Danbury Board of Education Community Relations Meeting 3/9/21

001um thank you everyone for joining us this evening and i'm going to it'll be best to see if i can share this agenda so i just want to start off with sharing with everyone um two of the links these two survey links i just wanted to share we didn't make everyone on this call collaborators because we're still modifying the questions but i do want to make sure um the committee can see them this evening and of course anyone who's might who might be watching from home they can get an idea of on the type of survey questions we are thinking about pushing out uh to the community um so i'll just start off with um i'd love if we can spend a few minutes just talking about the citywide pto meeting um as a debrief

002um but but mostly this evening um courtney ann and i would like to talk about um the essa funds that have been made available for the district and districts across the state of connecticut um our allocation is is a little bit over 10 million dollars and we have had um some initial discussions within the district on you know in terms of planning for that those monies um but there are some guidance that comes from the state um that that that suggests that we should also and certainly uh supporters of this idea um making sure we have a plan in place to also engage our staff engage our parents and families in the greater community um to get also additional feedback on how these monies can be used to help support um and and and help

003raise student outcomes in the community um support the social emotional development and support for our students and and staff um and then also you know provide supports for family um just to help support student outcomes at home and then last but not least you know any efforts that could be continued to make sure all of our kids and families are connected and i'll go with some of that guidance in more detail um throughout the agenda um in the next area there are some community engage materials wanted to share with this committee the community engagement materials are not necessarily esser specific we had talked about having some some engagement sessions for the community but this evening is about esser so we have a community invitation here um and we want to review that with you and

004this is an invitation uh to join the district in the conversation about esser funds we will review within the guidance that you'll see momentarily but i also wanted to revisit the one pager with you um as part of the con the citywide pto to see if there's any adjustments you wanted us to make and then last but not least um there was also a social media graphic that had been developed and talked about um kate had led that discussion in our previous meeting and just wanted to see where we were with that and see if there any adjustments needed to be made to that and then kind of rounding out the agenda the city of danbury and just kind of revisit that budget timeline and just kind of make sure we we're all aligned and

005making sure we're landing on uh whatever date has been assigned i don't think the city has identified one yet and then just talk about our collective next steps but for the most part this is about the as for guidance i'm hoping we can spend the majority of our time on that but it would be great if we can start with number two and talk about citywide pto debrief and you know as we continue to this is before esser as we continue this idea of engagement sessions with um different stakeholder groups um since we did get our first engagement session out of the way just curious about what we can do to improve um any feedback this committee may have heard um that you know that would be helpful courtney ann and i and of course

006dr sao as we engage these community groups moving forward i'm sorry that was an invitation sounds good kevin um do you want to talk about the the citywide pto and sort of uh you know give us a sense of i mean we talked a little bit about this on thursday um so what what else um do you would you like to address this evening so so so i i think for me and and for courtney and ann and i and i guess all of us um you know we will start to calendar um as we get commitments from those different constituency groups start to calendar engagement sessions and so if there's any concrete um adjustments we need to make you know we're happy to make those adjustments um you know if there's anything we can

007do better we're certainly open to that and see if there's a conversation we wanted to have if not i could certainly move on to the next one um i mean i think the the one pager is uh really in very good shape um and i i like the use of it in terms of the presentation i don't know if other folks have a similar opinion but one thing that mr genelli brought up last meeting was that we are going to need some some numbers behind some of this um i do think that that piece is missing i don't want to necessarily put that into the one pager because i think that that's a really good standalone uh piece but um i think it would be helpful for people to be able to see some of

008the breakdown that occurs in that you know like the four page piece courtney that you put together um you know just provides the kind of detail and especially the the numbers that folks may be looking for um and we had a conversation as well about you know some of the other numbers that i think would be helpful to give to people which is a sense of what their tax what is going to do their taxes to do different things so for example um a courtney event at one point worked up a number that was relative to home value and what it would look like for you know an increase in taxes for a certain home value uh but we also talked about the idea of okay if we're adding you know x number of teachers

009to our roster our employee roster what would that look like in terms of a tax increase um if we were to add you know five guidance counselors what would that look like in terms of a tax increase to sort of help people understand what exactly they're getting for the money that they would be spending yeah yeah that's good kate because kevin kate and i spoke and i've also spoken with al russo about this before as well and and i think that's a good way to frame it because if we said like when i did the brief slide that i shared earlier it was assuming we needed the full 14 million that the city would have to undertake wouldn't necessarily be the full 18 million because they're already there's already an assumption of a certain amount

010within the existing budget so we said maybe to make it more palatable to people you know that i could break it out and say okay so if we were going to buy 10 10 teachers this is what it would mean in a tax you know change 10 additional new teachers for example and then also just putting it in terms of like i gave what it would be for someone with a property value of 200k but i we can put that more in like the median house you know so i don't know what the median is but it's probably more than 200k um or even a few different levels or you know a few different tiers of houses house values would be helpful i think yeah i've seen districts where even they i kind of did

