Danbury Board of Education Meeting 3-10-21

001joe britton nope present rachel chaleski trying to get on having trouble getting on yep kate canetta here gladys cooper lauren daly here joe da silva here uh catherine hodgson here rich gianelli here kathy molinaro here al russo amy spolino 10 percent at this time we have uh all present until one is trying to get on right yes okay okay uh doctor say uh do you want to do the recognitions at this time yes please thank you very much um you all know that we received notice last week from the governor to vaccinate our teachers and um i i needed to bring the folks here tonight to recognize the um yeoman work that they they did over the weekend prepared in order for us to be loaded up on monday morning um i'll let them talk

002a little bit about the actual specifics with kelly but just to let you know that i think they're with me that was um gina and susan germain kathy o'dowd melissa in personnel tatiana kelly's shop and jen gonzalez worked uh feverishly to load up names kelly got on in fact sunday night double checked the appointments for us um and the feedback that i got the emails that i got that when folks went there not only was it well organized but it it ran as smooth as um they've seen those things run we had i guess our explorers that volunteered to be there and they kind of directed traffic but um it's just a job that's beyond john well done so kelly can you or kathy maybe just update the board in the actual numbers and if

003i've missed anyone and kim thank you as well for spearheading it from your office very much appreciate it cathy o'dowd are you here with me yeah i'm here yes um thank you dr sal good evening everyone this was truly a team effort um i also want to thank gina jasmine kim thompson um everyone behind the scenes who who made this happen um it was a tremendous undertaking uh getting all of our staff loaded into vans and then uh kelly was tremendously helpful in creating the google document um because this was a closed clinic just for for our teachers and other staff to get everybody signed up to get them scheduled for appointment slots and then i also have to extend a great thank you to our school nurses we have had some of our nurses

004who have been working per diem for the health department all along since december but again with this big undertaking of trying to vaccinate um it was close to a thousand people in two days many of our school nurses volunteered their time and they were at those clinics on friday and saturday and they were a huge part of making that flow so smoothly i too have received nothing but positive feedback and appreciation from everyone it was certainly our pleasure to make this happen for our staff you know we're one step closer to to getting over over the hill here um and just a thank you to all team members who are involved if i didn't mention carapanti yes cara absolutely there cara cara worked with the state to get everything lined up with kathy and and

005then um just hit the pedal and didn't stop so cara thank you thank you thank you for having just making that um get that thing done for us someone else exactly yeah um i think kelly and i just would like to say a few words you know we've been here a long time and it's rare that we ask people to come to this meeting um to share with you what they accomplished um and i think that you know i speak for kelly and myself that it was nothing short of moving a mountain in a very very short period of time and i just wanted to take a second to give you all some perspective just about the sheer volume and the time we really uploaded um almost 2000 employees on monday when when the moment

006came 1201 sunday night into monday we were ready to go and we had gathered all of our um all of our forces and and got all of those folks entered into vans really in a collaborative effort with susan germain one of our nurses who um really just took the bull by the horns and and learned the vam system worked closely with gina who helped her to upload the huge batches of information and just that process alone just the the fielding the emails and the responses i didn't get an email i didn't hear anything from you why didn't i get included on the list how do i get enrolled just the troubleshooting we set up a dedicated email a hotline basically for troubleshooting which crashed so we dealt with kind of volumes and volumes of information

007to get everybody in and just registered in the system um but and the handoff with kelly kind of came on sunday evening i think as she was showing her parents out of her dining room and saying i need to move over um but we needed to make the transition into how we were then going to get everyone appointments we didn't use any agency we didn't we didn't want to put it all on the department of health they were already so overwhelmed so kelly if you just want to take a couple minutes just to describe what sunday night was and monday getting our teams together so what we did is we created a google form which people could go in and uh indicate yes they were interested in being vaccinated in district no they were not

008and if they were interested what we did is we gave them a choice or a menu of designated times um and that email um rolled out on monday afternoon and so when we when we hit go you know i'm texting kim and team saying all right i'm sending it no sooner did i click send and there was 49 responses we got 500 responses in under under seven minutes um so people were waiting you know people this was something that they wanted um i was worried that the form wasn't going to keep up with the system so then what happened of course is you know the time slots at people we said it was a request you know just give us what you'd like um we then had to go through um and make sure that

009we could confirm all the appointments this was simply a request and we had to make confirmations um so um you know kim kathy and i gina worked together and said okay we need to pull in some additional people and that's um really where uh melissa bang tatiann reiner um and jennifer gonzalez who are the admin assistants um to both kim and myself um really came in and um you know i i can't say enough things about them i think monday evening we did a 10 p.m call i was in my pj's with my glasses on um so i apologize for that but they just really uh helped in trouble you know troubleshooting everything so um truly uh people just were very i think the message here is they could not wait to sign up um

010you know we um as soon as i called karapunti and said you know i'm almost running out of appointments on friday and saturday she's like add two more to every single time slot we'll get them in i'll find additional volunteers our nurses stepped up to the plate um you know and volunteered their time and we were so appreciative of that um you know local um you know doctors and nurses from the area also volunteered we could not have done this without everyone so we were able to offer 12 appointments every 10 minutes for a window of about six hours on friday evening and then about eight hours on saturday and during that time we were able to vaccinate over 900 danbury public schools teachers um and nearly a thousand people during those windows um really

011big kudos to uh christy zelita we i think took over her school uh and she's done it with a smile on her face um you know we had um the police explorers there um you know i laughed i i walked in like i was just gonna walk in they're like where's your appointment they had to show my ticket and they you know walked us down and made sure that the traffic was flowing in one way it was really nice to see them in action um and just everyone that the sense that we got was everyone just had smiles the thank yous the pictures um the sense of relief from everyone so uh truly no it was uh i think a pleasure of all it was a lot of work but i think all of our

012pleasure to kind of engage in it and make sure we were able to do this everyone is scheduled for their second vaccine so if you've got your birthday with us just for your second this week we're running some additional appointments tuesday wednesday thursday afternoon um as well as some appointments on saturday um and we just sent out the final all call to say we believe we've gotten everyone if we've missed you please reach out to us um we will have been able to offer the vaccine before the end of this by the end of the day saturday to all of our employees with a couple of exceptions um for people that need to wait for various different situations till next week um so i just you know big big thank you to the team it

013was um truly a a great effort and i was proud to be part of it i i hope you are all you know can join us in being just proud of the community effort that these teams all put in i think it was it was really something it was magic so maybe we could thank you maybe we can come off from you can everybody come off from you and we can give them a round of applause great job thank you thank you thank you and do you have to do the same thing for the second round yes yes well we're going to cut and paste the date whatever you had last time this time date and time you stop and think about it guys that's that's that's going to put us in better stead in

014order to bring back folks and we've always said right along since september went safely so i um you know i bow to you guys and i just we're just so appreciative thanks again and thank you cara too i know you pulled up i'm not i won't say paul strings but you managed to to tell them that we were able to run our own clinic and the result of that um caused us to be in this position so thank you very much thank you madam chair uh next on the agenda uh is uh other participation uh kate would you read the public participation strip the board welcomes public participation and asks the comments be limited to three minutes the public may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them the board will not

015permit 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 covet 19 crisis and the limitations of technology members of the public who are danbury residents are invited to send brief comments and questions via email in advance to dps underscore public comment underscore b-o-e at danbury.k12.ct.us thank you kate uh sandy uh would you go through the comments or read the comments for us please sure uh jose pimental parent of two dps students martin luther king said that injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere there is a severe injustice happening to our community as who late as a few legislators block an entire school there is injustice as many of our teachers and administrators have

