Danbury Board of Education Meeting 5-26-21

001here lauren daley peter joe de silva here catherine hodgson catherine are you one oh she's gonna know she's in the waiting room hold on one second um rich giannelli here kathy molinaro's absent this evening russo here amy spelino here catherine is joining right now okay thank you sorry i'm getting thrown off no no problem so we mark captain uh present okay so thank you all so very much uh dr sale we want to start with the recognitions yes i believe all the principles are here um they're doing the hockey uh hockey first dr yes hockey recognition first okay well we have some champions with us today um and we're really pleased to have them here and a parent who has been helping us throughout with these youngsters as you know it is a club and

002uh um they really do a lot of it on their own um the skating time becomes very challenging these youngsters have been together a long long time uh and we wanted to have them here to congratulate them and the parents for their participation and uh the gentleman helping us with the program so chip are you here here dr can you kind of give the board the background and recognize sure just please sure uh good evening uh the boys are the boys we're going to honor coaches we're going to recognize tonight apparently what's called the bbd it's a three-town ice hockey team that competes in the swc conference and the sec conference this year the boys uh won a championship by beating newtown slash new fairfield for one and finished the season with a 14-2 record

003and ranked number four in the state in class three in an outstanding year and we're very proud of these young men i'd like to start by uh introducing our coaches uh we have andy kurjaka coach rejected can you just say hello so people could see you hello good evening i saw you there okay we have uh coach campbell okay there's andy coach wave let everybody see you all right coach coach campbell mccampbell uh i'd like to introduce coach castellano and if coach castellanos and he has a uh plaque that we can show the board the boys won let's see um okay first time we're doing an award program on zoom folks so we'll we'll get it right uh and head coach rusty granicker is here uh coach granicker may not be here because his son

004family is his his son is having a baby or his wife is having a baby tonight so we don't know if he's here but he sends his wishes our boys these are dhs boys these are the boys that were part of the tri team alex nunez is a junior kana sternovich is a sophomore ryan turner is junior alfidi uh is a junior and louis was an all-conference player brian merrill ryan is the senior brian was the winner of the state holby bacon award which is for outstanding character of a high school hockey player aiden garvey aiden i can see you there he was our cat he was our leadership winner of the hockey team we have anthony britton grade 12. he was the uh high school sportsmanship award winner and he was a long conference

005player we have spencer abrams who's grade 12 all-state player and an all-conference player and kyle bowler it's a young man number he's a senior kyle was the connecticut state player of the year and all-state player and our high school scholar athlete uh congratulations gentlemen and coaches on an outstanding season we're very proud of you and finally we'd like to recognize a parent that has kind of been a backbone of our video and game tapes and uh sports analysis of the ice program for the last four years and this is a certificate that we like to offer uh mr barry abrams now very your certificate will be coming in the mail it's hard to do this by zoo but we'll be sending it to you but i'll read it to you presented to barry abrams uh

006he's a parent on behalf of the danbury board of education superintendent dr sal pasquale and board chairperson gladys cooper we thank you for the incredible effort put forth as the videographer for the ice hockey team for the past four years your tireless efforts to live streaming games provide commentary and serve as a link for those watching from home we're exceptional and very much appreciated barry we thank you your selfless efforts to provide the players with video clips game tapes allow them to look back and make improvements on their game in addition the time you spent editing films sending highlights putting together audiophiles for the seniors is extraordinary we thank you again mr abrams for your dedication and efforts for the bbe ice hockey players and coaches thank you very much and board that's uh we're

007recognizing our senior ice hockey players and champions thank you dr sal well thank you would the coach want to say anything coach i could see you there how are you doing coach i'm doing well it was good yep i said i was doing well it was a very easy team to coach this year i was very privileged to coach him great bunch of boys and we're looking forward to next year as well thank you very much for the recognition this year well deserved and thank you how about that little guy behind you a future hockey player there we hope we hope so oh thank you chip anyone else well i have some good news that coach rusty um is a grandfather and um they had a baby boy we got them all mr dr sal

008got them all right congratulations well um i don't know if any boards have any comments all right coach coach do you have that plaque for the board can you read it mr casanova oh i can the sec swc boys ice hockey 2021 division three champions congratulations thank you the boys are well deserved they played hard and they played like a team and we play like a family it's good to hear it's good to hear thank you very much for coming tonight um you we have another recognition you guys are free to leave right after that uh and we'll start right right now um the superintendent association recognizes students each year and um you know for their leadership contribution to the schools their citizenship and their overall um effectiveness as being a student at their school

009so we will start with let me go down my list here so i don't we will start with the um with broadview tonight dr thomas yay once again as a principal you don't want to give us an opportunity to brag about our students but since you gave it you're on mute there dr thomas thank you i've been doing this so long you think i would never ever be on mute first of all um i am just so thrilled once again um you board members should never give us the opportunity a principal to talk about their students because we can do this for a long time we are so proud of the hard work that our kids do and they're just amazing we have two students that are from broadview that are just so deserving of

010this award our first one is issa and assad um i always say when you think of issa there's four things that come to mind astute passionate innovative and a natural leader issa maintains an impressive academic record throughout broadview of all the three years she's been in there in addition to her academic success is the student who is known for her dedication to the broadview community if there is an organization that anyone can be involved in you can always see issa's name she's part she's the president of the national junior honor society she's an active member in the broadview leadership council and the student council roots and shoots and the math team and i'm sure that there's more that i missed issa is always pushing herself to try new things and extend her learning but she's

011always giving back sel just selfishly to the broadview community i can't think of a more deserving student to win the superintendent award so issa are you there i think i saw you hi hey congratulations i'm very proud of you thank you so much you want to say anything because you know hey let's milk this moment because i've been given this opportunity i'd just like to thank you so much for giving this award i'd like to thank all my amazing teachers my awesome counselor she really helped me go through this and my friends and family without them i don't think i would have been able to do any of this they were really supportive okay thank you so much isa tell your parents we said hello and um and you can see why issa has this

012award our next one is is another incredible student andre elardi um when i think about andre the words that pop up is ambition compassion reliable and humble these are the words that come to mind he has earned a distinction of ready for this high honors not just honors high honors every marking period that he has been at broadview everyone so andre is a student who can be relied upon if you need something you just have to ask andre it's going to not just be completed to be done excellent he is such a role model in the classroom as well as outside the classroom andre understands the importance of being a well-rounded student after along with his high performance um academically he does a lot of extracurricular things at broadview as well he's involved in the

013unified sports he is also on the national junior honor society once again he does peer tutoring these are students that are eighth graders that tutor um their peers and help them out he's on um in the communities in basketball tennis and chess club andre stands out as a leader um just because he's always helping others and he's constantly going above and beyond his academic and um extra curricular but what we love about andre is he's probably one of the most humble students you've ever met his humility is just a rare trait and he has the maturity i say he has a soul of the 35 year old so every award he gets he definitely deserves so congratulations andre i think i saw you andre i'm mutant say hi to us hi guys and you know

014you're gonna have to say i told you we're milking this moment we're milking it give us like a just a couple of sentences okay uh i'm really honored to receive this award and it means a lot to me and i also want to thank all the teachers and staff members administrators at broadview who've helped me through like work but also just through having a good time at broadview and uh this award is because of them well we thank you remember these two names you're gonna see them again i guarantee you thank you thank you dr thomas um rogers park thank you doctor i'm here thank you for celebrating these amazing young people tonight it is an honor to be with you to present the superintendent's award to rogers park students this evening with so many

015remarkable students it's never really an easy decision to choose to whom the award is given and in considering the criteria of community service and service to others academic prowess relate relative to their ability and leadership services the school community we've chosen alani d jesus and alexis johnson over the past few years lexus has worked hard to get where she is now she's an honorable student and national junior honor society president she became national junior honor society president by persevering and working hard she works hard for the grades she earns and she enjoys helping her teachers and peers whenever they whenever she can if there's something she really wants she will do whatever it takes to achieve it she's kind to everyone and she that she meets and she tries to make everyone feel like they

016belong because she knows that she would also want to feel like she belongs she prides herself on her ability to push herself to make sure she's always doing the best she can congratulations alexis and if you can unmute and say hello so that everyone can see you hi thank you so much this is such a big honor i couldn't have done it without every person at rogers park they helped me so much to get where i am today thank you alexis and aulani is also an exceptional student her grades in the past and currently consist of a pluses through b minuses she has made the honor roll two times in the sixth and seventh grade and in eighth grade received high honor roll in sixth and seventh grade before covid she was also a participant

017in track and field in eighth grade she now participates in four of our extracurricular activities robotics student ambassador act for change and girls who code lastly she's a very reflective student who shares openly that even while struggling with her own issues like testing positive recovered depression and anxiety and other things she has managed to push through and not once has she complained she accepts and has completed every challenge with a positive attitude she spends a lot of time and dedication to all her work and projects whether working by herself or working with peers she is the friend that will gladly drop anything and everything for others no matter what in order to help congratulations alani please also on mute so that we can see you i'm very honored to receive this award and i wouldn't

