001able to make the meeting we gonna move on um kate will you do the royal car certainly uh joe britton is absent rachel celeski is absent kate canetta here gladys cooper here lauren daly here okay joe da silva here catherine hodgson here rich gianelli kathy molinero here al russo i do not see him on here at amy's spooling now okay okay so we have three apps [Music] okay oh next we're gonna have the recognitions mr watson yes you just needed to unmute miss cooper sorry about that oh sugar so this evening uh miss cooper i have the pleasure of introducing miss kim dioria um she is one of our teachers at danbury high school and recently was is a recipient she recently she received the harvey milk and sylvia rivera award for challenging discrimination related
002to gender identity and sexual orientation um excuse me one second sorry for the noise in the background and so we are um excited uh to have kim here this evening um kim dan donovan is not able to be with us this evening and quite frankly i can't tell you how um excited i am to introduce you to the board and to the public and so one ms cooper you might recall a couple of years ago we adopted um a board of ed policy diversity equity and diversity policy the last line of that policy um it's embracing our diversity through inclusion creates an environment that leverages diversity and creates schools where students families community members and employees feel valued welcomed and supported so that students and staff can perform at their very best i think everything
003that you're going to hear about um miss the aurier this evening demonstrates that she's an absolute embodiment of our equity and diversity policy and so i'm just looking forward to um welcome um reviewing with everyone while kim has received this prestigious award so kim is honored and humbled to be nominated by a jamboree high school colleague and she and she and she stated i want to thank my dhs colleagues who have listened to me talk about my vision for a safe lgbtq student body and school environment in her ongoing mission kim has provided resources for gsa and diversity club members teachers and administrators to advocate for lgbtq issues gsa members have always spread the positive message to embrace inclusiveness diversity and culture kim has created a safe space to discuss barriers and to celebrate achievements
004kim is currently a board member at glsen connecticut held the position at a palace as a policy coordinator over the years kim has attended numerous workshops training and conferences to keep her work current and spends a tremendous amount of time following bills policies and language regarding the lgbtq student community kim's room i hope she's okay with our sharing this room 22 d 277 is always open to students who seek comforting guidance of a true professional please um when you get a chance to see kim and we are um so glad to have her on the call this evening please join us and congratulate and congratulate her on this well-deserved award and mysterio can would you take a moment to um talk to us about this award and some of the work you've been doing at
005the high school okay so i kind of wrote a little tiny speech all right so here i go hope will never be silent all young people regardless of sexual orientation or identity deserves a safe supportive environment until which we achieve their full potential harvey milk we can no longer stay invisible we should not be ashamed who we are or show the world who we are silvia riviera good evening board members and compute community participants um i am hold the position as a family consumer science humanistic multicultural educator at danbury high school for the last past eight years i am honored and humbled that i received the cea harvey milk and silvi riviera human and civil rights award for challenging discrimination to gender identity and sexual orientation over the years our gsa club members who presented
006in front of noble peace prize laureates created workshops to educate teachers and administrators how to create safe school environments at the suny system for two years in a row and being the keys one of my students being a key speaker at the state capitol to denounce discrimination based on sexual orientation i have provided the queer youth community skills and resources to advocate for themselves you have a voice use it and the world needs to listen for my colleagues and admins when you are needed an explanation or resource or to navigate parents or students needs i am always available as i have this platform this is what i request from you to be visible create a safe space in all danbury public schools respond to anti-lgbtq language and behavior when it comes occurring teachers take actions
007for those teachable moments stay current on language and issues regarding policy at state and federal level educate the lgbtq visible curriculum and inform other educators and school leaders to do the same including inclusive history sex education and athletics starting in pre-k through secondary education advocate provide opportunities for students to improve our school community climate and listen when the students respect to respect students when they ask for the preferred names and pronouns and i am blessed i was given this opportunity over the years to attend professional development which led me to work on the board with glsen and being the policy coordinator i want to thank my colleagues at dhs for the support and respect for our lgbtq community be present mindful and brave peace thank you mr aria thank you so much and thank you
008miss cooper mrs cooper may i make me make a comment please yes um i just kim i just want to thank you personally for um doing this work in the in the school community and in the larger community by doing that work in the school community um this education is really important uh there was an incident uh over the weekend at a coffee shop in bethel um where the run by a woman who's part of the lgbtq community i know it's a safe space you know and um some folks went and took a flag a pride flag down from there and took it away and burned it and then brought the remnants and left them on the steps of the coffee house so even in our communities which are are largely very inclusive and working
009hard to create greater inclusivity we're still running into this kind of behavior and this kind of action against people for just reasons of misunderstanding i would hope but i really appreciate the work that you're doing to try to bridge those gaps in our community and to help everybody learn how to embrace differences and work together thank you thank you thank you on behalf of the board i would like to say uh thank you for being a part of our danbury community and within our school system and thank you for everything that you're seeing with our students we are lucky to have you within our system thank you so very much thank you thank you bye bye bye now we're going to move down for the public participation kate would you read the statement please the
010board welcomes public participation and asks that comments be limited to three minutes the public may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them the board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about board of education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the danbury public school system due to the unique nature of the covid19 crisis and the limitations of technology members of the public who are danbury residents are invited to send brief comments and questions via email in advance to dps underscore public comment underscore b-o-e at danbury.k12.ct.us thank you kate uh cara do we have any uh comments what tonight yes we do we have uh six comments i will read okay okay first comment is from oswaldo chin dear elected school officials my name is