016had to commute long hours and work in other cities i will say it bluntly the open choice was nothing but a political ploy by our danbury delegation to ensure that the mostly black and brown parents in danbury did not get the school that they have been desperately fighting for you cannot sit idly by and allow smoke and mirror programs like open choice that will only serve about 50 students to keep us from the real work to be done the time for courage from our board is now we have asked for lead to be included as an independent community committee to recruit and develop latin teachers and administrators some of our members have applied and made themselves available to help ensure a more equitable society they have been that has been ignored this is not the

0171940s we cannot continue to ignore and deny the largest demographic the representation and equity they demand we demand respect and ask that we are no longer ignored in danbury the overwhelming majority of our students are of latin descent this demographic continues to be ignored and under-represented the status quo seems to be just fine with our elected officials we the leaders of this community have grown sick and tired of begging for the scraps of the table when it is our table as the board begins the process of seeking a superintendent we will strongly suggest that the board considers an aggressive search for a qualified latin superintendent that can relate and represent our student population we are opposed to the open choice program and are advocating for a latin educational leader and the ability to expand our

018educational options gabriella ramon as a mother of three my biggest dream is to provide my children with a very good education and to make sure they grow in a safe environment as a member of the danbury community i am here to ask this committee for their support and opening danbury prospect this school will ensure that our kids of our community have all the tools they need to achieve their full potential as a parent i would like my children to achieve a prosperous future where they develop a lifelong love of education and it can become a very important part of their lives unfortunately as a negative impact of the overcrowded classrooms in our danbury public schools i had the opportunity to discuss this matter with many parents who are concerned and uncertain of what the future

019holds for our children if there is no solution given immediately the danbury prospect charter school is willing to provide a tuition-free and wonderful world-class program which also helped dramatically with the overcrowded schools i definitely support this initiative it will benefit our children with a great world-class class learning program excellent teaching and diversity it will also be an important addition to of our growing city of danbury i also believe that the minority community especially latinos do not have adequate educational options for their children many of our parents face the dilemma of having to pay for a private school they can't afford or send their kids to school that are either too big or severely overcrowded danbury prospect is another option that is ready to open this year and can give our community a much needed option

020we believe as parents that we should have the option to choose the best of our interests in the education of our kids and prospect charter school is a school that we support and believe in i ask that you please help us convince our own legislators to support this school and include it in this year's budget maria matos resident of danbury parent leader and member of latinos for educational advocacy in danbury latinos in danbury need a school that strives to create a safe place in which staff and students reflect our community and every student can feel represented and cared for when students are taught by educators who look like and sound like them they blossom into leaders i cannot think of anything this city needs more desperately than a school that will serve our our most

021vulnerable danbury families are unified in their support of educational choice thousands of supporters have met with called and emailed their elected officials we've had rallies we've been to the capitol and we have been fighting to open a charter school for years our community has spoken loud and clear so i ask you to please give danbury families the gift of a new tuition-free public charter school with a culturally relevant curriculum and a commitment towards a diverse and inclusive teaching staff our community members have shown so much support and now it's time for our elected leaders to act i sincerely hope danbury families will be able to read the benefits of a charter school and be able to take pride in our children's school system uh the last one was sent in spanish so i'm going to

022read it um translated i'm hoping it makes complete sense um gloria castillo she has lived in danbury in the city of danbury for 20 three years today i bear witness to the inequality of in the education system of this city with the hispanic community since we do not have enough representation at the school level and at the state level especially when our children need guidance support and academic help our children do not receive it because the schools are overcrowded and there are not enough resources to solve the problem the answer for us and for which we have been fighting for years is danbury prospect let our voices have yet our voices have fallen on deaf ears i see that our community is the one that always comes last as well as our children when it

023comes to educational options and help for this reason i ask our representatives to please no matter what party they are to work for our city and for our children they are an integral part of our state of connecticut and deserve to be supported equally at the state level please finally fund danbury prospect school so that it can open and provide a high quality education for children like my children who desperately need it i look forward to your endorsement in this legislative session and ms cooper i'm just hitting refresh really quick okay okay um that is it for public participation but i just wanted to say that tonight will be my final night uh doing the board minutes unfortunately um with personal circumstances that have happened this past year i will no longer be able to

024continue doing the minutes it has been a pleasure um i appreciate everything that everybody has done and the bonds that i have built here um and i just wanted to say thank you to you all and i hope to still keep in touch sandy let me just before i i i did want to make sure that the board um knew that and thank you for doing it um you've taken over uh in in in so many ways for us and we're going to miss you um one for your talent and your skills and also for the ease of working with us it hasn't been easy uh you know we've asked for things to be translated things to be put on air we heard the parents writing tonight you know reaching out to the hispanic community

025you've been uh integral in doing that and we will miss you greatly um as a person as a skillful secretary of the board also as a as a an assistant to us as reaching out to our community so thank you thank you thank you and um if i need a sub i'll be calling you i'll be here i'm not going anywhere i'm sorry i don't know if any other board member may want to comment thank you doctor thank you uh on behalf of the board dr sarah i certainly would like to say thank you to cindy uh she reads beautifully she speaks eloquent and you know we all have talents that uh each one of us is different from the other and uh you know she brings a smile when she comes and does her

026work for us and she has never complained since the time that i've known her so on behalf of the board sandy we hope to keep in touch with you and we hope that you will continue to keep in touch with us and we're going to miss you but thank you so very much sandy thank you miss cooper i will definitely still be in touch with everybody so thank you all so so standing in the minutes if you could just record for me uh it's a board appreciation month i want to say thank you to the board members here um you know it's a lot of hours a lot of behind the scenes people don't realize um i know you take a lot of emails and mindfully get back to folks and try to follow up

027and um work for the benefit of our youngsters ever in any way you can whether it's building um getting a building built or working on some new curriculum being present for interviews working on the budget um negotiating long hours with contracts you've always stepped up you've helped us and um i just really want to say thank you and very much appreciate it to all of you for doing that [Music] we're gonna move on down the agenda uh kate would you do the consent calendar of course i'll make a motion that the board of education approves the items on this consent calendar exhibit 21-29 through exhibit 21-32 as recommended second let's show the silver okay could you do the roll call sure i just want to make sure that nobody has any um comments no no

028i think there's a motion the emotion was made i need a second and then we're going to do the roll call and then at that particular time they will ask questions do the roll call okay uh joe britton hi rachel celeski aye keith canetta aye gladys cooper i lauren daly aye joe da silva aye catherine hodgson aye rich jannelli aye cathy molinaro aye al russo aye ms felina hi okay so we have um 11 in favor okay and emotion is self-care could we go down to uh item in 12 i will education of staff representation do we have anyone from the uh nea you do good evening miss cooper how are you fine nice to see you nice to see you nice to see you anne um good evening everyone let's start out by seconding

029that that kudos for the vaccine roll out whoa um thank you kim for um your ease of communication that your office put out i received nothing but positive feedback about the communication the rollout the process and many many teachers told me they were brought to tears upon receiving their vaccines when have you ever heard about people crying in a good way getting shots so it was a positive wonderful experience and we're moving forward and the positive energy that was felt at rogers park when i personally went for my vaccine it was like a celebration so i wanted to thank you all for your effort because we know we use the word in the past year herculean very very loosely because we've all done herculean work but we know that that rollout was truly an amazing

030and very successful feat that you took on so we thank you for that nea thanks you for that and we are so thrilled that the majority of teachers are now vaccinated so always always always start off on a positive and have nothing but wonderful things to say about that thank you um dr sal um i know i privately congratulated you but i wanted to publicly congratulate you on your retirement in the on so they're on the board minutes and just thank you um you've been a pleasure to work with um while we may not always agree on everything or our mission it you know we don't always go about it in the same way i think um we have this one thing in common and that's that we always put the care of the staff