018be able to do this without all the help from my staff from the staff and teachers at rogers park who always pushed me to be my best thank you and thanks to both girls parents and families for supporting them in our school best of luck girls next year and in all your future endeavors thank you dr zlita next we have left side middle dr ivanka thank you dr sal it's always a pleasure to be here at the board of education to recognize the amazing students at all of our schools and and i can't just be any more proud for my students this year as well uh the accomplishments and and positive contributions they make to the community are always just you know heartwarming so first we'd like to award isabella valenzuela first award she's a

019natural leader respected for calm friendly demeanor determination and she's done a lot for our west side community she's a founding member of our school's green team encouraged many other students to join the team as well she's organized an autism awareness fundraiser and she helps run the njhs chapter the national junior honors society chapter at westside additionally she tutors students through our homework health club she works with her grandmother on a nonprofit education program and she spends a great deal of time serving the community i think that's you know one of the hallmarks of the work that she does her significant significant contributions to the community so isabella congratulations for a wonderful job and isabel you got to unmute and say something so everyone can see you all right thank you as well congratulations and our

020second student is uh colton kitridge colton is really kind of a wise uh beyond his years and i think one of the things that i love about colton is he really inspires all his classmates to excel and push themselves further he's prolific writer avid reader he's got wonderful grades and his assignments are quite amazing he did we were very very impressed with his science and engineering expo project that he did this year in our stem program and it was just really really great work and the evidence of effort and dedication to his project you know we're just astounding he always adds a unique insight to class discussions he always the conversation and like i said he pushes his classmates to uh go further too so congratulations sculpton for a wonderful to receive this job and

021second i wish i could have a speech or some kind of script prepared but unfortunately i was not briefed in the matter so i just like to say that i really appreciate being recognized i can't wait to work with other students in high school and possibly with the board of education if i'm able to contribute in any way thank you and we'll blame dr thomas for that because uh she got all the students to get the speeches going and uh so we're very proud and as dr thomas said you know you can expect to see great things from these students in the future as well i i just want to give a particular shout out to the high school recipients uh victoria and caleb because uh enough to sell any mr donovan's thunder but they

022are you know west side alums so uh i'll pass them back back to dr self thank you all right thank you there's dr levanka and uh mr donovan danbury high school thank you for having us appreciate i think uh miss thomas and dr ivanka just said it when they talked about what they're gonna you know look forward to seeing what their kids do at the high school and if you ever wondered uh what those eighth graders look like in four years uh that's what i'm presenting you today i'm presenting you actually our top two ranked students in our class caleb is our valedictorian and victoria is our salutatorian both of which have done extremely well in the classroom but that does not limit where they are and i'm sure victoria will have plenty to say

023when she gets on here right victoria so uh victoria is entering her final leader at danbury victoria can proudly say that she has been a model hatter a model of hatter's leadership during her time as a high school student she served as the editor-in-chief of the hatter's herald yearbook hatters herald the yearbook the nutmegger becoming an accessible pulpit for all student voices she continues her legacy as an award-winning student journalist writing for the local newspaper about societal conflicts of peer concern she was the president of the national english honor society the national math honor society model un and video production club and she also worked outside the school as an educational ambassador for the ambesi program and a board member for the national youth volunteer corps victoria has dedicated days and nights to servicing her

024community out of love for the rich culture of her city while she will miss her role as a hatter greatly but and aspire to honor her roots she will set forth out becoming a promising young woman in the in a world wrapped with opportunity uh victoria as you unmute and accept this award can you please tell everyone your college decision and where you're going hi i'm victoria thank you so much and uh i'm going to university to study political science international um comparative studies and uh yeah i just want to say to all the little eighth graders out there right now um i was in your shoes just a couple years ago really dedicated to middle school and extracurriculars um my connection was unstable um but continuing on and continuing to persevere and and put

025that level of dedication and passion into your high school experience is ultimately what leads to it to a successful future um so i wish you all the best of luck and i want to thank everyone uh for helping me along the way we didn't hear what university were attending it was muted oh duke university oh congratulations okay thank you uh next up is our class valedictorian caleb schissel is a long lifelong danbury resident who attended king street west side and danbury high school he has consistently excelled academically recognized the top of his class through his academic career uh partly inspired by his involvement as a programmer builder and driver of the dhs robotics team he tends to study biomedical engineering in his pursuit to find a cure for type 1 diabetes a condition he has

026lived with since he was 3. he created a support group for people living with type 1 diabetes in the dhs community for advocacy education and camaraderie caleb is a dedicated musician skilled in the flute saxophone piano and several other instruments he is currently an officer in the modern music masters tri-m group at dhs he is also a decorated dancer and choreographer and volunteers his time to teach and inspire others caleb how about telling us where you're going as you accept this award as well he's not here today what but he had a prior commitment but at cornell university and he just wanted to say uh thank you to everyone thank you victoria appreciate it so dr sal we have one going to duke and one going to cornell yeah wonderful the commentary to the faculty

027right from the beginning right through elementary middle and high school great work tell them congratulations victoria from us thank you very much and good luck to you and duke i do um we have john weber usually the principal will assign his homeroom teachers so i don't know who's here but i'll let you guys start the alternative center for excellence go ahead hi um oh miss armstrong how are you it's me um my student tonight is brian gallardo valverde and he is uh we're happy to recommend him for and have him receive this award brian is a resource to himself uh to his family to his friends to his community and to his country uh the pandemic was a big problem for a lot of our kids but brian seemed to excel not only did he

028keep his grades up and he's graduating with a 3.4 gpa um but he also helped his little sister every day so that she could make it through her studies in elementary school before he decided he needed to take a job and help his family through the pandemic brian now works uh at a local grocery store but more importantly brian has recognized his value and his gifts and brian has decided uh he went to um naugatuck valley for the second semester from january to june he has he took three classes he had two a's and two b and a b plus so he did really well first semester his first semester in college and he's looking forward to his second semester in college and naugatuck but more importantly brian in the last month has been sworn

029into the national guard he's only 17 years old uh tonight i'm hoping he's still here he was supposed to meet with his recruiter he did his first weekend of drills last weekend um and tonight he's put off uh going for more drills until 7 30 so he could be here for this uh award ceremony and he leaves for uh national guard 18 weeks of training in late august early september so i present to you a kid who has really embraced the american dream brian delarza valverde i don't know if brian is here still are you still here brian uh yeah i'm right here i just want to thank you for this award and everyone at the staff and ace for supporting me through this journey still there i think we lost i don't know if

030it's armstrong you frozen yeah i think he we let we lost him ryan if you're there thank you for your service and be careful congratulations um i'm really proud of you goodness armstrong howdy is next yes hi glenda thank you for that thanks brian congratulations faith uh and her family are actually having some wi-fi issues right now i'm not quite sure faith are you on i know they were trying they were kind of kind of cut off a little bit so i'll read a little bit of my my tidbit on faith uh faith luckner was a shy and quiet girl when she came to ace three years ago when i joined the danbury community uh through the love and support and encouragement there she is hey mira from her parents she has become a more

031confident young woman with strong values and a commitment to her community i also want to say that this award could be shared with their parents because they have been so active and supported ace ever since the beginning so here are some examples of what they've been doing every single parent-teacher conference uh even when sometimes it was you know not too you know there's maybe less people at one point but they were always there every single time every single fundraiser that we do with the community whether it's breakfast with a great pumpkin the ace thanksgiving feast the danbury community breakfast with santa et cetera um often and glenda was telling me this earlier today that you know she was saying that you know she remembers this time that you guys were cleaning off the tables the

032faith and her mom would stay up wait till like 2 30 in the afternoon to stay to clean up and wipe down all the tables so thank you for that uh faith's father's also if you guys have seen the grinch walking around town he is danbury's adopted grinch uh she and her father continuously can probably continue to do this after she graduates uh they continue to volunteer their time to give back to the children basically of denver but everybody really uh while her dad is dressed in that grinch costume um and also even putting up just christmas trees and decorations um in my classroom and helping with uh decorations and photos around the the school uh definitely your parents are hands on so again i kind of i it's for faith but again i really

033want you guys to know that her parents are so supportive of us and we're going to miss her and i we hope to still see you guys come back to the school after she graduates because you're like our honorary parents so thank you so much um and lastly i just wanted to say that that spirit resides in her and she's acutely aware of the positive effects of her community involvement she could have actually finished up in january because she's done so well but she wanted to graduate with her friends and just you know do it not the right way but just wait till june um she even retook a class um in the fall and you know which class that is faith i'm not going to say it because she apparently liked it so much

034i was kind of surprised about that which is great um and she's just grown so much since she's been here and uh and we at ace are so proud of her and her achievements so congratulations faith we're so honored and uh love you so you want to say anything you're on mute by the way [Music] thank you um thank you to all the teachers and staff members at ace for helping me get my act together and keep it there so i can succeed and be the person who i am today so thank you thank you thank you thank you congratulations uh and that ends the recognitions madam chairman thank you dr sal uh and board members i think it behooves me as chairperson of the board i think we should all give these uh smart

035young people a round of applause because you know i heard probably we might have some uh board members in a couple of years and someone going to get into a doctor so you know we need to give them a round of applause in their parents because it just it takes everyone and the school system so thank you young people so very much so next week uh why does she cut out a mute there yeah after you do the strip for uh public uh participation then carol will come and do the comment section okay the board welcomes public participation and asks that comments be limited to 3 minutes the public may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them the board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about