011oswaldo chin and i write in support of the school budget and to thank you for all the hard work all you do you all do i also share the frustration of many parents who wish the schools would fully open but i am also aware of the great job our teachers are doing despite the lack of resources from our city and state thank you for a great job i support our teachers and our school board officials the second uh comment is from a maria matos hello my name is maria matos i am the program manager for lead latinos for educational advocacy and diversity first i would like to thank the board for all of the hard work you are doing especially during these trying times as you might know lead has been one of the coalition
012of groups working to bring another high quality education option to our city but today my testimony will not be about that i am writing today again to reaffirm leeds commitment to work together with our elected officials in order to bring more equity and representation for all as we have mentioned before latinos now make up the majority of the students in most of our schools and our ability to recruit and develop latino teachers and administrators must now become one of the top priorities of the board we need our students to have people in the classrooms that not only look like them but can also serve as role models leed is willing to help in any way we can as we work together on this goal leed would also like to continue to remind the board as
013it seeks a new superintendent that the latino community in danbury is severely underrepresented that recruiting and well-qualified latino education leaders would be a great advancement for true equity and representation for our city finally i will also finally i also want the board to know that most of our job will be to bring educational opportunities and activities to our community we invite board members to join us in our efforts to bring more people to the table and work for the common good of our community we have partnered with the health department to bring access to vaccines and education to our hard to reach populations we have an earth day activity on april 24th to teach our youth the importance of civic engagement if you are interested in learning more about our organization and ways which we
014can partner please contact us again thank you for your continued service and we look forward to cooperating with you the next comment is from kathy snow i am writing tonight as i understand there is a good chance students at the high school will not be back in school full days in the fall my understanding is this is due to cafeteria capacity at lunches this is absolutely unacceptable and in my mind a cop-out on the part of the administration and the cabinet the cafeteria space issue has been known for a very long time and not having a solution in place is deplorable and a failure to our children we have all heard over and over how the high school is the biggest in the state doesn't that also mean it has a lot of space there
015is a huge cafeteria outdoor courtyard auditorium black box theater stadium and multiple gyms i cannot believe there is not a plan in place have additional lunch waves been added what about lunch in lieu of the flex period until we get through this what about a lunch way for students who are fully vaccinated what are the capacity numbers if the tables are moved these are young adults and i believe can handle eating without a tabletop if necessary have you thought about the effects on students of only attending school for half days yet again students would be denied the ability to participate in after school activities or sports as they must leave school grounds at lunchtime and would need to use their own transportation or be driven back to the school how is that fair and equitable
016many students rely on activities and sports to assist in getting them into college as well as to obtain scholarships not to mention the positive mental physical benefits of after-school activities which i think we can agree on are at a critically low level how can you be okay with students not getting the chance to participate in these activities the administration and cabinet need to make a full day high school a priority come up with a solution so that the high school students can go back to school full days in the fall as you have done for every other grade in the district do not give up on these students as it appears you are they are worth your effort a concrete plan has to be worked out now the next comment is from a christina sweeney
017dear dr sale mr wilson dps administrative team and esteemed members of the danbury board of education during what has been a most challenging year for everyone and particularly educators i would like to express my gratitude for the building administrators faculty and staff at rogers park middle school although distance and hybrid learning has been difficult the administration led by dr zelita has been communicative and responsive throughout the entire year every school day dr zelita posts a thoughtful and beautifully edited i may add morning video that clearly outlines expectations as well as upcoming events and announcements for the students for the students similarly the teachers have been wonderful despite the enormous challenges they face teaching to two groups of students online and in person simultaneously not an easy feat the teachers at rogers park are hands down
018an incredibly talented and committed group of educators they have done their best to build connections with their students and help them learn under very difficult circumstances rogers park middle school is a diverse and vibrant community of learners and aside from the restrictions required due to the pandemic i could not be happier with the educational ex experience my son has received over the past two years and i would like to give a huge shout out to the incredible musical theater program that's the school offers unfortunately i am extremely disappointed to learn that the city council has decided not to fully fund the board of education's approved budget this shortfall this shortfall only continues the tradition of the city council not funding the needs of the schools for the past 10 years resulting in a school system
019at its breaking point with everything that happened this year it has become exceedingly clear how critical our schools are to our families and the value they bring to our community thank you for your time and for working so hard on behalf of our children and the last comment is from another comment from elswaldo chin my name is elswaldo chin yesterday i wrote an email to the board of education thanking them for such a good for such good job you are doing and supporting the proposed school budget that was before i had watched the city council monthly meeting where mayor cavo re presented the budget proposal today i write to make my support even stronger for the board of education and for our teachers but i would also like to question how mayor cavo not only
020insulted our children and our teachers but deceived the citizens of danbury by saying that he was giving an increase of 9.8 million to the board of education when in reality the actual increase was 1.25 million i was disappointed but not surprised the act the question is why should we do something different when he knows the same strategy worked and allowed for over 20 years after seeing the actions of the mayor and former of the former and current mayor is clear that they do not care about our children and the only thing they really care about is giving tax breaks to real estate developers for so long we have asked and requested the mayor and city council to properly fund our public schools we must call them for what they are if they do not listen
021to us we must work to beat them on the ballot because they are people who will not do anything different in closing i would like to encourage the board of education to spread the word to the whole city to inform uh and make sure that when november comes we remember that at the ballot box sincerely as waldo chin so that was the last email that came in and refreshing now and that is it thank you so very much carol we're gonna move on down the agenda uh the consent calendar cake would you do the consent calendar i'll make a motion that the board of education approves the items on the consent calendar exhibits 21-52-21-53 and the no the donation as recommended second madam chair it's joe god bless america gladys you're on mute right now
