001good evening everyone um again my name is kevin walston thank you ann assistant superintendent here in danbury public schools um it's great to see so many familiar faces on the call and then it's also great to see some faces quite frankly i do not recognize so we welcome you this evening we are very excited about the position that we're in right now with these federal funds coming to danbury by the way of the cares act and essa relief funds as many people on this call might be aware the district was a recipient of cair's ex exo funds won i mean so we are coming to a close on that those funds this year um and any monies that are left over you know we'll be able to roll over into next year we're looking to
002expand all of those monies most of those monies were spent on ppe equipment and and then any relief efforts that we could provide mitigating learning loss in our schools this year next year the i'm sorry my dog is in the background drinking water i feel like every time it sits down sit down here he comes um and so this year um with the so2 funds we have 10.1 million dollars coming our way as as the expectation of those monies there's an expectation that we would be getting support from our community whether that's our staff our administrators our teachers our our parents our students we're looking to engage as many stakeholders as we can [Music] some of my colleagues are on this call and they can tell you you know initially we had discussions because of
003course we were initially excited about these monies we met with our administrators and then they had made recommendations that we had not considered and courtney and i recently met with uh parents on monday night they made recommendations we had not considered uh we anticipate some of the same this evening and we also anticipate even more recommendations from our staff on monday that we also have not considered um i am i feel like we are positioned well um to help address some of the concerns and priorities that were outlined on that you're going to see in the powerpoint momentarily um just an example of some highlights of the powerpoint and the priorities that have been outlined in somewhat i don't want to say restrictions but kind of guidelines for the fsa relief funds and that is
004you know continue our efforts um our connection efforts with families to make sure all of our kids and families are connected make sure they have laptops and you know accessibility um to the schools uh remotely making sure um you know another priority is going to be about focusing on professional development to make sure our staff has the resources they need uh to continue to work in this dual environment whether we're working with kids at home or working with kids in person in schools and then make sure they also have the support and professional development training that they need to handle the increased social emotional needs that we know are going to be upon us when we come back full time um you know there's certainly some other ones and certainly we have to address the
005learning loss learning acceleration learning recovery issues and challenges that we've all talked about over this last year and so certainly those monies will be afforded for those reasons um and and then of course you know one of our bigger ones in bigger priority areas is the social emotional support uh for students and for staff um and and those things were also prioritized um in the in the essa relief funds and so we have a quick powerpoint that we want to review with you uh the powerpoint um is quick uh intentionally it's just to provide some context uh but the listening part uh this evening is about moving all of you all 84 94 and counting of you into breakout sessions um you will have facilitators in those breakout sessions we've had some practice at this
006over the last year so we feel pretty good about our ability to handle the breakouts and and get your elicit your feedback in these sessions um you know we've gone over this a couple of different ways on what this could look like and i'm assuming we're still good with this plan and i'll just share it with are we good still good with the plan that i had talked about absolutely and so we have we have these five priority areas we will we have 95 and counting so i anticipate we'll probably have over 100 by the time we um go into breakout rooms and and you guys will be chosen randomly to go into different priority rooms while you're there uh we may have 35 40 minutes for at least 20 people uh to give feedback
007in a given priority the intention is and for you to have the time that you need to make contributions um make recommendations in this given priority for the district to consider as part of its submission of the grant um and then of course some of you may put be put into a priority that doesn't necessarily resonate with you as much as perhaps some of the others and so we with that we will ask that you um you know resubmit your survey recommendations if you have if you've already submitted a survey we ask you to resubmit um because you may have some additional items that you'd like to submit given this conversation this evening and then if you haven't participated in the survey we ask that you use that survey uh to include any recommendations that
008um you have not already um shared this evening um and so uh without any further ado i will and are you sharing the powerpoint go ahead go ahead and share it yeah okay everyone give me one minute and you can play that nice music that you had going on i might need just give me one second i'm gonna move some stuff around on my screen here we go okay so here are the 10.1 million dollars funds that i had mentioned alluded to earlier and let me get started and so state level priorities about sustaining local district capacity and providing equity and access to high quality education for all children and and so let me start here with a slide on restrictions of funds and so the funds cannot be used to supplant or pay for
009regular district expenses and i just want to share what i mean when i when i say that um and so and so one what we don't want to do um and so it's going to be difficult not to make recommendations because many people or probably everyone on this call um can appreciate um the challenges in front of us um and then also you know addressing some of the needs in terms of staffing you probably have already seen um the staffing requests we have made to the city in the in previous years and that is you know is not going to that's not going to change this year um and so when we make recommendations for this grant we want to be mindful that we can't add positions to the district that is going to be
010reoccurring costs for us as danbury public schools because what we don't want to do is you know prepare ourselves for a financial cliff uh that we cannot recover from at the same time you know and it's a it's an interesting balancing act that we're pro that we're about to um step into um we do need to be creative and and more than likely need to hire people to work with our kids to address the learning loss and acceleration and recovery that we talked about not to mention we're likely going to need people to support us in our efforts to support the social emotional concerns that we're anticipating coming our way um but at the same time we can't include these things in our ongoing regular operating costs because again we don't want to create the
011financial cliff when we come out with these grants on sunset so we do need to be mindful of that as we move forward the five priorities that i alluded to earlier academic supports learning loss learning acceleration and recovery family and community connections school safety and social emotional well-being of the whole student and our and of our school staff remote learning staff development and addressing the digital divide and school facility repairs and improvements and so as a process the superintendent will convene a district level planning committee that that has already taken place each priority convenes a stakeholder group and so we have started that work we we have and here we are number three feedback from families constituents and community members is vital host listening forms and surveys and so the surveys is part of what
012has already been pushed out to the community district level planning groups take the data to inform the activities programs and strategies that will be funded and uh my colleagues my colleagues and i we will be working on this next week after our last informational session um on monday and then final approval so we will be submitting a grant um to the to the connecticut state department of education um i believe in early april the first week in april so just some protocols for this evening we will discuss each area for 15 minutes that's going to change a little bit um we're going to have you guys divide it into um one big priority area feel like you'll have more time to contribute um to the process and make sure we have equal voice in the