011a little bit of research kate and like even on their school you know website they actually have a tool where you can you can input your tax bill and then show how much of that goes towards your education i don't know what the tool is that they're using but i thought that was kind of neat yeah that's a that's a i love that idea actually but but i can get this the tax information and the four pager is the draft the document that anne had put together with the sort of template which maybe i'll work with rich rich and i are meeting tomorrow about finance so maybe i can work with him about you know what information to put into that four pager that still gets to the numbers but it's palatable and accessible yeah

012i think that's a good idea rich i hope that's okay with you okay i'm sorry yeah and i i like that idea because it continues the idea of you know kind of digesting the budget in small bites um and people can understand the impact um and so translating it in the way we're talking about what you're getting for your money um what it means for an additional taxes i think people really appreciate that yeah and help in helping to form any decision or action that they might they might they might take yeah rich did you have something you want to add yeah you know i'm still being a dead horse and i'd like to ask or have somebody uh kate perhaps you because you chair is to ask the the fellow who runs the citywide

013pto tim i i think it's tim i'm not sure as to what his reaction or what his the members of the city-wide what their their opinion was of the response to the presentation basically the interest um i you know basically i'd like to know that my observation was you know it was sort of accepted as half-hearted um and maybe a question to him could be what could we do to stimulate more interest in what we're doing this you know the the amount of of time and effort on everybody's part and you know the uh kevin's and courtney's and and you know the the people on the committee it is tremendous and you know i i still feel we're beating a dead horse if the people that we're out there advocating for don't understand or just

014don't have the time to to listen to us and if that's the case then how could we ask them or not how could we ask them can we ask them what we can do to to reach them and and maybe to make it simpler you know we we've been down this road for years and every year our presentation gets much better but it's like a rehearsal for ourselves and the audience that we're looking to to give it to continues to you know be be the same just one point i finished the meeting tonight with a pto meeting at pembroke which liaison for and their their membership is the same they had 13 people on there and maybe five of them were teachers and the rest was some parents but the parents were the same parents

015that i've been accustomed to seeing for years so they also said that their problem of engaging more people to join has been tough but there was one new parent i should say and she came on and said that she'd learn more about what's going on except she doesn't know where to get the information and she'd like to to be aware as to what's a point a point important uh rich i think he cut out there um well hopefully rich will come back online but um to to address that point uh we did have a conversation a follow-up conversation amy and i spoke with the citywide leadership and they're actually going to be conducting an internal feedback opportunity on that presentation and they were hoping to turn that information over to us so that we could

016um you know use it to improve our uh presentation going forward um i think amy you know had a more in-depth conversation with tim you know to get his immediate response and um you know as she shared you know part of the frustration here is that uh they're also struggling to figure out how to engage parents um on things that are not specific to their own children um yeah you know so i think that that's that's part of like you know in our messaging i think that's part of what we have to just consider is that if we make this um if we if we use if we express things in a way that speaks to the individual students you know the student level experience whether that's you know talking about guidance counselors steering the

017path for high schoolers you know as they're preparing for what's going to happen after graduation or talking about you know kids who are experiencing interruptions in their learning because of covid and and being on distance learning whatever those avenues are and talking about the supports as they relate to those obstacles that the kids are facing in school i think that's likelier to resonate so um and i i think ann is still here and i am and and tonight is probably not a good time to talk about this in detail but um you know there there are some thoughts you know talked to sal and and dr sal and and anne has been you know leading this effort and we're really close uh to bringing in um a social a social um media platform um that

018frankly i think will really help with the exchange of information to our community um and will allow us to continue to push out messages uh and so um you know we're we're really close to onboarding um uh purchasing and and onboarding that process and you know soon there will be a rollout for professional development training the staff etc but by next year perhaps maybe not september the first day um but we will be able to use this social media and be able to you know have even more contact with with our parents and families um i think we'll have an opportunity to continue to inform them and you know kind of reinforce um and continue to educate so you know in this way we're not you know relying on these one-time deals one-time efforts to

019push out information so hopefully that will also also help us in the near future it will if i could just add to that i just came off of jeepers took a light i just came off of another city meeting um or meeting here in the city and they were talking about accessibility of information and ease to be able to find things and so we are also at the same time working on our danbury public school website to make that information easier to be able to find but i think in the meantime we have some ability to be able to get um you know the messages out to groups and to folks in danbury but um it was really emphasized the accessibility of information and being able to find it easily um was something that many