022mrs cooper i'm not sure if you can hear me but you're on mute you're on mute okay thank you okay okay just stop me i'm sorry uh motion made by kate segment by joe uh is there any question concerning the consent calendar i do mrs cooper yes mr ginelli yes the point i'd like to make sure that we write a letter acknowledging the donation uh from the colonial subaru it was very generous yeah thank you yes thank you mr ginelli oh i and no other comments or questions uh kate can you do the roll call please certainly kate canetta i gladys cooper hi lauren dooley uh joe da silva aye catherine hodgson aye rich genelli aye cathy molinero aye amy spellino [Music] thank you motion soul care now we'll move on down to uh yes
023i have gotten through the test the issues i have at the meeting and i will also vote hi okay thank you okay oh sorry about that didn't i see you bye okay sorry okay so we'll move on down the agenda to the education staff representative uh erin is she on dr leader good evening miss cooper good evening how are you i'm doing fine i have your uh yes all right perfect [Music] uh um [Music] hello everyone today i'm going to show you how to make um i'm now shake so first you need some straw ready and milk and one of these and so first we're going to put strawberries by the way they're clean first you need to clean them so you cannot be sick put them in so now when you're done putting the
024straw you put the milk inside the strawberry there we go and my mom is going to blend it i hope you enjoyed that um i was pretty impressed by that last little girl she just made me smile i had to watch it over and over again this is what our students are doing um on the day-to-day our teachers are working hard to make them have the most interactive and effective education so thank you for your continued support thank you for always being here with us to share those wonderful things that are going on in the different schools thank you again did we have any our students wraps in good evening members cabinet and community members thank you for allowing me to represent and speak on behalf of the alternative center for excellence if students participated
025in the 53rd annual danbury cultural commission poetry contest students from grade 9 through 12 submitted 30 of their original works the ace graduation ceremony will take place on thursday june 10th at the broadview auditorium at 3 pm a special thanks to eddie thomas and the hospitality of the worldview team for allowing us to use their auditorium to be able to provide a graduation experience for our students families and staff planning for the ace renaissance fair is underway this day of student engagement is being led by english teacher danielle daniela esposito social studies teacher kyle chicola and our art teacher savannah hastie english teacher melissa lasky and social studies teacher rob malillo successfully completed a humanities collaborative project to address oppression of marginalized groups in our society with the english 3 and u.s history students ace
026will be hosting a spring career day with virtual guest speakers to present careers that serve the community this special day is being organized by diana dinardo dj jimenez and laura blake ace would like to announce our march student of the month award winners larissa medeiros and tyler sharer ace would also like to publicly acknowledge and congratulate our most recent students of the week ramir rivera larissa medeiros keep up the good work uh thank you all for allowing me to share the great things happening with our ace family this spring stay safe everyone and remaining strong thank you chris do we have jake or rebecca okay we'll move on down to the superintendent's report mr washington oh sorry miss coop i'm having a hard time unmuting tonight i'm not sure why um okay give me one
027second good evening everyone um miss cooper if it's okay with you i would like to move around um the order a little bit and ask if dr martin's on behalf of principal donovan in the high school speak to our plans for high school graduation um let's hope to just briefly interject and say we had a great meeting on monday night at citywide pto when we've certainly been getting requests from family members throughout you know over these last several weeks community members have been families have been asking for some number one some questions questions about the high school graduation and trying to get an idea of what type of graduation festivities we're going to have in fact there was even a request on monday night asking the families asking if they can play a role in
028a decision or inform the decision in some way and so i just thought i would just open with that as dr martin's going to share some news tonight good evening and thanks very much for letting me um cut the proverbial superintendent report line so i appreciate it um so uh we have i will say that um we really want to make this celebration of graduation an important special event for all of our students um and so we all are wanting to make that happen we also want to make sure that it's a safe event and that we're following cdc recommendations and that we are taking care to take care of our students and their families and so we've identified three plausible options and i should say that we fully intend to survey the students the
029seniors to to make sure that their voices are part of the decision making process the stadium can hold a little under 3000 people and our senior class at this point is and so just having our students there puts us at almost the capacity that's recommended um maintaining six foot spacing even in an outdoor event and so with a faculty of 240 that also complicates things and so the first option that we've identified that will be put forth before the student body is to have all of the seniors only graduate on the field and we would live stream the event as has been done in other large um buildings certainly there are pros and cons to that um as there will be with all of the options that we've identified because of the situation we're all
030in um the second option would be to graduate over a series of three nights cutting the student body into thirds and allowing them to bring two guests the last option would be to do something similar to what we did last year but having done that last year we've identified some ways that we could make some improvements and to make it a little bit more exciting for our students we would be able to allow students to choose a time similar to how we have parents sign up for conferences we would use a similar system and students could identify when they wanted to elect for their graduation time slot to be so they could you know go with the buddy or that would also permit us to have cars with guests and we would stage a photo
031op area in front of the stage as we did last year um and then that would allow us to do that over two days we've identified the 10th and the 11th as possibilities because if we take that option we need to build in two rain dates which would be the 12th and the 14th so the three options would be only the students live streaming for everybody with the link to be able to watch doing it over the course of three nights students would be permitted to have two guests or we would be able to do a kind of souped-up version of what we did last year with a graduation parade so those are the three things that we think we would be able to do safely with our students and still be able to celebrate
032this monumental academy madam chairman i ask a question yes mr jessup thank you dr martins real quick question in terms of the first option are we discussing the concept of the students on the field yes or in the stands but we would be able to bring them um we would be able to have a little bit of flexibility with that as we discussed it um we would be looking at probably positioning them on the field as we have been and trying to maintain that that um that sense so if we put them on the fields is is it contemplated that there's anybody in the stands no with the first option because of the way that because there's also the entrance and the exit and also the the laboratory use so all of these things had