031and the kids first and i think you've been a teacher advocate and i think you've been an advocate for danbury and i'm personally proud at the job that you've done for our district over the years so i just wanted to kind of publicly um thank you for all of your hard work for us as a community and now we'll get to now we'll get to my my complaints they're not much don't worry i wanted to talk a little bit about um the ecs issues and governor lamont's um kind of freezing of the ecs formula and um dr sal i saw your letter that um you put forward to the committees regarding the ecs funding and i wanted to kind of draw this back to some of the the letters that we just heard from the

032prospect charter schools and um nea danbury takes great objection to some of the things that we're hearing from the prospect charter group and while i know the board can't speak out upon these issues i can and i just want to go on record with saying you know some of the letters indicated that danbury does not have a world-class education system disagree 100 um danbury does not give diverse opportunities to their students that is completely inaccurate in fact it's an out and out lie we do provide those opportunities to our students every day um teachers that are not representative of our community we have teachers that represent our community we pride ourselves in making sure we're connected with our our diverse population um that we do not serve our most vulnerable students my goodness that's what

033we're the best at we do that so darn well and we do it on a shoestring budget you all know that we do so much with so little and i think for goodness sakes we need to get props for that because um to hear a community saying that we're underserving a group of people that we work so hard to make sure that we're we're including and um serving their needs the only issue at hand really is we need more money to do it even better we need more money we all know that we need more money we need the ecs formula adjusted and danbury given its proper due you've already heard us sing our 169 song for many years and quite frankly that's what we should all be embarrassed of as a community that danbury

034is 169 out of all of our communities in the state that's appalling that's embarrassing we can do better the fact that we're only spending 13 or so thousand dollars per pupil when we have other communities spending upwards of 35 000 per pupil that's where we need to work together we don't need to bring in uh uh outside charter school to do that we need to fund the current system that we have the right way and that means investing in education here in our public schools so i just wanted to put that on record and thank you dr self for your work and continuing to push forward um the the uh the hard work to make everybody outside of danbury know why that ecs formula being adjusted in the proper way is so important um bringing

035it back locally um i wanted to just thank courtney and kevin um i've been meeting with them about issues with regarding health and safety in our schools and we're working on a bunch of things um as courtney mentioned at the last board meeting you know we put out a survey to our members and um some of the things that came back were really positive like courtney reported on math squaring that that's been a very positive some of our mitigation has been wonderful um we still have work to do is making sure our cleaning is done adequately we're still getting lots of reports with cleaning issues so i want to bring that to the attention of everyone here tonight to know that we need to do better in those areas cleaning making sure rooms are cleaned

036desks are clean daily making sure bathrooms are clean and making sure basic things like paper towels and soap are available and that teachers aren't having to you know beg for it during the school day so that's that's one area we can get better so i continue i hope we can continue to improve in that area the other thing that um has come up and you may or may not know that um on most wednesdays we have uh our teacher meetings with all of our members uh around four o'clock right before your meeting here so i often time get a lot of information that i didn't have the week before and one thing that's been coming up for the past few weeks is um the technology issues that teachers are facing so i know as we're

037going to be asked to be doing increased live streaming or increased synchronous instruction live instruction with our students at home and our hybrid students in front of us one of the issues that's come forward is the technology inadequacies let me give you an example many of our teachers have macbooks and many of our teachers also have been issued a chromebook chromebooks are woefully inadequate to run a lot of the software and the programs and the high-tech apps that we are now so accustomed to use they they don't do it they crash they can't handle it our macbooks can when they're updated and a lot of our macbooks as they've been coming becoming older are kind of being phased out and they're not being replaced so we have a lot of teachers that are reporting having

038to do in having to try and piece together instruction without sound without video um with different tools not working and a lot of the feedback when they've reported some of these incidents has been well yeah you know we're working on it that's great that's great we're working on it but we have to make sure that we put the technology in the hands of teachers so they can do their job and and do it well so good use of the esser money discussion that's going to be coming up um maybe that is a good place for us to put our investment in um spending money on appropriate technology that can handle the usage that and the demands that we're now putting out there for our instruction um the other thing that i wanted to talk about

039is kind of goes along with that technology issue we continue to have a sub sub shortage which we knew we were going to have um that's really not what i'm here to discuss um when we do get sub coverage in our classrooms when we do have people covering um in our virtual classrooms the devices that they've been issued don't connect with the devices that teachers are working with so a lot of times we have people when we do have a body or a human being to cover a class they can't access someone else's google classroom because the technology isn't connecting or they don't have the ability because of the infrastructure so these are huge issues that we really need to work on to kind of build our infrastructure moving forward and there are things that

040are going to cause roadblocks as we progress with opening and moving forward in that process which brings me to the final thing that i wanted to talk about and that's our class sizes so i've talked to dr sal and kevin about this um back in january when uh members brought to our attention that we have many many many classes in danbury that are over our contractual limit of the amount of pupils per class so um that is a current concern and in order to move forward we really need to make sure that one that we're adhering to our contract language so elementary classes there should be no roster bigger than 25 students in a class if we're going to adhere to contract language and 30 at the high school in middle school those are important

041things that if we don't have that in check right now moving to additional or future phases of opening um is going to be a real roadblock for us as well and it certainly will um be a roadblock for space issues for mitigation and social distancing so i just wanted to bring a few of those things that we still have work to do in the coming weeks if we're going to move forward but i also wanted to just you know bring kudos and um accolades to the hard work that has taken place in the past few weeks and i thank you all and again um thank you uh kim for all the work that your work your office has done in the past few weeks so air high five to you as i do with my

042students and i'll say good night to y'all good night aaron and thank you again thank you okay um cooper could i just address one piece of aaron's comment yes uh comments we have some good news to announce aaron um that we do have additional custodial support that will be starting in the schools on monday for each school they're getting an additional custodial support um that will be helping out in the cleaning mitigation partly as a result of our conversation and conversations with the principals and so we look forward to working with you sure that you know things are moving in a positive trajectory and thanks for bringing that feedback to us wonderful thank you courtney thank you thank you board as long as what up um i got to thank uh kim too um and

043the uh union because these are i'm gonna use the word purchase services we cannot we have been looking for hiring and we've been not been able to so we did uh talk to our union kim has talked to the union the teamsters and our local and uh told them the predicament and um they're permitting us to do this so i i need to thank them all publicly you don't find a lot of employee groups saying okay go out and hire folks and bring them in they realized the need that aaron just you know um talked about and we want to make sure that the place is clean and safe and they'll be dedicated to all of that so i need to publicly thank all of them for doing that and thank you kim for getting

044the negotiation thank you thank you dr sarah is doctors the leader here i'm right here okay thank you good to see you video she tells him so thank you first to the team for working so hard to make the vaccine clinics such a success it really is a true testament to the fabric of who we are as a district and on behalf of the saa we just want to express our sincerest gratitude and appreciation and and i agree aaron um people were just overjoyed with the relief and and that feeling of there's hope out there so thank you all for all the ridiculous amount of work that it took to do that so thank you um moving on with my tell me something good um with the last six schools south street principal vargas uh

045guevara she shared with me that south street is doing some amazing things our students in fourth and fifth grade attend school daily even if they are home or full dl as those are our two grades that continue to departmentalize and the teachers started live streaming five days a week since we came back in january those students are are all in five days a week the teachers love it and while it's not the i'm sorry and feel while not the best instructional model for our students in this platform it's the best we can offer offer for our students to have consistency both to meet their academic and emotional needs principal bradley at morris street school shared with me that they're finding new ways to do things and stepping out of their comfort zones we have learned

046a whole new way to teach and growth is something to be grateful for they've learned better or more efficient ways to do things like virtual parent teacher conferences and staff meetings they're building relationships with parents in ways that they've never had before and many families and more hands-on are excuse me are more hands-on with their children's learning even though it's been a tough road they've learned that they can all bounce back and learn new things they rely on each other and are growing in knowledge of technology stretching our creative thinking and expanding our flexibility and patience our school community has become even stronger we have all been in this together for one year and have worked together through plans schedules sickness and more we are a team our students are amazing and persevere with their

