okay okay is [Music] is or carmen can you repeat that last phrase okay hello go ahead we're gonna have carmen or cara put up the powerpoint is go ahead i i just clicked on it the host has anything your volume is it's oh you know what it won't let me give anybody a co-host because cara is actually the host okay okay so just explain charming everybody else okay that's all right carmen just explain to people that we're having just still a little technical let me work on it um so what we're going to do is we must have a set up that no one can share but the host okay so just explain to everyone we're still having technical difficulties and go
003ahead and introduce uh mr walston as our superintendent and then we will um ask people to put questions about masks wearing of masks in the chat box and we'll start with those first okay um kevin watson so what do you think mr wallston would you like to introduce yourself mr has the microphone um oh neat there we go you're muted kevin yeah [Music] can you unmute it and or deb can you unmute mr walston [Music] um gracias thank you for for being there you know so we are trying to give the most information for this forum so [Music] they saying and uh the the microphones most of them are muted right right and also mr kevin yeah he is too okay so i can um i'll be glad to take the first question yes they
004want to have information about the school and they want to so families the principals just return this week and they will be sending out information and packets to their families early next week and in that we'll have bus information we'll have some classes listed and it will have more information about each school director is go ahead okay so we have another question in here about will children be required to wear a mask yes the guidance from the cdc as well as from our state department of education is that all children will wear masks return when we return to school as well as teachers and all staff in the school and there will be mass great for children right and i believe mr walston is back with us go ahead mr watson thank you carmen um
005good evening everyone and welcome to the danbury public schools listening forum as we begin to talk to um and speak to our road to reopening schools um on august 30th 2021 we are really excited um to have our kids back and welcome and open our doors for our kids to come back in school on august 30th and we want to hear from our parents this evening we know there might be a lot of questions clarifications that might be necessary i mean we want to make sure we provide that platform this evening so we're looking forward to hearing from as many of you as possible so buenas noches mr kevin waltz this is you can continue mr kevin thank you carmen deb next slide so i i just want to share with the families just some
006kind of background on what we've had to do to try to reopen our schools this year carmen um you just tell me when you feel like i've said too much i'm happy to stop there um so got it okay so um going from left to right the district it was important for the district to review the space capacity at every school um in classroom in the district um the cdc has guidelines recommending that we are at least three feet apart um and we had to reevaluate space throughout the district i'll stop there coming okay [Music] foreign is thank you and then and then we we went to the board and and spoke to the board about leveraging some of our federal funds um esther funds and american relief act funds to support some of these
007goals to get all of our students back 100 percent in the fall so um i thank you carmen that we can go to the next page and so i just want to walk the families um in our community through the problems um problems some of the solutions um that the district is recommending um so so part of the problem is social distancing guidelines will limit how many students we can have in one classroom in our secondary school 6-12 we did not have enough space to house students in our cafeterias and in our elementary schools we did not have enough teaching sections to accommodate enrollment plus the social guidelines at the same time problematic and so some of our solutions begin here carmen um and some of those solutions include adding furniture um staff and leasing
008agreements um district-wide and so we have um ordered furniture for new classrooms throughout the district in elementary schools we've ordered desks instead of cafeteria tables in our middle schools and elementary schools to space students out and we've also um leased a new building in brookfield um and we and at that at that building uh we have three different schools uh sending their kindergarten section south street stadley rough and ellsworth uh to that building um and so we we know how popular danbury public schools has been over these last particularly five to ten years our enrollment continues to grow and so with increased enrollment and then limited and limited space to put students because of the guidelines the district has added 14 additional teachers to the elementary schools and 15 additional classroom teachers to the high
009school this has allowed us to spread kids out a little bit more and just allowed us to have a better student-teacher ratio across the district okay for example [Music] a thank you carmen deb we're ready for the next slide and so we and i and i mentioned um the additional teachers that we've all um hired district-wide uh at the high school specifically we previously we had what we call the seven period day um now having an eight period day at the high school allows us to spread students out even more and so if you can just envision if a student has a schedule and they have seven periods now that they have eight they have more options different classrooms to go to so we're out where that allows us to spread students out a little
