Danbury Schools Community Forum 8/11

001we're on the right one right you and i board of ed members i'm ann mead i'm the director of family school community partnerships for our district and i would like to welcome you to tonight's forum uh we do have a few norms that we'd like to share with you we have a large group and we do want to be able to hear everything that you have to say in your questions that um you may have so we have um designed a couple of different things for you to use one please feel free to use the survey that is going to be dropped in the chat box uh to continue to ask your questions and your give us your thoughts it's important to us tonight that we hear from you that's the that's the focus of

002tonight's meeting listening to you um mr walston will do a small um foundational setting for us and then we'll open it up into different areas for you to be able to ask questions and we will monitor the chat feature that we're asking you to put your questions into um we certainly honored the very varied positions that our district families have about vaccines mass returning to schools safety protocols and ask that during the form that we're respectful of everybody that's on here's perspective we like you are feeling the stress of the ever-changing guidance please understand that all of the decisions that we made are in the best interest of our students and staff with the guidance that's being issued at that time though we may not totally answer all your questions um please fill out the

003survey or in the initial email that you receive feel free to send more questions or concerns to the email family learning center at danbury.k12.ct.us and so we do have a large group tonight which we're very excited about having you all here and so as you ask a question you will then be muted and mr walston will answer the question to the best of his ability at that time some of the questions may not be able to be answered and we will follow up on that with having a faq sheet that we will design from tonight's meeting and post on the website we also will continue with our friday communications about the reopening of schools to inform you of all the changes opportunities for families in the community and pre-opening activities so without further ado i'd

004like to turn the forum over to mr wallston who is going to um start us off thank you again for attending it's really really appreciated thank you dr mead um and good evening everyone um danbury community 300 plus participants on the call i'm really excited to be with you this evening i think this is a pretty good indication of how excited our families are about the upcoming school year i understand that excitement also comes with anxieties about you know any questions and thoughts you might have about the upcoming year um and so one i understand you know we have a lot of a lot of our families that certainly watch board meetings but i also understand a lot of families that do not watch board meetings and so to dr mead's point i i also

005wanted just wanted to review um some of the things that i shared with the board in the community um at at the previous board meeting and then get to the listening forum where we provided a couple of different opportunities for you to participate um with so many participants this evening we felt like we needed to come up with varying ways for you to participate and so we have a google form um certainly the google chat which will also be recorded and we'll as ann uh mentioned previously we will turn into an faq sheet um and then throughout the evening i will answer as many questions as i can but i also understand we're not going to be able to get to everyone and so i just ask you to use those other means um to

006to to record your questions um and please know that you will find them either in a faq on the website um actually that's where they will be on the faq on our website i am i'm joining you this evening um and i'm happy to say joining you this evening as your interim superintendent um we have a lot of work ahead of us um two of my colleagues are on the call this evening at least that i can see on the screen anyway and that's dr casimiro our director of curriculum instruction and dr mead director of family community engagement we are happy to be with you this evening um again i understand there are a lot of questions anxieties and and thoughts and positions um our families have um they they feel whether it's about masking

007social distancing and we want to make sure you have a forum for those things in in a couple of weeks my colleagues and i we will be meeting with varying members of the danbury community with our reopening community reopening committee that committee will be looking at a revised or modified reopening plan and they will be making eventually that group will be charged with making recommendations to the board for the board to consider i'm at the board meeting on august 25th or 26th i believe it is we are excited about where we are right now and when i say that um you know i i can't help but remember where we were last year um in august and as we were talking about returning to school in hybrid um as you know later on we returned

008to school in hybrid in the fall i'm sorry in the winter in january we had we made some significant progress as the school year ended as we had graduations for our middle school and high school outside we had smaller celebrations indoors we were able to be to begin to bring the community indoors and smaller crowds um and i feel like the community was really charged and quite frankly i think the staff the administration the teachers the students and parents were really excited about things beginning to reopen um as i think all of us were excited going into the summer things have changed a little bit this summer but i i remain optimistic and given where we were last year at this time i think we have a lot to be excited about um just the

009fact that the conversation has changed um we're talking about masking versus not masking social distancing and what that's going to look like what perhaps this quarantining rules might look like um we we are in a position right now to bring all of our kids back and that is not a position we were in last year so just plea please forgive the optimism on my side but just as one of your district leaders um in danbury um it's it's it's a position that i continue to try to lead from um being optimistic and remaining focused um on our kids and and trying to serve our families um cara i'm going to ask cara pompano i'm going to ask if you can um present the powerpoint as dan mentioned earlier i just wanted to provide kind of

010a level setting opportunity for this group um and just kind of share with you um where we've what the district has been doing over these last several months and then i want to position us for questions uh questions from you so that we can start the listening forum i'm ready karen and so last year the team and i uh we had to it was important for us to review the space capacity at every school and classroom in the district and so given the social distancing guidelines and the cdc recommendations um at a minimum where feasible we would have three fifty distancing um given the overcrowding challenges that we've had in the district we really needed to reevaluate our space throughout the school district and so many of you might be aware we have since the

011end of the school year we have opened up at least a new facility um in brookfield i'll speak about that in the subsequent slides um when uh speaking to the board of ed about this plan obviously we had to talk about the impact on budgeting and our esr funding which is the federal fund relief monies education relief fund monies that have been afforded danbury um and we talked about ensuring that 100 of our kids um had access to return to full and personal learning in the fall and in order to do that based on those guidelines we had a couple of we had some decisions to make and so we certainly forecasted and determine what the financial impact would be you'll see that on the subsequent slides and then last but not least um in

012the in in the spring we reported to the board prior to the final budget adoption um on april 28th we're ready kara and so here were some of the challenges that we were faced with um social distancing guidelines certainly limited our classroom capacity um and and frankly danbury is a popular place and and i think we're going to continue to experience growth um over the next couple of days months and and more than likely years our middle school our secondary schools 6 through 12 did not have space to house students in their cafeteria and then our k5 schools did not have enough teaching sections to accommodate enrollment and social discipline guidelines together and some of the solutions um that we landed on and recommended to the board is that we would add additional staff um

013furniture um leasing agreements to accommodate the space and challenges um and so some of the things that you'll be seeing and also you'll see in my letter to you i believe it's tomorrow evening is is providing an update is providing an update on uh furniture providing an update we will have new furniture delivered to a lot of our schools to help ensure we can realize the social distancing guidelines we will have tents put up at the high school so we can spread kids out in our cafeterias not only in the cafeteria but also outside in the courtyard of the cafeteria and then we will maintain the least that we have at sacred heart not to mention this new agreement in brookfield we will have a lease there as well and in that arrangement we will

014be pulling out our kindergarten sections from south street elementary school stanley ruff elementary school and then also ellsworth elementary school staffing leasing and facility upgrades and this is just what i alluded to recommending that we pull kindergarten sections from those three buildings um this gives south street sadly rough and else and else and um ellsworth the space that they need this helps them give them more space in their respective cafeterias in south street and ellsworth there's some of the smaller cafeterias in a district and then also gives us space in their respective classrooms two of these three schools we experience a lot of growth in these schools we would make make sure that we have the room to accommodate that ongoing growth um and then another big number for us was danbury high school moving

015to a moving from a seven period day to an eight period day this gave us an opportunity to add positions to the school and maximize maximize classroom capacity uh by having more classrooms um having more periods to choose from that that allowed us to reduce class size um cara we can go to the next page and so um some some of the implications of this plan and moving to an eight period day at the high school we have budgeted for 15 additional teachers at the high school and and and 12 i'm sorry and then 14 elementary teachers district wide you'll see it says hire 22 teachers including special ed staff esl teachers and pps staff so that's the 14 plus the 7 to get to the 22. um in addition of course supplied additional classroom