033to be sort of taken into consideration um but with the number the capacity that's been established for the stadium being about 28.50 if we do that with the six feet that brings us down to a third is the capacity of the stadium including students on the field so i think that the capacity of the stadium also accounts for students walking in and walking and so that becomes problematic anybody who's seen our um typical graduation it takes several rounds of the song to get everybody onto the field and so maintain this is amazing um challenging yeah it took a couple of rounds of the songs when i did it 33 years ago there were only 600 of us so i can't imagine what it's like with 850 thank oh you i i have a question for
034you nice to see you by the way um with that first scenario would we would we be allowed to be there in our capacity on the field yes yes it would be a normal thing just with no parents and no get okay correct got it thank you are there any other questions to megan thank you so very much thank you very much thank you megan and so um miss cooper if it's okay i'll go back to the original order that we had and talk about uh the 2122 school planning yes okay thank you so i i know there were some questions this evening and some points raised as part of our um public participation and certainly understand uh those comments and frustrations dr sal and i and and some of the cabinet members and board
035members quite frankly had an opportunity to um hear firsthand from our parents um at monday's city city citywide pto meeting um and get feedback on their desire to have in person to make sure in person learning is a priority for the 21 22 school year um you know i just want to reiterate if if it has not been clear already that is definitely our position um and doctor sal's intention to make sure k-12 all of our kids are back in school for in-person learning um and so that planning has included um reviewing again and when i say again we have done this several times as a cabinet as an administrative group in district you know at the various phases we were hoping to get kids back in school um but but making sure we have
036reviewed the availability of every single room we have we have blueprints plans for every single classroom in this district we have worked with our architect to see how we can maximize classroom space throughout all of our schools and throughout all of our classrooms we have narrowed down the classrooms that cannot um occupy more than 18 to 20 students which is the number which has pretty much been our max out with the minimum three foot distancing um and and then for those what we are identifying as kind of problem area classrooms um uh courtney and her department and frankly it's been really hands-on on all of us um have gone back to these schools working with principals working with our data department looking at every single classroom seeing if there's more furniture that we can remove
037from the classrooms uh seeing if there's any available space in those classrooms before we seek out other um opportunities and i just wanted to speak briefly about some of these other um other areas in the district um and even outside of the district that that the danbury public schools is considering to make sure we have a space for every kid um all of our kids next year when we come back um and so um i know everyone is aware of the fact that we have um federal monies coming to us by way of so2 and s3 funds um those priorities have been clear on how we're supposed to spend those monies um and certainly that that is going to guide our decisions in terms of how we're going to you know address the learning loss
038and and mitigate you know some of those learning losses throughout this last year but our number one two and three priority is to get kids back in school and so that could mean that we are leasing um venues in our community that are not historically a school setting and so we are once again because we have it's not as if we have not explored these things before um but now it's a very different opportunity now we have different monies to help support our reopening of schools um and so we are investigating what the very different um different purpose and and certainly more resource as part of that investigation and so we have a one we have a commercial um commercial opportunity in town where there are there's enough square footage to um occupy quite frankly
039you know hundreds or to a thousand students um it would come at a significant cost um it would mean a you know considerable additional staff for danbury public schools and so and then it also it is also requiring a multi-year commitment and so as you might imagine we are also exploring uh commitments that do not require multi-year commitment and so we are continuing to look at we have some schools neighboring school buildings and school facilities that are no longer operating um because of enrollment and so we are exploring those uh we've gotten feedback from them some of them none of these schools can take all of the classes that we need covered but we certainly are finding that we can piecemeal some here and piecemeal some at another site and so just to give the
040board and the community an idea of just what we're dealing with in k5 because you know we have talked about our reality relative to overcrowding with the three-fit minimum as the guidelines as they stand now the three-foot minimum guidelines we would have approximately 89 classrooms k-5 additional classrooms we would need to find district-wide and so you know we have um and this is and this is spearheaded you know our investigation and you know continuing to trying to find a safe venue for our kids and for our staff and so this we recognize that this means is going to mean increased staffing uh for the district um it's going to mean additional money spent for leasing um but we again we are adamant and do it to make sure we do anything that we can to
041get our kids back in school next year so i you know i certainly wanted to start with providing that update for the board and for the community um and i also understand i'll just pause because i understand there'll be some questions about that man i'm sure i have a question yes mr december um kevin just curious is it contemplated that distance learning will be offered as an option for students in the fall if families want to avail themselves of it yeah thank you for the question joe wouldn't even be allowed no it's a great question and so one we are moving forward as if um it is not an option uh okay and with it as we understand it um they're going to be monies afforded to our local rest and so for us it's
042in advance and so there may be a space in which ed advance will be providing services for families who choose uh to be taught remotely uh which would free the districts up but that has not been finalized um but again we're moving forward with you know we're in the expectation is we're going to have all of our kids back in school to in-person learning and we want to make sure we can at the very least have that available for every kid that chooses to do so excellent thank you okay are there any other questions from board members okay mr wass okay thank you ms cooper um so i'm i'm relatively miss cooper pretty calm i'm gonna try to remain calm as i talk about the budget so so we have um as the board and
043the community might recall originally a 13 million budget ask and that asks if the board and the community might recall that ask was prior to um being aware of the essa funds that were going to be afforded onto our community and you know throughout districts throughout the state in the country that 13 million dollars after reviewing with the board with the finance committee we we had decided that it was appropriate after reviewing the conditions of the grant um itself and kind of what was eligible under the grant that it was eligible to move some of those ask and some of those non-reoccurring costs over to essa 2 and sr3 and so given those realities that 13 million dollar ask was reduced to 9 million and so that was a reduction of 4 million and so