013process two questions will be posed to start the discussion in your breakout group please use the raised hand feature of zoom to be acknowledged by the facilitator um because again your groups are going to be pretty large about 20 people um as as of right now and ideas can also be put in the chat feature when you guys get in your breakout sessions and so the five priorities and i will go through these quickly again academic supports learning loss learning acceleration and recovery and just to be mindful academic supports must be positioned to accelerate learning and facilitate recovery these are our guidelines it is particularly important that we measure learning loss and target resources for our students disproportionately affected by the pandemic and so i'll continue to read what's in bold because those are part
014of the guidelines that we must consider as part of these recommendations and then there will be a question at the end of every slide and you guys will receive these same questions in your breakout what do you feel are the most important area of learning and what can be done to increase our our children's learning priority two family community connections engage with families in a community to provide parents and guardians with the skills to support their children's academic endeavors and then we'll have two questions for our breakout groups to consider as a parent what skills or programs would would help you increase your knowledge to support your child and two how can danbury public schools strengthen communication with families and engage parents as partners in their children's academic development priority three school safety and social
015emotional well-being of the whole student and school staff address unprecedented physical and mental health concerns through following public health safety measures and the mental health support both in person and remotely right and i think that's important it's supporting students in person and remotely and making sure we have the resources to do those two things the two questions to elicit feedback what programs or strategies would you suggest to address the social and emotional development of our children and what initiatives would you suggest to reduce anxiety and raise students confidence priority 4 remote learning staff development in the digital divide maintain or upgrade access to technology and connectivity for the long term increase robust professional development provide technical assistance and or training for families and again two questions for this priority four how can danbury public schools
016improve its digital environment and is there enough learning support such as technology hotlines for families and the last priority priority five school repair and improvement showing school facility repairs and improvements to reduce the risk of virus transmission and exposure exposure to environmental health hazards what ideas do you have to make our schools safe and healthier no it's not [Music] sorry so um and i'm gonna go back to the powerpoint i think this is where you come back in so let me just put this back up we're just working through a little technical issue here before we break out into groups okay not a problem so so let me just say because we did start this conversation on monday um with a group of parents um and so while we are working through some of the
017logistics of the breakout sessions i am happy uh to answer any clarifying questions that might be out there um before we go to break out so just if i could introduce before we do i wanted to thank um senator julie kushner for being here with us it's great to have you as part of this listening forum um and i i just also wanted to say the timeline kevin if i could so please yeah one of the things so it's a short timeline and we do have additional federal funding that we are also expecting so ideally we'll have additional engagement with the community for that um but right now the the due date is early april for us to get um this application into the state so we're looking forward to this feedback tonight so we
018can come back so we're really glad that you're here with us participating this evening thanks courtney kathy i just um saw your question in the chat um we had not planned to go over it but we can show the results certainly um on the website uh we can collect it collect have the the results collected and make sure that's available on the website for the community we were trying not to take away from the you guys participation in the breakout sessions tonight if i don't know we would have had this little um pickup i could have gone over it right now this is great we have 99 folks in attendance carmen i see you thank you again for posting and facilitating monday night you did an amazing job thank you it's my pleasure to help
019thank you and some of my parents are here too they they were awesome awesome and i see many of my colleagues on this evening um and so many of the cabinet members are here i i think i saw earlier that dr casimiro was joining us while we're all joined remotely she's joining us remotely in the car the director of special ed is also on the call kelly trooshes is on the call smiling somewhere and courtney you heard from earlier director of finance and spoke to our timeline and then of course we have i've seen a number of staff members my other colleagues i see terence who's there terence cunningham who is our director of adult ed and then his manager in the office um jody housinia is also here with us this evening thank you
020[Music] probably making sure that they're going to get their their cut and adult debt which i totally understand that and i see citywide pto was well represented this evening thank you good to see you as always jade kathy i don't see tim tonight but of course he was there monday night because he's everywhere hi minnie how are you good to see you hi melinda how you doing you didn't think i was gonna say hi did you hi i was going to come in disguise really hard questions good to see you kevin can i ask a question yes yes please kathy um in reviewing this survey some of the questions seem to be about um adult learning or like the community garden one and i just am concerned the money would be spent on like adult
021only activities because that document on the state website said it was educational recovery and learning acceleration for students and then you know the family and connections were direct engagements to provide support for students so i just want to be sure we're using the money for k to 12 or pre-k you know whatever the the age group is but for students only yeah so so our priority uh particularly with family and community connections will be about supporting families giving them the skills that they need to help support their kids at home whether it be remotely or in person it will be about helping to improve communications with our families um and and making sure we're doing that you know regardless of the platform uh making sure we're finding ways to better communication with families those will
022be priorities and consistent with the guidelines um and if if there are ways other ways to make sure we've continued to engage families you know we will you know leverage those activities as well if we feel like it's necessary to engage more families as as part of you know as part of these efforts you know and sometimes um you know kathy certainly you and citywide pto knows from leading pto organizations at the school level you know um that that we you know sometimes at different schools we have a challenge just getting the parent involvement particularly once we leave our k5 schools um and so sometimes we have to get even a little bit more creative to pull our parents in and then we trick them right like once we get them in and then we
023trick them the same way we do extracurricular activities with our kids right we keep them connected to our schools and we we use those extra collect activities to to build on their connection um get them to buy into school and raise student achievement whether that's our music programs you know our sports programs etc so i i'm with you all the way uh we we will stick to our priorities those guidelines are there for a reason and and that will that will certainly guide our process but i understand the question the way some of the surveys were surveyed questions were written i understand the concern yeah some of them were vague but i did you know i'm hopeful for the bilingual liaison if you will because i think that will be tremendous for communication and helping