047learning as one fourth grade student so aptly stated when analyzing a character dog is a survivor he accepts life's hardships and realizes life goes on and he will make the most of it our students make us proud in all learning environments from haitian avenue school principal furman shared with me that they participated in many exciting events at haystown on january 26th they had a pto literacy night students could choose their favorite teacher or principal to read them a bedtime story on google me this was very well attended and a great time was had by all last week they celebrated read across america and all teachers were provided as with a slideshow of administrators teachers and dhs students reading books they had a read my t-shirt day and a half day many teachers have reported extraordinary

048efforts on par on the part of their students second graders reading over an hour on epic the kids are really pushing hard and so are the teams they also did a fundraiser for frank a charity near and dear to their hearts the charity raised over three thousand dollars keep up the great work haystown students and staff go dragons from principal smith at great plain school thanking members of the board for allowing great plain and other schools the opportunity to share things that are happening at school great plains sent out a video to the parents and community on what i am great plane is pleased to announce that we will be gearing up for the spring assessments star testing is coming no problem sba is coming no problem the students and community members participated in read

049across america the video was created by the staff posted on the site and shared with students in an effort to make the left happy great green theme is in constant communication with parents about how to support the child and community needs we could not do anything without the love and dedication of our great plains staff and parents again thank you and ais principal roche shared our social worker noted mother teresa said we cannot we can do no great things only small things with great love during the pandemic staff purchased refrigerators collaborated with our amazing pto to create to create ais families helping families which delivered grocery gift cards one parent who always donated food and gift card said during a pto meeting i have never seen anything like this where do you find staff like

050this teachers drove computers to homes and some drove gifts to all their students an ais and pto food toy drive filled our media lab and conference rooms the staff member said people people who work here and our families care for one another and we truly are an ais family special events included science presentations recycling programs history lessons taught by the director of the danbury museum and a wescon theater department collaborative a theater arts event art club theater club greg tang math lessons and a viewing of mars landing we had our third annual spelling bee virtually at ais sophie and arna were 20 went 28 rounds before crowning a champion arnold will go on to the connecticut state spelling bee along with our 2020 champion eva balco a parent told me a few years back where

051i work if someone spends five minutes at school after the bell they want an extra duty pay and at ais it's the way you all operate i'm grateful to our amazing parents students and staff for their resiliency during the most challenging time and i'm going to close with ellsworth avenue principal durkin she shared with me a video that i'd like to share with you of two students working together while one is at home and one is at school so i'm gonna attempt to try to do this share screen oh it should work thank you kara p for letting do you all see that little video give me a thumbs up just so i know i'll hit play is it you see it yes okay thank you courtney peter while he's at home tiago yes tell

052me why because uh i helped him upgrade his book he helped me upgrade my book at first i only had this page and until he helped me i had this much pizza wow this is how big my table of contents is wow adnan did you like it yeah yeah why did you like it working with a partner who's at school because it is so fun to help each other and then we get more better and then left out alone if you're left out alone like that's not good like if you work with the partners that's more like nice to work and then you can not fall behind and you can be better yes that's wonderful okay but let's tell on that time for dismissal sorry but it's time for dismissal okay maybe maybe next week

053when i come back when i come back to school maybe we can go into a breakout room again and then you can upgrade my writing again or on tuesday if it's going to be school it's going to be higher i thought that was a really apt way to close and um i just want to say i appreciate so much that we're able to share these awesome things that are happening our teachers and administrators are working really hard and i'm happy to share the share it with you next week i'm going to get pictures and i'm looking for a show from around the school so thank you so much hope you all have a great night and thank you again next turn our agenda um before i move on i'm sorry uh do any board members

054have any question for dr zelita okay moving on our student representatives good evening board of ed members cabinet and community members thank you for allowing me to represent and speak on behalf of the alternative center for excellence eighth students are participating in the 53rd annual jamberry cultural commission poetry contest students from the entire school will have the opportunity to submit their original works submissions are due march 29th ace is recognizing women's history month as a community by engaging in learning activities and projects designed to celebrate and honor the accomplishments and contributions that women have made in our society works of art to celebrate women's month will be added to the ace creativity showcase website ace guidance counselor diana dinardo is organizing a march into a wellness day that will include virtual meets with the community

055members who perform duties in their careers related to serving the community as well as promoting physical and emotional well-being ace will be holding our sat day for 11th graders on march 24th a special thanks to our s.a.t administrator kyle truccola and our pro lake zlara no laura blake anthony hellman and melissa laskey for providing this opportunity to our students ace would like to announce our cave awards winners lyla fridas and ryan gallarza for consistently demonstrating strong leadership skills ace would like to publicly acknowledge and congratulate our february students of the month kaylee cottrell and josh lastly ace would like to congratulate our most recent student of the week award winners jalen batista and serena song congratulations to the both of you and keep up the great work during the rest of semester two thank you

056for all thank you for thank you all for allowing us to share the great things happening at our ace family this spring uh with our ace family in the spring stay safe everyone and remain a strong thank you nicole okay so does any board members have any questions for any of our students seeing none we're going to move on down the agenda to action item a joe britton will you ma do the uh action item a please sure thing i would like to make a motion that the board of education approve a four thousand five hundred dollar payment from the building rental fund for the repair of the jv baseball field backstop in accordance with policy 3-150 i need a second second and and who was that joe yes any questions concerning action item a

057yes just a statement about the building rental fund um a few years ago i had asked joe martino about some auditorium fixes um there's like you know painting on the ceiling um there's something going on with the brick on on the side of the auditorium some seats need to be repaired um so and we had a conversation you know that we would like to eventually you know build up that fund for for some big ticket items the auditorium is um seen not just by the high school but other schools and also the community um i realize we're not you know raking it in right now but um just some food for thought thank you thank you rachel any other comments or questions concerning the action item eight seeing 9k good to do the roll call

058please uh joe britton hi rachel celesti gladys cooper i lauren daley hi joe da silva aye catherine hodgson aye rich genelli cathy molinero hi al russo amy spolino hi okay so we the motion has been carried we have 11 people in favor of action item a rachel would you do action item b uh sorry i move that the board of education except for first reading policy 9125 attorney as recommended by the policy committee in accordance with 21-34 thank you stacking it by kathy jumped in okay sorry about that i'm sorry who who seconded it i did i did gladys okay okay okay thank you okay uh any questions concerning action item b seeing none uh kate would you do the roll call your britain aye rachel scholeski hi kate canetta aye gladys cooper aye lauren

059daly aye joe da silva hey catherine hodgeson aye richie janelly aye cathy molinaro hi al russo hi amy spelino hi okay so we have 11 in favor motion so care catherine hutchison would you do yes i'd like to make a motion that the board of education accept the first reading policy 9140 board representatives as recommended by the policy committee 21-35 thank you captain motion made by catherine seconded by seven seconds amy okay okay are there any questions concerning that policy in the discussion cnn okay could you do the roll call please do britain rachel celeski hi kate canetta aye gladys cooper aye lauren daly aye joe da silva hi catherine hodgson hi rich genelli i cathy molinero hi al russo hi amy spelino hi okay thank you all the motionless care we have 11 in

060favor of the action item c uh lauren daley could you do action item d lauren madam chair i have it up on the screen if you're allowed okay go ahead okay i'm good okay go ahead lauren i make a motion that the board of education accepts the first reading policy renumeration and reimbursement as recommended by the policy committee in accordance with 21-36 thank you lauren promotion made by lauren seconded by a second this is king okay okay thank you any questions okay okay saying no questions um kate could you do the roll call joe britton hi rachel celestine hi kate caneva aye gladys cooper aye lauren daly aye joe da silva aye catherine hodgson hi rich janelli hi kathy molinero hi al russo aye amy spelino hi okay we have 11 in favor motion so

