001uh i would like to thank uh tim the president of the citywide pto for working along with dr sam sort of making this happen tonight that we can work together without having doubled meeting i certainly appreciate that uh first of all the workshop is going to be presented uh board members will ask questions and then uh once uh we finish with the board members then tim and his executive staff uh that have questions will ask questions at that particular time uh i i don't like to get into a time frame but i will uh can we sort of start wrapping it up but at nine o'clock other people have children that they want like you know have to get up for tomorrow go to school and after a couple hours it really get tiresome okay
002so if we can start looking at wrapping up at nine o'clock and we have to have another session we'll do that okay so um without any further delay uh dr sale uh you want to just open up the workshop yes thank you and i want to ditto tim thanks for uh cooperating appreciate it it's important to get a parent perspective um thank you so um real quick i'll start with kevin's got the slides from the night just the backdrop guys the state board has approved as you know at their state meeting that no board in connecticut is um required to option uh to uh offer dl um next year there'll be four conditions where dl will be permissible you know and that'll be some kind of emergency closing and uh distance learning uh not anything
003we haven't done in the past but they're talking about that but the requirement that we have to offer it therefore go through that process is no longer [Music] hello uh yeah we can hear you i can't even hear your doctor i can hear you down the stairs the mute is going on and off if you don't hear me and i'm trying to talk my mouth you can't even see me um i'm sorry i'll go on from this so just to reiterate the state is not requiring um dl it's optional there's four areas that it will be permitted in and that will talk more the board could talk more next year but basically when you close school for emergency weather or power outage uh they'll permit uh dl uh for that time at this point but
004those are just um conversations they're having there isn't any steadfast decision made regarding those elements so for us um we we've uh followed the medical advice all the way along and uh i'm sorry the plan that you see is one that follows the medical advice kevin you want to bring that up kevin is bringing it up bringing it up so just to reiterate we we did social distancing we looked at a multi multitude of options we worked with as i said the other night the realtors um the police not the police ships the fire chief to make sure things that we're doing is okay so we have just in time decisions instead of you know having to wait and come back and bring out folks so we so what you see in front of us
005here uh it's still iterative we still have to do some scheduling accommodations and other things but ostensibly what you're seeing here is something we believe follows the guidelines uh and we would be able to then open the plan opens up full day at the high school middle school in elementary it opens up monday through friday for 180 days during the school year kevin you want to bring the road to reopening sure wow we have it up dr cell so walk everybody through it kev okay so good evening everyone um and i'm happy to see that uh citywide pto is also joining us this evening so uh ms cooper tim thank you very much for making this happen for everyone so i i just want to start um that this road to reopening proposal if you
006will is is being mindful of the three foot social distancing guideline and we planned the reopening around those guidelines so what you see is planned around those three foot social distancing guidelines so in our last meeting courtney opened up with the financial implications if you will as part of the board meeting i'm going to skip over those slides and then certainly we can circle back if there are any specific questions um to that piece so so last week at my desk sorry i know i was on your traveling right here okay no problem no problem um so according i'll circle back if it just in the event the board has questions um now that i'm remembering now in our last meeting there was actually a place on the agenda um about those two slides which
007we kind of made the connection but we can just i think we can just start here with the road tree opening um so so for everyone um and i believe carol wants is also on the call this evening hi cara um and i just want to walk the community the board um city ptl through this uh diagram um and so you know throughout this whole process you know since we've been closed down we've been reviewing our space capacity at every building um every classroom in the district from the beginning um of course first it was at six foot distancing um social distance guidelines and then it was three foot social distance guidelines of course there were some cases in which you know we looked at on the ada social distancing guidelines their recommendation and so
008all of those things were considered uh throughout this process um you know when we thought we were coming back and then we ended up changing our mind you know because of the spike of cases in town um and then later on when we came back in a hybrid uh we have gone through this planning process a number of times um and feel pretty confident about what our true capacity is in the district the the next phase reevaluating our space capacity uh with with the new cdc recommended three foot social distance and guidelines and so you know despite our confidence quite frankly we went back out again um and and and we went back out again because being afforded these new monies being afforded new monies to purchase new furniture um you know we quite frankly
009put a different spin on our spacing because and then we went back out to space our classrooms and review capacity based on all of the furniture that we knew that we could buy with with these new asset funds and so so the and so part of this uh this this next area where it says budgeting you know leveraging essa funds to reopen schools safely for all students you know having those having that having those funds and using those funds to purchase furniture was critical as part of this process and then of course um you know there was a piece in which we had to assess the financial impact the academic impact what does this mean for staffing what does this mean for um you know how much money it would cost us in staffing and
010then also furniture and then other other mitigation factors and you know we reviewed all of those things you'll see some of those things on the subsequent slides and then last but not least we started this process last week in which we would share the update with the board the staff and the community and so again i don't think any of these things are going to come as a surprise to the board of the community and that's the problem and it's even with the social distancing guidelines um we we are still limited without true classroom capacity um and so six through twelve uh my schools did not have the space to house students and our biggest challenge with our secondary schools is our places of gathering and and that and that that being our biggest issue
011is being the cafeteria um and so and so that's one challenge for us and one of the reasons why we re-entered in the hybrid um this school year we were not able to offer that opportunity for student 612 because we didn't we were not able to provide the safe provide provided space for our secondary students with those social discipline guidelines in place the next area is k5 and so in the k5 schools if we wanted all of our students back we learned quickly that we don't do not have enough teaching sections to accommodate enrollment plus the social distancing guidelines so you know number one we're anticipating 150 plus students in kindergarten this year in addition to you know any increase in enrollment for the 2122 school year so that compounded by the social distancing guidelines
012really moved the district in a position positioned the district to have to well that's leading to tonight's recommendation to hire more teachers in a district um throughout throughout the district and you'll see that in the subsequent slides where we'd like to put them um and and and so that's this is our space problem some solutions um we uh some solutions so facility and personnel investment so the district would need to add additional staff furniture at least an agreement which i had started you know to talk about last week to accommodate our space and challenges furnishing furniture intent would be ordered in all of our k-12 schools and i'm sorry that it should be read furniture would be ordered for all of our schools k-12 intense would be ordered for the high school and possibly um
013also broadview uh middle school and so and and the board should also know that the district is continuing to look at feeding options that might help reduce the number of tents needed but right now um right now the way we are currently constituted uh we would definitely need tents to feed kids safely and then um on the second half of this maintain lease at sacred heart we currently have a number of classrooms at that site but but our recommendation is to add lease an agreement with st joseph school in brookfield connecticut and then last but not least staffing leasing and facility upgrades so the district's commitment to reopen schools would require additional staff and furniture and lease agreement we are recommending that kindergarten classrooms from south street elementary school sadly rough and else in ellsworth
014be reassigned to brookfield danbury high school would look to switch to an eight period day which would open up more sections available uh for for our students and add positions to school to maximize the classroom capacity while also addressing addressing graduation requirements and so year one wrote to reopening and just wanted to kind of speak to the financial impact and so under staffing and supplies recommendation would be to hire 15 teachers at the high school level and ask two existing staff members to teach an additional class to address the graduation requirements at our elementary schools we would hire 20 teachers including special ed and esl teachers and other support staff for the brookfield expansion uh we have we have um after getting feedback from some of our administrators uh we learned that we would need
015two two and a 2.5 special staff that's the art music in pe to help to help support the brooklyn brookfield expansion and then of course for the new additional classrooms in the district we would need supplies for all of those new elementary classrooms district-wide not just at brookfield but the new section that will be opened up in our elementary schools throughout the district lease and furniture and so least tends for the high school and middle school to address safe to address to safely feed students while maintaining social distancing uh purchase desks at the elementary and secondary schools to accommodate social distancing guidelines in both classrooms and cafeteria and then of course just going back to committing to the lease with st joe's in brookfield which could accommodate at least 250 to 265 students and then
016transportation i know we we had an opportunity to touch upon this a little bit in our last meeting we would under this plan we would order five additional buses for the enrollment growth uh the five five buses will also be needed for brookfield expansion and the cost would be based on this cost would be based on the current pricing and that's at seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars uh the lease in the furniture um the least is at least in the furniture would come in at 1.86 and the staffing is projected to be at 3.4 um at you know close to 6 million in total for us as a district and so i am happy to go back into the slides but let me just um also say that the the elementary schools there are