024increase involvement like you mentioned so i totally agree captain i appreciate you mentioning that totally agree and we're looking to prioritize that we all recognize that as a need for us district-wide we want to make sure we can keep everyone engaged kevin can i ask a general question sure and hi i know you said that you are going to submit the grant documents in the beginning of april um do you submit the breakout like we want to use this amount of money for xyz um kind of setup and then what if um say like those things don't come to fruition like you can't find a certain set of teachers for you know i know we've had a trouble finding teachers right now and things like that like what if that doesn't happen or do they
025allow you to reallocate the money or is it just gone or how does that work yeah that's a great question so so jade i'll start and then ask courtney to to chime in and kelly to chime in because we've all three of us have been part of this grant process so so one um almost exactly the same way um i shared it with with everyone on this call those five priorities uh will also be um bucketed in a similar fashion in the grants and then in that grant um there will be an allocation associated with each area and then if we want let's just say we want you know 22 interventionists in the learning loss area we would have to make sure that that is accounted for under that under under priority one we would
026have to associate that with the salary if any if benefits are appropriate with benefits um etc and then we would drop down to priority two so every single area um has to be accounted for uh whether there's a people resources whether those are programs uh whether those are computer programs whether those are you know maintenance upgrades that you know courtney may be listening to or considering um all of those things and it's by priority um etc and then if there's if for some reason to your point um you know let's just say we have these grandiose ideas of getting um interventionist teachers i'll just stay right there right now and for some reason we can't find them there's typically an opportunity opportunity for revision um somewhere somewhere at the midpoint of the year and then
027as a district we would pivot um courtney and kelly quite frankly um both of them had more experience with their own their own specific grants than me um but that's typical my understanding of the process yeah i think that makes sense i just want to make sure we weren't going to lose one dollar you know yeah i just we're not jade we're gonna you know utilize every dollar and i just wanted to reiterate what um assistant superintendent walleston just said we um you know have a great partnership with the state and the state knows that we know what we know today you know and and we don't know you know what obviously we're living in a pandemic right now what next year will hold and the state's been great partners with us you know we're
028submitting a budget based on all the priorities but the community and the staff and the cabinet identify as being fitting the five priorities of the state with backup data and information about why it's going to be effective and but knowing that that could change and there's some flexibility for us to do some modification to the grant especially given that we don't have the parameters around the additional monies that the um yet that the um danbury expects to receive as a result of the next stimulus package so there is additional funding that's coming and i also see questions in the chat just i want it while we're still getting ready for the rooms no courtney jodie had a had a question for us okay okay oh that's okay if if courtney wants to finish first that's
029okay no i think she was finished she was going to the next person she was looking in the chat oh oh okay um i just wanted to add um good evening everyone um i'm the i'm jody huzzina from adult education i just wanted to just comment to um the comment before about the survey i haven't seen the survey yet although i'm looking forward to it um just i just wanted to clarify for those of you that don't know many of the parents that are the parents of the children in the danbury schools are students of adult education so um even though it doesn't it doesn't seem like adult education is part of k-12 in a kind of disconnected way it is because we serve the the students that leave at 17 years old or the
030parents of the students that are in those schools so we've been working very closely with ann meade and the family resource centers for many years to make that two generational approach and it's so important in this time of the pandemic to connect the parent the child and the school especially with their discussion with the um with the esl um it's the adult education teachers that are the certified teachers to teach the english language to the parents um so um i just i i know that we haven't done a too good of a job bringing that to the citywide pto and uh my director terence and i look forward to being able to do that in the future um but it's it's just as important to remember that those parents need the services to be able
031to support their children in in the schools thanks i just wanted to share that thank you it was my question was i saw there was a question about ell for adults but there was also one about like a cooking class and that was the one i didn't understand i i support you know ell for adults and everything like that but specific classes you know that were for personal gain if you will sure so i wasn't sure jody kathy let jody kathy let let me go to the next question please of course so so karthik also had a question um is there any restriction on funds that certain percentage is only allowed for any of the priorities courtney can you help with that one yeah so there's not a restriction on the funds um we are
032trying to balance across the priorities when we look at it so we're going to hear everybody's feedback today i also saw a question about the total the 10.1 million is over a course of the next two and a half years or three so wait a minute wait a minute so kathy asks is there is there any chance we won't be given to 10 million can you let kathy know it's 10.1 and we're expecting every penny 10.1 every penny and it's not just 10 million a year it's 10 million over through through september 2024 so and there's not a restriction of evenly splitting it you know it depends on where our resource load is when we come out and look at what what our needs are um and so yeah and there's and i think i
033saw a proportionality question about the buckets no the buckets were given to us by the state it's the state priority to meet the needs of you know learning loss um specifically focused on kids that are more impacted so ell esl um special education students and kids that are most disproportionately impacted learning loss social emotional well-being the technology the facility upgrades all of those pieces you know are on the table for us are eligible for us to use for um for these funds unique to our district um so that it's not proportional like some of the other funding sources that we've had recently [Music] and so there's another question here i think we can all answer it um is there a plan on how funds will be distributed per school and will the size of the
034school be in consideration um and i'll i'll just take the first chance of that and just say yes and so there's not a necessarily specific plan for the school but there's certainly um consideration for on the size of the school and making sure that those resources are equitably distributed uh throughout the district there's no doubt about that okay mr walston yes we are ready to go in a slightly different format tonight uh the breakout groups are not working i saw that with google tonight so what i am proposing we do is that we go through each question i'm going to ask folks to raise their hand we will recognize your hand we'll go for 20 minutes for each of the questions i'll time them if we don't get to your response please feel free to
035email me i will put my email in the chat several times so you can email me tomorrow and believe us that um though we're having this technical glitch tonight your feedback is really really important to us as mr walston had said so please reach out send me an email uh we're working on the data this weekend we'll make sure that all of your thoughts are uh put forth and all your recommendations because we value what you're thinking so so and is it possible that we can um show this form so that we can capture those notes in real time so everyone is seeing it similar to a breakout session yes yes i should be able to share my screen and ryan hayes um while anne is getting this together we just want to say you