061carrot action d has been accepted uh joseph uh the civil would you do action item e joe the silver or whoever has it up on the screen al you have it up on the screen i do action item e time and place and notice of meeting i'd like to make a motion at the board of education except for the first reading policy 9321 time place and notice of meetings is recommended by the policy committee exhibit 2137 thank you a motion made by al who's could i hear a second by katherine catherine thank you in discussion concerning action item uh e cn9 uh kate could you do the roll paul please joe britton hi rachel celestine hi kate canetta aye gladys cooper aye lauren daly aye jojo silva catherine hodgson aye rich genelli let me just

062check your comments kathy molinaro hi no because what about russo and then amy now you know okay so we have all 11 in favor action id motion so carried we'll move down to action item f i make a motion that the board of education except for second reading and adoption policy 1342.2 community relations and appeals as recommended by the policy committee 21-38 thank you second second instructions by kathy seconded by joe silva any questions discussions concerning action item f seeing none cake could you do the roll call joe britton aye rachel celeski hi kate canetta i gladys cooper i lauren daly hi joe da silva joe can't hear you can i get no no no i'm not sure he can hear us okay um sorry uh catherine hodgson aye rich janelli hi kathy molinero hi

063al russo amy spolino aye kate i may have frozen up there for a minute i was uh i'm voting in favor aye thank you okay thank you joe okay so we have 11 in favor motion so caring okay hey miss milina could you do action item the next ice actually yes yes yes uh i make a motion at the board of education except for second reading and adoption policy six six one five nine instruction special education as recommended by the policy committee uh exhibit 21-39 motion made by amy can i hear a second second a second about l any question concerning motion see you now kate could you do roll call joe britton aye rachel celeski i kate caneva aye gladys cooper i learn daily aye joe da silva hi catherine hodgson hi rich gianelli

064aye cathy molinaro aye al russo aye amy spolino hi okay we have 11 in favor of the most emotional care uh mr dinali would you do the final uh action item please yes thank you i'll make a motion that the board of education except for the second reading and adopt policy number six one seven one as recommended by the policy committee janelli seconded by mr de silva any question cnn kate could you do the roll call yo britton hi rachel chaleski hi kate canetta i gladys cooper i lauren daly aye joe da silva aye catherine hodgson aye rich genelli aye cathy molinero aye al russo aye amy smolino aye we have 11 in favor emotion so care thank you all for participating in our era consent calendar and exhibits that we have to take care

065of tonight next on the agenda dr south superintendent's report dr sarah i was on i was just testing i was on mute okay so um number one on is about the academy um kara and her leadership group dan at the high school and with others dave melissa and they do been working with the academy folks in nashville looking at options and the types of academies that they were able to institute there and lining this up with the portrait of the graduate corollary what's going on is that we're starting to collect information regarding ed specs so as we do that i'll be contacting joe braden i you know facilities community so we can kind of talk about that we're trying to get so when we get some draft stuff together um and then we'll start talking

066about it so that that is an uh in motion actually last week on wednesday maybe a group went back up to the matrix or the summit i'm sorry to put some more eyes on the buildings and kind of walk now through there a little more of a vision based on the understanding of some of the activities and um learning communities that we were challenged with intellectually by the people from nashville so with that lens the group went there and and looked around went with their uh so we could talk with architects so that's all exciting work connect moving along so as soon as some things come together with where you could we could look at and then you can take a look at some med specs um we'll be calling for a meeting for you

067guys to look at um i think i have my computer keeps going on it next thing that i have on there is the senate bill 948 i think i sent you a copy of my testimony i mean you know this is probably own news to you but i thank aaron i have been going around the state and i've been talking about the inequities in funding for the urban setting and one of the criteria is that concentrated poverty index you may recall a few years ago um cities were given money and danbury keeps getting knocked out of because they consider us wealthy right or wrong different but if you look at the number of poverty students we have i think that's in just just not justifiable at this point so many of the schools that in

068the urbans need to be into that mix when funding comes available governor malloy you mean we all supported in 2017 um was give us a 10-year payout on our money our money money to the city you know up to don't know 52 million more to get us up to 52 million and now the current governor has put a pause on it um this bill which comes from the finance group project accelerates that and says you know infuse the money now they give them a proposal for it um and it mainly does impact as you can see uh minor the we call it bypac the indigenous minority students of color uh those cities are the ones that suffer and getting that money back into the mix really have you know happens um to be used in

069a way that's going to be uh fruitful i know people talk about essa money and they're talking about that that money has not come yet it's going to have limitation and the thing that this board has always talked about thank you for the money but what about sustainability right now you know the cities are spending around 2 300 less on average than many of the non-urban settings and that totally isn't just whether it's for bilingual students specialist students regular ed students students advancing in ap you know we do need some equity to come to bear and i think going to hartford and talking about this um um even in this economy whether or not it happens this year but people are beginning to listen and looking at disparity so if you have a chance to

070talk about it that's why i put the testimony in there for you um you know i welcome you to uh to talk to folks about it um i appreciate it if you would the vaccine is my next thing i um let me just ask my team um either kara or uh kathy or kelly or kim do you have anything to update the board relative other than what we talked about in the recognition anybody hearing none i guess not they did talk to you about um you know what they've done and we should pretty well be on our way this coming weekend as kelly pointed out uh with with um you know vaccinating our folks quite quite an effort on the part of many of us so i'd like you to now i want to talk

071about the hybrid extension i'm calling it and uh today i got some calls about rumors and let me just go on the record by saying you know the the the work that has to happen has to happen with others and they timing is is everything and it does take a lot of time we've been looking for a few months at how we can do things but certain things have to come together um and certainly the vaccine rate and infection ability of the being vaccinated has now come into the picture these things really are saying to us what next and uh i've talked about last meeting and i do want to talk a little bit tonight about what we're doing next week i've been mindful of trying to phase in um our our in-person learning and

072um you know we we are targeting sometime soon in april um we talked with principals about some possibilities but to do our due diligence there are staff issues that need to be reconciled you heard from aaron um some issues with class sizes these are all things that we have to be mindful about when we make our next move so i think i'll start with if you don't mind with we have some display but kelly maybe you could refresh with the board first the things that you have been doing relative to bringing students in then we'll move to what we're doing next week and then kevin if you would bring up the one source that we have to talk a little more specifically about some of the parameters that we're looking at if we are to

073increase our in-person learning can we start kelly sure thank you dr sal um so i just want to update the board uh this past monday we did resume uh four days a week in person instruction for all of our preschool students so any students in our special education our typical role model peers um that chose to come in person were able to return to our preschool um full-time they they attend a half-day program most of the students um so it's an am and pm session um and the number of students whose parents had opted to keep them on distance learning um provided us with the opportunity to um you know maintain social distancing safely within our space and resume in-person instruction for the rest of the kids that wanted to come in so we are

074very excited to see them four days a week that is their typical schedule a four day a week program during a traditional school year so they are back attending school as they would prior to covid the other things we've done within the special education department are return what we've referred to as our high needs special ed students and this is our students that have the most significant needs uh primarily students that attend self-contained programming they have also began coming in four days a week um so they're a part of both cohorts and it truly has been an effort on behalf of our building administrators nurses bus company to pull this effort off to get them in so i'm happy to report that it has went smoothly so far and i think we have made a

075step in the right direction to have our youngest and some of our most needy uh students back in school more often so kelly we saw a little vignette regarding uh kind of i call it the um you know a blended approach you've been doing that in your classes sure so um within the special education department um you know many of our schools have one or two special ed teachers at the elementary level some more um so we have had to uh have our teachers teach both the students that are coming to school as well as the students that are distance learners um and so saw in the video from ellsworth just made me smile um is what we see examples of every single day our special education teachers as well as our related services staff