010bit more and as i had mentioned previously we have um we we have the additional sections also at the elementary school to spread kids out as well um and carmen if it's did you want me to keep going you want me to stop there i stopped there so come on mr kevin right um thank you carmen and so we have four uh topics we would like to review uh with our families tonight um and i just wanted to provide some background before we begin to talk about the four areas we've received a lot of comments emails requests suggestions regarding the reopening as a district we certainly understand parents position there are four um four areas that we've received a lot of feedback on we wanted to make sure we focused on at the very least
011those four major topic areas tonight and and that's masking we've received a lot of questions about masking we've received a lot of questions about social distancing uh whether that's on the buses in our classrooms and cafeterias we've also received questions about classroom quarantining and what the expectations will be for the upcoming school year and last but not least number four um is what will the mode of instruction be next year so i just want to make sure we cover those areas and and provide an opportunity for families to ask questions in those four areas and then they're up on the screen for your comments or referrals okay sure yes thank you so much and so um right now i'm going to ask dr me for some help with facilitating and and of course you as
012well carmen uh but what i would like to do is begin to start taking questions on or any comments that families might have regarding masking and what i would like to do is just review those four areas and get feedback from our families and answer questions that we can and then if we can't um certainly you know accept that feedback and make sure we capture it to inform or share with our reopening committee a moment you are muted i mean myself thank you so our first question is if a child has asthma will they have to wear a mask all day si la si los ninos thinning asthma alone go ahead kevin okay thank you and so i i just want to share with the families that these you know we we recognize that we
013have students who are coming to school with pre-existing health conditions and so we we we will continue to make sure we do everything that we can to keep all of our kids safe so certainly for the majority of our students whatever our policy is going to be regarding masking is going to apply to the majority of them but in some instances we have cases that we have to make exceptions for in those cases that will be a shared decision with our school nurse in some cases with our pupil personnel team and those decisions will be made on a base on case-by-case basis um is okay thank you um and can you tell us a little bit if school is a full day and will there be mass breaks um sure thank you carmen uh so
014we the school we will certainly have um mass breaks for students the plan is is for all of our students to return return back to our schools in 100 um on august 30th and this will be five days a week for full school days we certainly understand that it will be a challenge for our students to have that mask on all day without some type of break um two there are two breaks potentially three breaks that will always be built into the school day um one one of those breaks is during recess which is required for all of our elementary students another break opportunity will be lunch every day because the students will be able to remove their mask while they're eating and then we will be asking principals and reminding principals to provide at
015least you know at least another break throughout the day for students uh to make sure that they're getting the mass break that they need on throughout the school day um so we're we're certainly mindful as a district uh that it's going to be necessary um and particularly during at the walmart months except in september so um okay so [Music] can you just explain to folks that this seminar is covering all of our schools tonight this is a district-wide policies we're talking about district-wide recommendations please um thank you and also if you could explain to the parents that if they were remote last year they do not need to re-register their children again okay and this one is for kevin our mass mandatory and how will it be reinforced that the mass stay on during the
016day um so carmen does this mean i don't have to answer the other questions only this one that's for me um i believe so both it's okay that you can answer because you're already saying that okay let me just be really clear one more time on that that this year we are not doing remote and that if students were remote last year they do not need to go to the registration center and re-register us so regarding masking for the fall um currently our policy uh requires all students and staff and faculty uh to wear their mask inside um of of our school buildings um so as of right now and until the reopening committee reviews the policies and recommendations from the cdc and state health department and unless something changes from the city of danbury
017because they recently shared a mandate that masking is required in all buildings unless that changes that those whatever recommendations are still in front of us next week we will share those same recommendations with the board uh the following week at the fourth meeting recommend foreign thank you carl yep right more questions yes so we have a question here about if a child is ill and quarantining what's going to be the protocol about quarantining this year and if it's not a child who's sick what about if a teacher becomes sick what is the plan okay um thank you carmen so so one um i just want to start off by saying that the quarantining rules continue to evolve and change really week to week and and day to day right now but as i understand it