044our ass to the city um the city of danbury was then 9 million at least as of yesterday my understanding is um we it is a recommended budget um to the council into the city of 1.25 million for our operating budget i mean we certainly uh we certainly understand um the position that the city is in you know kind of given the financial straights and just the realities of this last year that a lot of people still recovering from covid but it doesn't change our position as a district because we continue to have enrollment growth that's part of our danbury reality we continue to you know there's other realities that we still have in play are an annex to ellsworth elementary school that will require additional staffing four to six teachers additional staffing at that
045building um and then you know i've heard early projections for a new school associated with danbury high school that can cost three to five million dollars um with these but both of these projects um will look to be launched in a 24-25 school year and quite frankly we are concerned um that if we don't can if we don't have an increase in allocation from the city and during the 24-25 school year and and soon in the 26th 25-26 year um these grants would have sunseted we would have needed um increased allocations from alliance which we anticipate and we hope certainly that those increases will be increased by that time period and they will stay with the recommended levels before the governor had suggested that they freeze but if they remain at the levels that they
046were initially scheduled for um that that that is you know that is promising um if if we continue to get our um updates from other federal revenues you know like title one etc that is also promising but the allocation from the city is going to be necessary in the 25 26 and beyond school years and our concern is and as part of our you know opportunities to try to educate the community about our budget realities um we have historically our city has not made a contribution to the budget where has been a double-digit increase and so if if that is going to continue to be our reality we need an incremental increase in in allocation over these next several years in order to match the enrollment concerns that our democracies democrat demographers have shared with
047us over these last couple of years um and we've outperformed the demographers recommendations that just as joe continues to mention at most of our meetings um and so we we we're really going to need to partner with the city on this um and you know it's you know part of my fault because i feel like we have got out into the community and try to educate the community but we also need to get you know and meet with the city meet with the council meet with the mayor and have more meetings with them and so that i think that also needs to be a priority for us moving forward so that everyone is on the same page about the danbury public schools reality um but i know courtney has some additional information she'd also like
048to share with the board and the community and but i just want to make sure i opened up with that because it's we really need to make sure we're all on the same page for danbury youth danbury staff and make sure we can get the best out of all of our students and i'm really concerned right now about um where this positions us for the future um and quite frankly it creates a lot of for future administrations in the mayor's office it creates even more frustrations and concerns for future administrations moving forward so hopefully we can find some middle ground if not this year continue to find some middle ground in the in the subsequent years are there any questions for mr washington i do miss cooper hi kevin does it make any sense since
049we in all the meetings we've had we've hadn't really made a presentation during any of our workshops or specifically had a workshop finance workshop where the council members were invited does it make sense at this point i know the timing is is tough and it it's late but to give the council as a whole an overview of our presentation uh prior to the other meetings you're going to have with the mayor which is more one-on-one and then with the education committee so that the council as a whole has the opportunity to see all of the information that we've provided to everybody as opposed to it being funneled back just by the education uh committee i asked that only because of the what i call misinformation relative to how the the mayor yesterday presented the allocation
050to the city where i tend to think that many people will think we're made whole so i just ask do we think that we can get a workshop finance workshop do you think it would be worthwhile and invite specifically the council meeting to attend to see what their input is and to further our education to this body yeah so so mr genelli i'll i'll answer you in this way since we're doing pretty good with time this evening um i recall um joe britton chairing a meeting on behalf of the facilities committee with with with city council members with legislators with the mayor at the table and we had an opportunity to educate right and so cara was excited sal was excited all of us were everyone in that room was excited of course it it
051required investment it required a commitment but everyone was excited about this new energy that was coming to danbury um with that same excitement i feel like we need to come back to the table again right all once again find an opportunity to educate everyone and match that excitement with investment right because the reason why folks were excited because we were investing in danbury yes it was a great idea but it was about investment but the investment also requires resources um and so if there is an opportunity to educate and continue to inform people um i think it would certainly be a worthwhile evening for us okay because i agree with you i really don't understand how we can go ahead with the huge investment without supporting the infrastructure to support that particular investment so perhaps
052after this we can collaborate and see if we can contact whoever and amongst ourselves to see whether we can set up a quick workshop to bring this to the front of the council people because i really think the complexity of what we're proposing and the fact that we've got this multi-year forecast which really shows things so vividly um i think that's an important uh an important issue and as i said before the the community the mayor of the council is excited about the academy as they should be however i think we have to make it make them aware that it's hard to do just that and not fund the infrastructure getting up to that and then of course needing a commitment to fund the the new uh the new facility itself which is none of
053those numbers were ever presented in any of our projections so all right thank you thank you madam chair i have a question yes for mr joseph uh i watch it's a question and a comment the question i think goes first to courtney just can can you confirm sr2 and sr3 monies are not to be used instead of regular allocation am i correct in that regard it's not it's not intended to supplant your existing operations um and i'm going to just kind of walk out a fine line so so um the governor's um uh proposal was to provide in the budget a look at what that at least the ester ii at the time funds were while also freezing alliance funds so that would resuscitate anything that we were going to do in the future you
054know to have to be afforded with some portion of the esther monies now it has to be grant applicable we have to apply for it we have to draw it down just like any grant you know that's afforded to us so sr2 the allocation has been given to us as an 11.2 million dollar allocation over the next three years it's got to be spent and we're required to submit a plan imminently you know about within a week and a half um for use of those funds in light of you know the situation of you know people living in the pandemic and many many years of you know investment not necessarily keeping pace with our enrollment and needs the board or a portion of the board decided for us to submit a modified request which i'll