017a number of elementary schools that would receive these um ftes or full-time teachers in their buildings and so i'll just start um just start at um great plane and so great plane is one of our you've heard dr sal speak to the sister school arrangements and so just to give you an example um one number one one about our democracy from last year not only recommended that we have a change in sister school arrangements and so previously ellsworth elementary school was partnered in sister school with hayestown we were experiencing um growth at both haystown and ellsworth where i think we're all certainly aware of the growth at ellsworth that we've experienced and so she not only encouraged us to pair ellsworth with great plane for enrollment balance but she also encouraged us to pair with
018great plane for racial imbalance um and so accordingly we made that switch um the board might recall um last year i believe in the spring and i think we had reported two years in a row uh talked about the racial imbalance in the city and some of our schools um at the time when i had reported before ellsworth was one of our schools i think south street was not too far behind one of the schools that was getting closer toward an imbalance that would require action by the board in the district um and so she had encouraged us to move ellsworth to pair with great plane and she felt that would help help with our balance and it has certainly helped to balance great plane and it certainly helped to offset some of our numbers
019um in enrollment growth at ellsworth um i'm saying all it has to say as an example um we've also had um and and i feel like we always say kelly's program it's not fair to kelly but uh we have the program at granville with our pre-k special ed program at granville um these some of these programs were previously um at great plain but also at haystown we are looking to backfill some of those empty classrooms although they're occupied right now but they're not with full-time general ed teachers looking to backfill some of those classrooms with the staffing that we need for this enrollment growth so i'm using this as an example so we would we would backfill one of those spaces with a kindergarten classroom a great plane which would continue to help the growth
020enrollment growth at ellsworth and great playing but also we would also bring on a grade two section at great plain which at great plain right now they have two sections in every grade level um the majority of our schools in the district have either three or four some of our bigger schools have five in some grade levels um in this in this scenario great plain would have two in every grade level except for kindergarten and grade two this helps offset some of my enrollment growth from ellsworth and also helps us avoid um overcrowding um ellsworth and making sure once we get to the 88 number at st joe's if we continue to have growth at ellsworth we have someone to send those kindergarten students our experience would tell us that even after we get to
021that 88 as as students and families continue to register in the district they're going to continue to be in our downtown schools and ellsworth is going to continue to be the one um that is that that is populated so i i think as an example of the great plain edition would help great great plane and mostly most importantly ellsworth in this case um you'll also notice that um the district did recommend on the site you know out of the district in brookfield uh brookfield has it's it's a currently it's a elementary school that is vacated uh recently the the parish has made some significant upgrades to the to the school like i said it's 13 classrooms in school i believe there are 11 class sorry 13 classrooms and our proposal is to bring in 11
022classrooms and then use those additional spaces for support staff so specials can have its own dedicated space so our support staff can have their own dedicated space and then they have what they formally had used as a library media space and we can put up a temporary wall in there to have you know more space for otp or whatever pps staff might be rotating through through that facility but they also have a a functioning gym in the school which also serves as a cafeteria and so whether we wanted to feed kids in the classroom or in that space downstairs because there's actually extra space um i feel like it's it's a viable option for the district and given our ongoing growth over the years i've heard i can hear joe de silva um in the
023background saying we've outperformed our demographers projections every year um and this was certainly not only for this year but in the event we are here next year still talking about enrollment growth we would have an outlet for the district and community i think at a very reasonable price at five five dollars and 64 cents per square foot uh which frankly has been half has been half or even a third of some of the commercial um commercial prices that we've seen around town um certainly ideally it would be best if this site was in danbury um it would be absolutely perfect if it was in danbury unfortunately it's on the outskirts um of danbury and brookfield um but you know i was talking to one of my colleagues kara and you know we can come up
024quite frankly there may be some opportunity for some real innovation being you know partnering with brookfield in some way you know perhaps right now it's premature to talk about that but um i i i feel good about the possibilities because it's a great site um and for a very reasonable cost i think it might offer some great options for the board and for the district kev you want to mention too we also have that increase in k yes yes and so just a reminder um you know we the demographers have projected we were looking at a 150 student increase in kindergarten and so you know along with the three schools that we are uh requesting or reassigned to um reassigned to st joe's uh we've also um looking to add additional sections throughout the district
025for kindergarten which would help offset some of this growth and so we we feel like we you know potentially position ourselves pretty well here if that growth does come and i i'm sure it's coming i mean every year with the exception during the pandemic you know when borders were closed et cetera we didn't experience that growth uh but i anticipate it will it will be back as it has the years passed um before we move on kevin is kathy here i'm here kathy i did just so the board i mean well um everybody in elsie kathy kathy's been part of the advisory group this year and um she's been our liaison to the state in terms of um any changing conditions and requirement kathy has there been any relevant changes we you need to announce
026now or can we um no good evening everyone no dr sal there have been no changes um although the cdc you know did recommend the three foot distancing as being safe um when we talk about close contact uh we still have to use the definition of within six feet so um as of last week with on my weekly call with the department of health they did not anticipate any changes coming in that um very soon possibly over the summer but for right now this is where we're at with the three foot distancing and quarantining at six feet within six feet of distance okay so i just wanted up there i wasn't sure if there was anything new i'm listening to the news and tonight they announced something about um making a recommendation for the visor
027to uh vaccinate 13 and up so as you know guys everything is changing but you know it's prudent i think in our behalf just to make these recommendations based on the current and the current uh rec the current guidelines that we have and that's why what you see in front of you um represent that so with that uh madam chair we're ready for a q a and the host staff is here and and we can go from there if that's okay with you and so dr sal i'm sorry i just wanted to say one one more thing sorry ms cooper um so i i i just also wanted to say because we have learned i i think you know some folks on the cabinet and myself certainly dr sal you know we've talked to other
028districts uh talk to other superintendents talk to other district leads um around the state some of our neighbors um and and quite frankly asking what other districts are doing and i'm sure there are people on this call who are wondering what other districts are doing um as it relates to some of the decisions and recommendations we are making um and and what we are learning is uh number one um which i don't think anyone in this call is going to be surprised by this folks are not dealing with the same challenges that we are dealing with and i think we all have to be reminded that reminded of that when we are speaking with other districts um i but i've reached out to former colleagues and people that i know um in some of the
029big urban districts in in the state uh so from new haven to bridgeport uh to no walk um just you know just to name a few um in waterbury um and so when asking the question hey are you guys looking at uh looking at the the possibility of leasing other properties to help with social distancing are you looking at tents to feed your students because you can't fit them all in the cafeteria and you know i i am hearing the answer no but but but i'm also reminded that no one has the numbers that we have except for i think new britain um has the numbers that we have in their high school you know no one has a school that big with a cafeteria that's not you know scaled to that same size um
030no one has the necessarily the same challenge without elementary schools in terms of overcrowding uh throughout the district at least not at the same level that we have and so i i think it's all also relative just just from kind of comparing us to other districts but i think we should also be mindful of that as we talk about this because there are districts that are going back that are similar in nature to us um and and they're they're using the guideline as a guideline um and not you know using that as um as three foot and and using three they use it as a guideline and some are going in at 2.75 someone going at 2.5 someone going to two feet um and and they are adhering to the guideline where possible um and
031so just you know i just wanted to share that update and just kind of be as transparent as possible what we're learning um but like i said when we opened you know we established this plan around the three-foot distancing guideline and then you know kind of open it up from discussion from there yeah lastly thank you thank you kevin um courtney has been working with the bus company so we will have additional buses either eight to ten and uh i will tell you there's been a shortage on buses as i talked to surrounding districts uh which and you know but uh very serious they'll be able to give us the ten extra buses which is that we're gonna we're gonna need to transport our youngsters and increase enrollment so with that madam chairman i think
032i think we're okay um we can go from here now okay thank you doctor said mr walster uh we're gonna go into the question from board members would you just plea ask the questions just go right ahead ask the question to whom you would prefer the question to be asked mrs cooper i have a question several questions okay uh kevin i have several questions one of which is what are the terms that released for saint joseph in terms of the years sure doc sure mr jay so so so um saint joseph's has asked for the minimum of one year um we are um sending back a letter of intent i'm sorry they have asked for a two-year lease at minimum uh we we we are hoping to start with a one-year lease um and then