036have a beautiful kitchen we just had to say that i'm just saying i'm sorry it's dinner time so there you go there you go yes i can and i can take it okay great courtney is taking the notes on the sheet i'll do the raised hands and we're ready to go great thank you everyone for being here do you want me to courtney are you going to share you want me to share you're muted you're ready to go [Music] this is what you wanted me to share yeah great i don't have the questions though you know what if you want do you want ann to share the questions on the screen and i'll just take the notes in the background would that be better like i think heaven's falling off okay do you need me
037to post them yeah i think so kevin it would be great if you could post them and i'll just take the notes in the background if that's okay okay thank you i tried to get out and you guys just keep pulling me back in okay so courtney how about this how about we take uh n will time us um while you're collecting notes before we go into the next one we'll review the notes that we captured is that fair okay sounds great all right so priority one academic supports learning loss learning acceleration and recovery academic supports must be positioned to accelerate learning and facilitate recovery what do you feel are the most important area of learning and what can be done to increase your child's learning and how much time do we have for this
038area okay uh 20 minutes okay so i'm looking for hands so at this point we're looking for some feedback we have some ideas on that what areas are most important for your child's area of learning here at the bottom of your screen you'll see the little raised hand so we have ally hi sorry my camera's off um so my son is in kinder i'm sorry he's in first grade and in kindergarten um you know obviously he had to stop school in the middle of the year and i was just thinking um you know these are really important years of his life and he's learning to read and he's learning to do math so maybe if the school can offer a program during the summer maybe have a teacher i know that it'll probably cause you
039to um pay another salary but maybe just like learning resources um in the summer maybe two hours on a tuesday and thursday night maybe just have a teacher you know helping with additional reading and math thank you we'll go to ken williams hi how are you doing i i used the question in regards to this party um number one how do you guys have uh like a plan in regards to measuring learning loss for like identifying these groups so is it going to be more of looking at where they were pre pandemic to next year is it kind of based off of this year's data what's what's your thoughts um with the how to measure the learning loss and which kids to target great question kevin can you address some of that how we're going
040to measure the learning loss that students have had to apply the funds to right so if if i'm not mistaken we are still moving forward kelly aren't we still moving forward with our assessment um portfolio that we typically do in terms of the star assessment uh the state assessment uh yeah so do you want me to have done in years past do you want me to answer kevin yes please you know yeah so weird um we're doing a bunch of different district assessments as we've always done some of them have been done in person some of them have been done virtually and so we have data such as the star assessment um such as dibble's assessment other phonics assessments if we're talking about elementary level that we look at and we compare both to where
041students were before the pandemic as well as where we expect the grade level target to be so right now for example we're using some of our assessment data to target students that are below a certain percentile to recommend them for summer school instruction and we will do something very similar when it comes to those to target with learning loss yeah and mr mr williams uh the state has actually provided a threshold for what for what an acceptable measure would be i mean we'll be using that number to help determine summer school recommendations like we had in years previous and our next question is from jade jade go ahead thanks girl um just to piggyback off their question um the prior question i was wondering are we only looking to target students that are falling say
042behind grade level or you know things that are in a really desperate situation or are we looking for learning loss for all like i would for example my son's in second grade and i was going to say i think writing is an area where they are losing you know a ton of learning because they're typing on the computer he is barely written this entire year you know in in handwriting and so i would say almost the entire grade level is probably behind um in that area and so i was wondering i know that our principal had said that the star test really is not that useful right now because a lot of kids are taking it at home they got parental help you know there was a lot of issues you know with that and
043so i was just wondering just what your all of your thoughts on you know how we handle this as a larger group and not just the kids that maybe have fallen behind or behind before but generally like if they're moving up to the next grade level are they going to be prepared you know for that considering all that they have lost this year already i just i wasn't sure how that would work out or what you thought about that and so and so jade i'm and i want to make sure i'm answering your question here and um any supports that we be that we might be putting in place will be about accelerating learning for for everyone right and so certainly as part of our monies um in in terms of resources available for the
044district um you know our most vulnerable students will you will find support for them in terms of positions in a district uh but in terms of invitations to any tutoring efforts that we might have extended learning whether that's an extended day or extended summer experiences you know everyone is going to be invited to those to for those opportunities um and so you know that we will be making every effort to make sure there's an opportunity for all uh but but but our most vulnerable certainly uh will be working to prioritize that group but that does not mean that everyone's not going to be have access to these program programming as well yeah i guess what i was wondering is like are you thinking about like more pull-out sessions from away from the class or are
045we thinking about like full class acceleration i guess was my question because i wasn't sure how that would you know work exactly but um it seems complicated i don't envy you and trying to you know figure out how this will work but i do think it is more than just a falling below problem but in a lot of cases especially for the younger ones who are just learning like to start instead of adding on to their learning they're literally just learning how to do and read and write that maybe a class-wide approach um might be you know helpful yeah so yeah so so jay number one i want to be careful not answering your question and possibly sign me some of the feedback and creativity for tonight um i like how you turn the tables
046and try to get me to answer answer this question what do you feel are the most important areas for learning we need that feedback from you guys to help inform this work um i i can just tell you that the district is is open right now to what this looks like certainly we've had you know experience supporting students in terms of you know learning loss and recovery and academic intervention you know we're well aware of what that looks like however we're afforded different supports and resources right now and we want to think a little outside of the box beyond what we saw in this paper about supporting students with disabilities you know english language learners etc um this is an opportunity for us to think a little bit even outside the box so i can
047appreciate your conversation about you know in full group trying to accelerate learning world you know within that classroom and so if i'm hearing you correctly like you know kathy snow and i are teachers in the classroom co-teaching and we receive the training that we need that might be different from previous years training on to make sure all of our kids are learning at high levels um you know in this new teaching in this new mode of teaching um you know which obviously has already started to take place uh but you know there's also opportunity for growth because we've you know i if i if i stayed in the classroom the whole time i'd be teaching for 20 plus years um and but but this would have been my first year in this in this format