020of the the members of the community that were on the call we're not finding that was easy to do in danbury yeah there's a lot of content on that main web page there is yeah and i find even as a parent just meeting me where i am so i know to ann's point like if we can figure out a way to market simplify be consistent you know and get it out there on social media it's helpful it'll be helpful for our parents because it is hard today people are have jobs and they're over subscribed you know in their fitness and so to the extent we can meet them where they are it'll probably be helpful yeah can i say something yeah go for it um i just wanted to add too that uh i don't

021know if richard's still on richard um unfortunately i know he's really uh championed this effort for a long time i mean you know hit being head of community relations i think as long as i was on the board he was i think we're getting we're getting closer we're getting closer to having what the parents are looking for and i i don't know if uh kate that we when we spoke to them one of the last times we talked was you know parents are just still kind of reeling from getting back to quotes normal this year and you know that the big concern i guess one of the big concerns of course was their kids schedules and they were going to be changing from hybrid to you know in person and so i mean i think

022we still have to keep that in mind that that's what's going on this year and if we just keep on kind of honing this sounds like we are i mean it's like we're zeroing in on what what the parents really are looking for um and you know it's just a process and i i think that we have to keep on going and realizing that this is just again another year of a lot of people a lot of parents and teachers and being overwhelmed and it'll be different once we get back to some sort of normalcy that's a good point we needed that perspective amy thank you yeah and i wonder if there's a way we can extend that welcoming school model to a digital platform or in a way that you know markets us to

023you know meet people in a way that is part of the district because i know they interact with their principals regularly but if we can pull the principles in and think of the community as a whole you know ways that we can access each other digitally not just in the little red schoolhouse might be helpful so kate if you're okay [Music] i'd like to move on to the esser guidance um and i think if i heard it correctly and i do have some some notes here about making sure we find a way to incorporate the impacts on the taxes and home value um what you know help to share with our families and community and you know inform them of what they will be getting for their value and for them for their investment um

024and i heard mr jannelli's point what can we do to stimulate more interest in the budget and see if we can't you know elicit something back from tim on behalf of the citywide pto um and we we certainly can do that so we'll make those adjustments and you know get that additional feedback to inform that process yeah and i'll follow up uh with with tim um in the next day or two and just see if he was able to reach out to the folks that were on that call okay okay great and so i will go to number three um and so um as part as part of the esser funds um we have some guidance we wanted to share uh with the committee this evening we wanted to also share some surveys some draft

025surveys uh some for staff and then some also for parents and families in the community and just kind of talk about an overall community engagement plan um you'll see down here in 4c there's a community invitation so we wanted to show you that draft as well and i think you'll have a better understanding of why we're engaging in this process and you know on our opportunity to educate the community on this on these funds so let me just hit this link okay i believe the powerpoint is only it's not that long so 12 pages it's a relatively quick read yes say one thing so just to be clear this is sr2 esr1 what we refer to as the cares act funding is 2.5 that that money is um it's in addition to that sorry just

026to be clear yeah thank you thank you courtney okay thank you and so this is the 10 10.1 million um that we talked about briefly in our last meeting but we did not speak to in much detail um so the analogy that i used when talking about insurance and there are you know certainly some restrictions on how those monies can be used and we'll have an opportunity to see how those funded to be distributed so it might be just easiest to do this this way and so the state has you know they have some priorities uh for these money starting with um and it's really all about providing equity and access to a high quality education for all children and courtney would you mind starting off with the timeline oh sure sure so so they

027released the lea allocation so we have we were received an allocation of 10.1 million it was funded along the title one um allocation methodology and um the week of february 22nd well it didn't actually happen the week of february 22nd that happened last friday last week so i said released an online application through the ee grant system it requires a needs assessment articulation of steps to be taken to mitigate gaps description of the intended plan for resource and then um csde will give us they expect us to update just like we do with alliance on the plan implementation the grant period for sr1 what we call cares act funding you know or the first part that you're familiar with was extended so the grant period ends september 30th 2022 and sr2 and culminates in 2023

028and you might have heard of a new federal allocation as part of the stimulus package i'll just mention it it's not here on this slide but um it's anticipated if if the house passes what the senate passed they could make modifications but what the senate passed along the um legislative rules danbury could expect about 25 million dollars if it's comes to fruition as the senate as per again go through the house or information soon but i just wanted to make you all aware of that right thank you courtney and so just just bringing this back to the second bullet here um application will require needs assessment and articulation of steps to be taken um to mitigate the step mid you know for mitigation um description of an intended plan well this this needs assessment in

029this plan that we're going to submit on behalf of the district is going to be informed uh by feedback from our administrators feedback from our staff and feedback from our parents uh families and community um and so and so that's why that's part of the reason uh why we are engaging um our community in this process okay can i use i'm sorry go ahead i just was wondering can you remind me what the sr1 funds were yeah cares like money 2.6 million and that went towards specific priorities also um which uh you know was um ppe um learning loss i can get you some specifics but it it it funded some student support specialists um it funded some purchase of uh [Music] to roll out for students to um be able to engage remotely and