018right now if a student and the staff member have been vaccinated we recognize all of our students are not eligible to be vaccinated but if a student and staff member are vaccinated and they are asymptomatic meaning they're not showing any symptoms um they do not have to be quarantined so i'll stop there for i'll let me stop there comey let me keep going you guys keep going okay and so if if they've been vaccinated and they are not showing any symptoms they're asymptomatic they do not have to be quarantined um however if they are not if they are not vaccinated um and i'll just talk about students first if they're not vaccinated uh we will we will do our contact tracing the same way we did last year um call all of the students and
019to call all the students and staff members if applicable who are in a radius of three to six feet um and and again the three to six feet changes you know kind of week to week um and so and and then if if the student is if the students who have been in that contact tracing if they've been um vaccinated they do not have to be quarantined if there's another student in that radius that's been in part of the contact tracing and they have not been vaccinated they are likely to be quarantined and so um the you know the status of the vaccination uh plays a role in whether or not you have the quarantine and the same is true of our staff as well okay um [Music] so i'd like to ask david cardenas
020if you're still there you had a question you'd like to ask yes i speak a little bit english so my question is i have my kids um but the problem is i have my kids and they're really low uh small how they're gonna um how you guys are gonna help them to wear like masks the whole day because sometimes with myself uh sometimes when i go grocery shopping and my kids wear a mask even though we tell them you need to have your mask on every time don't touch the stuff don't don't put your hands there you're touching your in your face and still they do it so how uh like little kids will like will not have their mask on the whole day or how you guys are gonna you know tell them to
021wear them so in my case is uh i'm a little concerned because right now with this variable thing of the travis that's happening it's called delta i'm a little bit scared because uh um that says he's affecting phuket so it's when you guys say that if the kid comes with um fantasies and it gets really worse who is gonna help us with with our child if you know if they get worse who is going to be the responsible or if my kid gets sick i think i heard at least two questions in there and in the first question um i i believe it was and i'm sorry because i'm not sure i caught at all but the but but the first question if i recall was about masking and um will we be able to
022ensure that our kids mask of being worn all day um um and number one i i understand the question and the concern um i i think it's a question and a concern all of our staff members had last year and although we only had students in for the hybrid we did have a lot of experience with this last year and frankly with great success our students we you know we had if our families recall we had our hybrid in which students came in either three days a week or two days a week um and during that time uh we had tremendous success um with with with the wear and the mask in our schools and so we we anticipate we'll have similar success in the fall our teachers at this point are very used to
023ensuring that our kids wear their mask all day you know recognizing that it's it's the the true mitigation strategy to keep us all safe and in the event kids need a mass break you know we make sure we find opportunities and that's why the built-in mass breaks is so important make sure our kids get the mass breaks that they need which will help them keep their mask on all day okay so and carmen i i i understand mom's question um and concerns about um you know her child and i'm sure a lot of families on this call feel the same way um you know they're concerned about our kids getting sick in school um and this is why the ware net mask is so important um i i think um given the science and the
024recommendations from the cdc about mask wearing if we can keep our kids with their mask on and our staff certainly also have their be wearing their masks throughout the school year and then for our families for our kids were eligible to be vaccinated um you know we are learning that these are the two strongest mitigation strategies uh to make sure our kids don't get sick and our staff does not get sick and so you know we'll continue to encourage um vaccinations and we'll continue to ensure that everyone is wearing our mask in the school system um so our next question is if a child comes down with covid and is out for two weeks is there another way that the student can learn and keep up with this school work yes that that is a
025really good question and the uh i'm sorry carmen you want to ask that question foreign okay so our our students will continue um to have work posted um in in in google classroom um and so although our students will not be necessarily working behind a computer screen every day in their classroom uh because we want to get back to you know more normal learning but we will continue to use our laptops um as a as a vehicle for kids to uh submit their work uh for kids to students to communicate with their teachers um and in the event a student um is quarantined uh we will contin we will post work in that google classroom platform um and and although there will not be a live teacher available to work with students um i'll plan