016supplies needed to be ordered for these new classrooms and certainly we've been working on that throughout the summer the desk that we've ordered for elementary and secondary schools has really been about accommodating social distancing and so you know over the last probably 10 years this district has worked really hard to have tables to promote uh collaboration and group work exercises and and and now we've had it to pivot um and order furniture to promote social distancing and so we've gone back to more traditional desks where kids can sit separately instead of together again just going back to the lease at the brookfield site which we're now calling dan mary primary center on that site is able to accommodate up to 240 to 260 students and that is allowing us to pull um the three the

017the all of the kindergarten sections from the aforementioned schools uh we're ready we're ready karen evan i would like to uh stop for a second please okay i'd like to remind the folks that the chat is not an area um to be commenting to other people in negative or positive ways i really don't want to have to shut down the chat but please only place your questions in there and please use under reactions at the bottom of your screen the raise hand feature and so we'll start to use that more to answer the questions as mr wallston moves into this next set section of the meeting so we can hear from families we want to listen but please stop um with the back and forth on the comments and just put your questions in there

018thank you hi everyone and and i and i certainly understand um the questions and and um and and the need to to be heard i want to make sure that we can uh provide as much opportunity for that as possible um so some of the more popular uh topic areas um that we that we have heard over the last couple of weeks um uh dr mead has received a number of emails from the community and the majority of them have focused on masking social distancing whether that's on the bus in our classrooms or cafeterias what are the rules around classroom quarantining will a remote option be provided this school year the 21-22 school year and what are the modes of instruction uh for the for the upcoming school year and is there a plan b

019in plan c um if if the need should arise and so i i just want to number one just take an opportunity quickly to speak to these four areas and then and then open it up for question open it up for questions and comments um you know throughout the evening and so for one from asking um currently our policy states that masking indoors is required by all students and staff this policy certainly will be reviewed by the committee next week we meet on the 16th and the 17th but as that as that committee reviews those um reviews the policy will also be reviewing recommendations from the cdc and then any state and health guide any state um guidance as well um and so the state guidance if there's an executive order to consider during that

020time all of those things will be reviewed at that time and then that will be referred and recommended to the board for adoption and consideration um social distancing uh whether it's in buses classrooms and cafeterias uh we're feasible number one let me just start with classrooms uh we will have three foot we will be looking to adhere to the three foot distancing guidelines almost in every classroom in the district there is a very strong possibility and we've been very careful in our planning particularly at the k-5 levels and we're possible 6-12 as well um we've been mindful of of of class size and trying to uh limit the number of kids in rooms to keep it as safe as possible for our students and staff um and this is part of the reason uh why

021we've added the additional sections at the high school and and hired additional staff and then the same reason we did the same at the elementary school level um and so we're feasible and under no circumstance are we going to allow the the guidelines to um that does in no way does that mean we will not be going back in person um the guidance says in person um is quite frankly should be the goal for all districts and that certainly continues to be our goal um and and and if we can't get to three feet uh we'll be at 275 or we'll be at two and a half uh but we will continue to be socially distanced um the guidance also says if you can't um you know maintain the three feet it is important to

022continue to layer in the other mitigation strategies which could be masking which could be um you know which could be other other ways to also mitigate other mitigation strategies that that can help so i i just wanted to share that that will definitely be a focus for the district um all of our principals and teachers are aware of those protocols and we'll be making every effort to make sure they're adhered to when all of our kids are back um our cafeteria spaces um at the very least i mean obviously the mask if we are wearing masks um if the if the recommendations is to wear a mask and throughout school um they the while kids are eating obviously they cannot wear a mask and so we will make sure that kids are socially distanced in

023our cafeterias and because they're not they will not be wearing masks if we don't have a desk shield in every classroom it will be very important for us to make sure we have desk shield in our cafeteria and so for for our families who are not familiar with the desk shields they're between 22 and 28 inches high some of them are clear see see-through right in the middle and some of them have berries on the side and many of our cafeterias we've had these berries on the tables to to to allow students to interact with each other safely without that mask when they're eating and then once our students are done eating we encourage them to put their mask on that's what happened last year um and we were likely to encourage them to continue

024to do the same this year currently again under our current um guidelines and and and masking policy um our students will continue to be required to wear mask on the bus and um some of the mitigation strategies that we will be layering is certainly is to make sure that our windows are left open for additional ventilation on those buses and try to keep our kids as safe as possible we we acknowledge and i just want to say this publicly we acknowledge that we're not going to be able to um socially distance our students on the bus um it's just not going to be an option for us however we will we're we're possible um our kids will remain cohorted um you know to the greatest extent possible and in most cases that's going to be

025in our k5 schools and in our middle schools it's a little easier to keep our kids kind of cohorted when i say cohorted kind of moving together as a group um and and you know in the event we had a positive case it's a little easier to help with quarantining bulls and i'll just transition to the next one classroom and quarantining uh some of some of the some of the questions um that ann and i every stan and i have received are you know will the district continue with the quarantine rules and so they get the the state guidance um continues to state that if um that quarantining is necessary however if a student or a faculty member is asymptomatic and they are vaccinated they are not required to quarantine that guidance you know we

026continue to monitor and review that guidance and certainly we will be reviewing it up to the last minute before we make any recommendations on our final reopening plan but we're certainly aware of the current guidance right now you know we're happy to say this guidance has changed since last year when the vaccinations were not available when we wrote the initial reopening plan and so we're happy that these are some options and hopefully we can limit the disruptions to learning as much to the greatest extent possible of course students at our k5 letter level we understand that those students are not eligible for the vaccine and then we may have some students who are not old enough at middle school who are also not eligible for vaccine not to mention some students who are just not

027eligible for vaccine for you know other varying reasons we also understand that as well um and so almost done here uh remote learning i i know some of our families in fact quite a few of our families have expressed concern about remote learning and asking if the district is going to provide this option um i i certainly understand the rationale behind this question for for a number of different reasons whether it's health related whether it's concerned specifically about your family about your feeling about sending your child to school um we the the district made a decision um and made a recommendation to the board uh prior to the 2021 school year um ending um that uh once that this once the state stated that districts were no longer required to re um provide remote learning

028um we opted not to provide this option and and the biggest reason is uh we decided to take to invest our monies and and put into teachers for in-person learning um and as you saw in a couple of slides earlier we've added 20 28 29 new teachers to school year providing a remote learning option means um that we will need additional staffing uh which it's at this point really quite frankly cost prohibitive um and so that that that really is the reason um and just to give the families on this call an idea of what that looked like in a 2021 school year we had we had a remote learning teacher at every grade level in every school and so kenny garden first second third fourth and fifth there was um an in-person teacher at

029every grade level and then there was a remote learning teacher available a distance learning teacher available in every grade level um we and so with all of our students back in school and um giving that the requests at varying levels this has become very costly for the district and i think that's why you're going to see many districts across the state of connecticut have decided not to provide this option to families and instead focusing on investing in personal learning last but not least um the district will be prepared and well positioned for in-person learning in the fall 100 100 in-person learning in the event and if for some reason as an executive order or the state health department or local health department decides um transmission transmission rates in the community have escalated too high and

030it's not safe for us to be back in school uh you know in 100 400 percent on the district will be prepared uh for plan b which will be hybrid and we will be prepared for a plan c which will be full remote again uh but again our intention is to be back uh full 100 in person and we will only be exercising plan b and plan c um you know per state order or if we're directed by the local health department carol we are ready for the next slide and so at this point um i'm going to ann dr mead i'm going to go back to you because i i know i see a lot of hands raised in the community there and i want to make sure we have an opportunity to start

031answering as many questions as possible and and i'm and i'm wondering if uh perhaps we should go in the order in which we presented and perhaps take questions on masking first and maybe go in that order um and ask um our families and parents if we can kind of go in that order and start with questions on masking social distance and then any anything other questions they might have and if that doesn't work i'm just happy to just take the questions that's fine too okay so we thank you mr wilson so we have um eight questions to start off with molina go ahead if you'd like to answer your question on mute yourself yes hi thank you um good evening i i heard what kevin watson said but i really want to understand how are