033kind of grow from there perhaps one year with multiple multiple current lease options um and right thank you courtney um so so we would like to start at a one year lease um they have asked for a minimum two year i'm sure we can find some common ground in addition to saint joseph's i didn't get the other school that we were also uh working with um sacred heart that we currently have a year left and there's some extra rooms there and then um with kevin reporter was fanville that we already opened about yeah okay those are the only um those are the only buildings we're talking about so it's sacred heart and if we if we add a classroom only if we want to add the classroom we pay per classroom so it's a little
034flexible in the lease sacred heart yeah so how many classrooms would we be gaining in sacred heart kelly is it four yes okay um the other question is the the i think joe this is the last time and i'll just bring it up to reiterate for those people that weren't there asked the question about the time of the bus and it was stated i think kevin you said it would be about 20 to 25 minutes for our and and that timetable was determined because unlike the magnet school which has to go around the city this is in a specific sector so it would uh cut down the travel time to about 20 to 25 minutes one way is that correct yes that's that that was the objection from the transportation company mr genelli so we
035did have the conversation for them with them they did ask for specific addresses and and as as as those registrations are coming in uh we'll be able to provide that for them okay but that's what they're projecting as of right now all right now here's the million-dollar question the this is what this is a temporary situation utilizing federal funds all right so let's be optimistic and say in the near future one year two years down the road that kobed is somewhat a thing of the past okay what happens at that point going forward when we're hiring some fte's thereabouts plus or minus how are we hiring these people on a condition that they may have temporary employment or that they're coming back to the district is my first question my second question is none of
036these funds once they run out and if they were absorbed in the district have been included in any of the numbers that i'm aware of in going forward okay let me let me let me this is a three-part answer good let's start with this uh here um uh i think i've made it clear and if i haven't i my apologies the money that we're getting from dc this primary purpose is to get youngsters back into school whether it's here in three years two years i think rich is correct that is an issue that we we do want to talk about we actually talked about this morning again because it is um disconcerting in some respects but so just i just want to make that clear the money um will be court can speak to that
037as she begins and i think we're supposed to hear rich this week on the um phase three of the tessa money that we're supposed to get but it will it will it will be mitigation strategies much like essa ii um i'll let kim deal with the hiring but i will say to you that we normally have um could have 25 50 positions open uh in terms of um if we hire folks to keep you know keep folks that we hire here if and when the cliff comes that's what you're speaking number two is we do also add a building up of staff to the opening of the academy of which we have not come anywhere close to that this could help us in assisting us with that uh we will be offering an eight period
038day which is more expensive but um you know having these folks with us you know it would be a matter of people retiring leaving the district and then rehiring the real question is the cost and i think we could deal with that last but kim the question about the one you're hiring did you answer that first please so um we cannot temporarily hire them um any time a teacher works more than the first 90 days they become a staff for a teacher by law so that means that those teachers at the end of the year either need to be non-renewed or they need to be laid off if we don't have spots for them so that's kind of the short answer we can't hire them into temporary positions because the law says once they've worked
039that time they become a teacher under the law which means they have certain rights and protections afforded to them in terms of separation so um i think if we um get in a situation where we don't have positions open um then we will be in a in a more difficult position so zionist is saying that we're hoping best case scenario we're hoping that through attrition the additional teachers will be absorbed that would be hope that would be it know the hope okay is it fair to say that when we embark on this this venture that and the financial part i'd say okay it'll run out until the extra money runs out so you have time to think about when you're going to absorb it back in but is it fair to to i'm not sure
040the word fair is the correct word i hate to use the word transparency but when hiring people going ahead do we tell them what we're doing uh so that they could make a choice in terms of of accepting your position here with the what if and and or is that a common scenario for every teacher when she's hired or he's hired that they never know what the future is going to uh to be important let me just add something to the conversation which is potentially a savior in some respects as we spoke this morning when we were having this very discussion richard is that the governor's proposed budget which has not been accepted by the committee and what left the committee has been um and has been um something that would favor the urban district
041particularly dense cities like danbury so we're a schedule leader for 5.4 or 5.6 million dollars in alliance for this coming september the following year if this is a two-year biannual budget if the other 10 plus million comes which is moving us towards the that we we've promised that we have had from malloy um this is more than well then we had expected when we were on the onset of the budget if you if you take we spoke this morning because going out and recruiting their sal and richard and kevin and say come with us but you know what i may have to let you go sometimes you don't get the best candidates right people don't want to take the risk they don't they won't commit right off but i think what we're going to work
042hard to do is try to uh buttress the money into uh those the alliance so i'll just throw out the conversation say let's say we put half of the positions in there we already had all the kindergartens in there we've done that in the past so if we put at least half of it in there then you know the assuredness of having positions is that's much greater so we're looking at that those options now in terms of how do we safeguard when we bring folks in we get quality people in and it's not with a an eye on the door because they may be cut so i just wanted to put that on in the argument understood a final question would be in the event that the three foot the three foot regulation would in
043within a year be be avoided would it be beneficial for us depending on the government funding and the potential ease for us to operate the benefit that we have lower class sizes uh would be beneficial for us to stretch this out for a year or two so that we could sort of catch up a little bit and not be behind the eight ball all the time with reverting back to the overcrowding situation uh would that be something to to consider um i'll answer for the answer that is yes um our the board's goal when i arrived there one of the nice things that we had which was i felt so comfortable the first three or four years i was there we had very very reasonable class sizes at the elementary then we started really growing
044and growing and not adding sufficient staff you know what would happen i'd come to you in oregon and say oh my goodness we have to add and we would put a few people in this rigid would give our teachers and our kids um a better learning environment uh it should be much more within the goals of the board for the type of numbers you would like to see in the classrooms so i would say yes it it it is a nice um off benefit from this the the condition of opening next year to sustain lower class sizes and quality learning areas for our kids not necessarily all on carts in hallways on stages and things of that nature it would be it would help us in my view i agree final question does the board
045have to vote on this at some point in time uh i think in this case you know this year as i remind everybody and i'll get up my that's been on my team's decision about the opening closing the board has been um advising and we've been looking i think in this case i would say it needs a i would ask for a board's vote um on this i think that's very important thank you very much sorry for all the questions okay just to say just to be a little bit clear that when we talked about that 25 and you know the total 36 million that we have projected going forward for all of the federal monies that we got or anticipated getting we had held aside 12 million of that rich for what we proposed
046to offset some of the needs in the city budget which we'll learn about tomorrow the rest of it we hadn't yet determined the allocation for so to your question this would be a subset of that and one of the things that dr selling kevin in the cabinet where my glove was that the the growth isn't just now and it isn't just covered but it does help alleviate that covid like you had mentioned so it potentially lends us to what we're having for our projected demographic growth in the future um it's what we would naturally be needing potentially in the near future at any rate um and then like dr sall mentioned the alliance money that we're excited potentially to get five million which would grow to ten potentially even more in the following year we're
047hopeful but you know that's not yet authorized you never know and coordinate to to that point somewhere in the near future we should be able to develop some sort of a theoretical budget for the use of that 35 million dollars since most of the time all of the conversation we've had has been strictly on the operational budget just pushing off to decide you know generalities and and other things using the 35 million so that's something i think we we should have at hand so we're at least abreast of what we're looking to spend it on and and how the uh the expenditures go with our targets etc yeah and rich dr cell has started those conversations with cabinet so we do have you know a draft that's you know in phase three probably of that
048overall use of the funds and so we've scheduled something for later this week or early next week to follow up when we get the results of the city budget and we expect that the sr3 funding allocation will be released soon and we'll have a better you know picture of all that you know to present back to the board in a very you know soon time frame sure as well as that sometime in september i would hope we would get some sort of a forecast the theoretical forecast of the academy which over the summer i would anticipate we'd have a little bit more input as to how it's going to operate and this way all of the pieces are coming together at a certain point so that we know what our total cost is uh you
049know going ahead utilizing our own money plus utilizing federal money of which some of it may have to be absorbed back into our budget all right thank you very much aren't there any other questions from board members rachel sorry about that um i've got a few questions um one part is specific to the high school being you know the largest in the state um just some and where most of our kids are i guess and are not but um the most densely populated i guess is what i'm saying um can you clarify whether this is an eight period day or a nine period day we went from an eight period day to block scheduling and now we're moving to either an eight or nine uh period day um that includes lunch um so how does