055go through just very briefly in a presentation we talked sort of in depth at a workshop and we provided some some materials to the board that showed specifically what line items so i think in terms of columns and rows you know we offset with those esser funds for things that we hadn't done yet technically they're needed in the operation like uh guidance counselors and social workers and yep esl lt you're not teachers but a psyop coach for example some curricular supports it can be we can still qualify under the esser funds but we also wanted to make people aware her rich's comments of what that impact would be because these are basic needs for our budget in five years when the estimated goes away thank you um i'll i'll leave it with this and and
056i agree with everything rich said i think educating everybody would be good here's the thing this is two and a half million dollars in the last two years based on 18 million dollars worth of asks no matter how you structure this this is an abdication by the mayor this is an embarrassment of a budget he is falling down on the job the city of danbury should be embarrassed that this this budget was proposed i recognize the financial challenges going on right now and i don't think it's probably we had a reasonable expectation we're going to get the whole 9 million but 1.25 million based on where we are now the challenges we seek and the challenges our students are facing after not being able to be in school for the better part of 12 months
057this is an embarrassment thank you madam chair madam chair may i respond yes mr russo thank you i unders i understand the distinguished board members sentiment however rev city revenues are down people are struggling to pay rent and and and not everybody can pay their taxes i understand the need for a big ask and need to respond [Music] and you know that thank you courtney i asked a question does the 1.25 cover our contractual increases for next year no no thank you thank you i have nothing further madam sure thank you very much okay okay um courtney i just had a quick question if you could uh clarify something for me um at the the bud at the budget uh presentation last night uh mayor cava referenced a surplus that was going to be applied
058to our our stream can you give me some insight as to what that was meant by that because i know i know we had some minor cost savings as far as transportation this past year um and we always have like a floating number for health insurance so is is that what he's talking about and was it three and a half three and a half million so yes thank you um so the funds that um were surplus funds from last year unspent funds were due to mainly three things um one was transportation because we got some savings because we weren't using our buses a small amount of fuel the other was um a small amount of energy savings because we weren't in the buildings mainly it was insurance we're self-insured um and so we see fluctuations
059we work with an actuary to do an assessment about what we need to shore up in our budget to be able to cover any anticipating next year and we do a many year look so um it was unique this year we were we were lower than what we had anticipated before the pandemic and then even lower when people weren't going to the doctor at the end of the year during the lockdown so we um did inform the board but it was brief and it was during a lot going on that um at the time there was a three and a half million dollars surplus that we requested to set aside in reserves it was voted found by the city council for the specific intent of reserves which was for there were four purposes one was
060for health insurance the capital rate so it's getting us up to the required amount that we have to set aside legally as a self-insured organization to cover those fluctuations as well as additional funding because in the past we floated a little higher than the assessment um just to cover for that um potential and then we would use those surplus funds to pay for other things at the end of the year well this year we said let's rightfully fund it and put aside a reserve that's high so that we can account for the fluctuations but properly budget for things like curriculum um but what um so it's getting up to the corridor which is the legally required quarter and then putting a little more aside because it's prudent to do so and we're allowed to do
061so um and the council voted on that use which is considered a one-time use because you never want to use reserve for operations you just it's not physically prudent you build yourself a bigger hole it's just not good the second thing that they voted on doing using those funds was for special education reserve similarly as you all know we there's a certain amount of predictability in our special ed um population of needs and there's some unpredictability so what you want to do is budget for the predictability with a cushion and then you set aside reserve for those um one-time things and the council agreed to set up this new reserve for us um the third was um information technology projects we already have a reserve for it this was paying it back because of the
062one two seven three that the city had given us for the enrollment increase a year ago was actually our own funds from that reserve um and so we were refunding that i.t reserve back up to um more appropriate levels because we do have some one-time projects that are just startup in nature so for example a finance hr system that we're launching this year you know you pay maintenance in the perpetuity but this year there's an investment in you know configuring the system and getting trained in it um so those reserves were not intended to be part of our budget i mean part of our operational budget mission though thanks courtney i just it really helps to understand that those are one-time funds because i think you know part of my concern in watching this unfold
063for the last few years and you know i certainly appreciate um you know mr russo what you're saying about the situation that we're all in um my concern is is just that we seem to be digging a hole that we're not going to be able to get ourselves out of um and i i don't want to see that happen to our schools because that is the lifeblood of our community um it's it's really important i think that we would be able to support the you know the students and to support the schools in the ways that are going to drive us forward um one thing i i do want to just comment on mr chinelli's earlier comment there and add to that um you know i think i think uh some education on this would
064go a long way especially as we you know learned at the meeting the other night um you know the career academy and and i just want to give a shout out to dr casemiro because this is a brilliant concept this is a brilliant concept and she is making this come to life for us um and for our community um and she deserves a tremendous amount of recognition for doing that work on her weekends on her evenings in her mornings before she's starting the school day um you know this is the potential to be such a boon for the community um and she mentioned and correct me if i'm wrong please but i think you said it was eight million dollars in tourism uh that that tennessee was seeing right the academies of nashville since they
065started um there's such interest in it as a national model has generated um over eight million dollars in just giving the tours and hosting other school districts to come to see so there's definitely some opportunity there yeah and i would just point that out because i think that's that's important for our leaders to know they may not be aware of it and that's something that um you know if we were able to uh move this project forward and fund it the way that it should be funded and that includes the building as well as the programming and uh you know the staffing for that building um that's something that could be an economic boom for our city um if we were to become the flagship establishment for the northeast so um i just you know