036board of education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the danbury public school system due to the unique nature of the covet 19 crisis and the limitations of technology members of the public who are danbury residents are invited to send brief comments and questions via email in advance to dps underscore public comment underscore boe at danbury.k12.ct.us thank you yes we have three uh public participations first one is from dennis mccauley first i wish to express my admiration for danbury educators heroes during the pandemic and my appreciation for you school board volunteers whose good citizenship is better described as practical patriotism the top domestic priority for our nation should be social social justice if we do not do better at giving every person the opportunity to achieve the american dream the very fabric of

037our society is at risk this is what social justice should be this is why social justice should be an important selection criteria during the superintendent search i propose that the search firm provide information about each candidate's personal social justice philosophy and the degree to which it has been implemented in that candidate's purview and the information be made available to the public for each of the finalists what do i mean by social justice one version one vision is that of martin luther king who famously dreamed to have his children judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin as a christian minister he believed that all individuals are sinners but are also capable of redemption and he believed in the american dream and that the black community is fully capable of achieving

038the dream if the burden of unjust laws and other barriers are removed he also believed in color blindness assimilation and the melting pot the other version predominant today is the critical race theory it is the physiolog philosophical foundation of the black lives matter movement the 1619 project and many diversity equity and inclusion programs unlike king crt teaches that the sin of racism is more collective than individual that color blindness is not a goal but evidence of racism and that separation not assimilation is necessary derived from marxism it divides people based on skin color of members of either an oppressed group or the oppressor group any disparity between an oppressed group and whites is due to systematic systematic racism which has been intentionally built into every aspect of american culture and society starting in 1619 and

039continuing to this day to maintain white supremacy martin luther's king vision is widely understood it is not so with the critical race theory i ask each person involved in the superintendent search to learn about crt whether king's vision or crt is more likely to help disadvantaged communities and base his or his or her superintendent choice on that decision for me and my for me and for my many black intellectuals that choice would be easy at its core crt principles are neo-racist incompatible with the western liberal democracy and potentially catastrophic for people of color the danbury school system should hire a superintendent who rejects the principles of crt regardless of what they are named and embrace the optimistic christian and pro-american principles of martin luther king thank you dennis mccauley the second submittal is from kathy

040snow good evening i was happy to hear that the june board of education meeting will be in person i was hoping the public would be allowed to attend also up to the maximum capacity allowed can this be clarified and the third submission is from dana and tom o'work dear board of education members my name is dana orwerk and i'm the outgoing president of the dhs pto as well as the outgoing president of the dhs priests club booster club for the boys lacrosse teams in both of these positions i've had the pleasure of working with the administration of danbury high school as well as some board of education members i would like to let everyone know about blue and orange week beginning 6 30 june 3rd and continuing through june 10th show us your blue and

041orange that week show us your hatter's pride i also want to take this opportunity to thank everyone that i've worked with mr donovan and his team have been instrumental in giving the class of 2020 and 2021 the best possibly 2020 and 21 the best year possible given the circumstances of this past year a special thank you to mr s salvastrani and mr donovan for all always entertaining our organization's ideas and for never saying no instead of being a no we can't do that administration they have been a how can we do that administration thank you for your support as well this year our youngest son will be graduating we'll be wrapping up almost 17 years as danbury public school parents thank you for educating our boys i hope that the next school year would be

042more of a normal year for everyone to dr sal congratulations on your retirement regards dana o'rourke and that concludes the public participation thank you so very much carol uh madam chairman if the students are here they can leave if they wish i just want to make okay can we do the consent calendar certainly i'll make a motion at the board of education to prove the items on the consent calendar exhibits 21-80 through 21-82 as recommended can i hear a second second it's show second okay uh motion has been moved and second are there any questions or discussion about the consent calendar cnn uh kate could you do the roll call please joe britton yes rachel chaleski i kate canelo hi gladys cooper yes lauren daley aye joe da silva aye catherine hodgson hi rich gianelli

043hi al russo hi amy spelino hi thank you the motion is so caring uh next we'll move down to our educational staff representative uh aaron ellie okay that does it leader good evening miss cooper good evening thank you so much for letting me share again in our celebration i'm gonna share my screen and part three is [Music] so do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] you good morning broadview today is monday may 24th 2021 and i hope y'all had a great weekend bringing you your morning announcements by me cabela's [Music] it just takes some time [Music] me [Music] so [Laughter] [Applause] uh thank you so much i really enjoyed being able to share these silver linings with you this year i look forward to being able to do that again next year if you'll have it

044i think there's been a lot that we've overcome as a district in our individual schools as humans and i'm really proud to work in a district that supports each other and i thank all of you board members for the volunteering that you do and and the hard decisions that you have to make and so it doesn't go unnoticed thank you so much thank you all right our next we're going to move to our students or in our students here tonight jake chris good evening board of ed members cabinet and community members thank you for allowing me to represent and speak on behalf of the alternative center for excellence next thursday will start 18th annual coffee house on june 3rd students and staff will have the opportunity to share their creativity through reading original poetry musical

045performances and artwork the ace graduation ceremony will take place on wednesday june 8th at broadview auditorium at 3pm the event will allow each student to bring four guests for those not in attendance the graduation ceremony will be viewable on the alternative center for excellence youtube channel the ace humanities department successfully administrate administered our humanities benchmarks the week of may 17th to may 21st a special thanks to joanne tolls daniela esposito melissa alaski kyle chicola and rob milo for all of your efforts to ensure that this endeavor was a success thank you chris the a center expo website is up and running thanks to the work of dj jimenez and the local community members of submitted career day videos the career expo website contains three to five minute career videos virtual field trips surveys and activities

046designed to prepare our students for life after graduation eight students ran an entrance interviews from may 18th through the 20th and then again on may 25th and 26th for 2023 incoming students thank you for the ace staff for being in the process of building the relationships with our incoming families ace would also like to publicly acknowledge and congratulate our most recent students of the week dominic perez and arianna manford keep up the great work and finish the year strong thank you all for allowing us to share the great things happening with our ace family as we approach the close of 2021 school year stay safe everyone and remain a strong thank you nicole so we're going to move on down the agenda uh action item a amy thank you um before we get to um

047the adopting the portrait of a graduate vote i had something that i wanted to uh bring up for for all of us um i was a part of the uh coalition for the pog for 18 months i was honored to be a part of it and our goal i was going to quickly review was to develop the skills knowledge and dispositions valued by schools and community critical for college career and community life that was actually stated in the workshop that we had last meeting all students were at the center of every action and decision and also uh included in the pog and our workshop a couple weeks ago was the equity and diversity statement and in that equity and diversity statement um and you can all read it on the presentation which is included in

048our agenda tonight um you know it's a anyway in the back but it was uh one of the statements was that the danbury public schools is committed to identifying and correcting practices and policies that perpetuate the achievement gap and institutional racism in all forms in order to provide for all students the opportunity to succeed that phrase institutional racism caught my attention i'd heard it probably before maybe you know in all the pog work but it really caught my attention last week and also i was very i was surprised at the presentation from the team referred to as design of the margins i had not heard this part of the pog work it could have been my own oversight i did attend most meetings maybe i missed one when this there was talk about this but

049when that presentation was given two weeks ago for our workshop i heard the word radical inclusion for equity so um as i expressed to kevin mr walston the next day in an email after the workshop that i said when i got involved with pog i was thinking that danbury public schools had programs that were already in place that were raising a lot of awareness and sensitivity to others i mean even just the video we saw with dr zelita of all the different programs of you know awareness and sensitivity to others i'm thinking of things like neutralities alone bridges of peace i think it's called buddy benches etc now i realize we can always improve on inclusivity but i am concerned that we may be headed in a direction that would make our children feel that

050they are responsible for all racism that exists in our world and that they should be ashamed um this could be very harmful and destructive i believe to our children so before we go ahead and um vote on the pog you know accepting it i would just like um kevin to explain to us like what types of practices what types of curriculums are we planning on to initiate the pog okay amy could we do the motion and then we can have a discussion within that part wants to once we it's an action on it okay well and then we have a discussion about industry about this i just got going about it okay so yeah so let's just do you know and then we will have a vote you know and then we can have a

051discussion on it once you make the motion okay so juice you know and i'm gonna invite board members to you know not deviate from the uh the um emotion just read this the emotion that's on on uh our script that's here to read for that particular ad and then we can have a discussion about it for your support okay okay so the motion i i make a motion that the board of education adopt the portrait of a graduate in accordance with 21-83 page 18. amy made the motion can i hear a second a second this is keith okay kate seconded now i will open it up for a discussion now amy you can go back you know if you wanted to uh discuss it more we can talk about that at this point and then

052have questions i believe amy did ask the question and was waiting for response amy is that correct that's correct okay kevin i think you're on right or right i know you're not in this he's on okay i'm here there you go kevin thank you hi amy good up good evening everyone um so so just going back to the portrait of the graduate um presentation and amy i believe part of your question is what does this mean uh for curriculum and some of our concrete next steps as a district um the the board and the community might recall uh we had identified our next steps um as a as a team and you know some of the things we're going to need to do um as a district to move the pog forward um certainly some