032we expecting that our kids under 12 are gonna go to school each day wearing masks when i have a seven years old who even though i tell her every day many times a day to wear her mats to watch her hands she still doesn't do that often and we know the little kids are not going to do it how a teacher is going to tell 20 kids 25 kids inside the classroom to do that i i can do it myself we took it and in my case all my family members we are all high-res so my best option is to still have the distance learning i know that there is some uh budgeting issues but i was thinking about having all the second graders from all the public schools in danbury with one teacher not

033per school one teacher just one teacher for all of them same with first graders same with third graders i don't know if that is an i i'm not sure if that is an option but i'm very concerned and i opt for eastern learning thank you much go ahead mr walter hi hi hi miss molina um i i understand your concern and certainly appreciate them i i think many families in our community um have similar concerns um let and and please what i'm about to say please understand um i'm not trying to minimize what you said i i will share with you um a lot of our teachers a lot of our principals um express that they had great success last year i understand it was only half right half a class during hybrid uh but

034we we we had minimal issues with with masking last year um our students were very understanding of you know what was expected of them um and and and and i i don't think i had more than one or two cases that reach my office uh where it was necessary to call a family in because their child refused to wear the mask i i do understand however i mean i was in a meeting today in hartford um you know and i was in an air-conditioned room um and and and and i was a little out of breath and needed to catch my breath and go to the restroom because i needed a break from the mask and so i i understand that part right um because it's a little different you know walking in and and

035having to sit for two hours um during the day or you know from class to class and so our teachers certainly um and our principals we'll be working with teachers to make sure that mass breaks are provided for our kids cdc guidelines have been relaxed a little bit in terms of when we go outside whether it's for pe or for recess students are no longer required to wear their mask as prior um but but just to to your point about providing online teachers um per grade level district-wide um it's opening up i would understand that if we only had 20 students district-wide in grade one that is not likely to just have 20 students a grade one and 20 students in grade two which is a typical class size 20 to 22 students um and

036once we open that door it just becomes a different a different proposition that it's going it's going to be cost prohibitive for the district um i i certainly understand however where you're coming from and i certainly respect your concern so i just wanted to share thank you we'll move on to mr chin please yes um good evening can you hear me yes that's chad yeah thank you good evening and thank you for the opportunity um my i mine is not a question instead of kind of a comment i would say i would like to um uh to um i'm on favor of all the decisions that you guys have made and and i will congratulate for the decisions i think we are at war uh with this virus and i think when we are awarded

037with this virus uh we don't have too many options only to vaccine and mask and start distancing so i would i encourage for uh to all of you guys to keep doing what you guys doing and my son is also going to high school and he'll be wearing a mask and we all wear a masks so thank you for everything you guys doing thank you thank you mr chen thank you and our next person up is um perez please last name hello yes miss perez how are you guys hi miss caress hi i have a question i want to know um like if these kids are going to be in school like like during the five days in school or are you guys going to do like mondays and tuesdays and then sometimes wednesday and

038how are we going to know like if people in the school or the kids because i know i work where i work at people say they got the vaccine so they don't wear the mask in reality they don't got the vaccine and they come into school i mean they're coming to work without the mask but they get you know the kids some parents say that they got the vaccine and the kids come to school and they come to school school sick and then we don't know you know like that's my concern because i do work and i can't be calling out when these kids are sick so and then you know the attendance with the attendance and me so it's i want to make sure everything you know i want to be on tag with

039this i i understand uh miss perez and we we filtered a lot of these questions last year as well so i understand where you're coming from um so it is our priority um to get all of our students um back in school five days a week one hundred percent um on on on august 30th okay and so all the mitigation strategies between you know additional teachers we have um brought in new furniture that we bought to to separate kids in classrooms it's not perfect but it's certainly improved um the idea is 100 full in-person learning five days a week um and you know masking and other mitigation strategies that's where we are right now currently uh with our plan yeah i've been able to have them in school those five days because this last year

040these kids really didn't get to learn anything with like my me specifically my kids was really my mom doesn't speak english so i'm at work 24 7 so it was hard for me to be on track with them and then me at work so it was kind of really hard that's what i wanted to know that the numbers are going up it keeps going up and down keeps dropping coming up so i just want to make sure right yeah thank you for that last point um i i think a lot of families uh classes um certainly it's nothing like what you know historically they've they've received in school um and we we are looking forward to this is one of the reasons why we're prioritizing a hundred percent five days a week in person learning

041um so we can get back and begin to you know address some of those gaps that our kids experienced last year so we we understand you fully and i think what you just shared um i think many of the families on the school echo they'll share those same issues all right thank you so much thank you thank you mr alrighty thank you i uh tara i do see that your hand is raised i can't find your name in the message to let you know but we're going to move to chianti or chai tea and for those of you that have had a chance to speak go ahead and just click on your hand to put it back down thank you hi can you hear me hi so i i would like to mention not only

042i have a seven years old i also have it will be who will start uh kindergarten this year and uh i can assure you 100 percent he i don't think he will not be able to keep his mouth on all day and it's not only for like two three hours it's like six seven hours ago number two is if you provide i understand about it so please if you can't uh you know come up with that would be great so ms chaiti if if you can can you please um in in the chat um send send a message to ann because you're you're your response just type your questions in the chat i did hear um at the end you had expressed your concerns about um you know an additional option being provided for families

043and i think i also heard um that you were not necessarily terribly comfortable with uh sending your child back to school um just kind you know in for in-person learning um yeah okay and i i did hear that part and so i i certainly can appreciate that and i think we've had a percentage of families who've expressed um you know a similar uh um and i and and i i certainly understand and respect that um i i can i i can also share with you you know we're happy to begin to get some feedback from families and get an idea of who these families are to see if we can provide some additional support for you and so um you know maybe we can send something out to our family just to understand who they

044are um and kind of walk through and hear what the options are but right now the district is not prepared or budgeted to support a remote learning option um but but but i don't want it i don't want the questions and concerns to go unanswered or at least responded to so if if you can just email dr mead and i um or at the very least include in our survey you know an opportunity to get back to you because the survey is not going to necessarily identify you and so we can make sure we get back to you with some support so uh you have mentioned about emailing you and our doctor whom you said can i get the email id so that i can sure yes sure sure we will email you now we'll

045we'll send a message to you in the chat now yes great so our next okay person is melissa rodriguez hi can you hear me yes yes okay great hi um first my first question was um what percentage of the teachers or have you been i mean are you keeping track of how who's been vaccinated and who hasn't or was there a mandate for vaccinating teachers we're getting vaccinations thanks miss rodriguez so i also had a second question sorry no problem no go ahead please you can ask them both okay well this one was kind of a thought my kids are both in like uh middle school high school and they're vaccinated and stuff but maybe for everyone that's got the k through five i was thinking maybe if they're really adamant like they don't want

046to send the kids to school with the masks and everything has the board ever thought about having like a centralized uh primary school just for kids not with masks or you know something like that where the parents are uncomfortable with that so that they will get the kids in school full day full week and just you know have the teachers there that are comfortable with that situation too i don't know it's just a thought yeah um so i'll i'll answer the first question for i mean the last question first and uh and and just say that that that scenario um we we have not considered um although i i do understand that there is a you know position out there that um you know that students should have the flexibility to decide whether or not

047they want to mask or not um and so yeah i certainly acknowledge um that that that is out there but that is not something we are considering at this time um really just logistically just trying to figure that out and quite frankly it could require you know having another building to actually pull that off um and and then the second the the first question that you asked about um staff staff is not required uh to be vaccinated um but certainly encouraged and um you know we we we don't um you know unless unless there is a challenge or issue around a positive case in the classroom um that's when certainly we would be asking um staff um if they have been vaccinated because then you know quarantining rules would be in play uh but otherwise

048um we're not legally um allowed to ask if they've been um yeah i wasn't sure how that was going in our state yeah right and also can i ask for more questions i'm sorry legally legally we're not legally required for them at least not you know that's that's we can't do that that's correct okay and what about students like them reporting it to the nurse at all is that something that has to be done or no not yet vaccines right and so in in the event um there's a positive case and we need to contact trace uh certainly it's a question that will be asked um because it would help with the quantitative efforts um but but we don't you know we don't ask those questions um to have kind of a bank of who