048so i have considerable opportunity for growth in this in this in this new platform and i think it's important for us to capitalize on that opportunity with our staff and help to extend their growth um so they can get the most out of their kids great thank you we're going to go on to jane next please hi yes thank you very much um i i love everything that everyone's saying and i agree that we need to support the kids to advance but you know having a student who is thriving thank goodness through all this and meeting his expectations i wonder how much he isn't being pushed even forward because of it so i'd like to see that when we do this um support we support even the high and low kids in reaching even more
049of their potential um just just um knowing them they're all going to go back to school and summer school yes is supportive for kids but having them all get together and working i i find that you know while they're in this distance learning it's it's hard to explain i just don't want what he would have reached in school to be set back you know that average kid or the higher kid not being able to go even higher compared to other districts is my concern you know so we we will make sure we highlight on this idea of enrichment for our students in addition to accelera in addition to learning recovery absolutely yeah yeah and i misspoke really it's for all students if the way i conveyed it is it is learning lots related to all
050students supposed to be yes i just i just don't want you know like a child like mine who is is being successful and meeting all the requirements and stuff which again i'm blessed i really am um but i just want to make sure that he isn't sitting to the side and not being seen um you know thank you thank you so much we'll go to peter denmark please hey everybody good evening um i think in this area i would just emphasize you know um you know due to you know increased student truancy and disengagement from you know the pandemic that a focal point should be on really summer school and um after school credit recovery for students especially to those families that you know are not around during the summer months so they have access
051to you know those supports after school you know during the regular calendar year thank you thank you and we'll go to kathy snow next we are at our five minute mark in this priority number one so kathy go ahead and you also have um stacey reynolds yeah i've got it okay thank you just really uh quick for the high school level and and i may have mentioned this in my email is just one idea for all of the high school kids is to offer s.a.t preparation classes because everyone takes it and i know the high school did offer it for a fee which was fantastic for my daughter um and hopefully they'll offer that again maybe you know to everyone or somehow have it right after school it was on a saturday morning so that
052was challenging at times for teenagers that's just my idea right thank you kathy and people are putting things in the chat and i am capturing them on another forum so um all this great information is all being recorded great and so stacy hi um so you asked what we want can we get these kids back to school since cdc guidelines have saying it can be three feet and danbury schools do have the um protection dividers on their desks is their talk about bringing them back full time stacy we are looking to have an update for the community at the board meeting next week great thank you you're welcome there were a couple of points made in the chat and do we have a minute or two are we out of time um we're just about
053on out of time i do have those all captured okay and so we will record those and add those to our recording sheet so i think at this point it's probably a good time if we'd like to if there's no other questions or suggestions around priority number one that we move to priority number two please kevin if you can just give a quick overview on that again we'll jump right into it sorry i'm trying to move my window okay sorry about that so priority two family and community connections engage with families and a community to provide parents and guardians with the skills to support their children's academic endeavors and then we have two two questions at the bottom as a parent what skills or programs would help you increase your knowledge to support your child
054and two how can danbury public schools strengthen communication with families and engage parents as partners in their children's academic development okay so we have jane okay um i i i just wonder if and i know that my son when he started kindergarten we switched over to common core i wonder if there's a way to um help the parents understand the like for writing examples um my son goes no that's not the format of how i need to respond to it like those are the things that like and like with math that's not the way i need to learn it now i wonder if there's a way that we can have little mini lessons for parents to just go to watch a youtube video or something like that to explain in each like level what the
055system is as far as like writing comprehension or reading comprehension like this the bullet points of what they're trying to do that year that they're in you know like kindergarten we're trying to do this this this you know where a parent can not have to make a meeting like this but just refer revert back to to refresh their mind on on helping their child at home you know in the way they're learning we can certainly look into that and see how we can do it in small groups yeah we'll put that in with the the suggestions great jade i was just gonna um suggest or mention that when i was at mill ridge with dr cronin she used to do um in place of a pto meeting once in a while she would bring on
056the math research resource teacher and the reading and um they would do a little uh you know informational session for the parents um with kind of like the updates from kind of what what jane was saying but like changes from when we were kids to now like math common core and it was very helpful and the parents loved it and i wonder if you know obviously it's hard to get the attendance you might be looking for but if it was recorded it could be something that was posted you know later but um i wonder if you could almost gear it towards learning loss like things that parents could do to increase in this time you know like things they could have their kids read or you know different activities that might be a little more
057family oriented but you know that parents could help with on on their side of things i know it was popular you know then and so i thought maybe something we could incorporate now just to try to get the parents a little more help i know it's a little hard as a parent to like keep up with everything especially if you have multiple children but maybe with a little guidance from the teachers thank you jay and i think you had one from k williams yes i think she put her hand down kate williams would still like to speak go ahead i just i would agree with both of the people that spoke before myself i think that the idea of like a series of videos that parents can refer to with questions they can ask while
058reading for comprehension or writing tips of how to compose the different types of pieces that they're being asked to compose for their writing or math tips for the parents that they can refer back to just short like five to ten minute videos or 15 minute videos that parents can refer back to would be very helpful thank you i'd like to expand on this question a little bit since this is my um responsibility here in the district what else could we do to increase communication between the pain between parents and our schools what what thoughts would you have on that [Music] one yep christy go ahead um so actually this is kind of really off the cuff um for me but um something i was kind of thinking with in terms of communication you know we
059have the robo calls like the emails um you know every school has a website and all that's great i like the variety of platforms um but it's also can be overwhelming because they're different um different messages go to different places um and then for me and i've got three kids in the district and three different schools right now so it's kind of i get robo calls and sometimes if that robocall comes and you know you can't take that call at that second or you know something is going on that you know it just really gets a little overwhelming to try to figure out what i missed so i guess um something that i was like kind of envisioning is almost like a centralized location and again i don't know if there would be any kind
060of privacy issues you know with these things being sort of public um but if you had like a central website almost where you can kind of you know drill down to certain schools and find all those different messages sort of in one place then you can kind of track what you missed or go back and you know if there was a message a robocall i got a few days ago that i needed to go back and listen to again or you know something like that i think it would just kind of help centralize the communication in a way christy i just want you to know we recognize your voice you can't hide we know who you are yeah i uh i'm running around the house so i kind of had the camera off but i