026right now is to make sure that there is work available for that student um in that google classroom platform we're all we are also looking at different resources to provide throughout the school day in the event we need some adults to check in with students because students and families might have questions while kids want quarantine so we're working through those um last couple of details carmen but uh for sure there will be work available for students um via the google classroom platform possibly thank you chrono yep right so uh we do have a hand raised from a josephia cordova would you like to ask your question on mute yourself and ask your question buenos is a okay the question is um she has four kids um she has the husband who it uh has a
027illness problems so she he is vulnerable right um he can get any any he can get sick any time so she said that she she didn't think that she's gonna send the four kids to the school um what another options you can give it to her about this case more about um the question that she has for you um so so one um carmen i i would recommend that mom in any of our families that have a situation as unique as this um definitely call their school principal to kind of work through and share their concerns with them to and see if we can't reassure them that we can ensure their child safety i would like to think that we can uh but again i i understand there may be some pre con pre-existing conditions
028in the household with the family might have to make some difficult decisions about whether or not to send their child to school right now as a district we are not providing a remote distance learning option the way we did last year and so some of our families might recall that we had in-person learning options for kids last year and then families also had the option of being taught at home we we've decided to invest our monies um into getting all of our students back in school this year we and and we understand there's going to be a small percentage of families that might need to seek out another option and if we can provide support for them guidance for them was certainly available to do that but we do not have a remote option at
029this time yes she's she's confirming if uh she need to send an email or a phone call to the principal of the school is that right yes i i either would be fine and then we can start to support her from there hello our next question is are vaccines required and this person is questioning um that they heard that that you can still carry the virus even though you have the vaccine so will we be doing any testing in our schools [Music] thank you thank you so so vac vaccinations are not required um in in this school district um however um we we will continue to encourage um students and staff in our community um to be vaccinated um the cdc is um stating that vaccinations are the number one mitigation strategy uh to prevent
030um getting um covet and um you know the second leading mitigation strategy is the wearing the mask and so we will be strongly encouraging both and one another take away from the cdc is that we encourage vaccinations in the community which is why i have included uh the vaccine mobile units in our uh superintendent uh communications um and and you know continue to remind families of its availability uh district-wide i i don't recall the second half of that question um ann uh about the testing question oh okay thank you uh do you want me to answer that one now yes okay no problem go ahead so [Music] thank you and the next um answer mr kevin about the testing thank you um and so the the testing that um we um i'm sorry one of
031the mitigation strategies on that the cdc is we're recommending um is that districts participate in pool testing and so pool testing requires let's just imagine all of us are in you know one of our classrooms we're all in the same class all 132 participants let's just imagine we're all in the same class as part of a pool testing we would all have a swab and everyone would take a swab test and then the swabs would be part of a tool um a part of a pool test i'm sorry and then and then and then the lab would come back and let us know if anyone in the pool um has has has tested for code only parents the only students who would participate in these tests are the families who allow us allow their child
032to participate in the process as of right now the district is something the district is considering because the state health department is recommending that we participate in these tests district-wide as of right now again this is something we're considering but we're not definitely doing it yet but it is a recommendation on that we will ask the reopening committee to consider um and it is likely a recommendation we'll be making to the board given the cdc's recommendation in the state health department recommendation so again as of right now it is not required as of right now it is definitely not something the district is doing but given the cdc recommendation in state health department recommendation it is something that we are considering um but even at the end the parents still have to agree to it
033for their children to participate in the process [Music] next one okay um so we've got a hand up here uh by the name of mel could we hear from mel please yes hello hi hi si buena is i'm sorry okay mr kevin uh and dr ann uh mr smell is gonna say it in english because she speak english and i offer her because i don't wanna dismiss or or misinterpreted whatever she wants to say so i offer her to saying in english and i will uh translate that to the other parents in spanish go ahead miss mel okay thank you and i have a question so if like you said the entire danbury public school office department we're thinking about our kids health as a priority why is that we just you just let us