049would who is and who is not uh because similar to the teachers but we're just not allowed to come right out and ask that question and like keep it all right thank you thank you mrs rodriguez great all wonderful questions we're recording tonight's session and we're running it live and we will add these questions and answers to our faq so i would like to next call on um m silva melissa silva please and what i've done is i'm taking these in order that the hands are raised melissa silva please hi this is melissa how are you hi okay so um i mean part of my question you had kind of already answered but i kind of have a little bit different level of concern of some of the comments that i've been hearing my son

050is in the high school he he and my entire family when they put the vaccinations out went did our part got the vaccinations from what i'm kind of seeing is the trend that's going and again i know you said that the decision hasn't been made yet for the schools but it kind of sounds like we're going in the direction everybody's going to be mass regardless of vaccination status so here's my point my child the times that he had to have a mask on struggled okay so i did my part got his vaccine so the fact that now i understand people are saying oh kids did okay with the math or whatever a they weren't in school full day and they weren't in school five days a week first of all when they all did so

051great with the masks everybody's referring to last year and so now that that's happening the fact that we're kind of being given no other option of what can be done other than oh yeah send your kid to school and he's got to wear that mask all day long and i understand a lot of people want to throw out that oh well homeschooling is available you guys can pull them out of the public school and go there i am not afraid to send my child to a building that's why we got the vaccines i'm not afraid to have him around people i make him suffer now if i pull him out of the public school program to where now he cannot participate in school sports and all that if i put them into a homeschool program

052i'm a little frustrated that there is zero option being offered to the population like me as far as like remote and all that i understand you're saying budgeting and all that i mean and not to be disrespectful the schools were given a pretty huge budget when all this thing came out to kind of help mandate this the high school you know from the little amounts that you're telling me has been done not much budget went there some 10 and 15 extra people isn't a huge budget and so the fact that there's not another option being offered at the level you know the high school middle schoolers where you know they are eligible to be vaccinated to not have to sit with that mask all day is is frustrating and then bottom line like if he

053really continues to struggle with the mask what happens then if i bring him to a doctor and they say that he's like developing some kind of like breathing issues from it i know there's a ton of kids with asthma are there exceptions for things like that i'm just you know again there's a lot of up in the air unanswered things on the table here right right um so miss silva and i'm going to try to unpack a couple of things that you mentioned um the at the high school we we've made significant investments um at the high school and and those investments are actually to support in-person learning um you know we we have um 15 teachers that we hired specifically to go to an eight period day uh plus additional you know staff whether

054it's in specials art music and then some of our support staff as well um and so you know between furniture um and actually staffing you know it's it's it's over two million dollar investment just at the high school just for that purpose um and we would and and so you know just the staffing and the biggest number in that investment is staffing um you know it's and that's assuming that those are new teachers right and so we budgeted i mean due respect that doesn't address what happens in those hallways in between those eight periods either so that's just another factor for the people that you know have the issue of the distancing i don't know if you've ever been to danbury high i know you're new to our district but there's zero in those hallways

055but again that's happening i totally like that i totally agree i totally agree and we're and we're concerned we're concerned about about all of those things you're absolutely right um no i yeah i've been in a school and i i'm familiar with the with the overcrowding and and just overall volume of numbers at the high school um i i totally understand um i'm sorry and and just in terms of available options um it's it it was a hard decision that we had to make um because we we felt like we almost needed to choose it was either invest more for in-person learning or continue to provide um an in-person learning option um and um a remote learning option and but we could not afford both um and given at the time in the in the

056spring leading up to the summer um you know the we knew that the district i'm sorry that the state was going in a direction number one they had already announced that uh remote options would not be uh required um but two we were also under the impression they had said in the spring that in-person learning would be the focus uh for school districts and so given that given that charge we invested heavily in person learning and and by no means is going to be perfect i mean you're absolutely right um and and i still understand that they're going to be families you're not the first person just on this call alone who's not necessarily 100 comfortable with coming in school and or coming in school with the mask on and so i i understand that

057as well thank you for your questions and we'll move to mrs alexandra good evening thank you um i i'm just responding to like some of my questions have been already responded to so it boils down to this for me i'm trying to understand how i'm supposed to plan for my child's education now that i'm being told that the option that was actually working for my family because we do have someone in our home who is high risk is no longer available three weeks before school um you were it's in the out surveys i was responding to all the surveys last year i didn't receive a survey about this i didn't receive a survey asking me about whether or not i plan on getting my vaccination or our home was high risk or anything like that

058i didn't receive a survey about anything and while i get that the decision had been made had to be made the decision was made months ago why wasn't any of this sent to families before now so that we can make appropriate plans because now i have to scramble to either homeschool my child because i'm not comfortable with the things that you're telling me you're telling me that you're going to allow asymptomatic teachers who are vaccinated to come into school with my unvaccinated child who can't get the vaccine i'm not comfortable with that at all so why wasn't this actually sent out prior to two weeks before school i'm i'm sorry back to me i i just want to make sure i'm responding i don't know if i'm frozen but the i just want to make

059sure i'm responding to the right parent um so it's a mrs alexandra and she okay thank you i didn't hear her i just didn't want to make sure so mrs alexander i'm i and and you're not the only one on this call person on this call so i i appreciate number one your feedback your concern um i do recognize acknowledge there are other families on this call also who um have pre-existing condition you know children with those conditions and and and have whether it's at home or or your children themselves um so so i i just wanted to say we we did announce last year um that we uh planned to go back for in-person learning in the fall um and and we made investments um to that effort um you know we made those

060announcements last last school year um you know prior to i'm sorry excuse me i know you made those announcements but you were making announcements all last year and responding to the cdc responding to multiple things and now we are seeing a surge for the school districts around the country who have gone back to school before us and while i would love to send my daughter who happens to be an only child in person just for the socialization i'm frustrated that i wasn't able to plan appropriately for this scenario where i do have a situation in my home that just isn't conducive to your plans i just need i need it more from notification and this is where i'm finding out that you all are not going to offer any remote learning options and that was

061something that was working for my family because when all else fails i can keep my family safe by following these protocols um for my family and then keeping my daughter home from school but now i don't have that option unless i take her out completely of the public school system okay so miss alexander i i will make sure and um and and make sure in our communications moving forward that we continue to read reiterate that um we we did before the year was out um state that that it would not be an option that it would be full 100 in-person learning um but we may not have you know i i'm not sure how we communicated it i really don't remember at this time but i do know that we announced it um but i'm

062not sure how we pushed out in the letter um so i'm i'm sorry i can't answer what we actually did in the in the um at the end of the school year um but but i do understand your position and i'm i'm certainly sorry about your case and if there's any support that we can provide you um and your daughter um we we would be happy to do so thank you we'll go to rachel next please rachel can you on you and speak please hello yes can you hear me yeah okay my question is my daughter will be starting kindergarten um this fall but this is her first time pretty much starting school i do understand all the recommendations you guys are saying regarding the mask and everything which i agree with 100 because i

063prefer my daughter being safe and you know then getting sick but will there be um turns in classrooms where they're able to take a breather from the mask if they're able to do that and um my other question also is um for as far as transportation for buses and so on i have yet to hear back from her school um regarding bus transportations and so on so i'm just trying to figure out when will these information be communicated to parents that have no idea you know if your kid is just entering the school for the first time we know what bus will she be taking or number or any type of information when will that information go out to parents so that way we can well prepare our children for their for the upcoming school

064year hello yes i i'm sorry i can't i can no longer see who's talking but i i just want to say our families i'm sorry our principals actually just returned um by contract last friday and so they will begin to get began those communications out to families um next week and those communications will include kind of welcome back packets introductions um and and then of course those bus routes once they're finalized they they hold off and releasing it too soon because um our registration numbers are not kind of fully vexed yet because we our registration is still growing and so we have a lot of classrooms and grade levels that are uns undersubscribed right now um and so the principals kind of wait a little bit longer um as those classroom list gets filled out