061am here all right [Music] any other thoughts on family community connections okay kevin i think you can go forth to priority three i don't know if there are any questions and we have naomi yeah i i can't for some reason my re listen i i can't i don't know i don't have a hand raised feature i'm a google meet teacher i'm a teacher myself i teach i teach in the bronx um remotely so i um you can hear me well right yes okay so what i was thinking is what i miss and love for my own child who is remote right now um is project-based learning and i know that sometimes the resources for that can be a lot like he was sent home with the science kit and at the the moment they were
062being taught how to do something in science you know that was the first thing i've seen him actually use with his hands um but i was thinking about just project based home base so we can connect more with our kids and i think i also mentioned too it would be nice for us to see more formative assessments that um prior to them getting a report card and feel shocked about it like i would like to see more formative assessments um that they are giving to our children and just get the data from that so i see what gaps there actually is before he gets that report card maybe it's something i can support him with as a teacher myself so just thinking about those things great suggestions thank you so much kathy hi again thanks
063um i just had a thought of maybe communicating with groups of families as they navigate like the educational career if you will such as and i know individual schools do different things but maybe like have all kindergarten parents you know have a meeting at the high school at the end of the year like you survived kindergarten here's here's what's coming next and then at the end of fifth grade like maybe something you know you're now ready you're here's what's gonna happen in middle school and just have all fifth grade parents and then maybe eighth grade here you're all about to go into high school here's what to expect just have the invite the whole community not just school by school something like that like as they engage each step you know major step it's a
064way to communicate that way thank you for that feedback because we we've struggled with our with with supporting trans transitional students ourselves of course supporting transitional families is probably also important that that's been a missing length for us but thank you and do we have any others in a certain priority area we don't so i think let's go on to priority number three okay so school safety and social emotional well-being of the whole student and school staff address unprecedented physical and mental health concerns through following public health safety measures and mental health support both in person and remotely and so two questions for consideration what programs or strategies would you suggest to address the social and emotional development of our children and two what initiative would you suggest to reduce anxiety and raise students confidence
065and i know you're probably already looking to see if there's anyone who's going to participate and answer this question um in the chat earlier one of the parents has suggested um a focus on extracurricular activities um and i'm assuming um the parent was referring to um k-8 whether it's k-5 or 6-8 um in areas you know because we have extracurricular of course at 9 12 already um but again i'm assuming that that that was the person's intention right so melinda if you'd like to speak go ahead uh yes so that was me um yeah i think what we're experiencing personally is that our kids have been anxious to get back to school but they're still sort of lacking that social connection because they're still separated to some degree and we get that it's a health
066issue but how are we able to get them um better socially engaged maybe it's ramping up after school programs as a family together that we all you know it's pto events things like that um but you know we we find that there's a real mess in that happening now you know that recess is you know it's the weather we can't go outside and play and you know so so my kids personally they are k through eight so they they're not socializing as much now that they're back at school as they once did um so that that's a real need for us thank you thanks and i believe we had an iphone 12 pro max that also wanted to speak i thought i saw your hand up maybe not we also did have a question um
067prior about programs that would help students um socialize outside of school and on weekends that they had read that most of the work was going to be done for the ls and could also be done for children that are english speaking students so thank you for people just put things in the chat too that we'll capture and we'll go to v6 then q 5g where these phones are getting very specific with their numbers and letters now so how are you that's me sorry about the long name there no my wife and i were just we have uh two girls in first grade and we're not too familiar with how everything works so far but we were just curious along this aspect if something more involving like arts and music that type of education if there's
068more that could be done in that area to help kids socialize and give them another group activity to do together and something that can become an extracurricular activity that they can participate in that starts in this school okay okay thank you and jane i'm just wondering is there something that the school already does that we could piggyback off of and see if you could elaborate on top of what they already had in place as far as supporting the kids emotional and social aspect like um in the school that i i work in were we're starting to do ruler um it's sort of like where the kids are mindful of what emotion they're having in the time that they're having it and you know they can say they're in the red zone or the blue zone
069or the yellow zone i wonder you know you're gonna you're gonna have children's anxiety of just being oh my gosh i'm gonna be in a class with none of my friends i'm gonna know no one coming back fully in and i'm going to go to the lunchroom for middle schoolers going i don't know if anyone's going to allow me to sit you know i know that we've done say hello and all those things is there something that we can really push for the whole district every single kid in every k through 12 so that it continues throughout the next 20 30 years that we're known for because of this pandemic this is where we shine to come together as a community um you know make sure that you know every kid knows that they are
070going to be noticed they are going to be safe um they are going to have a friend to play with you know those type things going back fully in um you know my son's fully distanced right now and when i'd have to have him on a waiting list to see if he can fit into the school right now um hoping that you know we can figure out the cafeteria situation where they can eat safely because i know that that's probably the biggest idea of why we're in the middle school only stay until 12 um because you can't right now with the limitations that the cdc are telling us we can't sit next to each other six feet apart you can't fit all the kids in the school but hopefully we're figuring that out and maybe
071using our gym for a cafeteria or you know another room that you know or the classrooms that they're gonna eat so that i know this year is kind of like a bust um but we're doing the best we can and what we have but next year hopefully they'll have a full day and have those opportunities not just in class to be actually social and maybe during the lunch time show them how they can go and see someone else you know make it a special day we have these wear sock days or wear hat days sit with a new person day go find someone who has your same birthday not just in the class but in the graduating class in the people that they're in the cafeteria with that way they feel like they're going and
072being included that's the biggest thing i see going forward you know kids are gonna sit there and even going from like maybe king street to rogers park where someone's gone to west side and their best friend is now separated from them how are they gonna get that new friend it's it's what we all experience growing up but now that we have this money can we do something like that to maybe make it even better thank you so we'll go to sherielle ipad yes um hello good evening everyone um i was just thinking of maybe doing uh somewhat like a peer peer counseling group maybe we can um pull some of the high school students to kind of peer either peer-to-peer counseling or appear to a younger grade level because i think some of the younger