053of those things is you know communicate the portrait of the graduate vision to all stakeholders we need to make sure um our staff is is you know we've reviewed with our staff what the pog is about certainly on the constituents that were part of this process are well aware of what this is about but we need to also make sure that our teachers are aware in in our remaining danbury community um yes yes we you know uh in 20 in december i believe of 2018 uh the board approved the equity and diversity policy um that talked about um you know removing some of those obstacles on that that that contributed to the achievement gap and also removing any obstacles that that that in any way is did not allow for equity for all students and

054so you know we want to expand equitable learning environments and experiences for all of our students as part of this work um and this work has started in the district already um and so you know we and and some of the things that we again we outlined in a powerpoint um of course we want our curriculum to be rigorous and inclusive um career connected and culturally responsive um and so i i know this board has heard several times about um how we're going to ensure that our 912 career academy with dan barry is going to be career connected and it's going to be rigorous uh but we also need to make efforts to make sure our entire curriculum k-12 pre-k-12 is inclusive and culturally responsive and so one of the next bullets in the powerpoint

055for next steps was was talking about strengthening curriculum strengthening assessment professional development and systems to ensure that you know the entire curriculum is culturally relevant and provides provides ample opportunity for student growth and those pog categories um that we had that we had uh celebrated in every moment so excited about across all grade levels and so when when talking about strengthening curriculum you know we're not purchasing we're not talking about purchasing a curriculum that that means you know we're going to change the curriculum and and begin to scare you know this the the danbury community we want to make sure we are celebrating the diverse danbury community and we celebrate that by strengthening the curriculum to make sure it's representative of the community that we're serving and so you know i think we've gone to

056great lengths to talk about finding ways to celebrate on the diversity in the danbury community and we have started a process in which and amy i know you know an example and an analogy i had provided for you not an analogy but an example i provided for you all of our k-5 students throughout all of our elementary schools we have what we call classroom libraries and all of our elementary schools and all of our kids they have you know they have leveled books that they read as young learners in our school system and so when our when our kids pick up books every day we want to make sure that those books are representatives not only representatives of their community um they that they see characters and and and students and young people in those

057books that look like them that are reminiscent of their own culture um and and background um and we think this is important and again if if our if we are committed to celebrating diversity in our community then this is going to be you know something that's going to help strengthen our curriculum um and and we believe strongly that this this helps all kids right and so making sure that we're not seeing characters from one background helps all students and all families that we can all celebrate each other's cultures as we continue to develop and and experience the the danbury school system um and then one of the last things we talked about as part of the next steps was brandon the portrait of the graduate and developing the connections not only the academies but you

058know to everything that we do um in the danbury in the denmary school district uh so so i hope that helps a little bit um i know that you may have some more um more specific questions for me but in terms of the curriculum adjustments it's about strengthening the curriculum and that's an example for k5 uh certainly of what it could look like um but you know some of those other strengthening curriculum means you know we if we're going to make make um we want to make those experiences relevant for our kids and so those relevant experiences has been highlighted by you know cara melissa and her tea and that team we're talking about what we're trying to do at danbury you know the danbury career academy for 9 12. um so that's you know

059another example of strengthening curriculum and strengthening the activities and experiences for kids um in the school system so i hope that's a start for you and i'm also available to answer any of the questions you might have uh mr washington could i just ask a question um we when i say we you are not taking anything away from the uh kirk curriculum you are adding into the curriculum uh to sort of look more like our community is is this what you're saying yes inclusion i guess that was the word that i was looking for conclusion okay i don't know if anyone else has any question and i i just you know i i'm just thinking about people thinking that we are taken away from the curriculum that's already in place it's just to add uh

060into the curriculum of the diversity of being there and uh you know your team and group has been working on that for a while so i i don't know if anyone else have any questions thank you yes thank you just to um our um public comment um there's there's a real concern out there as we see you know certain movements sweep the country so could anyone speak to um mr mccauley's uh comment please i think that's relevant to this well dr there was a there was a note that i think went out there i did not respond to him because i was trying to get some type of uh i was i was trying to really figure out in my head exactly uh where it was coming from and i you know to me i

061felt like it was not appropriate to read tonight okay and i think that could have been a different way to handle that but again you know uh we spoke to the lawyers and i guess starting to sell and everything was okay i i just i just thought i should have came on a different heading to the board but that's just me so um miss coop if i if i can just also add um this the team that the the portrait of the graduate committee um and then i i remember sharing the excitement uh from our last meeting from the workshop and you know the last thing i want want to happen is just to dampen that excitement in any way um because a lot of work has been put into this and so you know

062typically as part of the um superintendent reporting mechanisms um you know there are port outs you know three times a year four times a year and and frankly this work is too important not to be continued um and not to be shared with the public uh and so if you know we we celebrated this as a community portrait of the graduate we would be more than happy to share the progress um as we continue to move forward we already have an action plan as a group on how we're moving forward that this is not this this is only an effort to continue to strengthen this school system and celebrate the things that we've said is important uh so we we're happy to if the board is is would like um to commit to providing quarterly

063updates for the board in the community um to talk about what this means for professional development for the district what this means for you know curriculum purchases for the district and what this means for student experiences across the great levels for the district mrs cooper i have a question if yes yes uh kevin and dr sal to the the point that amy made with regard to reading the language if the the the language required an explanation is there a way that you feel you could adjust the language so it states what you explained and doesn't lead to [Music] controversial thinking that is my question number one number two has the the staff itself in danbury been briefed on this and and what is their general acceptance and approval of this particular project i know we

064have the authority to make policy and it gets followed but this is a two-year work and like you said it's very important and to me i'd like to know that the people that are doing the teaching really are committed to this and buying into this and then thirdly is there a logo and i liked your idea of the north star last week that can depict what this particular project is so when you do correspondence or presentations there's a particular logo that represents it that's basically it thank you so so mr genelli i'll i'll take the last two and i'll start there first um the the logo piece the branding has not been determined yet um the the entire team has not gotten back together we were trying to get through this process first and uh

065we wanted to find a way to engage the school community before we determine the branding the branding and we wanted to find a way to kind of include the school community as part of that process um the as part of the next steps uh because i if i heard your question correctly you're asking has the entire staff bought into this um the entire the entire staff and this is part of our presentation last week um has informed the portrait of the graduate but but but we've had representation of our staff to help put together to graduate the characteristics of the portrait but now that it's been you know now that we're on the steps of approval then we would go back to the entire staff and then begin to share with them what this means

066for them walk them through what this means for them in terms of professional development strengthen the curriculum student experiences um and walk them through that process um and then and then start to work with them but we we we had tr we have chosen representatives from teachers administrators parents students across the system to help develop it um once approved then we would go back to the staff to help to then build and build capacity throughout the system and to my first question i'm sorry mr jan i don't remember that yeah and the first question i asked was with regard to amy's point about the language that she read i mentioned is there a way that that language can be polished so that it it depicts your explanation and avoids perhaps having somebody have a misinterpretation

067of it right and is this the language from our policy that we approved or language from the pog i'm not sure which language right from pog amy had read a segment that she said had bothered her um i don't call the exact quote on it but she could if she's there she could because i'm here i'm here it was from the equity and diversity statement um correcting practices and policies that perpetuate the achievement gap and institutional racism in all forms the other part of what i was trying to get across also was about the design of margins kevin like i said i hadn't really heard of that maybe that was my oversight um and i also just want to state right now in front of everyone that it was an honor to be on the

068pog coalition and i was excited about i'm excited about it um you know i think it's it's only going to push danbury to an even higher level in all in all ways um but like i said about design of the margins i hadn't heard of that that evening and there was some more of that radical include that kind of language just what mr janelle is talking about right now the language leading to controversial thinking and i just uh we know we have one particular person parent who uh you know the uh dennis mccauley email that we heard tonight um and i just would like um i like that i love this idea of um the quarterly updates i think that's that's awesome that's excellent but i think that you know it seems like nobody wants

069to talk about it here tonight but i think that there is this feeling throughout our whole country there's like a movement going on and parents in the community are concerned about it so um i'm not trying to take away anything away from the portrait of the graduate i'm just trying to uh kind of give us a you know a heads up of what i felt after the workshop last two weeks ago and um and as mr jelly just said the language leading to controversial thinking right so so so mr gennelly and amy the the statement is pulled from the board's approved policy so if that that statement is is pulled from the board's policy so if if there's language in that statement then we would have to revisit the policy to massage it for for

070the board to be comfortable with the state about radical um and i believe the the statement you're referring to amy was a statement made by one of the teachers um so that that that's not something that's you know in writing as part of the pog work uh but the statement itself is pulled from the board policy so you know i was sitting here an elephant in the room the critical race theory you all talking about and what the gentleman's speaking to you know we're not in the political forum here you're looking at you know what we've been doing over years and i think this board i am so proud of you've gone through and you've looked at areas that were impediments to youngsters whether they were hispanic blacks whites socially unable to because of the

071economic and we put it in positions to achieve and i think this portion of the graduate you know just systemizes that we're not looking at creating a um a system here of of of infusing that radical thinking i think the board here is looking at having a graduate leave here with a perspective of the world and you know to talk about the gentleman's letter today that's another issue i think that's a political one and you could have you know seminars on it but that is not our course of action um that is not our priority and uh we've been moving along uh this pilot working towards an equitable and access policy and that's what richard's talking about that's what kevin's talking about and i think sometimes these statements make it uncomfortable maybe uh four months