076members are teaching students in front of them with students beaming in on the computers and tutors supporting those students as well um since the start of our return to in-person instruction um and i think in the beginning i certainly should acknowledge um you know some of uh you know tech glitches they happen um certainly um you know it is an adjustment for teachers to get used to um you know being in front of the screen front and center when they're teaching and instructing making sure to monitor what's going on in the classroom as well as what's going on in the homes but i think once they're doing it for a few few weeks what i've seen is it really does become almost like second nature not the quite the same as being in person but

077they have done a tremendous job with it so in partnering um you know our secondary students have been doing it all students 612 um the the majority of the school year um and so one of the things that uh dr carol samaro and i have spoken about is you know really reaching out to some of the special education teachers or the esl teachers at the elementary level that have had more practice and experience doing this um so that when uh the rest of our k-5 uh classroom teachers uh go go to this model um that they'll be more familiar with it if they need to um kathy or doubt i know you're here um the board has asked before okay you know we we've now instituted the hybrid we've now over two weeks have introduced

078the um horizon our new needy special ed students are coming in um you know how's it going relative to the um student health and contact racing and all of the mitigation strategies can you comment on that for us for them sure dr sal um it has been going very well uh with having our students return we are still continuing to identify positive cases and there have been quarantines um the dashboard has been updated as of five o'clock today to date we have seen no in-school transmission which is very good news shows our mitigation strategies are working um but we are continuing to see positive cases spread in the community um so we you know we're we're hoping that you know although the numbers are better in the community we still are seeing a lot of

079community spread we need to continue highly encouraging people in the community to social distance wear their masks you know maintain all those public health measures to help us get these numbers down but overall nothing transmitting in school which is good gabby i see the care of prenties here i don't know if karen has any comments relative to the community spread no just that um our numbers are consistent with the state um we are down in our numbers we're at 27 per 100 000 over the last 14 days our positivity rate remains around 4 um so we are pretty consistent with the rest of the state in our numbers uh where we used to be the highest and the number one in the pack we're now in the middle of the pack so that's some positive

080news so so um thank you very much karen always thank you for your collaboration so you know for the board you know since the beginning um we applied for the hybrid and the reason why we applied for the hybrid was plain and simple our class sizes are too large for us to be able to safely socially distance so the hybrid was our standard in order to return so that's what we want to talk a little bit about tonight the um the next step in a roll out um is the goal is to increase face time with our teachers and that is we have an opportunity that carol speak about the day and also about the wednesday and then about some next steps that we're going so cara are you ready sure yeah um so um

081you know along the lines that uh kelly mentioned um you know we are increasing in-person learning um the letters as you're familiar with has gone home to indicate that we'll be returning back on on using utilizing wednesdays which is great at the elementary level that that gives us really the greatest gains while we can in conjunction with the fact that we're extending the school day and so um in the the model previous to this shift on the 15th um students were coming in at the elementary level 10 hours weekly or 20 hours over two weeks but when we add in the wednesday rotation for the cohorts um that leaves us with 13.2 hours and for week one and then 18.2 hours for week two for a total of um over 31 hours over two weeks

082so we do have a nice gain in person contact time for students um and so we thought that that was a great way to phase in some additional contact time for the students who did choose the hybrid learning at the secondary level the gains are not as much however they are coming in a full day on wednesday for the day on wednesday um there's a net gain of five hours of in-person contact time over two weeks um and so uh we're very happy to be to be bringing students in at all levels on wednesdays um it still is an early dismissal as indicated in the letter that was sent home um and we are on our rotation schedule which will take a little bit of adjustment to get used to for for everybody um but

083we're excited to be to be welcoming our students in on on wednesdays and also as an extension on on the uh at the k5 level for monday tuesday thursday and friday um with that comes um some adjustments with some of the instructional components so we are going to be seeing more synchronous instruction and as the day is lengthened some additional synchronous experiences will be included in the course of the school day there will still be some asynchronous components that students will be responsible for as they as they are now um but that will be more balanced in a sense and so um while uh you know we welcome some of these changes and opportunities it um definitely is going to be some adjusting on both ends the day again becomes a little bit more structured

084our distance learning students who are at home um also have some blocks that are scheduled and backed into what is happening in the grade levels at the schools with the children who are in hybrid and so in in essence it does extend the day a little bit longer um for students and so i will be working with teachers to help them find ways to balance out the instruction across the day so that we're not keeping students on too long unnecessarily and that we're striking that balance between the contact time and and independent practice off off screen as well so um we are excited about that um and um we you know looking forward to continuing to explore additional ways that we can increase the in-person learning for students who choose that so um over to

085the next step and and so you know that will begin next week which i'm excited about all of this by the way you know uh you take a little set because we did extend the day we need to look at as there's supervision issues there's um substitute issues there's cafeteria issues many things that they're able to familiarize themselves returning back to the full day with the social distancing it is a different situation so that gives us time to experience that and i think it's just smart for us to do some of that piloting and move move slowly to move fast in some respects so so what's next and i i think uh you know i did get some calls today about oh this is happening this well as i tried to say when i started

086there's no way you can start on a monday and decide that on next wednesday or final week you're going to do something it takes time it takes dialogue and rumors will spread no doubt but the goal that i have had since day one was to bring our youngsters back safely and we have some opportunities you've heard about the what we're doing with the vaccine that's going to give us a certainly a great standard regarding safety it also allows us to keep our teachers in front of our students because they will not have to be quarantined that is that is huge for us to to be able to rely on that so kevin i asked kevin to put together a slide for us kevin you want to bring that up do you have it you could

087take us through it i i it's hard to see you might have to make it a little larger those of us that are under 40 are having a problem i'm trying to do that hold on one second can you see your computer all right uh kevin you want to do is that good sure sure dr so good good thank you cara so good evening everyone so as as dr sal um cathy o'dowd and cara punty alluded to previously my overall health conditions continue to improve vaccines are being conducted across the community and schools continue to demonstrate that in-person instruction could be done safely and as a result we're excited to welcome more students back into our schools for more in-person learning however you know we we are learning and dr cell has is kind of

088alluded to some of these um considerations challenges uh that we're going to be faced with to realize these goals like we're gonna have to work through some considerations as we try to get our kids back in school um and so uh one um physical space is still a challenge for us throughout the district uh particularly with three foot social social distance guidelines in place and so another another consideration for us is possible redis redistribution of students and so we could have some teacher changes particularly in our k-5 grades just also want to share with the board in the community in-person learning capacity could result in some students waiting for an available seat so you know we we walked through we had conversations with our with with our principals this week in reassessing um what their

089true capacity is uh with three foot distancing at the minimum and so you know in some of our schools we can accept as many as 20 students in some of our schools we can accept as low as 16 or 17 students in the classroom and then you know some as high as 22 23 and so it varies from school to school classroom to classroom and that that's what we are continuing to learn as we speak with our principals and and walk through these classrooms with them however it it will shrink the availability um uh and of the available seats uh for students and families um another thing that we've learned and it's become very clear we're going we're going to need to purchase additional furniture and ppe um to maintain our social distancing guidelines um

090and so it's been a it's been a goal of the districts to purchase furniture to promote group work and and be face to face and so now of course in this environment we need our kids to be separated um and so almost all of our k-5 schools and appropriately so uh we had furniture to promote good work group work cooperative learning um and now we are looking to purchase furniture in many of our schools uh that's going to be desks that kids will be separated um to to maintain our social distancing guidelines um and and then another consideration um in this this is mostly for our new families who come into the district it's you know it's very likely that a lot of our new registrants that come in they could be moved to distance