034know on august 10th that we are not going to have the distance learning option because we have been waiting in my case i have been waiting for the entire summer to know what we're going to be my options and right now i i just have the option to send my kids to school when in my in my uh household we are high risk patients it's not like a um mrs joseph said that it's not just her it's not a unique situation it's we have plenty of families in danbury with the same situation that we have someone in our house that we are concerned so we don't want to send her kids to school so i also talked to the principal and she answered that is not something that she she cannot control that and i
035understand her position because she didn't she didn't make that decision but why no one told us before so we we have enough time thank you yeah hi hi miss mel um and i and i i i think i'm hearing a couple of a couple of things here one uh the fact that um you know their situation at home where you have a family member that might be compromising you know the family might be in a position where they have to make a difficult decision um and you know i'm i'm learning over these last two nights in particular um that you're not certainly not unique in this in this regard um and then secondly you know just going back to um whether or not we were going to offer a remote option we we actually made
036that announcement before the school year ended we we we decided before the school year ended um uh before before june uh close to the end of the school year we announced that we were going back had every intention to go back 100 in full um this fall and that we would be investing heavily making all the necessary investments to get all open the doors for all of our students next year i believe it was in the late spring the state department of education stated that school districts were no longer required to provide a remote options and distance learning option and at that time we articulated to the board in the community on that we would not be providing a remote option and that we will be pouring our investments into teaching and resources to get
037all of our kids back in the fall and so we will you know continue to make sure and and i'm sorry if that's not a notification that you are aware of or have received but you know i will make sure in our subsequent communications of families um that that everyone is aware of the intention to get all of our kids back into our buildings um thank you carmen thank you miss mel we'd like to go to catherine now please catherine grier herrera uh um is he has a concern and also a question he say um what are you gonna do um with this new um new vitals kind of right the original one was the covet 19 now it's the delta so as you know they they they always listen on the news um you
038know that is very contagious so um they are thinking why if last year um does the school close when the original vitals was there and now the delta arrive why why the school are opening they don't get that what what what is that what is your um what is your options what are you gonna do um what are you gonna do um um about that what is what is your suggestion what is what is going to be if if there is no remote classes there is no distance classes what is what it what what is your position what are you going to do about that right so carmen um just going back to last year and and and i'm glad um dad asked that question just to uh provide some context and uh for our
039families um last year um this the the state health department and our local danbury department of health uh we we had a criteria in which depending on the number of cases per 100 000 um in danbury that played a role in whether or not we were um eligible to come to school uh 100 percent depending on how many uh families um people in danbury had coveted um that determined um whether or not we were allowed to come in and hybrid and then if we were in the red and we had a a really high increase number of cases in the community per hundred thousand uh we would be on distance learning and um at the moment we have not reached any of those thresholds yes um you know we've had cases in the community but
040i think everyone on this call can you know is aware that you know over the summer we've experienced um you know the relaxing of rules throughout not only danbury but throughout the state of connecticut and across the country and certainly the variant has raised some concerns locally and nationally but but it has not reached levels um that where our local state health department where our local department of health is recommending uh we cannot be in school uh 100 um so we we continue to review that data with the local health department um and and stay in contact and work in collaboration with the local health department if the numbers um you know begin to be too concerning uh um if we if the numbers begin to get too high but we should not where would
041be unsafe to have our kids and staff back in building we will make a different recommendation but right now we are not at that threshold right [Music] is [Music] right and we have a parent that's written in if a decision is going to be made can they have a week or two time to be able to make other arrangements for their children and i just want to make sure i understand um it's if they need more time to make a decision about returning to school or no it's more um not for for us as a district all of a sudden saying you know next monday that we're going to go remote that they would like to have like two weeks notice okay i understand yeah so hey mr kevin carrier go ahead mr kevin right