066i just want to echo mr jannelli's comment that i think you know bringing this information before the entire city council i think would be very helpful thank you thank you okay and if you have questions yes i'll just briefly share the um the little presentation that we did just to remind people so i just wanted to respond to rich's point that um the council in a normal year we would have provided a book to the city council and we were doing it electronically um they did ask today for a book which we did print out and we were able to provide some of those schedules that we went over in the workshop so they are if they if they look through the book it's section three and they can become familiar with our modified request
067and and how the esser money drove down the to the nine not the nine further down um and what that means multi-year and i'll just very briefly share my screen um for the budget presentation uh [Music] okay and can you see the uh my screen yes yes okay so what basically um what this says is our original request as kevin mentioned was 13.3 we modified by i'm utilizing about 3.9 of s or one and two funds um i'm sorry i should say esther two and three that's 12 million over the next four years when you look at the multi-year so it's over a third of our s or money that we dedicated to these operational requests when it's really you know it's intended to support the learning loss special emotional needs of our students and
068and get kids back five days so the mayor's proposal as kevin mentioned at one point two five or nine percent and um um our main priority in the use of the sr funds will be to bring students back to school five days a week so this was our original ask with the detail and our modified ask you know we we paid for the social emotional supports and some portion the curriculum programming and a portion of the esl and the learning lost summer school with the esther money um in our proposal and what that did is if the city just funded us what we showed the budget workshop group on monday night at an increase of 1.72 percent per year which is what they've done on average for the last 10 years and this is just
069assuming no funds in 22 because when we did the workshop we didn't know what the mayor was going to provide that would leave us a 30 million dollar gap based on the current needs um you know because as you can see here the esser money drops off in fiscal 2026 so it's not something that is a sustainable strategy it's not something that we should count on it's something that if we we gave an example here so dr cell also asked me to show you know if the city were to give us a portion of this need even this year it could be a more modest build towards the future to mitigate some of that drop off in the future for the things that we felt as though we needed to do so this would be
070more modest where i'm pointing now increases over time and even this is also just showing because they mentioned the alliance the alliance funding of 14 million alliances part of the ecs you know 30 odd million that was going to grow to 54. that we have about 37 million of that now every year we get 2.7 more and the governor's proposal are 2.17 i apologize roughly because it gets adjusted every year for our population but um get us to that yesterday's tomorrow's dollars you know i'm sorry yesterday's dollars um like 10 years from now so this is just showing the governor's proposal if we froze that also and waited you know that further complicates the problem and then and the city mentioned that we have the 14 million that 14 million is already spoken for for
071k teachers for esl um teachers for um our data assessment group i mean every piece of the alliance 14 is spoken for so we talk about the increment you know when we talk about the additional funding and so if you know for example the city didn't freeze it but put us where we should be you know that could offset some of that if we talked about it in that way um so we're just we're doubly challenged here um and you know building up to this if things don't change which is in 2026 so and this just showed that when i when we looked at it over time on average over like the last 10 years the city has given us on average 1.72 which you know that's just a fact and then this just shows
072because people keep talking about the high number for the coronavirus relief funds but we wanted to show you that we have chronovirus the first one is the relief funds those are to be spent this year the sr1 money is it ends um actually in fiscal 2023 but this is a proposed schedule for how we could spread it out so you could see that if we were to spend 4.6 this year which is the estimated amount 13 next year 13 the following year 9 it goes down to 1.09 because you only have until september in fiscal 2025 to spend the sr3 and again this is just projected so the total funding related to coronavirus relief is about 41 million it's a lot of which 36.59 is future dollars if we schedule it out this way and
073we dedicated about a third of that you can see here in our proposed budget to support those operational things that we ask for in our new budget so we in good faith did do a lot of commitment of those funds where we could there are certain things like teachers that leaders we need that are just not eligible to be utilized into esser funding so that's just the way it looks like it drops off in fiscal 2025 we don't want to build ourselves a place where we're going to be challenged you know by using just fully ester money for operational needs when it comes to the year we need the academy we want to grow to that and so it was really encouraging in a lot of ways to hear the community interest it's encouraging to
074hear dr casmiro talk about the academy it's encouraging to hear the passion that people have and we're just excited to get out there and continue to educate people um so i'll with that i'll stop and i thank everybody for your comments [Music] mrs cooper i would like to mention something courtney i thank you for all your hard work and i see that what you sent over to to the the council people including what you just demonstrated to us was about 103 pages of data which is a few nights worth of reading to those that are concerned uh but the the lead i think the league sheet would be the multi-year sheet to start with and as kevin said the other night you know we are or you are educators and i think in this short
075period of time it it's up to us to take that 100 not 103 but the summary pages and make known what those numbers are and then basically more perhaps more important the impact of why we need those and also the impact is what happens if we don't get them so as as you're talking and i'm thinking i'm just trying to come up with some sort of a time period or a day where the possibility of a quick workshop i i know monday and tuesday of next week the council and you guys are on vacation but the council has a schedule for tuesday and i'm not sure if they had something monday so perhaps later we can try to figure out a day if need be between thursday and friday if that could be rushed i
076really feel it's important to to get the high points and the important points of what you've just demonstrated and what we're trying to show across to a cross section of the council people i do feel that there are many people on the council that are supportive of us as well as there are many that you know are are not more conservative so you know we'll have to put into joe's point guess what happens historically you know is what it is but i keep saying the wheel that squeaks the loudest gets the oil and it's gotta be a day of reckoning thank you mr janelle any other comments yeah you can't get blood out of a stone i get blood out of you mr jim uh thank you miss cooper that that that is all from
077us thank you courtney okay do you have anything else on the um superintendent report no no that that is it for the superintendent report this evening i i think uh i know in our package for information the overview of the healthy uh food certificates uh i don't i'm quite sure there's no action on that but just to take it and read it for information and i would assume that it would be on the next agenda okay okay so are there any uh committees reports or any uh you know madam chair uh yeah mr brit mr britton asked me to give a brief report from sites and facilities he apologized for not okay okay go ahead um sites and facilities met last week um the main function and the main thing that we did was review