065and then they start pushing out communication so they just started on friday they'll make it through this week and then we'll start communicating with families next week and then you'll start getting those lists once those class lists are solidified do you know how those lists are being um when you are forming the children's classrooms do you know how they're being formed into classrooms or is it just a random order um so so the principles like carefully balanced classrooms um they consider gender they consider needs they consider um race you know they try to consider all of those things to try to balance the classrooms to the best of their ability um so it it you know it's they consider all of those things and then you know they work with us so if they're if

066they're students who are already in the school um you know they have a better idea who the kids are to help um make class lists if there are new students to the building and they you know they don't have um a history other than what's on paper they use what's on paper to help guide those class lists but that was my issue because i communicated with the school regarding that because my daughter was home school since last year due to the pandemic and um i know normally entering kindergarten they have some type of orientation where they get to meet the school the teacher and that sort of thing but when i asked when i reached out and asked that they told me they were they didn't understand or know what to do and that it

067was up to the board of education right so will there be some type of orientation for upcoming students entering the school or will there just be surprise on a school bus for the first year of school and just not knowing you know what to do or where to go from there right so so the question is i i don't understand the board of education response if that's what they said to you yes if you have a school that your child is registered in um i encourage you to reach out directly to the principal and the principal will be able to help you um okay so exactly we typically have orientation for our kindergarten families i mean then and then principals are certainly very understanding that um you might be new to the building um some

068principals are able to try to have some type of orientation for families that are brand new even if it's not kindergarten and if they don't have that arrangement they're still able to help answer any questions that you might have so please reach out to the principal um they're all great they'll be more than happy to help you all right thank you thank you and i'll move on to mrs roy please uh hi this is mr roy so [Music] in school learning as the only option so is that irrespective of you know what happens in future like what you're seeing in texas or florida like everything is going everywhere and then also the school is not willing to uh you know look at that as an option just because school has spent too much money upon

069it and another thing my question was we are seeing like as per the guideline that the school is giving that you know the windows will be open in the school or in the bus how how will we manage that on december or january how can we keep the windows open in january or december specifically when it is snowing outside so those are my question i mean at that time what we are doing about the windows are we still keeping it open no heater on i mean then if my kid gets sick just because of another cold or flu then it will be impossible for the rest of the school to understand whether she got corona or whether it is a normal flu because then we don't have any heater on the school right if we

070if you keep windows on so those are my questions why we can't have any other options with us i mean or what is the tipping point when you will you know decide further about it right so i so mr roy i'll start with your last question first um and you know we and i i think one of the other parents had alluded to the fact that you know we see we received a lot of federal monies um and and you're absolutely right um and the the federal monies were excuse me the federal monies were were were shared with districts who were eligible for those federal monies to prioritize earth and learning uh and so you know when when we budgeted uh particularly for our latest uh grant the s3 grant um the american relief uh

071fund act uh monies uh we invested heavily um in our efforts to support to get kids back and in person and mr roy you're right like if you know in the winter time yes it's going to be cold and i i can tell you now you know we're on the phone with some of our principals in some schools the heat is working great in some schools the rooms are really too hot in some schools the heat is not working well enough um and so it can vary from room to room you know but i would like to think for the majority of our classrooms the heat is working at a normal rate and where we are at least able to crack windows um to provide you know additional ventilation in the rooms because we are

072getting heat in in our respective classrooms not all please don't get me wrong not all is the heat perfect but the majority of the rooms it is normalized and it gives us the ability uh to crack your windows and open awareness to provide a little additional ventilation certainly not ideal um and and i i understand your point and certainly you're not the first parent tonight to raise it um but it's we we understand uh why families you know maybe be concerned about not not having a remote option um but again we the district decided to invest heavily to try to get in person get all of our students back in person and try to on social distance to the greatest extent possible dan yes and our next person minnie please you have to unmute okay

073yeah we can hear you thank you yes okay um congratulations kevin on the interim possession thank you vinny okay so i'm doing good so um first um thanks for the mask mandate absolutely needed and thanks for the full blown on um site in fact in person uh school um it's very important our kids do better in the buildings it's good for the social emotional health also they've stayed home enough having said that the question i do have will be um well one of the questions i do have i'm surprised the staff they're not mandated to be vaccinated um so we have the question in our industry also um the question uh the second question will be uh being realistic um you know um the kids are not going to be three feet apart um you

074know through the day the normal functioning of the day so um i did hear about the desk um shields in the cafeteria are you planning to have the desk shields in the classroom as well that's my first question the second question will be um the um if a student i'm talking about students um is vaccinated and if well if there is an individual that tested positive in his classroom are the students who are vaccinated are required to quarantine because according to cdc guidelines if you're vaccinated and you are not you're asymptomatic you don't have to quarantine so to put our you know we are caregivers for our kids we need to have a plan in place you know if life happens we have to make that happen for us so what are the protocols you

075do you have any policy in place and if you do have it when you plan to share it with parents yeah many think thank you and and i'll i'll start with the uh the quarantining rules uh so for for our students if there is a positive case um in one of our classrooms and if it's a grade level uh where students are eligible uh to to be vaccinated um we we will and and if a student is vaccinated um you know to your point with the cdc guidelines we will be making a recommendation i'm i'm confident we'll be making a recommendation to the board uh to adopt an approach in which students who are vaccinated um will not have to quarantine um and and you know and then the students who do um you know

076unless that student is as long as they continue to be asymptomatic and not have the quarantine based on those rules and then the ones who are not uh vaccinated uh would so you know currently um those are the guidelines um that will help districts you know inform their own respective plans um and so certainly this is something our reopening committee will be looking at um and and more than likely looking to adopt given given you know the federal good fit the federal guidance in this in this instance um your question about death shields is a good one we are we had death shields in the district last year we had them pretty much one to one for a student in the district last year we will not have a one-to-one shield available this year but

077we will have many desk shields available for students when they come back and so we've prioritized starting in our cafeterias making sure um that barrier is available in the cafeteria given that students while they're eating will not have the mask on and then mask will we have another wave of shields coming in apparently there's been an issue with some of the products that make the shield and the shortage you know across across the country um but we've we've ordered an additional five six thousand uh that are coming in um in the next couple of weeks and then we have another wave coming in in early september so we will be close again to um very close to one to one um again the the investment is being made for in-person learning um and this is

078a mitigation strategy that's not as high on the list of some of the other mitigation strategies but we also understand it makes folks feel more comfortable when the barrier is there um so we've you know we have an order now with over 5000 which costs over a hundred thousand dollars for the for the barriers um and so you know it's one of those things that comes at an additional cost um and you know we're going to do everything we can to make um our kids and our our teachers and families feel comfortable so we certainly have made that investment yeah it's it's it's um what is needed to keep the place the kids safe it's something the funding need to be used for absolutely absolutely thank you thank you thank you thank you tara are

079you still here i don't see you still here no okay yeah we'll move on to chris chrissy m a r reptini hi chrissy there we go hey how are ya roofie yep hi uh so first of all congratulations kevin thank you chris i thought your first and last name was chrissy that's do that like madonna that's all right um i just wanted to take a second and tell you how how thankful i am for you to take on this role right now for us um it's not an easy position no matter how you feel on this matter um there really is no winning and you know people are going to feel strongly um so it's a delicate balance and i really appreciate the job that you're trying to do for us right now um so

080i have two questions um and if you want me to ask one and get back online i'm happy to do that um so my first question is for the high school um so it seems like you know with adding the block and now i may just be misunderstanding this but it seems like with adding the block um you know students have registered for like seven classes and now they sort of have eight um so it seems like a majority of students have kind of extra unstructured time in their day um you know every other day so i just wondered if there's like a plan for how this will be utilized um you know just me personally i kind of have a lot of concerns around having so much unstructured time for a variety of reasons