050this it's going to be four blocks which be it we'll call it a period day for for our kids and with as of today there will be four lunch waves we had what they called um for a lack of other terms they call it a skinny period right they that the the thinking right now that is with the additional resources we would move towards an eight period day and four lunch waves um in a period day as in apple eight eight number eight number eight yeah eight period day so eight skinny periods well just a period of day it'll be eight periods double blocks i mean however they want to figure it out um right now it's a seven per day with what they call a skinny period but it would be evened out to
051have an eight period day for our planning purposes so when they schedule next year the youngsters would have um 25 percent chance more chance of getting another class giving us more room for these youngsters to go into that could i just interject just a point of clarification it is um eight periods but it will be four blocks per day so it'll be four blocks on an a day and then four blocks on a b day so that was a block schedule and lunch is built into one of the eight periods okay thank you for that clarification right and rachel one of those periods is a little longer for lunch to be built in there so that i understand why you're asking is it a nine period because of lunch um but the way kelly described
052it is absolutely right one of them is extended so that that sort of the instructional time takes place during that block okay great and then as stated earlier you know over the year um you know safe distancing could only be achieved given the number of students on dl so with without any students on dl you're saying three feet can still be achieved um and and with other districts you know just kind of dismissing that recommendation you know what would be the consequences of just doing things the same and and and notifying families you know this this may not be possible at times um and and also what if a family feels it is unsafe to return to school and they and they want that dl option it's working for them so let me start with
053the last one we're not required to offer it it's optional it would be you know if the board wants to offer it you'd have to figure out a whole staffing level and that potentially could create um you know another area of expense so the state is not requiring the board to offer it so that is could be an issue no doubt that's a possibility but um i call it shoeing them in when you start classes at 19 and 20 and trying to find one or two classroom or desks in there for kids that task is much not as great as when you have 24 26 to 27 that you're trying to put into that same classroom so you know it's just that much tighter um to answer rachel's question i would say i would call
054it you shoehorn the youngsters in there it's business as usual you put everybody in and let let the things roll um you know that that's basically what i'm hearing but my recommendation to the board that's why richard's question should be a board vote yes it should i'm saying we stayed with the medical i'm not willing to make the recommendation not to but it's the board's prerogative uh to um you know just uh schedule the youngsters get the desks in there put them in the classrooms and uh you know if you can put them in there you put them in there if you can't put them in there squeeze them in there i mean that's basically what's being said rachel as simple as i can put it and so right so you know we have the
055technology we um we have the platform we have the the wherewithal to have distance learning we've talked about this you know be pre-covered as a possible way of you know addressing overcrowding and now we're just gonna shut the door on that option and then i i mean it would just make it all the more harder to to revisit in the future yeah i know i i think uh that's true um you know i i worry about the kids being out so long for social emotional that's why i think if you ask me what the preference is for regular school i'm recommending that kids come to school the board can offer this learning but i will tell you it costs you because that's where we got into some problems this year with the number of staff
056and being able to uh you know handle it but it's certainly a possibility the state has permitted districts to make that decision on their own but they're not going to require the right to often that's the only difference and yes we're much more proficient dad let us grow up anybody on the cabinet also has a comment or not but kevin you had something you started yes so so rachel i don't i i heard a couple of questions um in there and if if we were not to um adhere or follow those guidelines um so so right now just for some context for the board and for the community uh we i believe dan's number was 800 to 850 students he needs to feed um every lunch period and uh when uh and the plan that
057we talked about if we had student desk and this would actually be removing all of the cafeteria furniture as we know it um and replacing it with student desks so students could be socially distanced apart not facing each other and probably be a little bit more safer for us um as the school community um i think he had projected he can get about 350 desks in his cafeteria um and so that still leaves us you know close to 500 students that he still needs to populate and and our and our idea was to rent lease tents um right outside of the cafeteria when it's at auto shop um one in like that little lower level and then possibly one more in a different area of his school campus and then possibly also one of the
058gyms to help make this happen um and and and you know we're still evaluating costs we have a couple of um estimates from a couple of different companies but but but those are the in terms of impact um that's what we would be looking at or uh we would abandon the social discipline guideline and we'd be talking north of 800 students in the cafeteria uh frankly with i mean well i think if this group can understand if we can get 350 with three-foot social distancing um there would really be no social distance and if we wouldn't go full 800. so that's what we would be looking at in the camera or or unless you kept the dl as an option i mean it's oh yes yes not including that right not including that piece that
059you had talked about right and and can and can the three feet be achieved without any dl students at the high school in the classroom was the cafeteria yes so in the in the classroom in the classroom yeah yes so in the classrooms yes but that is with additional staffing right and so we would so we would literally cut into the class size by having additional staff plus more sections available by going to a period day and some of our students will have been vaccinated at that point hopefully so is that a mitigation strategy that is being considered as you know one of the many layers of safety protocols for next year would you say that again i didn't quite understand that so many of our students at that in the fall will have been
060vaccinated hopefully i mean is that is that considered in the overall scheme of health protocols in the way of mitigation strategies it's once very but kathy could you respond sure um so we are encouraging the vaccine but it is not mandated so at this point we have offered it to ages 16 and up because that's what is approved for under pfizer um we i'm asking parents you know to voluntarily let us know if their child has been vaccinated but they're not required to report that to us and at this time we're not able to require the vaccine understood thank you are there any other questions from board members i i have one gladius yes captain i just want to be clear about this this whole thing about the cdc i want to be clear about
061the lobbying that's going on apparently from teachers unions to make sure that they do not change the three-foot rule because in my mind you know come may come june we may be returning to a real normal way of life without social distancing because the cdc has said that most young people do not carry or give off the disease um adults have been vaccinated or or have had the disease and so they have a natural immunity we're getting a hurt immunity toward this so i'm not understanding i guess what we're going to have this saint joseph's in brookfield no matter what even if the three-foot rule goes away but then i'm saying that the three-foot rule will not go away because of the union lobbying that it does not go away so what happens then what
062i don't understand help me yeah i mean let me try this i mean i if you come no no no it's not that it's been what we've been asking sort of what rachel's asking the wrong yes yes when when this thing started we thought well when people are vaccinated we're good to go well you know it's like what's going on with this uh why aren't we having um a better understanding and clarity about the the um the guidelines to bring well every time the cdc comes out with a guideline they they backpedal as soon as they get pushed back what would happen is i think the board just for um i think rich hit it with class sizes being humiliated by doing this it permits that to happen which is a good thing you are
063overcrowded at the elementary so st joe's at a very reasonable um price would give a comfort level for the board for for maintaining um an area that you could put youngsters in if you have to even if you have to open up another k-5 building i mean that could be a possibility uh for you down the road so that's absolutely but the three-foot rule is a recommendation i think rachel's question what are other districts doing well it's a recommendation and um you try it and you don't and you're not succeed so be it they're doing that in some cases right now so i would say you know i it would continue down that path those that can with reasonable class sizes uh might be able to get away with it those that have very large
064classrooms and with kids that aren't on a dl if that's it then they're going to be they're going to be uh challenged uh to put kids in there uh two and a half feet uh two feet apart whatever if the rules don't change but it's uh becomes a local it's a local decision is what the governor has done the vote for rl and the recommendations uh on this so that's the best i can i can i can tell you right now and we're still working on scheduling to see if you know is there some other ways of coming at this particularly at the middle of high school regarding these large areas but um you know the classrooms i think without the api day at the high school um to create more space you got to
065get rooms to get more rooms you have to get teachers are not teaching and then get that room and then put a teacher in there that's basically what that what he came up with that's the way of handling the overcrowdedness by the way we're making the assumption here that the kids can all sit on the bus coming right i mean uh the buses will be you know windows open and it'll be two to a seat uh at this point they have not done any more restrictions with the buses that i know of so that we're anticipating with the 10 buses we can get all the kids in safely that's the best i could do anybody else cow cathy can you want to take a shot at it kelly or anybody um sure dr sal um