091learning without any parent choice at all and so we just wanted to share these realities with the board and with the community as we continue to on this road to reopening our buildings so um you know for the board and and for for for us personally when we opened up um you know we had a um a teacher assigned that the parents um had anticipated and then we went into hybrid we had to make a change those that wanted to be on dl and those that were going to be in the hybrid and that was a change and i think that's hard um our next uh our next phasing in our iteration is going to require some of that as well to happen in order to balance some of these classrooms um where where it's

092going to be somewhat difficult for the board and and and i want to reiterate this is that um the only way this will work at all the only way it would work at all for us to think about some re-entry to a five-day week for our youngsters to um maintain the current level of distance learning students and the current level of the hybrid students um even with the maximum of six feet as a gold three feet as a minimum having these tabletop dividers for safety and full masking and vaccination all of that coming into play unless the three-foot guideline is mitigated which i don't see anywhere anywhere how that that's happening we have to create the conditions that those that are home remain at home and as there's an opportunity to bring students in that

093building by building we discussed it they know families they know situations we can then re-enter students so that that's the only way that we can operate and start planning mindfully about opening up five days a week i think the question is well when are you going to do it well that is that is a monumental task we are finding secondary uh challenges are not as great the k-5 challenges are much greater and um and they range from the spacing issue to personnel issues much greater than the secondary you know if you would ask me what am i targeting i am targeting um you know sometime here in april um you know certainly um i we need to re-meet with our medical folks to review um ken kim is on i don't know if she was

094talk a little bit about personnel but we have many challenges there uh so you know we it's it's the it's almost like a kaleidoscope all of you remember the kaleidoscope getting all that blending well you've got vaccination you've got space you've got um technology you've got union issues all of that needs to come together it's not as simple as saying tomorrow we start so um you know we are looking at that we started studying that for a while we're drilling down with our principles now the principles will be talking to teachers more actively because they're directly involved and then we think we're going to gain all of this information and then make a decision um that or recommendation to think through uh when we could possibly return but it would have to take place in

095the two big standards one social distancing at three feet and the those families that are on dl now currently are going to have to remain in there until there's an opportunity in space to return um before i end and open up the questions i think um kim you're on any comments you wish to make no i mean i i just would underscore that um you know it's it's complicated to we don't generally just flip the switch with the number of people we have out so just to give you kind of a bird's eye view we've gone back through probably about a hundred folks and we're looking at them in different categories um some are are people who are out on health accommodations for whom the vaccine is magic and they're ready to come back some

096of whom you know have health care providers that do not recommend that they get the vaccine for different very personal medical reasons and then we have categories of other and then we have a lot of teachers at the k5 level who have been teaching dl classes exclusively and while our preference was for them to do so from the school building we did have many who asked for different accommodations to be able to teach those dl kids from a work from home model because their own kids may have been in a hybrid model there were other reasons and we needed the space in the schools so that we could spread out the kids that were coming in so that's a long way of saying um it's a pretty good long list and my team is in

097the process now of um of going through that list and really confirming with folks who's planning to be and available to be in um and then what we'll have to do is kind of overlay that list over what the building principles think that they can accommodate and what they what they absolutely need to adjust to this new model so it's going to be um it's going to be yet another administrative feat um but as you heard before my team's getting pretty good at this so we'll figure it out but it is going to take a little while to get through them all um you know kim to the board um i know your shirt tails are getting tugged well why is danbury not in and they can in neighboring uh this community well right now

098the way things are are um are rolling out our numbers uh given the number of folks that are at home um are better reflective of that which gives us this opportunity to return and along with cara talked about we are in the middle in terms of thank god of the infection rate being much all those things now put us in this position to look at this for uh you know targeting the goldenness of the city the goal of the state has been um conditions improved somewhat knowing they can dip but generally in a good trend um you know you look at increasing um in in person time so next week we're increasing wednesday we're increasing the day uh and we're still studying uh the rest for us to see if there's an opportunity uh sometime

099in april here to um return the group so i'm gonna keep quiet unless courtney has something i know i'm not sure if you do or kathy just to say that uh dr we're just purchasing um additional desks and additional desk guards um for the safe reentry for the i'm sorry elementary schools um and and that's all that i wanted to say i just wanted to um you know thank kara wanzer for um i you know setting out what the spaces were in the buildings related to the enrollment so that we could then zero in on what the desk needs would be and so we should be able to have that in place um before a potential april um entry for all the students at the elementary schools it does change uh weekly and that's why

100we have to keep updating that so uh with that um madam chairman i'm um you know i'm i'm done um but obviously if we get closer to a decision we'll be informing the board and and working with the medical folks and start doing our due diligence thank you um mr de silva had a question dr sal yes go ahead thank you i actually have a couple um but first let me preface this with thanking dr sal and kevin and everybody else in the cabinet whenever i email the question we're i get responses immediately at all hours of the day and night and that's a that's above and beyond the call sometimes when when you're responding to emails at 10 and 11 o'clock at night thank you very much it is appreciated um question on there's

101a lot a lot to unpack here about the the grid that kevin was kind enough to put up on the screen and i'm not sure where this goes in terms of the dl students first of all i'm really disconcerted to know that to to learn that we may not be letting them come back a lot of people made decisions to have kids on dl be or keep their children on dl as my as we did in my family for a little bit because of the teaching model because it was a teacher four days a week and wednesday instead of a teacher wednesday thursday and asynchronous monday tuesday that obviously is defeated if we're not letting them come back in a five-day week i understand obviously the the the space challenges is this even legal because

102i it wasn't it the state didn't when when the state promulgated their plan over the summer wasn't the implication to that plan that kids could come back from dl um it's still it still is but i think i had indicated last week if i haven't i i you know they're revisiting issues as well and my understanding now it's a local decision i uh you know go one of the things i kept doing for months because i was sitting and i'd quote different districts what are you doing what are you doing and one would do at the end of the quarter everybody was doing something different so i did write them last week and one of their um miguel was on up there one of the assistants wrote back and said it's an indiv it's a

103district decision local decision um so that's so the word legal yes to have them come back all i'm saying um uh the only shot we have to bring youngsters back is because of that without understood and that kind of leads me to my second question probably to kevin the cdc says six feet to the greatest extent possible it looks like we're using three feet as the primary measure as opposed to the fallback measure which really should be the fallback measure since the cdc guidance is six feet to the greatest extent possible to what degree are we able to maintain six feet anywhere much where are we on that i mean can we do i mean it seems like it seems like a lot of kids in a lot of a lot of very small classrooms

104i think what i'm finding out joe as they go around remember we had the architect engineer give us a template and our we started at six feet some of the small schools but many a school already operating at three um and um at this point the um the barrier for teachers is six feet that will not change okay as we talked today with that but that will remain uh i think kevin kind of hinted to keep the three feet every school has been different some the standard is like only 16 kids and you know we we will not give on the three feet that is we will not do that but some schools can do do it larger and and kathy maybe you could respond in terms of medically um you know how that will

105play out kathy down is kathy still weird yeah i'm here dr south thank you um so in terms of the distancing um you know as dr salas said uh six feet is the is the goal um but we can go to three feet and we have done so when necessary um we are not looking to go anything closer than that um you know we will continue to follow the guidelines and keep our mitigation strategies in place thank you the man though i forgive the desktop right thank you very much i i'll close on this uh and and we made the decision in our house to keep my kids on distance learning a little longer when we went back in january and we sent them back a few weeks ago and we're very happy we sent

106them back it's been wonderful doing that with my son who's in elementary school required him to switch teachers we knew that going in we voluntarily made that choice to go from his classroom teacher to the distance learning teacher back to his classroom teacher actually and we were lucky he had two wonderful teachers to involuntarily do that to someone in an elementary grade in april is astoundingly a bad idea i cannot imagine how angry i would be as a parent for that to happen i understand the challenges i understand we're trying to figure out how many angels dance on the head of a pin but i i would be i know as a parent i would be mortified if that happened to my child after nine months or seven months or however many months it's been