081whether it's you know social distancing you know behavioral issues you know alcohol or vaping issues i mean i could just see so many things going wrong with students having a two hour gap at any you know every other day or anything like that so i just wondered is there a strategy around how we're gonna handle that sure um so chrissy number one thank you for the kind words um and then two and of course you back that up with a really tough tough question so thank you for that too um so so one i i want to thank you for bringing up the point about the block schedule um because yes it it it did provide an additional period by going to an a period day um many of our families probably not aware and

082i know one of our parents had brought up you know the fact you know that we have you know the passing in the hallway and a lot of kids in the hallways uh you know one of the reasons why the principal one of the many reasons why the principal requested additional staffing for this effort um is to end and it was a great recommendation you know and it took we had to think long and hard to figure out how we can support it and we finally landed on a decision to support it because we thought it was the right thing to do but the black scheduling allows us number one to limit movement in our hallways um and so and so i i just want to share that with the families uh by going by

083this you know kind of block scheduling where you know and i just want to share with you know most folks on this call you know we were probably in school growing up in a seven eight period school day um and you know every 45 40 and 45 minutes the bell was ringing and we've been going to the next class whereas in this block schedule um you know students going to be in the classroom you know 80 to 90 minutes per period and that's going to reduce the movement significantly and so that was very important for the principal i thought it was you know very smart of him to make that recommendation and you know it again it took a lot of investment in time but um the district um knew it was it was the

084best way to approach this um chrissy you're also right in that um you know that unstructured time that you're talking about um the the high school has recommended i want to make sure i got this right i may need some help from kara uh but one we will continue to offer flex as part of that schedule um also we have another period that will be extended a little bit so let's just say and i don't remember what period it is but let's just say third period in a day um will be extended by you know additional minutes and to act almost as a home room um because it's going to you know so that we don't so it can cut down on requiring an additional study hall if you will but it also cuts down

085on additional movement in the hallway as well so that's something that you know required a lot of collaboration from all sides to make that happen so the flex period will continue to be offered one of those periods actually extended it also helps with the lunch waves going in dan would dan's not here right now but he he'd be able to explain a little bit more detail but i do know those two things exist and it's going to help take up some of that time but to your point so our you know our kids are we'll need 25 credits to graduate from high school um and so but we still need to spread the day out so we can't say hey kids take more classes to fill up your schedule because if we do that we

086don't realize our goal of spreading out the classes um and so you know it so that means in a typical kid's schedule that could mean flex that could mean this this class with an extended period and that could also mean um a study hall in your schedule that you may not have requested right and i and i certainly also understand that um and trying to find and listen i've number one i was a teenager once upon a time but i was also a high school teacher um and you know study halls are can can be productive for kids where they can get their homework done and ask questions and you know depending in the class that they're in if you know when i had when i was in a math class in study hall you

087know i bugged my math teacher to the end so i get my math homework done and got any help help that i needed but it's not productive for everyone because our teenagers are teenagers but for a lot of them it is an opportunity to be really productive um cara do you do any other gaps that i may not be filling in here with with that time because no you you did you did great [Laughter] that was great no but yeah definitely more study halls than than had and then in the past that that we've liked but um certainly while they're unstructured of course they're supervised um and kids or kids are safe and so um you know the extra period allows for spreading more students out over more periods which also helped with the part

088of the reopening so it was a very necessary step and a very smart one and yet it is going to create some wonky scheduling um looks that we haven't had in a bit but i know that they're also working through how to maximize some of that time still so they're they're working through some of those pieces and making some adjustments to schedules where um you know could be a little bit more advantageous to students if they have the time so um i know that they're working through that and um you know again it was a it was a good decision to to have although um with some minor inconveniences in order to open schools no doubt about it thanks cara chrissy thank you for that and so yeah so it's basically i guess i'm i'm

089just not i don't have that much experience and other than last year which wasn't a normal year so it's going to be like they'll be like a study hall teacher somebody that they're checking in with and i apologize i realize this question's probably better for mr donovan um but just no but i'm sure there are other families on the call who are who are who who are who are benefiting from your questions so it's okay yeah and the guidance counselors can also help to answer address specific questions and without seeing a child's um a student's specific schedule because they're all different um it's kind of hard to to answer but guidance counselor mr donovan would be most appropriate okay um and then my other question real quick was just what if anything is is there

090a current uh visitor policy in the district um you know again always looking from the pto standpoint in terms of volunteers being able to help i mean i know last year everything was kind of just kind of closed door um what are we looking at this year yeah i can i can answer that chrissy um so um at the moment under our existing policy um we really limited the number of people coming to the school um the reopening committee will definitely be revisiting um um i think in our policy right now it's um essential personnel and so i i think at this point essential personnel can be revisited and perhaps could be expanded to include uh volunteers or more volunteers uh you know we may ask of requirements of those volunteers if they're coming into

091the building certain requirements um but but certainly it's a question that will be on the table for our reopening committee um because chrissy i i think um we may have some opportunity to bring some support in our buildings and i think as long as we're careful and intentional about it i think we'll it may open some doors but it is something a question that would be on the table for for the team to review okay all right thank you um and then just one other just as a comment and again i'm sure i know you got some big brains in the in the room and you guys have explored lots of options um but i i clearly there's parents that are still looking for a distance option um and i gather most districts have opted

092out of that just for funding purposes and i just wondered if there was any kind of possibility that there could be any kind of like collaboration between districts where kind of districts pool together and sort of offer you know like a communal virtual option because at that point it doesn't matter if your teacher's in brookfield or you know new town or wherever your teacher is but so i i i with the million questions that i come across in the chat i actually recall seeing that question you raised um in the chat chrissy earlier ed advance is our local rest that supports this region i think initially ed advance was looking to coordinate that type of experience and option for families in danbury bethel um and you know the schools that are around us um and

093and then they later opted out um and so i you know i i don't want to i don't know why i would imagine for some of the same reasons why we have opted out but you know typically rests provide you know those kind of regional like services to school districts again you know initially they had came in thinking they would be able to provide that kind of support exactly how you just described and facilitate that kind of support and then later they decided not to provide the option i do not know all the details behind that decision though but that that doesn't mean it's not something we can revisit and see if that's something something that could be explored but right now i know ed advance is not leading that leading effort okay thank you

094very much i appreciate that thank you and i'd like to go to jennifer burkhart please jennifer go ahead thanks can you hear me okay yes great well thank you for you know having this uh zoom meeting tonight for everyone i know as you can see there's a lot of parents that are feeling a lot of different emotions on every spectrum and you know certainly i'm one of them as well but i just had basically my questions i think we're actually kind of asked and i know you've been fielding so many questions and trying to answer every one of them and you're certainly it's just i'm sure a bit overwhelming to some degree well my team is feeding me answers throughout the meeting just so you know that's good i mean supports that is very important

095very important but um one of the questions i specifically had was and i know one of the parents that just asked about it was the shields you mentioned specifically that you know you've got this big order coming in or tube orders coming in um one of the things my children actually struggled with last year when they were in school was looking through the shield and then looking at computer screen and it was very wobbly you know because it's more of a plastic obviously than it is a glass so um and i understand the cafeterias but in the classrooms is it a bit more optional for the students if they're wearing masks you mentioned it of course right now it isn't even going to be a one-to-one ratio but will they have a bit more of

096an option to not use the shield because they you know my my kids talked about eye strain and things like that so i certainly understand then the need for it it's just you know it just adds another layer of uh frustration for them in the classroom right um thank you for those clarifying questions so so one um yes the shield did not required um in in the classrooms and i was smiling when you talked about you know kind of the barriers on the side and for the families that are not aware um we we purchase death shields that are um like a cardboard like material um a little more durable than cardboard and then in the middle there's kind of a plastic see-through shield in the middle um and so if you're looking from left

097to right you don't have as much visibility as we'd like and so we're actually looking at some options that's clear all the way around um the company that we spoke to the the shield another is high we had to have them custom ordered they have the really high ones so any shields that are see-through all the way around will probably only be offered for our element probably k through three or k through four elementary students um and then our other students will continue to get the shield with the barriers on the side with the window in the middle going back to your question about the computer i i just wanted to mention um you know we we will continue to ask um our teachers to post their grades um in google classroom um but i'm