066so as we know um covid remains a very fluid situation um and it's very difficult to pin down uh making predictions you know more than weeks in advance because everything continues to change you know our goal is to get to hurt immunity so that we can return to you know what we consider normal we're not there yet um we are getting close connecticut has done very well in terms of uh the vaccines but we're still not quite there and there are many you know in the community who have the vaccine residency um so again we're we're not quite there um and we've asked the question of the department of health you know looking towards august september we need to make plans to the school district and they've told us it's difficult to tell us that
067there could be changes you know more than you know two months in advance it's really very kathy you're frozen yeah kathy is always frozen gladys can you hear me we could hear yourself okay well kathy's frozen why don't we oh sorry go ahead am i still frozen no you're good now okay where did i freeze what was i saying the consistency of the state department to give us timely information well they'll give us timely information as best that they can um you know kovid it's i know this has been a very long year but this is is still so new there's still so much that we need to learn every day and that's why there have always been so many um frequent changes so you know at this point the push is to get as
068many people vaccinated as possible so that we can get to that hurt immunity and as i said we're just we're not quite there yet hopefully um come i think this summer the vaccine may be open to children 12 and up pfizer has submitted all of their clinical trial data to the fda and they should be taking up review of that in oh she's frozen again one good thing uh guys well she's frozen there uh if we go to tent route um that that'll be a month by month right if we have to do that so that you can eliminate the buses you can right okay i'm sorry yeah the buses are the buses and the staff that's your other big one and that's that's what you'd have to answer the furniture quite frankly um bringing
069that furniture in um there's a lot of stuff we haven't been able to do so that'll be helpful uh to keep in the future um but those are the commitments now one other one other question for kathy no doubt i know that we we require wow can't even say it um other vaccinations to enter school [Music] will this probably be one of them eventually um eventually it might be it will not be for next coming school year nothing will be for the next coming school year um so you know currently these vaccines are emergency use authorization yeah um so at that point they they cannot mandate that well the fda hasn't really approved them yet right right correct they're emergency use only right um so if they get full fda approval for use then again
070that would be at the state level them taking that up as to whether they would require that uh to be one of the vaccinations required for so right now we just hope that people will do it and um hope for the best correct and our staff will be okay or will be okay with our staff saying well i'm not coming back to school because the kids are not vaccinated and i don't feel safe all right we won't see that we won't be good with that we won't be good no we won't be good with that so the staff are vaccinated right you know once you've been fully vaccinated once you're fully vaccinated if you're exposed you do not have to test or quarantine if you're not sick so if staff vaccinate get vaccinated they will
071be protected okay let me ask you questions if maybe maybe let me layer on what kathy so i i work at the i work at danbury and i decide um not to get the vaccine what is what are my options next year as a teacher according to the law yeah yeah that's the ken question right so so that's what i was just going to say is that we have worked with a lot of teachers and other staff members on reasonable accommodations of their disabilities so right had you know any kind of a situation that made it difficult or high risk for them to come to work we made work from home accommodations those few people who still have those in place for whatever reason i've worked with them and alerted them that continued provision of
072that accommodation will be a reasonable hardship on the district for next year so that that's not something we'll be able to continue in in part because of what rachel points out that you know the dl model is going to be non-existent or very different and so that's not going to create the space that we used to be able to make those kind of accommodations this year so um it's it's going to be a different world in that regard it's a very small group of people honestly thank you you're welcome what if a child is exposed and has to quarantine what do you mean so if they have to what does that mean for the teacher or what does that mean for their education i guess it's not a for you kim but right that is
073a question rachel that we've been asking i'm just going to take a shot at this don't hold me to it i would say if we current any force quarantining we would have a provision um to supply them in education in the past we did homebound um tutoring in in this situation i think we would try to do learn piggyback off of um you know what we've learned about um the simulcast if we can do it um so we would have to work that's that's a question we have asked but i think you would probably see something like that if we send home your youngster for 10 days because to no fault of their own they were exposed then we would have to provide the education whether it's online or what we call homebound tutoring and
074normally when it's shorter than 10 days we didn't provide it so i would say we would work it out where it would be some kind of remote learning that's just we have to have more conversation that's just my guess to be fair to the youngster any other questions i have a follow-up question could i could i uh could i ask the question uh mr janelle first and then you can go okay um how many students do you or do you know the number of students kindergarten uh that will be impacted to be transported to brookfield kevin i know it is about 11 12 classes but what do you got sure give me one second miss cooper okay and again a concern parents are working something happened with the students they're living here in denver and
075they uh over on the other side of town they might have to go pick up their child or something happening within the family and they need to go pick up their child and i'm just thinking about the distance from danbury to brookfield to do what they need to do to pick up their child it could be a family emergency or whatever right so so ms cooper let me first answer your first question um we we our our capacity would be 242 and so it would be 88 for south street 88 i'm sorry 88 for ellsworth 88 for stanley rough and 66 for south street so that would give us four sections four sections and then three sections um from south street respectively and so we we we were we were asked that question um i
076forget the forum that we were in actually i think it was in a farm with teachers asking the question you know what do we do in the event a child is sick and the family can't pick up their child in brookfield i i know we've had instances in a short time that i've been here in a district uh where we've had similar circumstances and you know we work with the bus company to get one of our smaller buses to transport the child in those rare rare occasions um you know certainly it's not something we want to have to do often um but you know we we've made provisions and and worked it out with families to get traffic to get children to families when they couldn't get to us and again we wouldn't want to
077make a habit of it if we don't have to uh but you know these emergent situations do come up and if we have to miss cooper then we'll certainly exercise you know with one of these options okay thank you mr west okay mr sure i feel that if this goes the board and the board does accept you know this i do believe within a short period of time whether it be one year or two year that it would be difficult to take away from the say joseph school do away with that and bring everything back into the the mainstream of our elementary schools and then create you know the existing problem we currently have with larger class sizes and potentially you know over the course of the next couple of years the the increased enrollment
078um not to say it won't be done so a consideration you know could be on the table that perhaps the least just you know stay there for a long term um this is just to me looks like a temporary a temporary solution to accommodate the covet situation and gave us a way out to at least accommodate a little bit lower class sizes in some of our schools but i do believe in a couple of years it's going to come back to a board to reassess the situation and and to your point rachel it made that there may be you know some future dealings of a combination of you know however they look at it for a hybrid and distant learning but you know at least we have one year or two years to operate with
079some sanity um and to be able to try to figure out the future rich that's what we did with um sacred heart you may recall um you know in terms of it's just that school if it was built like saint joe's we'd have a different option here much different and the granville option has helped with space you may recall that part of the conversation we had a year and a half ago was when they were when they were looking at the campuses to put their early childhood center when the talk was over at great plains not whether we do it or not that's another thing but there was a thinking you were going to need you know something else um so st jones does provide you the time granville provided us the time and having
080the the backdrop next year um at the sacred heart we think that um you know uh one more year of that then we have the extension at um not osborne husband but over at ellsworth ellsworth that gained some classrooms there too so i mean all of that is going to happen but it depends on how someone said your high school may have to be up to four thousand that means all your classroom all your classes are going to be at a thousand so you know we could be taxed you're right yeah yeah again i don't want to be naive because i think that once you give something it's a little difficult to take it away once people have gotten accustomed to it but you know we'll deal with that in the future it's true okay
081are there any other questions for board members now i will open it up for uh citywide pto uh tim i don't know thank you chair cooper um thank you dr sal and kevin and board for allowing us to be part of your meeting tonight is much appreciated um so we have some questions that we would uh like to ask we'll ask in a couple of sets between the three of us um one of my questions is uh i feel how how what is the district's plan to communicate to the parents during the summer and how are you going to push that information out well i'll take a shout out even though i'll be here we want to let me just start with now as soon as we have an understanding of the direction we would
082then be putting something out immediately to the current families let them know what the board's preference would be regarding next year parents need to know we're coming back we're coming back every day coming back full day we're offering dale or not they need to know that so we'll get that out to it now to them then it's going to be a series of um you have your new kindergarten folks registering and i'm sure as kevin just said we know from where they're going to go they would receive information regarding the saint joel's those are the registrants registers i would think that before i leave in june we'd have another uh mailing post remember we have summer school going on that will have to go to the parents uh in in june about what we'll be