107since september when they met this teacher on dl and and came back in january to meet them in person i can't even imagine how disruptive that would be to learning i i understand we may not have a choice but i think that's something we really need to avoid that's all i got exactly thank you dr sal if i i can just interject quickly um jill thank i i appreciate the concern the frustration um i and and i get it we all get it um and more importantly um so do our teachers and so do our principles um and so the principles um as they did before will will do everything that they can to make sure that the kids and i'm not trying to make light of this but given that some of our students

108have had two teachers already the principals will make every effort to make sure that the kids at the very least don't have any more than one of those two teachers it really then becomes it comes about becomes about the numbers and again i'm talking about k5 classrooms and so you know if we have two sections and you know there's only two sections in your building it's a very good chance you'll end up back with your teacher if there are three sections you know it really depends but our principle is going to make it a priority to make to limit the movement and the transitions for our kids uh to close out this school year um but it was important also for us to show it that it is a possibility because we could have places

109where you know kim talked about staffing earlier and so if we have a case where a child or family wants their kid to come in but that staff member is not going to be in the building for whatever reason of their assignment does not allow them to be um it is possible um and so we just felt like it was important um that we showed it um but in in i would say in most cases um our children are going to remain with either the teacher they're with now or the teacher they had at the beginning of the school year so this isn't really a situation where if a child is going and attending third grade at pembroke and we go back five days a week we need to reallocate third graders we're moving them

110to another third grade class this is more a matter of kids that are returning from dl well it i wish it was that simple um because it can change from school to school classroom to class from grade to grade great degree right right because the conditions are all different because the requests across the system are different um but i everyone should just be assured on this call in the community the principal is going to do everything they can to maintain uh those relationships that kids have the beginning of the year and and again given that they did in some cases they did have at least two teachers so between one of those two two teachers the parents are going to try to maintain those relationships okay thank you that's this the hardest part of this

111it really is the hardest part for us and i think um i'm i'm i'm hoping as kevin says and and the principals have your exact thought in mind that the switch is not good and try to keep as best they can the same teacher with uh with the youngster that's our goal so but anyway thank you those comments much appreciated thank you very uh much don't know if i care i have a a question yes is this just an issue of um dl kids at the at the elementary level or at all levels yeah because the model is a little bit different at the secondary you know yes you're right rachel it's the k5 in in doing this work as i tried to say before right the challenges 6 through 12 are not as great

112as the k5 really um the only challenge by the way i might as well the only challenge that we had and we spent a lot of time thinking so is the lunch and most secondary folks are doing the grab and go and we're going to have to stay with that we can't supervise and we just can't do that so once we decided look this might not happen the rest of the work has not has been um much more much more capable of overcoming the obstacles but the lunch was a tremendous obstacle for the middle both the middle and the high scope actually thank you are there any other questions from board numbers so as rumors come in guy just let us know and we'll try to follow up you're going to hear more because um

113the principles that i told them to wait don't you know don't get everybody excited but they need to start talking to their staff because they might have some great ideas for instead of teacher switches ways to to do things and we need to involve our teachers in that conversation and uh you heard aaron in the beginning um you know we work with our unions and we do have to look at balancing so that will play into this uh so um you know i i thank everybody for their uh their patience but um as soon as we have some definitive i'll alert the board and we'll start obviously talking to parents so thank you very much and thank you team okay thank you dr sal uh we're gonna move on down the agenda uh you have

114uh in your package uh information on the open george program and uh there's a question selection in there so i'm just asking board members to please uh read the information uh that was given to you are there any committees report at this time yes i do i have some yes rachel um just to i mean there's nothing really to recap about the policy except that we took a lot of time out of the board meeting and i apologize for that we met on march 3rd and our next meeting should be april 7th but we have a regular board meeting at 7 at that date um so i just want to make sure it's okay to meet at six on that april 7th yes everyone's going to be on time yes okay okay if there's a

115change with your committee members and can't get there and uh get started on time and keep it within a time frame before we start the meeting let's look at another date okay but if not then we'll go with that date okay thank you thank you and i want to say just a quick shout out to um mill ridge primary um i want to thank them for inviting me to their read across america day i had a great time reading to um several classrooms and received some nice thank you notes so um just thanks again for inviting me i had you know i enjoyed myself the kids were great so thank you thank you no thank you for participating richard uh board chairperson communication and comments my only thing i would like to say is um

116again thanks sandy uh for working with us and being super ported uh doing our comment section of the board meeting and making our minutes very easy to uh adjust and read and and and always uh had a very friendly attitude and we certainly as a board wish her the best uh if there's no other questions uh madam chair are we in the comment portion of our meeting yes if if i may yes a couple of things on my mind first of all i got my second covet shot and met karen prunte's team at 3 20 this afternoon he was on time administered well and i am here tonight and i want to thank uh i got my second one today too the two of us guy all right i want to thank karen and her

117team once again for doing a great job um i envisioned some sort of a zoo and it was well ordered i walked in and a few minutes later i i they administered a shot it was very very well organized and i want to thank her and thank you kara and i also i also want to recognize our our educators for the herculean effort and dedication that they've done to get the job done with our with our program with our with our children and it knows small thank the cabinet and and the superintendent schools for getting it done and squeezing the buffalo off the nickel to get it done and you have my certainly have my respect um i i want to thank dr sale for his aggressive support of 948 and reading that and looking

118at the high number of challenged citizens in the city of danbury and i'm my conscience i have to regretfully withdraw my support for this the 2122 budget a lot of my support was hinged on the 10 million dollar grant money how much could be braided into the mix and today this hasn't been reconciled to my satisfaction shame on governor lemon for freezing the increases that the city of danbury so sorely needs and deserves and has coming again 9 48. you know uh a year of pandemic when so many of our our citizens are struggling to make ends meet and i come up with a number of 34 that are above the line above the poverty line percent it just i put this on my shoulders my conscience will not allow cannot allow myself to to

119support a 14 million dollar increase i know what the needs are i know what the past was i know back in some 2010 up we dug our way out of a recession we had a few good years but my conscience just and it's my opinion as a school board member and that's all and thank you for allowing me to present it to this committee i'm done thank you thank you al for your comments okay uh seeing no other unless uh are there any other comments from board members i was reminded um sorry gladys um that several board members also submitted testimony in support of the senate bill 948 as well as um some of our community members our parents so i just want to um thank them publicly as well thank you okay thank you

120all for doing that too thanks for bringing it up rachel thank you honestly yes um i just wanted to say that several parents had been expressing concerns about the school lunch program and what was being delivered um i saw firsthand today at um a friend's house what was delivered today and the difference is night and day so i just wanted to say thank you it's amazing um fresh fruit fresh milk um it's just it was great so um i hope parents are happy so i'm just sending thanks from parents um so it was it was great to see so thank you for that thank you thank you okay we'll send that that on to barrett because that was dr saul really um asked us to do that based on your feedback and the community feedback

121so thank you courtney madam chair can i make a uh one comment please yes um i know we had a discussion uh last meeting about the return of the board to live meetings and um i am certainly interested in seeing that happen i am hoping that we can hold off until everybody is eligible to at least schedule the vaccine and have the opportunity to have the vaccine i myself am not eligible until april 12th and you know i have certainly no problem being inside of a room with folks wearing a mask but my concern is that folks who may be watching uh the streaming coverage of our meetings may not be able to hear us as clearly or be able to see you know our mouths moving in our facial expressions which may make it

122difficult for that information to to be heard and understood so i just wanted to make that comment quickly thank thank you any other comments i entertain a motion at 8 40 i think it's 8 49 to adjourn the meeting motion to adjourn second second good night everybody good night happy board month okay thank you good night