098i'm you know you said something that reminded me because i know a lot of our families were also asking and and you know just kind of expressing their i'm just going to say frustration for lack of a better word hey my kid is in school and you know they're they're dually working in this remote option just i just want to re to assure families when we come back in person yes we still want a reason for our kids to use laptops and computers and interface and and communicate with their classmates um and their teachers um you know it with their laptops and computers we don't want that to be lost um but but we have every intentions also getting back to normal in their classrooms as well um and so you know i i don't

099i don't want our families to think that you know we're going to have our students you know staring at a computer screen all day so i just want to be clear with that we're trying to get back to normal um you know to the greatest extent possible obviously everything's not going to be back to normal but it's certainly going to be a lot more normalized than it has been over the last 18 months uh jennifer i hope i asked answer your questions i don't know fully but no that you did thank you i did actually have one other really um quick question in regards to the masks and again i i you know i understand the need for the wearing the masks um but last year one of the things that it had been indicated

100was the kids were going to have mask breaks and unfortunately my kids came home a lot indicating they weren't getting the mass breaks for a varying number of reasons and i get it but are these teachers going to be trying to work those mass breaks in because i know that again for me that's it's really important those kids needs a break you know my i do have breathing issues with some family members and so those masks make it more difficult to breathe just it's a fact so are they you know that was my other concern was it or is that gonna yeah we we totally understand um and so um just starting at the k5 levels it's required for our kids to have recess so that certainly will continue needless to say there will be

101a mass break opportunity during um lunch um in in our our principles we asked them last year and we will reiterate this year um the you know expectation is is that we'll be asking um teachers k through five to also provide a mass break in between you know whether recess or cafeteria time you know make sure there's also an opportunity for a mass break as well um you know with the fact that and don't get me wrong because we don't have pe every single day but pe um you know we'll be going outside as much as possible particularly as as as the weather continues to cooperate um and while we're outside you know we will not um you know as per the guidelines we will not have to wear a mask outside the way the

102guidelines are currently constructed so um you know between those um kind of built-in breaks whether you're eating or at recess or at pe outside we will obviously we will also encourage the principals to make sure that they revisit those same mass break schedules that they had last year and prioritize those things this year uh so so thank you jennifer because we'll make sure we'll remind the principals about that not that they forgot but we'll remind them well there's a lot but thank you very much and thank you again for having giving this forum to all these parents to all of us thank you for that question and i do realize we have a lot of hands raised i do see some people have come back around for a second round and so i will be

103going through the to the folks who haven't had a chance to speak yet and then we'll return if we have time at the end um for those that um would like to speak a second time and i'm also going to remind you to please uh be respectful in that chat and use the survey that we have placed the link to in the chat to give us more feedback so please take advantage of that as that will be an integral part of um presentation to the reopening committee and so at this point i'd like to go to lonnie toomey please hi how are you good good um so i've heard that um i guess the state uh wants to start weekly testing for children in elementary schools um what uh are the thoughts of the denver

104explorer regarding that like weekly weekly covet testings for elementary school children i'm sorry miss tommy was that you yes okay my for some reason i have it on speaker view and it's not consistently showing um well number one good good to see you here um and um and so the and i just want to say to you when all of the families the cdc is strongly recommending um that districts consider uh pool testing is that what you're referring to um the the classroom pool testing uh i don't know if it's the classroom pool testing um i just saw that they i saw an article saying that um they were going to some some areas in connecticut have started or will start doing weekly testing um kova testing for kids so i was curious as to

105know what danbury's stance is on that and if parents will be given the option to opt out of it if they don't want their child tested on the business yeah absolutely so we we have not um we are currently not participating in a screening um however um the state health department is strongly strongly recommending that districts participate um in a screen pool testing uh and so this is a question that would be available for uh the reopening committee to consider um and and also share with the board uh for cons you know superintendent and the board um to consider uh my understanding of the pool testing is so let's just as an example um 22 of us on this call are all in the same class as part of the pool testing they they swab

106all of the students they only swap the students if the parents agree to participate in the pool testing all of the results of the test go to a lab and then if there is a positive test in the pool um and then they recommend that everyone in that classroom and that cohort gets tested and so um if if it's a grade level obviously where students are not eligible for a vaccine um then everyone would be tested and the quarantine rules would be in play and then if if it is a grade level where students are eligible for for a vaccine only if the students are asymptomatic um the quarantine rules would not apply to them but they would apply to students who are not vaccinated and so the the district on the committee has not

107made a decision on that yet um you know currently it's just a recommendation to districts um it is not a decision we've even considered yet but it is a recommendation to districts um and as you know one of the key takeaways or strategies from the cdc it's one of one of the higher recommended strategies for districts to consider um so so given the recommendation of something we consider but we by no means have we made a decision on it but if if we make the recommendation the recommendation will include an opt-in or opt-out for parents certainly okay that was my question yes thank you you're welcome thank you and our next person will be uh deepti please hi how are you doing can you hear me good yes i can hear you yeah so um

108i actually had a few questions um you know hearing everybody on this call all the parents and everything um you know i i got a lot of information uh from them actually as well as you um regarding the budget the the the funding that was given to the school and everything and um i guess my first question is when was this decision made for not giving the option of uh remote learning i i guess that's the biggest question and then i'll get into my other questions um sure so uh prior to the end of this school year um i believe it was one of our may may or june meetings um we had made made the decision as number one as part of our budgeting process to invest heavily into in-person learning um certainly as

109as you might imagine there were questions about the remote learning as a potential option um and we had shared at that time that we would um and that that we really needed to choose one or the other um those are my words right now those are not the words we used exactly during that time but the federal monies that were made available were really made with the intention um to give back to in-person learning 100 and and and that the the remote option was really cost prohibitive districts and mr dt i don't know if you were on earlier but part of the example i was trying to provide for families earlier was you know we provided remote options uh for kids last year and so in our k5 levels as just as an example uh

110we had a distance learning teacher at every school every grade level um and so you know that that that that would cost us you know a couple several million dollars uh to be able to fund that effort in addition to also funding in-person learning as well um and and so that those are some of some of the you know many reasons why we opted out um and i think you're going to find many districts across the state um um opted in the same direction as we did but i think for the same reasons yeah no that that definitely makes sense and you know the fact that majority of the bigger corporations right now and you got to look at it from a point of view where majority of these big corporations most of the employees

111are vaccinated and they're taking the proper precautions and you know they did decide that they were gonna bring all the employees back either one maybe two days um in office but they're they're extending that to possibly january now and now you know we're talking about kids who don't have any kind of vaccine showing up to school five days a week so it's just kind of a little concerning that you know the school district is not thinking the same as the major corporations are i'm sorry are you are you saying consider coming back in full later on and not in september correct yeah correct like like you know because the you know this goes back to my first question is the decision was made back in june but the delta variant started literally a month maybe

112max a month and a half ago where it it's it's the numbers are rising and you know most of the parents on this call i'm not speaking for everybody but majority of the parents on this call definitely feel that we should have the remote learning still in place because majority of the corporations already have made that decision that due to the uh the delta variant they don't want employees gathering in the office and even if they do gather they're only offering two days a week so it's just kind of concerning that the school is saying no we're going full full-time in-person remote learning or i mean in person learning five days a week and if anything happens during those five days what is your um you know what is your uh your steps do you

113shut down school what do you i mean i i just i just feel that we are rushing into this decision without properly looking at what's going on right right so i i will um do my best to try to answer that question but also you know make sure we have this recorded as well to do a good job of responding to it later um we we were i don't right now i don't know if we have a new threshold um given that students now and and families i'm sorry that students families and staff um are eligible to be vaccinated at least 12 and up um but but prior to the school closing there were um kind of varying um kind of barometers for um you know whether we can have full in-person learning hybrid in-person