083doing uh this summer to prepare for um the first day of school and then i would think the new superintendent would come in with the cabinet to get something out as well to them that's not to say that there couldn't be a forum meeting if need be and that need may come if the cdc steps in and makes some kind of a revelation that's going to require the board to do some rethinking i think that might be possible so that kind of episodic event would call for some special communication you saw what the board did last year they convened summer meetings to to communicate with parents we had open meetings so those are choices that the board would make depending on some some communication they feel is necessary so that's sort of just the thumbnail
084just off the top of my head uh at this point um another one would be uh and this may be more directed to kathy um will the district coordinate vaccines to the younger students if they become available will that be through the district or are parents going to be responsible on their own uh no we'll work with our community partners to just as we've done for the 16 year olds and up we partnered with our local health department and the community health center when those students were offered the vaccines the community health center was wonderful they provided me with the links to send out to the parents it was considered what we call a third party or a private clinic so it was only the students registered through that through that link they were provided
085their second appointments so um we anticipate the same would happen if it's approved for 12 and up okay [Music] um dr sal regarding the the plan for the future um obviously we're dealing with covid but kind of looking a tad bit ahead it still doesn't sound like at least to me and correct me if i'm wrong like there is a plan for the influx of students that we are going to get again at some point um so can you talk about that a little bit is there something or are we going to take that as it comes probably a combination you know the uh enrollment has the new enrollments had has subsided during this pandemic so we're going to have to see what happens to him when we open up again that's sort of unpredictable
086but we're anticipating our normal growth which i think kevin it was about two percent between the two and a half percent um the um the additional space that we've been able to to utilize tim we have granville which opened up classrooms in our schools to the preschool so that opened up you know about six or eight classrooms thereabouts and we have um if saint joe wasn't in the picture we we would have um sacred heart to help us with some overruns the other the other thing that the board um uh i i know you heard this there hasn't been deep conversation with the facilities committing my understanding and kelly you know about over at granville they they may make an application to add additional classrooms there either four or six or seven whatever and then
087we would then move more kids preschool into that um into that building so that would help the district with overall classroom space in itself so so that that dr sal and tim i actually i would say the exact opposite actually i i think our proposal is actually position us positioning us pretty well for potential growth in our kindergarten schools um and so sal and i understand that the public might not be aware of what sister school arrangements mean uh but dr sau has alluded to you know this idea in a number of our meetings and so our proposal is to um add 14 additional ftes across our k5 schools certainly we have continued to experience growth um at those levels um you know we we have the annex that's going to be um built and
088open in september of 2022 um and so you know with that in mind uh we have recommended that we have four sections go to st joe's um south street elementary school right now has three sections at every grade level we have recommended to move kindergarten to st joe's and then we're also looking to add a section at south street again anticipating that growth at that school anticipating the growth in our downtown schools south street in ellsworth we're looking to move you know students out of ellsworth and then their sister school which is great playing add two sections that great plain again anticipating that growth so all of these moves are in anticipation of growth and the existing you know high enrollment numbers that we have of our k5 schools um you know the recommendation that
089we have coming from the high school and and by the way i purposely skip over the middle school because we don't have room for more sections like we we just do not have the room for more sections um and then the high school is you know we are i mean as everyone has heard earlier we're talking about adding additional sections um you know we have the demographic projections where we're anticipating five to six hundred more students by 2425 um and with those projections you know these additional staff members help to address that growth the social distancing guidelines piece that we're talking about tonight helps us where we are right now but if we you know we hire those positions they also help with our impending growth that i mean we know was coming um so
090i i feel pretty confident that the positions that we're requesting are in line with the growth that we have coming in the district certainly a little premature because if we didn't have to deal with you know with the social distancing guidelines right now we wouldn't have this issue um we may not be recommending you know so many positions um but we we feel like we're pretty well positioned for you know the the additional growth in the district our class size will be at a pretty reasonable number across our elementary schools um and our high school um if if approved um i just have two more questions ms cooper if that's okay so one one would be um and i don't know if this is even correct but i i just i'm curious will there be
091any tax implications due to st joseph's property on us and that may be more towards courtney i guess you mean will we charge the tax yeah will there be any tax implications on leasing this property well right sacred heart which is a you know catholic school [Music] and we haven't gotten any tax bill they may put it in our payment you know but i in terms of you of not the tax but the utility but i haven't heard of any tax bill courtney have you not on the individuals but um they are proposing triple net tim which means that we pay the real estate taxes through the um in addition to the least cost so we in our cost that kevin projected it includes that triple net assumption although that would still be subject to
092the board's approval and negotiation um inter you know community feedback but yeah so no taxes for individuals per se like it won't i understand what you're saying i think because we're crossing town borders but it's essentially like we're not renting from the town we're renting from a facility located in brookfield you know on the border of danbury so just through the triple net we'd be paying the real estate tax so so with that though courtney would would we be then responsible for like building maintenance and things of that nature while we're there yeah kevin's actually been really closely negotiating so you know i can i can tell you what i i just wrote up from what kevin negotiated but i defer to kevin to speak to it but yeah there's portions that we do in
093portions that they do kevin did you want to speak specifically to it sure sure sure tim so they have um you know as negotiations as is a good word courtney um and so they have number one recommended um and it doesn't sound like it's unreasonable thus far like there are some sure um shared kind of um responsibilities that the tenant and the landlord have um some responsibilities that you know some things that we would be responsible for and some things that they'd be responsible for so some of the major ones are the hvac system some of the major ones are any structural damage or upgrades that the building requires uh you know certainly they would maintain those things um they have requested thus far anyway that you know we take care of the grounds um
094there's some some negotiation to be had around snow removal but that they take care of the grounds in terms of the grass um trimming the trees in the bushes that that kind of thing we would be responsible for general cleanup and maintenance outside of the school and certainly anything inside of the school uh you know we um you know they've made a request that we fill the oil tank they they will fill the oil tank when they when we come in and when we leave we will fill a oil tank when we leave um you know so so so things like that they have access of course if we're going to have a security system we have one installed and we're responsible for paying for it um if we want to change the locks in
095the building we are responsible for changing the locks in the building i think a lot of things that we would see associated with the lease if we were renting from an owner we're going to find in this lease and so if we want wi-fi we're going to be responsible for you know paying for our own wi-fi um the building is set up and and has this infrastructure um you know so they have an alarm system in place but that's not live right now um so i don't think we would have to have someone come in and you know um do a total implementation because i think the structure is already there but certainly those wires we need to be meet live and we'll probably need a you know a new box you know to to
096actually start the alarming process um so those are some of the things that we talked about wi-fi alarm system we certainly be responsible for snow move slow removal is something that's you know to be um discussed courtney i may have missed a couple of things but yeah we do general maintenance and they do the big maintenance they do trash removal things like that it's pretty standard and then they gave us an estimated cost of the pieces that are not included in the lease you know and so we've included that in kevin's projection that he shared with the board in the pto tonight um as we negotiate further he's got a really good partner father o'neill and reverend o'neill i apologize and the others that he's been working with there so that's that's a positive and
097they're building some beautiful conditions it's in tremendous condition yeah good and my last question would be more directed to dr cell dr cell earlier you had mentioned along the lines of um kind of a little bit of a piggybacking off of what rachel was talking about in terms of if a student was unavailable to attend school whether they were sick or for whatever various reason what would be the difference between i'm just not sure so forgive me between say a simulcast or a distance learning session if you can kind of elaborate on that um distance learning we have now and it's generally through we call credit recovery the simon class is what we're doing now at the high school where if tim you're at home and i'm in my classroom we would then cast that
098out to you in terms of a student you're in my classroom but you're at home that day or as the uh the point rachel made you may have been quarantined so the board the district could make a decision in those cases we would um you know we would um cast it at home simon cast it at home we'd have to work it out with the teachers and stuff but that that would be the difference um cara cashmere you're on right yes dr you want to answer that better than i can probably well i mean i think we have to talk about that a little bit more in terms of in terms of protocol certainly we have we have students that get sick um they get the flu they're you know they're not feeling well for