073kids could look up to the older children within our district and it gets those kids involved in like one-on-one you know peer counseling we can do it within the high school each other or you can do it through the lower grade levels as well too maybe that might be something um the high school students would be interested in um and that would get everyone involved within the community as far as the student level goes great okay thank you and we'll go to melinda for our next suggestion so i think i just want to piggyback some of those comments because those were some really good suggestions i was i was essentially going to start by saying you know there used to be things like school plays and student government and i know that in in the
074high school even in you know the middle school and junior high grades there are but i think um really focusing on reintroducing that in a successful way could help with some of that um i see i saw a lot of comments after i talked about the extracurricular part about the deo and and all of those programs but i think something also has to happen um during the regular school day because not every not every student has access to after-school programs parents may not be available to drive them back and forth funding might not be available to some families so i think there has to be some dedication at the school at the during the school the regular school day for these types of programs to get kids to interact with students out of their classroom
075and maybe even out of their grade level so then that goes to what i think it was shirelle i'm sorry whoever was just speaking before me i thought that was those were some really good suggestions about the peer groups i know my kids have gotten a lot out of the westcon kids coming in on i think that one day a week they come in and they do different activities with the young kids things like that have been really helpful that has continued in the distance program but um you know that i think those those peer groups from different grade levels even different schools would be really helpful um and then i think part of that the wellness conversation maybe there's funding that gets allocated to a wellness expert that comes in in some way to
076um address anxiety low-level anxiety i think there probably are more serious conditions that need um clinicians that will help but for for kids that are just in in sort of like the general anxiety emote about how do i get back to school and talk to kids and get back into a regular schedule you know what are we doing um to that end great thank you so kevin we have no one else in this group for question number three we had a bunch in the chat which i captured so let's go on to number four okay remote learning staff development in the digital divide maintain or upgrade access to technology and connectivity for the long term increase robust professional development provide technical assistance and or training for families two questions for us to consider how can
077danbury public schools improve its digital environment and two is there enough learning support such as technology hotlines for families and if not what would you recommend kathy hi again i know i saw someone just put it in the chat too but and it's been discussed at board of ed and everything but just increase the wi-fi at these schools that are known to have horrible you know connectivity um in addition to and i don't know if it was cara or whoever mentioned it at the last board of ed but get these teachers the best and the absolute best computers and laptops to work with this is you know update all that digital infrastructure is critical i don't have to tell you guys that and jade kathy thank you i just wanted to totally agree on with
078kathy because i know in our last meeting um i think it was courtney kathy who was talking about how at the district level the the systems could stand to be upgraded um i can't remember the exact terminology that you all were using but this seems like a opportune time to have the money to do it and while it would help with covid related you know digital world it would also help in the future you know for whatever we wanted to do so it would be a dual purpose and i know there's still a couple of schools that have problems with connectivity i know ais is one of them because i was trying to talk to my son's teacher today and we got cut off 17 times um through google meet but maybe now's the time
079that we have a little you know additional funding to upgrade i think pembroke's another one that has issues um connecting but maybe with a little extra money we could kind of make everybody on the same page you know in that way and it would serve us now and also in the future thank you anyone else around this karthik in yeah hey um good evening uh the one suggestion on the digital thing is for the high school kids particularly when the teachers are teaching math they should have technology you know enabled for them to write and show and things like that how they write on the blackboard or on the boards right so i think right now what i understand from my son is their teachers are struggling in terms of using the mouse to write
080and show and things like that i think that's very you know painful for the teachers to start with um before the students get into that math so they the higher end math as we all know i think has a lot of writing to do um not just putting something like one plus two so probably uh [Music] some of the funds should be used to improve the you know the digital equipments for the teachers to teach um you know which will also help them uh in teaching better way so thank you so we have i think i think what should happen is the the staff should receive uh better uh i guess training in uh and how to manage a virtual uh class i think uh uh my my sister she um what what happens with
081her in class is that i guess the teachers aren't interacting too much and just providing her with the assignments and and uh and she really i guess it's in a way most most students i guess feel the same way that um i guess the uh this uh virtual interaction needs to improve and uh and and in regards to the the teachers uh teachers ability to teach in a in a virtual setting um in regards to the upgrading of the system and in all uh the technology i think i think that also i mean it's it's one of those problems that uh i guess in the in this covida uh situation we've uh we've all had some some uh i guess work related issues as well and uh not just in school but in various aspects
082i think the the the platform the the way that the the teachers interact with the students i think that that should be key um because some some students uh i guess are more uh visual more um more visual learners i guess in a way um and that really isn't um put into into context for for kids to learn more i think that should that should be a uh on the on the on the aspect of uh more uh development staff development and finding new ways to teach in a a virtual setting i think that that that is another aspect that we should improve to be all that uh improve the the way that the kids and the teachers interact in class thank you thank you james and with no other hands raised for that let's
083go on to priority number five i have captured a lot of comments about facilities and school improvement in the chat but we would still like to hear from folks on it as well okay so priority five school repair and improvement school facility repairs and improvements to reduce risk of virus transmission and exposure to environmental health hazards what ideas do you have to make our school safe and healthier right so we'll start off with mark please hi good evening everyone just wanted to start by saying thank you for allowing us the opportunity to give our thoughts about uh you know what's going on obviously what we could do to improve um based upon the priorities that were raised so regarding this topic um you know i think many people would agree that the hvac system across
084the board in danbury public schools is pretty much dilapidated there are some schools that have a newer system than others there's a lot of disparity between the schools and elementary and the middle school and the high school and it seems like it's all over the place um you know some schools are obviously way too hot in the winter and then windows have to be opened up like it's almost like living in the 1960s or 70s is what the designs design seems to be you know we have teachers that have brought in like portable units into schools during some of the warmer weather which seems ridiculous and outrageous um you know given the year we live in and just the pandemic on top of it obviously you know we're calling for high efficiency systems that would