072ago five months ago it might not have and you know um you know it's politically charged amy is exactly right i don't think i think it is the elephant in the room but it doesn't read well with me only because that is not the intent within our curriculum um at all it is to follow a course of action that the board has been on for a number of years towards that kevin's north star to get everybody um to aurora borealis and and make sure that um that they're able to succeed so um you know maybe some future meeting amy rich conversation somebody could sponsor something but um i i don't believe that this our statement here um you know um should be um what's the word you know should be married with what you heard

073this evening necessarily although i understand the political um atmosphere as was just pointed out by um by the new board members so that's the best thank you sale kevin when i may um gentlemen the other way i do a lot of great work a lot of great work in that project uh there are also to uh resonate mr jannelli's statement yes there are some things that need to be massaged that fight kind of make me uncomfortable i've read the document i attended the workshop and uh uh the workshop one of the one of the speakers said there's uh anti-blackness in our curriculum and marginalized students so i i would suggest that this whole this be massaged before we approve it a lot of good work uh just needs a little a few a few little

074tweaks to it before we go ahead thank you you know i'd like to make a comment it's my understanding that pog is to me i call it a living document it's always going to be amended as time evolves so we're not cementing something right now as kevin says there's additional work to be to be done i think based on the comments that we have right now and that we've discussed at this particular point can always be discussed further on and adjusted to the process and and the project as we make changes to it to improve it i i i would hate after two years to hold it up because of a linguistic type type of thing here i think it's been explained publicly you know at least to my satisfaction there's a phenomenal amount of

075work here and as i said this is a living document that's going to continue to be changed we could always go back to the policies etc make recommendations uh i i would not like to see it hung up after all this time at this particular point no disrespect dow but we're not always going to agree rich these are tweaks and changes that we could always make to things going forward right but won't this this document will be that sort of rule of law if you allow me to expand on that a little bit and uh the opinion is expressed by by the the presenters during the workshop kind of gives it the slant that it could be confrontation thank you but then that then mr watson stated that in order to go back and change

076certain language we would have to take that back to the policy committee and then if we're going to change that length of language we can bring it back and have that language inserted yeah would it be maybe i'm not understanding would it be easier to change one rather than have to change too and and i'm gonna say this i've been in danbury a long time i've been on this board a long time i've been around a lot of different people and you might not like to hear this whenever we use the word radical racism bringing things up we sort of get uptight and whether it's political or an individual person uh making a statement or saying whatever they have to say our goal as elected officials is to work with our superintendent and those in

077charge to make sure that the education that our children are getting is the education that we should be providing for them for them amen okay i don't argue with that gladys okay no i i know i'm not arguing it's just a statement you know okay and i think rachel and kevin who are policy committee members you know could look at the issues we discussed tonight and and you know bring it forward a future date and give us their thinking on on what to do which i think maybe god has said maybe you're pro if you decide you could approve the uh the portrait of a graduate with a provider that it stays in constant with board policy so when they reflect on the board policy if there's a change because there's a nexus between what

078was included in current board policy uh and if you're going to change the board policy that would change this so exactly that might be a way of doing it yep exactly thank you my own sheriff of me yes um just very briefly and it it seems i don't want to get down too far into the weeds i'm trying to look at this as a as a it's a 70 odd page report um this is a it's it's aspirational it's a guideline it's a it's a set of goals and aspirations it's not necessarily uh it's not a script it's not a checklist it's not necessarily a paint by numbers or or connect the dots it's not we have to do these things it's not a set of criteria it's it's a set of goals and aspirations

079on things we want our we want to teach that we want to inculcate in kids that we want kids to learn and take away um i don't think any individual component part of this in of itself is necessarily overwhelmingly individually important i think it's the collective aspiration of the whole document um i i think as dr sal just suggested i do think it's it it's good that we're cognizant of the fact that this is consistent when in constant with existing board policy it can't contravene existing board policy because we're obviously not going to adopt two contradictory things and if we're adopting something now it's obviously our intention to make it consistent with the policy we already have so um obviously and we're slowly reviewing all of our policies thank you rachel for guiding us through

080that morass um but i i i don't know that we we need to get hung up on any one individual component part it seems like this is all it's a whole and as a whole it's as amy said it's it's a big document a lot of work went into it a lot of work went into trying to figure out what we think we need to we want our kids to take away and it's not any one part of this it's all of this or a piece of all of this that's all i have miss cooper if miss cooper if i may um and joe thanks for saying that um and just just thinking back to the presentation and the powerpoint itself and um all of the work that went into this you know there there

081are five characteristics that that that the coalition and and the danbury community landed on and and we're asking the board to approve um the characteristics that we identified um danbury graduates will be advocates collaborators communicators innovators and learners and so if we approve that direction as a board what what i'm committing to on behalf of the coalition is quarterly come back to the board in the community and report out through the action plan how we plan to move forward how that impacts trent uh professional development how that impacts curriculum how that impacts student experiences so that the board and the community can have some confidence and comfort in how we're moving forward but we're we're not asking really to approval on anything else other than the characteristics and the aspirational nature of the power of

082the power the the portrait of the graduate that that that's the approval that we need tonight so that we can continue on with that work and then have the action plan available for the board in the community uh because again as as we have presented at the workshop that we you know we're positioning this as a danbury portrait of the graduate um and we'd be happy to continue to update the board in the community on how this work is will continue to unfold yes i just want to say i just want to say one more thing please yes kevin thank you so much dr sal thank you so much i i just think it's important that you know when when something hits us and feels funny or not right and and we speak up about

083it but um i think with the quarterly updates i think um with what exactly we're talking about we're approving the the attributes that we all decide upon over all those months and with all that work um i also like what dr sal said about that you know it's been a work in progress for even beyond the 18 months it's something that um rachel had told me that she and dr sal talked about four years ago or three years ago you know this this portrait of a graduate in this direction and what that we needed a more clear mission than dan barry and so on so um i'm satisfied that uh as long as we're going to do the quarterly updates and it's really not you know maybe i got off in the weeds about it

084but it it did something to me you know and like i said to kevin in my conversation with him afterwards i don't watch a lot of news i mean but you can't help but know what's what's going on you know even if you watch 10 minutes five minutes a day so i'm just um glad that we were able to discuss it tonight and bring it up um um i'm you know i i do believe that there's some parents that may be concerned about it and i'm just really glad that we've got quarterly updates it is an awesome piece of work the portrait of a graduate and um i just thank you all for you know joining in the discussion and getting it out in the open thank you amy we thank you for being on

085that committee and putting the time in and thank you for bringing up your questions that you had um are there any other questions that motion has been moved and seconded okay kate would you do roll call please joe britton hi rachel celesti hi kate connetta aye gladys cooper aye lauren daly um joe da silva aye catherine hodgson abstain rich ginelli i alrusa abstain amy hi thank you all the motion is so careful rachel would you do action item b please sure i move that the board of education except for second reading and adoption policy 9326 taping recording of board of ed meetings as recommended by the policy committee 21-84 motion made by rachel did i hear a second second segment by joe britton okay do the roll call are there any questions i'm sorry are

086there any questions or discussion about this policy it's in our package okay now you can do the roll call okay i'm sorry no problem joe britton hi richard celeste aye kate canetta aye gladys cooper i lauren daly aye joe da silva aye catherine hodgeson aye rich gianelli aye al russo i am hi motion soap care joe britton would you do action item c certainly i move that the board of education approved the submission of a request for proposals to the state department of education for program enhancement projects for adult education in accordance with 21-85 second there was joe i've been made by joe seconded by joe de silva and a question concerning the motion seeing none kate could you do the roll call jill britton aye richard celeski hi kate canetta i vladis cooper aye

087lauren daly aye joe da silva aye catherine hodgson hi rich genelli hi el russo hi amy spolina hi thank you the motion so carry catherine hutchinson would you do action item d please i make a motion that the board of education accept the april 2021 operating results and analysis general fund grant projects in accordance with 21-86 motion made by catherine did i hear a second i'll second it seconded by amy in a discussion on the motion courtney do you have anything that you would like to add to the motion um i would just like to say we're on track with um um spending our full general funds courtney you might want to speak up okay sorry let me just turn up thank you dr sal i'm sorry we're on track to spend down our full

088general fund budget this year um we're in the process of uh prioritizing and maximizing our grant spending um and so what we what we hope that we're able to do is you do a little bit of spend down because of the fact that we had the alliance carryover um as well as some title carryover funding which will help us with next year's budget in addition um we're looking at maybe having more additional cares money which was the ester one to roll over into next year and we'll have a more definitive presentation on that to the board in about a month but right now we're marrying the two systems together and with the process of putting the detail reports into the new financial system and so we're able for the first time ever to do one

089full report that has all funding streams and funding sources all together at one point in time so really excited about that and we're excited about bringing that to you in the next board meeting um officially so you'll see on your grant report there's a few funds that look as though they're over 100 expended and you might have questions about that that's because we've got a right size you know there's just a little bit more shifting that we have to do now that we have the two grants sources together so for example primary mental health there's a little bit of expended money that needs to move the bottom line though the theoretical rate of the grant is about 83 when we take our cares grant carryover and our alliance construction get carryover after we're in that