099four or five days then they feel better but not maybe good enough to come to school so you know we do have new technologies that we've acquired um and so you know we we should make use of those where possible um but at the same time i think that you know the goal really is to re-engage everyone in full-time in-person learning so that we can get going and uh maximize instruction and you know there's it's no secret when when teachers are doing both um it slows it slows instruction down it slows pacing down and it is more difficult so um we would want to reduce that as much as possible but yet in rare instances and certainly we'll have students who will be medically fragile still that exist um we'll have to be creative in
100the way that we we solve those those issues um but we do we do have new new technologies that we can that we can utilize um but the goal is to come back and full in person learning and make sure that we're maximizing that instructional time to the grace capabilities certainly also you know we we really went um the distance if you will with the way that we did our distance learning this year which was great the teachers were phenomenal and we had dedicated distance learning teachers at the k5 level which really helped to engage students but in order to do that again i really would split the staff right so in order to come back in full person we need all of our staff back into the building to make this work so there
101would be very few um opportunities to have that level of dedication again that we had this year and so it would look very different it would very um probably a little bit more passive in the sense that students could certainly view what's happening in the classroom and possibly here but it would you know i'd have to say that there'd be less engagement if you will that would be more um kind of a window in um and circling back with with questions but again that would have to be worked out in advance and planned appropriately thank you chair cooper that's all i have for myself okay kathy or anyone else from your group have questions thank you i just have a couple of questions and i want to thank you again for inviting us as well
102as um the excitement where you know i'm hearing about going back full next year and i know it's been an incredible amount of work on all of your parts as well as every principal and administrator out there rearranging and arranging furniture over and over again i'm sure so we're very excited by it glad to hear dr sal and and the board will communicate there is still a sense of hesitation out there i'm sure you can imagine um in the community it's kind of like i'll believe it when i see it so i'm very excited that you guys are are ready to go back um so my questions um that i've been seeing around the high school mainly are about if a student is fully vaccinated would they need to quarantine if you know if someone
103else in their class got coveted and then my second question is regarding the incoming freshmen as well as the current freshmen and possibly even the sophomores you have like two and a half years worth of students who have rarely set foot in those buildings so would they have a chance to tour and you know go back in earlier over the summer you don't mean a virtual tour right now no i do not it's not real estate but kathy could you deal with the corn question i'll speak to the quarantine um so um any individual who is fully vaccinated and what that means is two weeks past um the second dose if you've had pfizer or moderna and two weeks past the the one and only dose if it's a johnson johnson vaccine you are considered
104fully protected at that point so if you're exposed to covid um as long as you are not sick then you do not have to test or quarantine and that's staff and students the other question i'm not sure kathy i'd have to talk to the high school about orientation i um i don't know uh cara i don't know uh kelly let me ask kelly have there been any conversation about this orientation there's been only very preliminary conversations right now we've been focusing on you know re-entry summer school things like that but we will certainly bring it up to the high school administration and make sure that that communication goes out thank you and then just really quick my last um i guess comment and i know mr donovan has a planned principal's breakfast his virtual principal
105breakfast um but there is confusion on the eight block four block you know eight periods four block day because in the not too distant past there was eight periods a day so i think it's a bit confusing and i'm sure mr donovan and his team will send out clarification on that i just wanted to make you aware you know we did have eight periods a day in the very distant past as i'm sure you all remember so so the four blocks a day is still a little confusing but i understand it is to help reduce those sizes so thank you thank you for that i think he's listening in oh okay great i know he's working hard so but we'll bring it up too okay kathy i think i'm the last one here um thank
106you again everybody for letting us join in i know we have a lot of questions and we get a lot of questions daily um as parent representative um and i wanted to just thank everybody for putting this plan together i know us at the citywide really support this plan and whatever plan gets all the kids back into school five days a week at the same time so this is really important to us and we appreciate all the work that has gone into it um and i just quickly before my questions i just wanted to comment and um on the distance learning piece and i it's really more of a comment because i know it hasn't been flushed out um and i'm sure there are parents that probably aren't interested in that but i just wanted
107to say with the plan to go back full five days a week everybody in it does seem and i don't care sort of pointed this out and i appreciated that the teachers just in my opinion cannot do both the teaching online and the teaching in the classroom at the same time and still provide the same level of education and attention i know for example several high school parents who have sent their kids in for a couple of days and then pulled them because they felt like they were not getting enough attention um because dealing with the computer and the students online and everything like that just takes away um a lot of the time and a lot of the learning that they can get to and they feel like it just was of no use
108like to send them in when they can stay home and not be quarantined for example so i do think if distance learning is going to remain it will definitely have to look much different as cara was saying so that was just a comment um in general most of my questions um are regarding the new k academy the kindergarten and i guess i was mostly wondering will it be a school on its own like will it have a new name will it have a principal um you know i'm sure many of you that have children know that entering kindergarten is a huge thing for parents um and they're super excited about it um and i just feel like if we keep calling it saint joe's in brookfield um kind of makes it seem less so i'm
109hoping that it will have sort of its own thing happening where i mean i i personally think it's very exciting like if i was sending my child to kindergarten having all other kindergarteners there where you could really focus on kindergarten you know and have events for kindergarten and all the teachers teaching kindergarten it seems great like they can play together outside and um and i think sort of setting it up in that way would really help people get on board if they are one of the ones that is selected to go there so i was just wondering if that was part of the plan and or if there will still be say like a kindergartner for south street that's now going to the school in brookfield or will they associate with brookfield as their school
110so um since i'm leaving i'll take a shot at this so you could blame me in a way that was a concern of of ours because let's just say it's a year thing or two year those youngsters are going to be uh reunited for their with their young with their classmates over in the main building right so one of the ideas that we talked about jade was if there's two sections from south street let's say go there then um they do not lose the ability to participate in the in the life of south street school pto wise trip-wise things like that so that that connection is there just a temporary situation for testing sake we are going to treat everyone the way we do what ace and i mean our other alternative centers that they're
111part of the high school so south street kids that are in the brookfield count on brookfield campus south the they'll be counted with the students from south street for attendance for graha for testing and all of that so one thing we talked about was don't let them lose their identity on the same token what identity they're going to have when they're over there that you know we have to work that out but i certainly would like to see the key youngsters keep and the parents keep the um the the relationship consistent with the school that the youngsters would have attend from their uh attendance zone that's what comes in we've been having that conversation it's not finalized obviously but that's sort of what we're thinking and would welcome feedback underst i mean i totally understand
112that they would uh need to keep the identity to matriculate back in and it might be worth it to have a little bit of both you know if that makes sense um it's possible you know just so they can have something to sort of jump onto as they're joining but will it have its own administration like a principal or somebody in charge yes what do we call i'm using the word sacred art they should what do we call sacred heart there um kelly campus gran uh i mean grandville we call it the granville campus yeah early childhood center at granville yeah right so we tried to you know to take the the parochial name out of it so that's something we have to come up with that was another question so thank you for answering
113that i mean that's something we would come up with it would have to have i think um kevin can answer it but um much like the maintenance part with tim he'd have to set up the same infrastructure go ahead and uh kevin no i i was just going to say one i just want to applaud jade for naming the school um because that that that was really smooth um but but but two um you know it's it's a recommendation so it's not ours yet um and and you know certainly once that happens we'll rename it so you know we can own it and and have new signage up there but i i totally agree it it needs to be associated with danbury public schools and and make sure we come up with the name that's
114appropriate um we are excited about the idea of having a um you know single academic focus in that building um you know we we told we spoke with teachers from those respected schools um you know just kind of given how we made this public last week um and you know certainly didn't try to talk them into anything but just kind of shared the facts and and you know just kind of reviewed with them the rationale and so you know i i just want to applaud them because you know to a person the ones who are able to participate in the meeting um you know asked a lot of questions and and in my eyes anyway my takeaway was you know they were um excited about the idea you know perhaps a little anxious also because
115you know that's it's somewhat of an unknown um you know i'm i'm not their principal i don't work with them every day as i'm telling them this is a great campus um but you know they they don't know what that looks like but i i i think they are definitely curious and feel like it could be a really good opportunity and be a part of something special for the district yeah and i thank you for coming up with that option i think it's a great one personally um and then my last question i think kevin you actually touched on it earlier i just wanted to confirm um i know we keep saying that we are looking at probably a larger influx of k this year um all of the other sister schools do have enough