042yes and and so i i think we as a district we will be providing as much lead time and advanced notice as we possibly can with any changes um changes to instruction particularly any changes that might impact child care any changes that might impact work schedules for our families we will be looking to provide as much lead time as possible for our families uh we you know certainly we don't want to create a situation where we have schools that are unsafe because of the virus but we also don't want to create a situation that's you know means we don't have supervision for our kids at home on a system on a district-wide level and we don't want to create unsafe situations for our kids at home either without supervision so you know certainly if the
043health department if the local health department you know made us aware that this is a decision that we had to make just from experience over the last 18 months as cases began to increase we began stepping up communications uh regarding the the the increased numbers um and make our families aware that it could this is something that could happen uh but we we will not um announce uh one day and then expect our community turn around child care etc uh we will absolutely provide as much lead time as possible um we're certainly hoping it doesn't happen uh but in any event that it does we will certainly keep our families informed so that they can prepare so uh um [Music] so we have one more question and then we have a bunch of odd stuff
044that i can work with mr walston and get those answered so if uh jacqueline marino would like to address her question that would be great [Music] gracias so um mr mr kevin she she has a preschool child all right so and this child has asthma so she wants to know um what i'm going to do um what are you going to do with respect of that the child has asthma about the mask how are you going to consider a um not just that health issue other other health issues too um that's the sky of the question question that she has right um and so carmen i i understand the question and the concern and um you know we we want to make sure that all of our families particularly with kids uh with pre-existing conditions
045uh they they work and consult uh with the school nurse um and and share those concerns with the nurse and make sure that we come up with a plan um that's going to meet the best needs of their child uh while they're in school um so typically um that would be with the nurse um it could be with the pupil personnel team um it may or may not be you know with special educators that that will be determined at the school level um but you know first the conversation will start with the nurse and whoever may be the program um leader or principal of the program um can help to facilitate that that that that that arrangement but we you know we deal with um obviously we haven't had to deal with mask all the
046time but we certainly can't make accommodations for students in situations like this and it would be no different now so i i can appreciate mom's concern i know we had a couple of other parents express similar concerns but we do have kind of systems in place to help address [Music] is [Music] right we'll go to margarita please margarita miss margaritas is she's in dao she she's not sure about this when you say the vaccines are not required uh what do you mean about that with the students we in general or or what is it so carmen i was responding earlier to a question if uh vaccinations are required for students and staff um they they are not required uh for students and staff they're certainly encouraged particularly encouraged for students who are eligible uh to
047be vaccinated but but currently they are not required in school systems astorida margarita [Music] uh mr kevin i mean now she knows about that but she she's not agreed with that because she say that for example you know she thinks so it has to be obligatory because as you know children's under 12 you know they don't receive the vaccine and how come the kids are going to go to school and what about the teacher doesn't have the vaccine how come is no required or obligatory when they can get contagious yes carmen thank you for that question um and uh miss rodriguez also thank you for that question um we so so within our school systems we have um labor contracts in unions um you know we have an entire state and it's not just in
048connecticut it's not just in danbury um this is something that has to be agreed upon throughout the state oftentimes these things come from the governor's office to mayor's offices um to require certain you know certain professions to to require being vaccinated i i think just recently they've started to require vaccinations in hospitals but i don't even think that is in all hospitals across the country so it's it's it's a unique situation that we're in right now uh but it's it's not required um and i we as as a as a school district uh and as your interim superintendent i am not authorized to require this of any of our teachers administrators or other faculty members professors and and carmen i i just also wanted to say um you know our teachers our staff our faculty
049uh you know the the vast majority of them have been vaccinated um you know they've they have gone out and and taken advantage of the vaccines that's been available to them uh but you know to the parents question um we cannot require it but but but you know i want our families to be reassured um you know our teachers and our staff they've been great great in this effort and they have going out and they've been very proactive and you know making sure they're safe so that all of our kids are safe professors foreign right thank you carmen uh estella we've i've addressed a couple things to you there in the chat if you could answer them and also we have a couple questions about bringing medicine to the school and physicals if you could