090theoretical spend point where we should be with our grants for this point in time overall so in the next report you'll see the percent expended will be low 100 for each of those grants we just haven't had them all in one place like this so um you know and it looks like a big number so for example health and welfare we we truly did overspend that and the medicaid we didn't draw down as much medicaid so that's going to shift into the general fund but we're accounting for that and so so the next time you see this report those numbers that are above 100 will be you know below 100 because the final shifts will have happened the bottom line is we're in a good place to spend on our full general fund budget maximize

091the coronavirus release funds we actually might even be able to utilize some of the chronovascularly funds to offset some costs from last year and give back additional funds to the city to the tune of maybe five or six hundred thousand dollars to shore up our reserve funds so we'll know more once we um right size all of those grants and submit all of our um revisions for the alliance carry over the alliance and coronavirus relief as well as cares one so we're in a decent position um does anybody have questions and that's a little bit unique look at it but yeah um courtney no thank you for that because i noticed you know well over a hundred percent you know almost you know 400 percent but what about you know some other lines where where

092there was nothing budgeted and then there's something and then maybe you know there's there's just blank like for elp and family literacy center yeah so elp grant 36 they usually would roll that into extended hours so in the next time you see that it'll be rolled back up in a summary but i wanted to be able to show every grant source because of the fact that we're now cross walking to a new chart of accounts but the bottom the bottom line is that we're at 65 year-to-date expended and encumbered and that our projected encumbrances are i'm sorry 65 expanded and our projected is about 83 when you include both and that's the picture where we would be expect to be at this point in time it's just that because this year was unique in that

093we had you know increase in priority school district grant alliance carryover you know cares clear virus and esser we're cleaning all the grants for that we maximize everything so you'll see it a much prettier picture the next time we report out on this that's exciting thank you [Laughter] thank you rachel yeah thank you are you rich are there any other questions for courtney okay the motion has been moved and uh kate could you do the roll call joe britton hi richard celeski i kate canetta aye gladys cooper yes lauren daley yes joja silva hi catherine hodgson hi rich genelli aye al russo aye amy spolina hi thank you the motion is so carrick uh next is the presentation new graduate requirements dr sale yes thank you um as you know board um our graduation requirements

094are increasing to 25 that you know your board policy permits us to get to the 25 there's different ways of doing it and as you know as the academies come up of six seven of them there's going to have to be some discussion on that and um like anything else i think it's good we all feel start thinking now even though we're thinking two years down the road some respects so cara has worked this out with her group and she'll be taking us to cara actually uh dr martens and dan donovan are going to walk us through the graduation requirements and this uh has a amalgamation of work and collaboration with the curriculum administrators special education esl departments and our guidance department as well so that we have a really informed conversation as we move

095through uh making recommendations for the new requirements take advantage of our the flexibilities and in line with new exciting things happening in danbury for 2024. so i'll leave it over yeah dr martins will start all right dr martins actually i'm going to start first jesus are we going to get this right here or what who's going next you've got it right yeah we know what we're doing thanks for having us this uh we'll try to keep this to about an hour an hour and a half presentation uh you know not much longer than that now we've uh thanks for having us we've been here before to talk about graduation requirements to the board uh there's been some changing there's been some uh additions and subtractions from the state which we had to respond to so

096we're just gonna kind of go through this and uh give you an update on where we're going as you're aware the class of 2023 which is now our sophomores we're going to be juniors very shortly are the first class that hit this and now we're responding to some other changes that have come through now with the danbury career academies and other ways that we think in the recent you know years uh we need to respond for our pog stuff and how we can make the requirements nearer what's expected there so are this works so off our agenda we're gonna talk a little bit about the mission vision equity statement the rationale why we're making and asking for some of these changes uh the timeline of what we've done since we've been here like i said

097we've been here before what connecticut has for requirements what our current requirements are basically just the summary of the revision so you have the talking points that you need and a real concise idea of what we're doing the future implications of it if there's any questions you have for us at that point we'll be more than happy to answer them we are going to try to move rather quickly just to talk about uh to get through this kind of a little bit quicker so meg you're going to take it over on the vision and mission statement yes thank you dan um so the vision and mission um we're all very familiar with so i'm certainly not going to belabor the point i did want to highlight that um in this mission we're talking about providing

098transformational learning experiences um for our graduates and in order to to do that some some shifts need to happen to make sure that our requirements are in alignment with um the academy model that we are all very excited to move towards with everything that we've done graduation requirements for the graduate it has been in an effort to ensure that we have equitable learning opportunities for all of our students and so some of the suggestions that we're going to be making are to that end to make sure that all of our students are fully aware of the career options that they have and ways that they can fulfill their dreams by making good selections of choices and certifications and the academy ultimately that they would like to attend and so in order for us to make

099sure that we have space in the schedule for students to do some of these things we will be making some suggestions that reflect that in doing so we start talking about the rationale for why we're doing this as meg mentioned you know it's for positioning our students for the transformational experience that reflect back to the mission and vision we need to create opportunities as many of you know we ran are currently running a seven period schedule where we need to move to an eight period schedule to allow our students to have more opportunities take classes and with the academies coming that extra period and block will have a lot of time and benefit for our students and we're going to ensure that all students have equitable access realizing the portrait of the graduate making sure

100that all of our students all through k all the way out through these academies which is a changing experience in education will have the growth that they need to be able to produce when they leave danbury high school whether it's career whether it's college or the military they can thrive in those situations so in our timeline back in june 2010 revised the graduation requirements uh from passing with the class of 2015 to 21. in july of 17 we revised that to 25 credits because of the general statute uh that came out it was also postponed for a couple of years uh we came back to you in march of 2018 uh revised the graduation requirements again in response to the general statute beginning with the class currently of 2023 and a big one for us

101was in 2019 the state department announced teacher certification flexibility and now that's driving our academy planning it allows a little bit more freedoms it takes into account the personal uh experiences of teachers which is very helpful for us especially in hard to find subjects like the cte areas which would be the tech ed's and engineering pathways and things like that here's our current high school graduation requirements for the class of 2023 and beyond nine credits in humanities broken down into all of those uh us history and civics are still mandatory uh all students need to take that danbury high school in order to graduate stem is nine credits uh you know technology engineering and the math things um even with math algebra 1 geometry and algebra 2 are still required to take that wellness is

102is one credit health and safety one credit the capstone project which for the time being uh is going to be put into our civics course at the high school while we develop these academies and then once the academies are developed it will fit into each academy with probably about 90 85 90 of the structure being the same across academies but tailoring each project to the specific academy that they would be there and then student choices three credits which requires you uh the total of 25 credits it's important to understand that right now the the class of 2021 that's graduating only needed 21 credits so there's still going to be a need for staff because about half of our students graduate with 25 or more now but half don't so it's about 400 students that would

103need extra credits whether it's just one more credit or three more credits each one of those takes up a seat so there is a need for more staff members is this still me meg yeah okay uh humanities nine and a half credits english one two three and four advanced places replaces those three and a half three and one half of social studies as we talked about including world studies this is the current one modern world us history and advanced placements also can be taken there fine arts and one credit of humanities stem this is the listings of all the courses three credits in science you need to take the bio and the chem we have electives you could take after that but bio and chemistry are needed and then you can take two more credits

104into science technology engineering or math elective also one credit in health one credit in physical education career and life skills which is a business class and one half credit in personal finance that we've came to the board early on and said that everyone we spoke to in the business community from students to parents believed that having students aware of their own personal finance simply from a checking book to what a 28 credit card can do to you when you try to buy something and it's at 28 uh finance charge how that affects you so we felt that putting in that half credit of personal finance is uh necessary uh one world language credit mastery place diploma which is referred to as the capstone which is changed a little and then another one of student choice

105so this is how it the class of 23 and beyond has to see it meg is going to go over the uh or the current ones continued right and here comes meg with what's going to be for the class of 25 and beyond and so in addition to the teacher certification flexibility the state also changed some of the language there used to be a career in life skills category in addition to humanities them that no longer is required and so what we are suggesting is to retain four years of english instead of english four as a required class we would like to develop english courses in line with the certification pathways engineers write differently than poets and so we think it's important that students um have an opportunity to learn about uh communicating in the

106area that they are planning to pursue we are looking to reduce the required prescribed number of courses in social studies from three and a half to two and a half which includes modern world us and civics as dan already indicated the latter two are required by the state of connecticut we want to retain a fine arts credit we do think it's important for students to continue to grow and develop in areas that they may not necessarily realize that they have an interest or talent in until we request they take the class and then that leaves us with a credit and a half of student choice humanities in in that in that area those areas english fine arts and social studies that does not mean that students only get to choose one and a half credits

107of their own you'll see that there are a lot of opportunities for students to make some determinations about how to satisfy on these credit requirements in the stem areas which includes science business family consumer science math and technology education we are still recommending three credits of math algebra 1 algebra 2 in geometry they are commonly required for college admissions we are looking to continue to require two years of science including biology and chemistry and opening up the stem credits to address any of these areas as we are now committed to with the certification flexibility as dan indicated we'll be better able to identify teachers who can help students learn math in a particular area as an example we do think personal finance should continue to be required that certainly came out very loudly to me