114learning or remote learning um and and and currently where the numbers are if we were to use you know the the old uh threshold for full and person learning uh we would be well under that number um where where the current with the current the current um the current cases are in in danbury um you know so soon we will be receiving something from the state and the local health department to help come up with kind of a new threshold for um you know what it would what it would mean for um a trigger a for remote learning again or you know a recommendation for hybrid learning but from right now by using the old um the old kind of threshold that we had to use before we would be well under the um the

115cases in danbury um and i think we would i think i comfortably say if we were in the same situation last year if the cases were where they are last year we would we would be eligible to return in full so i think just based on where the numbers are right now we feel pretty good about where we are in terms of the decision uh but of course you know mr dt if this if this changes um you know the local health department and certainly the state health department will be making recommendations differently but but right now we we we don't have we don't have any we haven't been given any indication that that's a concern at the moment okay yeah no that's that's fine and um you know i completely respect your decisions um

116but i do would like you guys to actually look into the whole five day a week full-time that that's what's i guess um concerning a lot of parents if let's say we do two days uh in person and then three days remote learning that would actually make a lot of parents more comfortable saying that hey at least my kid only has to wear his mask two days a week and then three days he's home he's running around he's learning and i i could only speak for my kid but he definitely took on a lot more learning in in a remote learning class than he would have you know when he started kindergarten there so i i i think the remote learning worked out perfectly for my kid i don't know about everyone's kid but definitely

117it worked out a lot better for him as he was more focused on learning than getting distracted from his friends and everything thank you thank you miss dt for those um those comments um and questions thank you all right thank you so our next person is um so and yeah go ahead before i i just wanted to say because i know we're coming up um on our nine o'clock time and i i want to be respectful of the group's time and i want to take advantage of the time that we have with people because we've already lost almost 100 participants and i i just want to say number one i want to make sure we get as many people in as possible but i also wanted to share that we will share a survey with

118all of our families that we will be asking you to participate in whether it's now or you can certainly go to our website the survey will be available and before we get off this call i would like to present the survey questions just so our family can see the questions um just so they can have an idea of what we're asking asking them to respond to um but you know let's please see if we can get one or two more in and be able to just kind of close out and you know share with the families what the survey looks like and talk about the next steps great all right i'm going to go to our next two people then um and then we'll wrap it up um so this there this is the mr

119mrs lisa watt oh hi it's mister actually yeah you're welcome thank you and um thanks for the the q and a's actually i was kind of maybe in agree agreeing with the mr dicty in the way that i work in the hospital so i'm just quite coming into this forum and found out that quite a surprise we are quite rigid to be precise actually because decision was made when the delta variant was not around and then the cdc said okay we're going to uplift the mass mandate and we're all going to be okay right we were going to be like a free from covet well it was good for six weeks now with the delta variant we're now turning the corner upside down in the hospital setting we have weekly assessment in the way that

120okay here this week we will allow the patient to come in to see us fully and there will be some patients who would say well i'm not comfortable with coming in person can i do a like a distance or telemedicine and we continue to provide that because we know that this is something that i mean it's a virus it doesn't care what we are we are thinking or what are we planning to do but i think that what we also could teach the children al also is that as the educators we should be also flexible and i kind of a little bit disagreeing that distant learning is completely off the question um for this academic year so that's why i i don't know if there's a way to really at least like considering bringing back

121the remote learning or distance learning that's number one if i have to even call someone like at the capitol something like that or some sort of maybe some like emailing with the parents that's number one number two because this virus is airborne um the risk the risk timing is when the mass is off so that's a lunch time so at the cafeteria what not if that's not enough like i say open space like say like some space for kids to eat outside their windows open and they kind of i mean they're kids right they can't really keep distancing while they are eating how are you going to try to mitigate that that chance of them being socialized because this disease is ultimately caused like a transmission by socialization so those are two questions that i'm

122having tonight hello i i certainly understand um and again you're not you're certainly not the last um the first parent parent who's expressed a desire to have a remote option um and you know we'll we've certainly continued to re hear a number of those concerns tonight um you know the the the team and i certainly will review all of these requests and um you know certainly as i mentioned earlier um the investments that we have made were actually to support in-person learning um and and that's and that's how the guidance was requesting that we focus our money's monies on um and and we you know we will however we will take this feedback um and begin to review to see what else can be provided um but but as of right now that that is

123where where we landed i'm kind of given get given the funding uh that that's available for us uh but but i certainly understand the perspective and appreciate the perspective yeah and and what about the the eating time like are they gonna be like putting clothes together or we're gonna have some more space for the lunch time and they can be a little bit more eating outside how does it work for the kids or the whole whole school jammed up at lunch time right right well it depends on what level and it depends on what school you know at the minimum our students will be socially distanced at the minimum three feet apart we will have the barriers on our cafeteria tables you know serving as an additional layer of mitigation strategy if we're at the

124high school we're going to use the courtyard with tents outside to spread kids out to the greatest extent possible at our middle schools we've actually ordered desk as opposed to keeping our cafeteria tables at two two of our three middle schools the other middle school has decided to come up with a different strategy to spread kids out so we don't have everyone in there at the same time our elementary schools are also have invested in desk and so we've actually i mean again many of our families recall whether when they were in school it hasn't changed much cafeteria tables whether round octagon shape or long rectangles uh where we you know we can maximize the space instead uh we'll move toward you know student desk in the in the cafeteria so we can spread students

125out and where we don't have student desk in there um you know we've we've gone through great efforts to spread kids out and so we've had additional lunch waves so that we don't have as many kids in the cafeteria as before or again you know we have barriers in between students to try to try to serve as an additional mitigation strategy so you know all of those things are being considered and and and serving as um additional mitigation strategies to um protect to protect our students in school okay thank you and uh just just please yeah just like um just look like what they say just please be flexible as the situation all the time thank you thank you we've certainly won thank you and our last person will be christina oh sorry is can

126you hear me yes hi guys um hold on one second oh christina oh don't get me yourself i would like to know why are we masking our kids with a 99.87 virus that doesn't even affect our kids yes and if and if we look at the cdc website and follow all of the guidelines all of their information that they post on there it has nothing to do with the kids so why and the other thing is why aren't we following the constitution of our country and our state okay sure i'll be happy i'll be happy to answer um answer the questions the best i can um so so there's the cdc um guidelines and i and i understand the question because we have a lot of families who um you know have varying viewpoints on

127masking so i certainly understand and appreciate that question um we we are currently our policy states um that masking in school um is required um the cdc right now specifically for schools is recommending that students are wearing masks in school whether or not whether or not them they are they have been vaccinated on the the reopening committee uh we're reviewing and um considering all of that information before uh they make a recommendation to the board um and so you know we'll certainly be looking at those things okay i have one more one one more question actually if we look at the uh uh i forget what the app other people would ask questions too no no no i would like to ask one more question other people have questions to ask no no no no

128no we are gonna listen to myself now because i have one more question and it's a very valid question if there is an actual authorized uh medication that cures covet 19 which is rem desevere then there is no need for vaccinations so why don't you answer me that question and if you look at the law preach my brother please preach if you look at the law it states it on their website that if there is a cure then the emergency use authorization does not exist so if you look at the law i could cite it for you i just don't have it in front of me at the current moment but i could provide it for you in an email if you'd like yeah remedies will kill more people than curing people you should actually

129see the ground reality of the ram test no no no why did you cut me off the feed because you don't want me to discuss that with the whole panel no you should appreciate that let's discuss it with the whole panel why did you cut me off the feed because you don't want to hear the actual truth why don't you talk to the parents who whose children are dead because of this disease that's a fake oh you're a liar you are a liar exactly exactly you don't want to hear the truth you are fake phony losers that's okay guys congratulations folks at this time we are going to stop the discussion i'm sorry we just can't have it exactly because you can't handle the truth you can't handle the truth how did we allow this

130person to speak and they said such bad things about him you can't handle it you can't handle the truth you can't handle the truth okay 99.7 yeah keep keep cutting me off thank you mr walston thank you yeah exactly keep cutting it off keep cutting it off [Music] thank you everyone for coming to tonight's meeting learn the truth and we will go learn the truth learn the truth that you're stupid learn the truth [Music]