116room to accommodate additional students within their pairs so that say you won't need another class from mill ridge say at this brookfield school like you have a little padding room between the two sisters that's what i'm that's what i was gathering from what you were saying i just wanted to make sure that you thought that so um the answer is yes and and then of course if we have enough room between and we'll use mrp as an example and so if mrp doesn't have the space in kindergarten uh so between ksi i'm sorry between ksp and between mrp um you know we're anticipating you know with the staffing that we have in place um between those sister school arrangements we'll be able to address any over any overflow between the two of them um you
117know we feel strongly strongly um we feel strongly about you know our other sister school arrangers as well but not these three schools um that we're moving to brookfield um and so except for ellsworth in which we've opened up an additional kindergarten section at great plain shelter rock um also has a we're recommending that shelter rock also has an additional kindergarten section uh because again we will not be offering um kindergarten at south street and so in the event we've we've exhausted all the sections at shelter rock and we continue to get registrations from south street which i'm confident we will get more than 66 we will open up an additional section at shelter rock uh the building just happens to have the space just kind of the way the building is you know the
118building the school is built i understand thank you for that and i just want to my last um item is just a comment just to piggyback on what tim was saying that um a lot of the comments we hear um refer to communication and so once this plan is set up i think the earlier and the more clear we can put it out to everybody and um maybe that includes you guys coming to one of our meetings to answer further questions um but as much as we can get out i think during the summer early would help sort of alleviate a lot of the anxiety or confusion associated with it and you know and just make the whole process easier for everybody and thank you again so much everyone you know along those lines you
119know we we might be able to dedicate something on the website just a reopening page have it appear and keep updating it as this will change so in addition to that that might be something we could talk through as well so thank are there any you questions i have a question it's catherine um my question i want to go back to the tents that are being rented um i know that they were to help alleviate the lunch waves i'm assuming um and maybe dr sal can address this but uh we're having these tents in the winter months i assume too so does that mean that people that they're going to be heated are they only being lunch we had the uh we had the fire marshal well let me let me start with this we're
120still looking at scheduling i mean and options but the tents that we're looking at catherine the walk through what kevin had with um the city folks and the fire marshal would the specs call for heated tents so that if we have it that long let's say uh then um the tents themselves would be heated um kevin you wanna i know you talked with them explicitly so you wanna add to that sure sure hi catherine so um we we did have an opportunity to walk um uh with with the fire inspector and he you know he he reminded us as long as we had the the level grade tents that had the option to be closed number one right so we could roll the tents up in in really good weather but that could be rolled
121down um that could be heated you know empowered appropriately if we also need power in there 10 feet away from the building um you know making sure there's levels of egress you know so he walked us through all of those scenarios of course he would come back out and inspect our work as well um he said if it meets all of those requirements absolutely we'll be able to heat and power up the tents and that's one of the reasons why the tents are so costly because they give us the flexibility to provide heat to provide power um to provide flooring in in spaces where the ground is not level thank you yeah you're welcome welcome are there any other questions chair cooper may i ask a few on behalf of estella just give us a
122quick one go ahead um let me just pull her up real quick or flip to something so estella camacho was asking um and dr sal kevin is probably more directed to you um would there be possibility of any august or such orientation or meeting for late incomers due to this coming into the school system or families moving into the area during the summer and to kind of piggyback on that uh will kindergartners parents be alerted as they register for the district's plan to transport their child to brookfield um so i'll tim if it's okay i'll start with the second question last we have we we have and i don't know if gene is on the call gina who's uh director of um kind of technology and kind of district information we she's also in charge
123of registration and we have met with the registration team and informed them of this change so anticipating um the board will approve this recommendation we are kind of holding our kindergarten registrations for next year kind of just kind of freezing them and not making any commitments to schools yet just just because we want to make sure that families are aware that if they go to south ellsworth or stably rough that they will be going to brookfield and then we also need to be mindful of our sister school arrangements and just you know i've reviewed our school capacity numbers with registration as well and so if we have three sections and it's 22 in the classroom in first grade 66 is our absolute maximum number uh you know versus perhaps whatever that number may have been
124in the past because of our just regular you know regular classroom capacity um and so the registration office is aware um and we we we speak every week in anticipation of a decision from this evening and just kind of on ongoing enrollment challenges that we typically have anyway so so i just want to start there and tim i'm sorry can you repeat the first question yeah is there going to be orientation for the newcomers new students is the question and is that new families to the district tim [Music] i believe so right tim yes i'm sorry i was muting myself right right um so so i know registration has you know the part of their onboarding process um you know they meet with families and kind of you know walk them through provide almost like
125a mini orientation as families come in uh but i certainly can speak to to to ann dr mead and see what might be appropriate for families you know to provide i know ann has done orientations for families new to the district in the past um i know they've been um well attended because we packed a couple of rooms my first two years when i was here so i can just kind of you know revisit that with her and just you know get a feeling of what that would look like for us for late registrations uh to the district ann is here and you want to add to that are you okay with that oh i am no hi i am here um yes we're we will do an expanded whether it's uh virtual or in
126person um every year each school has done something to welcome their families in usually in the spring it's an orientation um followed up with um some screening next year will look a little bit different um with the start of school we're still working on what that will look like thanks ian you're welcome miss cooper when i ask one more question you certainly can thank you um kevin would there be um in hiring of of some of these new teachers obviously i know we said we're you guys are probably going to be working on some sort of plan for students that might not be able to get into the school would some of those teachers be designated per se for say a distance learning program for those children who may not be able to get into
127school that way we're not asking one teacher to do both at the same time i'm sorry tim when you say okay will not be able to get into this people i'm not sure i understand [Music] are we going to hire any just exclusively for dl is that the question tim yeah like why why i'm just going off a couple of comments that some uh actual former pto members throughout the the town have set on you know why are we not hiring just a couple of designated dl people just to help relieve some of the you know tension on on maybe parents not wanting to send their child to school quite yet even if it's just a temporary you know fix well let me just uh but that's a board decision we're not required to tim
128um to do it you know reasons that we articulated but um k5 is getting an elementary person teaching is easier for the you know to hire in terms of the certification but trying to get a secondary person in the in the content areas for a youngster is virtually impossible to hire that many teachers and to to handle it in a economic fashion so um you know that's that's a decision the board would have to direct us to certainly if kids are home because of quarantine or other issues like that then we'd have to do something but at this point um the people that we hire we'd hire to teach in the school at school and if we have to turn uh you know and have them teach remotely then we usually what we ask for
129who would like to do it and then if no one then we assign it i mean basically okay i don't know if that answers your question entirely but it does okay uh do is there are any any other questions dr say are you off complete mr washington okay i just want to ask the board here it'll be on the next board agenda for uh because it was on the first time for information it will come to you next time uh for the board for action if you know if there's something between now and then that you think would be helpful to get information let us know certainly if even if it's on the agenda next week you don't have to vote and i'm just saying i think the general public someone just said i'll see
130it when i believe it i'll believe it when i see it done i just think people are anxious to know what we're going to do so my anticipation here is that i'll put it on the next agenda and i ask if you have some specific questions that we've omitted or for clarity we could bring to the table for information to add to it the discussion let us know please but thank you thank you for tonight dr sal yes tim the the board and i just wanted you guys to know and and this goes with all the board and staff um if there's anything we can do during the summer to help you guys push out information we'd be more than happy to to do that i think we are probably planning on probably having a
131meeting or two ourselves during the summer just to stay in touch with our parents okay thank you okay uh again uh thank board members um dr sale and everyone to help work so hard together to put this together tonight and uh citywide pto again i'd like to thank you uh and especially you know i would like to personally thank cathy o'donnell and i go back to last summer she has been at every meeting and she's been faithful giving us an update and each meeting i came home and i said oh my god i want to say on behalf of the board thank you kathy and i just i don't know if she's listening but on behalf of the board thank you kathy for always um here giving us the information that we need thank you
132so very much and um i think we have another busy summer young people okay thank you again and good night to everyone okay thank you so much thank you thank you thank you miss have a good night you