085be able to um help us alleviate some of the indoor air quality issues in terms of filtration i'm not an expert but i know that merv merv 16 systems are used in hospitals for example that eliminate 99.9 of all pollutants and viruses and bacteria and it's something that i think would be well spent by the school district you know denver across the board a to improve the air quality dramatically be to deal with the pandemic obviously and c to allow students the opportunity to even if it was available to be involved in summer school i mean many countries allow students to uh you know come to school throughout the entire year but obviously it can't be done when you have 90 degree days in the summer with no ac and fans are blowing hot air
086all over the place and humid and air that quality it's very poor for people who have respiratory issues or just people who don't even have those kinds of issues so that would be something that i would like to see happen with some of the funds if with regarding upgrading the the these systems across the board in the danbury school system and i think some companies even local companies i know you know lowe's for example has a huge contracting um establishment going with hvac systems and you know i bet any one of those companies would love to put um and be involved in upgrading the school systems hvac um and they would love to get their name out there as the ones doing it for some major discounts so just putting it out there is something
087that i think is very important thank you thank you mark for that feedback you're welcome my pleasure we have lisa ahead lisa sorry just trying to quiet my five-year-old hi everybody um i'm new to the district my son is um in kindergarten obviously it's a a difficult year for all of us um unfortunately we're in a high-risk household so i'm wondering if you do this was the previous question i can't find the high the raised hand signal on the zoom um if you guys go back full time will there still be distance learning until there's like a full vaccine for the kids so lisa i i will just say quickly um governor alluded to yesterday and a remark that that could be a reality for us we do not know right now if that's going
088to be required or it's going to be optional for districts so that's still to be determined thanks for the question i'm sure a lot of people are wondering that as well and james yeah um since i i uh i know a little bit about um the health aspect um i think what would help um schools be a safer environment during this pandemic i know that in some districts they're having maybe twice twice a week havoc having the kids go back to school i think what what would be um great is if the uh if we would if if every kid before um going to school uh get would get the kova test beforehand to avoid any any outbreaks in kobut i know there was two incidences in uh dan marie high school where um they
089they had found two individuals that were coveted positive and that kind of brought a little bit of scare i mean in some of these high-risk households like lisa was mentioning it's a very difficult when [Music] the the kova testing isn't being done um because uh you know with uh with people that are uh immunodepressed or have some sort of respiratory uh upper respiratory uh disease uh uh it could uh potentially cause havoc in that household i think uh doing a standardized a uh coveted uh nasal pharyngeal swab would be uh of a great importance to be able to have kids go back into classes even if it is a two-day week schedule um i think that would be a great uh importance to reduce your risk of contamination or infection thank you james and i
090think you have one more with jane jane yeah jane so i i definitely hear all the concerns i definitely agree any building now with this covet even the mall we need to upgrade our systems um water filtration now i mean we're all seeing that you know these 40 50 year old buildings have you know water problems because the pipes are corroding and stuff like that so i also wonder if we could at any opportunity make it so that no our class science doesn't go down to say like 15 kids per grade level let's be realistic we're danbury we're growing um but is there a way that we can try to going forward maintain less just like maybe three kids less in a classroom so then we can give that one more minute to that one
091kid and that one more s speck of space for them to be a part from one another you know try to do stuff like that and like i know that in the school that i work in i as a teacher have extra masks so that when they break i don't have to wait for something you know like always have that you know to go kit in the classrooms like if a mask breaks oh here's another one right away you know just the little simplicities of even maybe hand sanitizer on the outside of every room so that the kid has access to putting it on him rather than maybe a teacher doing it for them it's their opportunity to pick up that hand sanitizer you know we all see it now in in the stores you
092know you have the opportunity to get the paper towel to wipe your your cart and everything you know maybe we can start thinking that way too you know just the the way we're seeing it in society how can we bring it into school good points jane thank you i don't see any more questions on that priority that is our last one so i'll just open it for kathy go ahead sorry i just had one and i know i brought it up at the board of ed it's just an idea i'm gonna bring it up again about the bathrooms in the high school and there's got to be a way to maintain privacy and take those doors off from the hallway like in the mall or at the movie theater you walk in there's privacy like
093partitions and of course the stalls have doors but if there's like no door into from the hallway into the bathroom it would reduce vaping it would reduce another touch point it would reduce students gathering in there when they shouldn't be and we would have less issues in high school at the bathrooms in my opinion if those doors are removed from the hallway i know other high schools in fairfield county have done this so i'm just going to put it out there again every chance i get so thank you for listening thank you kathy okay thank you so i think we have um come to the end of our listening forum tonight we want to thank you all for being here with us tonight we certainly appreciate your feedback and your wonderful um thoughts and feelings
094and we can feel the the uh community the sense of community here with us tonight um we're asking that you please fill out the survey that is on the screen right now there is a place at the bottom and the last question to put any further thoughts that you might wake up in the middle of the night tonight and think about or tomorrow morning over coffee i should have said that um so please fill that out um you can always go back into the survey too and add more things if you would like and so i'm going to ask at this point if kevin you'd like to close us out or anyone else from the district thank you thank you ann um so i i just want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for
095their participation this evening um is it was great to see a lot of new faces on the call tonight um then of course it's always great to see um the faces that we're used to seeing in these kind of sessions um we are looking forward to our grant submission and frankly our grant reward award uh so that we can share out with this group in the greater community what we've learned about the recommendations that you've made we will have an opportunity kathy had axed earlier when we first opened up did we plan to share the survey feedback so we will plan we will share uh that survey feedback that's something that we can post to the website uh we'll also be doing the same with the staffs uh feedback as well and then we will
096be making every effort to prioritize all of that feedback from our community constituents and that will eventually inform the submission to the state there will be a point at some point we'll be when we're talking to the board um speaking with the board about the the the submission to the state and the positions and programs um uh that we have prioritized uh as part of the 10.1 million um and so as we make the board aware of that submission uh certainly we'll be doing the same with you um in the remainder of the community as well so i just want to thank you again um again no and you guys did not disappoint similar no different from monday night and and the previous time that we sat with our administrators and i know what's going
097to happen again on uh monday when we meet with our staff uh we continue to get ideas that we had not considered um and we really appreciate your feedback to make danbury public schools a better place and a better district for all of us thanks again thanks again for joining us enjoy your coffee tonight