108as i conducted countless focus groups with students as we work to develop the portrait of the graduate outcomes fly thanks um just continuing the the pe and health credits remain the same i spoke earlier about the need to make sure that all of our students have a good understanding of the options that they are you know that they can avail themselves to and so the exploration seminar will focus on career exploration workplace habits and give students an opportunity to learn more about different ways they can explore careers and as they pursue their high school career we are recommending two years of a world language which is more in line with college admission requirements but does not necessarily satisfy them uh we do think that um in our multicultural society it's important for students to explore

109another language and then they students will be able to identify one and a half credits in any of these categories in addition to the earlier ones that are prescribed in the particular areas of stem or humanities so just in summary the slide really sort of encapsulates the the suggestions that we are making um eliminating english four not the fourth credit but um that class is a requirement so students are able to take a writing course um in the pathway that they choose eliminating world studies so students have more choice in the humanities areas we do think it's important for students to participate in one blended learning class we are certainly not suggesting that this last year of hybrid and distance learning should be repeated but i think that we have all learned that virtual tools

110are not going away whether it's in college or in a job and so we think it's important that students have some guided practice in high school and how to navigate that we want to streamline the requirements in math and science we can capitalize on the flexibility um afforded to us now by the state increasing your language to two years from one year adding the exploration seminar so students are well informed and connecting the capstone credit to pathway completion so a few things are still hanging out there but they're not items that we are ready to make any recommendations on at this point what some places are doing is granting credit for middle school courses that are also offered at the high school level such as algebra one in the world language so there may be

111room towards the future to look at how we can give students potentially credit for courses that they're taking in middle school which would give them the opportunity to take more advanced level classes at the high school we'd like to expand what we're currently doing with blended and virtual learning many of our students are looking to be duly enrolled in summer programs and college classes over the summer and so we want to grow that we don't want to have regulations that limit students availing themselves of learning opportunities outside of the high school and then there are a number of potential capstone possibilities industry credentials the sealed by literacy and so as we continue planning we'll continue learning about other ways students can demonstrate their knowledge via a capstone possibility well if anybody has any questions for

112us or if we didn't explain something right go right ahead i i have just dan it's joe dasola how are you um freely admit this is probably my own personal biases as somebody who has a bachelor's and masters in history and is horrified to remember the summer school i spent with mr picaccio having him try to cram algebra 2 into my head what's the rationale for reducing a social studies and humanities requirement in a world where we're talking about the need for for people to be better educated about civics better educated about the world and more participatory citizens it seems like the wrong direction or am i missing something i may be missing something uh it's not that it's eliminated it's more that allows student choice if they want to go into a different direction

113and this is probably the number one thing that we struggled with and we started talking about taking courses as dr martins and dr casamaro are both ex-social studies teachers back in the day we went round and round with this uh we felt and i know cara is going to jump in in two seconds but we're gonna talk about how we wanted student choice as important in engaging students uh and the weight of that verse world history u.s history and civics today have to stay and we expected them to stay but we had to make room for other choices to go through okay thank you i could just just to add to that just a little bit dan and dan did a great job with that you know we um in social studies classes regardless of

114the class we teach discipline specific thinking um conversations and the framework for social studies will be found in all of those classes but with students um having a little bit more choice for students to pick the content areas that they want to engage in based on interest we thought was very important there's also some redundancy in the world studies curriculum at the middle school as well so we felt felt felt that there was some coverage there in that area and so that that was a place natural place to go to open things up for students so that they can explore some of the electives and the humanities thank you okay uh just a quick question i noticed that you recommend in the proposed version um one blended learning course and you're recommending personal finance for

115that what other options are available to students in that category we haven't decided yet on what we're going to offer for those because there's a lot of impacts via the union and what courses we have but through edge annuity we used to use a course called credit recovery so for somewhat of it acceleration but edgenuity has replaced that and offers a whole plethora of courses that we didn't have so to just introduce them to this course personal finance is a semester-based course so we feel also might be a nice course just to introduce them into a blended learning uh we are looking at schoology and other things for the district through cara uh so with those you know we're most colleges have some sort of online course so we're trying to prepare them for that

116right now as we go through as dr martin said we're looking to expand you know get out of the brick and mortar of the high school we have a lot of students that go to work we've noticed that now more than ever and what's to say that they can't take chemistry at night you know what's to say that it couldn't be two weeks two days in three days online uh things like that so as we get better at this online learning part and the more tools become available to us at the high school we're looking to expand but we thought personal finance for this group online was just the starting point okay is it only going to be um offered through that that method or are you going to have like a standard said again

117kate that was i guess i'm just wondering if there's going to be like a standard classroom uh version of that course as well or if it's just going to be offered through through like a blended learning you talking about the personal finance course yeah we could do both right now we run personal finance we have the the curriculum for it we're all set and we run many many many sections of it uh you know so but just uh we're going to recommend that that one goes to online but if students don't want to take it online we can certainly run courses thank you that blended learning you know is is a is a wide term and so it doesn't necessarily have to mean students are only on a computer and never interface with a with

118a staff member in the building we have a lot of flexibility with how we would um enact that as dan said it's a semester class and there are a lot of technological tools that lend themselves to this particular content and so we thought that this was a good seed to to start with uh but there are also you know as stan indicated potential contractual implications so we need to you know sort of get get what's does everybody think this is a good idea and then you know work that piece out i think you know the term that we used to use that the you know the learning needs to be constant not the time so you could uh be on the brick and mortar you could have as this year some of our teachers who

119will teach two seminars and then three classes meg as you said from four to five o'clock you know in turn with small groups so i think there's a lot of opportunities technologically and i think the expectation is given that we're in the world with this pandemic what have we learned um i'm proud that we're taking this step i think it's going to be helpful and we are working with our um we'll have to work with our union obviously but that doesn't indicate that our own people just doing the plenty they probably will in cases right mate probably no yes certainly to start off with i think that would be our recommendation yeah thank you um i think the board interesting there are schools that have done it and um you know i'm a proponent of

120it if the youngsters have taken the same standards in eighth grade whether it's the algebra or another course or a language course and they're able of you know meeting those standards then giving them the credit in middle school as meg said opens up opportunities uh when they enter high school so that's that's uh something that we should seriously seriously uh consider i know we've talked about this in the past and we're feeling better about the rigor now at the middle school where this can actually be discussed at another level i just want to thank um the curricular administrators as well who are on this um this call tonight uh trish vino hall melissa de duo gusto um gomes uh vicky carlson was involved in this kelly trouches of course the dhs high school staff dan

121and megan there's a lot of research that went into the back end of making sure that our we're in alignment with what colleges would accept and um and examining um a tremendous amount of data to get to where these this landed today so i just want to thank the the group for their tremendous effort and tenaciousness with getting this done and getting it done in a year that was just full of challenge thank you now thank you all right dr sam uh superintendent's report you're on mute doctor so that's just how you're on you you're on mute well i was just testing everybody um if you could read my lips right now um courtney brought up a little bit about the budget there um i was sort of hoping we'd be able to get to

122it soon and then i know you rescheduled that workshop we're already looking at how we're going to balance this thing and we have to hire guys you heard what dan just talked to you about the eighth year a day um you know we can't be waiting on this so we are going to coalesce the money uh it will um be the term that we use now to parade it now we i did we did write um ryan today big um um he said things are going well but he thinks next week i think we ought to have something finalized with the budget because we are assuming that two and a half million dollars into our budget uh as we get to what we need for this coming school year you know and with the efforts

123of the finance committee and courtney we have kind of that three-year peak which is a good thing to lay out as we look at these things moving things around but really that's all i have on that budget other than to say um maybe next week we'd have some final numbers relative what we're receiving from the state for you all to consider at um the board workshop on on the adjusted budget going forward um so but courtney i know if you want to add to that no no just i guess just to say yes we submitted our sr2 application so we are rolling forward with some of the plans sr3 is due august 16th so we look forward to talking to you about the overall budget when we talk on june 8th at the workshop meeting

124um so we did apply for esther to which it was for about 11 million of which six million are dedicated to next year and then the sr3 in our current plan it's about 25 million of which eight would be dedicated to next year and as dr sal mentioned the alliance funding our current plan is projecting that we would get two and a half million which we do expect from the state state for next year as well as the 1.25 million that we got from the city which means that our city money is about million this upcoming year and then the total funding we're looking at amongst the sources we just talked about would be 171 million again we look forward to talking to you about that multi-year that dr sal mentioned so that we can

125we could talk about what that means for next year and then up to 2025 when the ester funds were anticipated are no longer available to us so thank you thank you i have another in my report at this time thank you uh next we have the discussion item a parent square communication system and after that we will have sta bus contract okay uh kevin do you wanna i know this came up at the pto meeting and it was like some board members how come we're just hearing about it now um you know that's probably an oops on my part so i do apologize that's something that's been working on in terms of the enhanced communication it's a program so um kevin maybe you could kind of talk about it with everyone for me sure my