050explain to our parents that they'll be getting packets from their school and that type of information will be in there of what they will need to do and bring to the school thank you we [Music] is thank you great and mr wallston if you could answer how many children are in each classroom at the elementary school and should children bring their uh laptops to school every day um so i i don't know if dr castamero is um i see a great photo but i may need some help with the with the laptop i want to translate that sure wait what did you want to translate of thank you thank you carmen um so dr casimiro the first question there was a question about um laptops being required to come to school every day would you
051mind taking that one for us sure yeah um sorry i was on a phone call um so the you know most of our students uh at this point especially if you're with us last year already have a laptop so um right now we're thinking students you know at least in grade two two and up should be bringing their their laptops to school um as we're still continuing to um use some of our funding we're trying to see if we have enough laptops to have some of our younger students have additional laptop carts in the classroom so that they don't have to go back and forth they can keep one at home and and have one in school but um so we're definitely working towards that goal correspective thank you dr casemero thank you carmen so
052carmen if i'm not mistaken the second part of that question was about the numbers the number of students we can have in class right and so that that number varies um unfortunately and so it's a the answer varies from school to school to classroom to classroom to grade level um and and let me just explain it this way um i'll just one just talk about the guidelines themselves so the cdc guidelines they are recommending uh that we have students in classrooms um at least three feet apart we're permissible um and so we're trying to follow that guideline uh to the best of our ability so starting in our high school this is the reason why one of the reasons why we have hired uh 15 additional teachers this allows us to spread um more of
053our classrooms out and so instead of a seven period day we now have a period day kids have more classes and so by having more classes we're able to reduce the class size but even even those class sizes really depend on requests that students are making um the the class sizes are driven by requests um and then how many teachers we have in english and science and social studies so it can vary um but you know in in in most instances um the the highest number we can get in the classroom and be socially distanced is typically 23 24 in the classroom right and so let let me just start there however um in some of our classrooms okay go ahead carmen yes thank you i know that's fine um s the okay thank you
054mr kevin thank you great and so what i'd like to do is call on a family with the last name of castillo to have them ask their question and then i will go ahead and uh answer the last four questions that [Music] carmen you froze estella can you translate that one yes well uh karen was such um she was inquiring was you know the children that are vaccinated or not vaccinated can you hear me yes okay um you know for them to be to have to be quarantined just as um both whether they're validated or not vaccinated um to in quarantine would that be a possibility i believe in a case like that the nurse would make the determination the school nurse would make the determination unless kevin has another thought on that one i
055i didn't hear the whole question this though i'm sorry can you repeat it it was a little broken up on my end oh not a problem um she noted that you know basically she's saying uh for the the students are not vaccinated and those students that are vaccinated but um for the what we had said earlier was that the children that are not vaccinated they don't have to be quarantined and this parent is asking would it be a possibility to have both students whether they're vaccinated or not um if necessary be in quarantine right so so for clarification if if the student who is vaccinated um is asymptomatic and you know or not showing symptoms they do not have to be quarantined uh our students who are not vaccinated they they will um and so
056those are the guidelines um as i understand them and we will have uh the most updated guidelines available for the for the staff and the community um next week after after we have we meet with our reopening community [Music] great thank you thank you and to wrap up we have a couple of odd questions here important questions so yes breakfast and lunch will be served each day at school carmen go ahead [Music] supply list the supply list will go out in school packets if the schools are requiring it or on their website materials right and will there be before and after school programs at the schools yes and they should call the the elp office 797-4733 to register um and lastly all of this information will be put into a frequently asked question document that
057will be put up on the website probably by midweek next week in english spanish and portuguese website right and we are at our time tonight thank you everyone so much for all of your questions all of your concerns tomorrow you will receive our weekly communication and in it will be a survey that we ask that you fill out it's our reopening survey and that will help us to make further plans to keep your children healthy and safe [Music] thank you so much i just want to wish everyone a good evening thank you thank you thank you bye thank you bye-bye bye thank you bye all right buenos noches let us know bye you