078the dr the preliminary draft ed specs for the career academy uh we had a good discussion uh everybody on the committee was supportive of the no of what's going on supportive at least in draft form the preliminary at least moving forward with the ed specs we asked the the architect and the administration to carry forward keep up the keep up the work they're doing on it and hopefully we'll have something in more detail something more final that sites and facilities can review approve and send to the entire board that that was the primary thing we did that at that meeting thank you thank you yeah uh before we move on and we're moving on at the end of our agenda i personally uh would like to thank all the board members because this has been
079to me a very rough and difficult year ever since last year and most of you that was here we met all during the summer trying to keep the community informed and i didn't hear any of you complain and i know some of you you know how working obligations and some of us are not working but you know we came and we did what we were supposed to do as elected official and as a board chair i just would like to say thank you thank you thank you so very much uh i'm going to uh do the chairperson report and it's going to be very brief i am pleased to be able to update you on our search for our new superintendent as a board we have had many conversation about the upcoming process and together
080we decided to retain an outside search consultant to assist us i appointed a working subcommittee to review a long list of educational search consultants this group will work hard to narrow the list and review the proposals from a number of firms who have best met our needs the full board will interview a small number of them and we will formally retain one firm we are excited to work with consultants who will who will experience thoughtfulness and high and will help to focus us in our search i will bring you updates at each board meeting over the next couple of weeks and hope that we as a board can work together to bring a new superintendent into this district so that's where we are with the superintendent search seeing no other questions i entertain a motion
081excuse me yes okay excuse me i did i did receive some additional public participation i just wanted to bring it to the board's attention if you wanted me to share that how many do you have carol there's four okay go if they're not a whole bit you know okay okay your discretion would you like me to read them yes go ahead okay okay the first one is from maria sorrentino hello i'm a danbury resident a taxpayer had four children attend the danbury public schools they were successful and two had learning disabilities and went into college i would like to correct one parent that claim that middle school has students from other school districts and the tech school is state-run also my thesis for my master's degree was on charter schools these are facts and i
082will send citations to anyone who wants them most charter schools are autonomous of the board of education directives the charter school model was based on the parochial school model the students were uniforms and they are not required to provide free meals the teachers of charters are also not required to have a certificate in education the most successful charters do have to provide um sped ell or bilingual programs this is why they excel they have to they have what is known as a skin and purge system that means if a student cannot keep up with the curriculum the student is asked to go back to a public school my daughter was a teacher in a charter school in new orleans and it was shut down after three years the teachers were not paid well and they
083really stayed longer than a year a private charter school does not have to follow the common core and many are backed by corporations that are about making money the walden foundation walmart owners made a profit putting students into below par buildings she taught in the basement with exposed pipes and mold it was horrendous kindly researched the most successful charter schools and you will find out that many directors do not represent students of color or low income and those students are required to keep a high gpa the lottery requires parents to invest many hours of volunteer service and if they cannot keep up the students are also asked to leave those single parents or parents that have two jobs cannot provide unreasonable volunteer hours many charters do not have physical ed art or music department either
084the next one is from evan fernandez good afternoon my name my name is evan fernandez and i am an ace graduate thinking back on the time i spent at the alternative center for excellent i am overwhelmed with gratitude i was very lucky to have had the opportunity an option to find a school that was able to teach me in a way that felt accessible and fun my freshman and sophomore year i attended danbury high however i quickly discovered that my personal learning style was not compatible with the way i was being taught luckily the alternative center for excellent accepted me and they were immediately able to help me in a way dhs dhhs couldn't i often think back to my friends at dhs who also wanted access to find a school that worked for them
085but unfortunately they were not able to have the same experience as me again i emphasize how lucky i was to get randomly accepted to extend to attend ace but as you know the school is only able to help so many students and there are a few other options in danbury i hope that soon in the future danbury students will will be able to choose between charter schools magnet schools alternative schools montessori style schools or traditional schools based on what is best for their individual needs i hope in the future these options aren't limited to students lucky enough to win a lottery thank you for your time have a great evening gabriella perez hello my name is um raquel and i have two children my first son currently attends an elementary school in danbury and my
086second is two years old i love both my boys dearly and felt lucky to be able to send them to a school in a district where the students are so diverse i'm sure they will not only find friends from their own culture but also a learn about a variety of cultures and become more sociably socially conscious children my only qualm with danbury is that i feel this plethora of diversity does not extend to teachers and staff at these schools as i've recently moved i've been able to experience the demographics of two different schools and found that they are both pretty similar while i still believe my son will receive a great education i still wish there was they were able to be exposed to teachers of various backgrounds so that all students are able to
087see themselves reflected in their role models please take this opportunity to think of how something that that simple can change a child's perspective on education thank you for your consideration and the last one is from adana bosworth hello i'm a danbury resident a taxpayer had four children attend the danbury public schools they were successful and had two learning disabilities and still went on to college i would like to correct one parent that claimed that middle school magnet has students from other districts and informed that the individuals that detect school is state-run also my thesis for my master's degree was on charter schools excuse me i'm sorry i read this already my apology okay we are all set that is the last one thank you so very much want to thank everyone for taking time to
088submit their comments uh if there's no other questions i entertain a motion to adjourn our meeting so move madam chair moved by mr jeff silver second by all second gladys this is kate okay seconded by kate all in favor could i hear i i i i i care thank you have a good night everyone good night you