126my pleasure dr sal um and and and as you had alluded to and and and partly my fault as well dr sal i appreciate that um we we were really hoping to get some feedback uh from some of our family members i know some board members are on the call at our citywide pteo uh but we have adopted a um a platform that we're really hoping is going to be a great opportunity for us to streamline communication throughout the district and so the district has partnered with parent square which parent square is a platform it's you know somewhat of a school social media platform which provide an opportunity for two-way communication with our schools and families um and there'll be over a hundred languages for our families to choose from um there will be initial

127training for our staff and then also for our families training modules and trainings trainings will be available for teachers and staff the company has made us aware it would take about an hour with our teachers in the fall and then our families 30 to 30 minutes to an hour also for families um it's really user friendly and and not very different from some tools that our families already use it now uh such as classroom dojo and some of our elementary schools that they're using currently families will also be able to decide on how to receive their communication which is very unlike uh we can we communicate with our families now so for example my families can can select one way to receive messages and that could be in real time uh from one school or

128multiple schools um if they have children in multiple schools and they can receive that information in in in real time or they can receive all of those messages and it can and sort of a nightly digest that organizes all the different communications into one position um and again both in in both instances it could be received in the family's native language some of the highlights for the administrators in the district it will inform our administrators of new contact numbers because the families write in those documents can update their their their phone numbers it also enables administrators to see the rate in which families are receiving communication and then our our student management system um parent square updates information nightly and syncs nightly with our district student management system so as we continue to get new

129families registered in the district um or as families change their information every night uh parent square will update that information to help us continue to communicate with people um it also um it's also an opportunity for us to incorporate tools such as volunteer sign ups and rsvps and calendar in one place for pto meetings and other school activities um so so so it really is a great opportunity to communicate with our families in one space the platform also meets ferpa and hipaa requirements i know those are some of the questions that came up in our meeting we were really hoping to elicit some feedback and it really helped us um kind of strengthen what we're hoping is going to be a great program great platform for us but the platform also meets ferpa and hipaa

130requirements for confidentiality and privacy and securely delivers report cards um into our family's inboxes um in the platform as well um but again right right right now we have various forms of platforms on how we communicate with families currently as as most of us on this call know you know the majority of those communications are one-way communications parent square in there's a number of districts throughout the state of connecticut that have adopted parent square um and and we wanted to be part of that wave um as as part of our um as part of our monies from the essa funds uh we are also looking to bring on family liaisons and we see this as also a way to connect with our families the liaisons can help families get onboarded and continue to provide support

131for families to make sure that they're connected um we want to capitalize on the progress that we've made this past school year we feel like we have connected with more families this past year and a half um than than probably the last decade and we want to capitalize on that when we feel strongly that the parents parents gray as a platform will help us do that currently we use remind to communicate with families we use school messenger to communicate with families in real time this will provide an opportunity for us to communicate with everyone with the press of a button so this could be about school closures this could be about emergency closure emergency closures um this this could be anything all of those updates can be provided for our community and once and i

132think our community is going to really benefit uh for the for the improved communication the opportunity for improved communication i'm sure there might be some questions i'm happy to answer them this is lauren um just real quick will we be getting rid of all the other platforms and just going to this one singularly i actually happen to love parent square because my child my older mom uses it at his school and i think it's amazing so just curious if we're going to get rid of everything else hi hi hi lauren thanks for the question so the the plan is to do that very thing and to have one platform to communicate with our families um and so school messenger uh we'll you know we'll will soon go by the wayside and remind we will not

133need because this platform will handle those kind of communications thank you for the thank you for the question and in the endorsement great thank you um one of the challenges we're having everybody knows that in terms of trying to support these things and everybody running their own way you can imagine and create havoc this thing came along and if we could utilize it district-wide we can then better support it so we can keep it uh running and keep it up and running and support so that would help us tremendously as well thanks kevin thanks dr sir uh could i ask a question so when would it be implemented in all our schools or is it just right now in one school yes thank you ms cooper so the the plan would be to implement this

134district-wide uh starting in the fall and and and so uh you know first there there has to be part of kind of a a technology kind of sync if you will with parent square um uh to implement this at full capacity is going to require training with staff and comfort level for my parents and so we will probably move slow as a school district until our district kind of we kind of build capacity uh but the plan is miss cooper to open up the school year uh with parents square uh train our staff and our administrators as we open up the school year uh leverage our new family liaisons and help support our families get on board with the process provide these modules and um easy sign up sign sign up on capabilities with parent

135square and kind of in stages kind of continue to implement this um district-wide thank you mr watson any other questions to mr washington um thank you again mr williams thank you looking forward to that so the next thing is something we got to deal with tonight in information background i think um finance committee we have mentioned it and then we got to look at it so we've done this a few years ago in terms of um our bus contract uh when we were able to extend it we have one year left i believe in our current contract and we have an offer extended and there's a process that one has to go through another do it you can imagine courtney um you want to update the board about that and then we could think about

136next steps sure yeah thanks dr sal um so dr sal asked that i go out and look at possibilities for expanding our bus fleet given a few challenges um we were really crowded on our buses some of the kids are sitting three to a seat in elementary schools um and as you know we add two to three and get with our given um enrollment growth we've been adding two to three buses per year over the last few years and with the extra need for the brookfield site and to maintain the um from home to school time frame for these little kindergarteners we've projected that we need to add about 10 additional buses next year which we did account for in the sr2 grant that cost is about seven hundred thousand dollars a year um in

137order to do that we started conversations with our current bus company and um they submitted a proposal to us and i'm gonna i'm gonna talk to you about it and then talk to you about next steps um um one of so in a in a normal world we would be rfping um our bus contract next year when this contract comes to end we're at the end of the five year cycle um and we have done a renewal in the past on the five year cycle with this particular contractor um they've offered us conditions that i'm going to present to you that are favorable um that basically would freeze our current contract has three and a half percent increases built in every year um over the last five years and including into this year what they've

138proposed is if we would like to renew with them for a four-year renewal and i'll send this to you in writing as well um they would freeze that three and a half percent increase for this year and keep our rates flat um um for the full fleet of ten additional buses at this year's rate um and then in addition they would keep it flat for two summers for some years which would save us about 2.1 million dollars over the four year term so that is their proposal um now we did reach out to mooney or to chris tracy at mooney and we have a current purchasing policy that does not allow us to waive the bidding requirement unless the board opts to suspend the policy temporarily for the specified purpose of permitting a second term

139for the transportation contract by law board bylaw 3-5 permits the suspension provided that a two-thirds of the board members in attendance vote in support a and then b prior notification of such proposed suspension has been described in writing one of the reasons it's also favorable it's challenging for us to get 10 buses in this climate a lot of people are looking to expand their bus fleet to be able to you know spread the kids out appropriately and they've also offered to buy the buses propane buses which are more affordable for us for fuel than rather than the diesel buses so um with that said our net uh cell i don't know legally what our next steps would be and or if the board members have any questions about this um i'm happy to respond let

140me just start with the end in mind this is just information this time and uh if there's a sense of moving i mean it is a savings we've done it before if you know we want to move in this direction so at the next board meeting it would uh be an item on there uh we'd have to publish it and do all of that work and then move on from there that is not something that could be done tonight could hurt me can we bring this up at that june 8th uh budget meeting we have a uh the answer yes you can but you still got a guy heard courtney said the advice is the board as a whole at a board meeting uh is going to have to vote to suspend the policy but

141just to get more into the details of the finances thank you sure sure we just thought tonight would be a good night at least to mention it to you all uh because we are looking at all of this it does create a savings but it does require action by the board so we can do that uh richard thank you um i don't know if there's any questions about it we'll we'll bring it up um madam chairman that's all i have thank you thank you okay um next is uh we're moving on down to the agenda is uh the chip board chairperson report uh three things i have on my list number one to board members that have not completed the survey from ray associate please please complete your survey and send it in because they

142are sending a notice that they have not received board members survey information so if you know that you've did it please just let me know so we can i can contact them okay uh the next thing is uh we want to talk about ray associates who is our um um yes thank you it's bad to get old and be late at night but anyway the red rail associates is our uh consultant firm and uh ray uh and associate is a firm that does a nationwide search okay and during our discussion uh i was just stuck in my mind that we had talked about a regional search which would include internal candidates and i made i misspoke and i'll take blame for what i said but real associate will be doing a national search body board

143and that search will include a regional search with internal candidates okay and uh if you go to anyone want to know the uh process we have it on our website you can look at the entire process you can look at the focus groups when their time and who those focus groups are so um with that being said you know that's all i would like to say about real social and um they have been working very hard with us and and just uh com like to thank carol because carol has been working very hard too and uh finally uh we know that we have received a lot of invitation for graduations i can't be at them all so if you're going to a graduation please just go and represent the board okay you don't have to

144ask me can you go can you speak on behalf of the board i trust each and every individual uh my plan is to be at the high school graduation okay and probably ace and uh the other one downtown i can't think of it uh endeavor okay so uh and i can't beat all the other rest because i have some family obligation that i have to take care of too so um if you can and you have the time please go and represent the board please okay are there any questions thank you all if no one else have any other questions i entertain a motion to adjourn some move madam chair moved by mr de silva if everyone would just leave to meet him that means that we're all saying good night and enjoy the rest

145of the week and your memory weekend good night