030do assessments to help feed families during the school close down feed students during the school close down thanks that jog my memory i appreciate it yeah and i was going to continue to pay staff during the close down yeah well yeah and i i on this sr2 funding timeline um just it's going to be jermaine when kevin gets to the next part essentially there's a quick turnaround time for us so they'd like it to be returned within a month of when they opened the application there's a little flexibility there but we're planning out as though early april we've gotta have our application in so and kevin and i worked through something with cabinet which is a timeline um and kevin's gonna go through the rest of the presentation that achieves sort of all the goals

031of this application that um the state's asking us to do because this this application's a bit where the funding is a bit more um involved and than than our previous cares which was you know they needed to get the money out quickly and so we were able to do that a little bit more quickly with less information so so so here are the four plus one uh priorities for the district and so i don't think anyone is going to be surprised by the first four and quite frankly i think the last one is a bonus academic supports learning loss learning acceleration and recovery for our students family and community connections and so you know we've already talked about some potential potential investments uh with our social media platform um school safety and social emotional well-being

032uh right and so we want to continue to support the social emotional you know we're going to continue to support not only our students but our staff in the support of the whole student in our schools remote learning staff development and a digital divide and so continue to make sure all of our kids are connected and then where they are not connected making sure we have resources in place to make sure that our kids can get connected and then last but not least school facility repairs and improvements which you know is that this could be an opportunity for us um to address you know some kind of long-term issues um in the district we might be able to address some with these monies so you know we're looking forward to all of these opportunities can

033we just clarify one thing and maybe you're going to get into this kevin so i apologize if i'm getting ahead here but in terms of what we're talking about we're talking about programming we're not talking about staffing combination combination and when you say when you say staffing and so i i think the point you're getting at uh some of these things um some of essa ii some of the things that we perhaps have um targeted for our budget could be eligible in esser ii so it's so some of those things are eligible and maybe when we get to the end courtney can you know discuss some of those things perhaps not in too much detail because we're still trying to understand what those things are but but there are some things that could be eligible

034in esther too that's what we have learned in the last couple of weeks yeah you just have to wait and this will be part of the conversation we have with the board but wait the risk for the future right now that we're getting this additional funds like a five-year timeline so you know it's a little bit anyway yes it personnel is eligible um to be supported through the s or two right and so as you might imagine we've had we've already begun discussions on how to address learning and loss and so you know for a lot of our families this could mean um you know extending our invitation to summer school this could mean you know additional supports after school for students to help our students uh you know this could this could mean different

035programming support virtually for students at home so you know we're exploring all ways you know we can help students who have been severely impacted you know by the pandemic um also for opportunities for kids to continue to accelerate their learning uh you know we want to address recovery we want to mitigate learning loss as much as possible and then of course we have students who you know even more vulnerable than others so you know our students with you know students with disabilities that have an iep um english language learners uh you know we want to and any of our disengaged youth um you know any of those barriers that they might have to remote learning we want to make sure it's mitigated through this process and leverage these resources to help you know to help

036all of those students so engaging families in the community provide parents and guardians with the skills to support their children's academic endeavors um or their you know academic goals um you know i love the fact that um you know even even in the state's guidance they they talked about districts engaging the community in the family academy programs right and and in these in these environments we could provide parents and guardians with the skills to support their children's academic you know endeavors at home right and so including those skills necessary to support technology use in the home and so you know anne did her best our coaches did their best our district we all did our best to try to support families in this transition but it would be amazing to have the resources uh to

037have academies to support our our families across the district in in a more systemic way and these and these resources could help in that in that network school safety and social emotional well-being of the whole student and our school staff um and so you know we know we're unprecedented times right now and so um you know helping to address the social emotional um health concerns um and partnering with you know our public health safety i mean public public uh our our social emotional centers and partnering with those with with those groups to help making sure we meet the needs of all of our kids um there are certainly opportunities um for mental health services to be delivered in person or remote and making sure we're tapping into all of those supports to meet the needs

038of our kids in these um unprecedented times and of course you know you've also heard from from the district um you know around um hiring or or or or yeah hiring and recruiting and hiring more staff to help support um you know for guidance counselors social workers etc and so there is also some opportunities in those areas to help in this effort and then the safety piece school safety is also included in here so resources could also be allocated to support the physical health and safety of our students and you know ensuring that we continue to have the ppe equipment that we need across the district ensuring that we have the cleaning supplies that we need across the district and making sure we continue to be outfitted uh with the necessary ppe equipment to keep

039our building and our people safe so remote learning staff development in a digital divide maintain or upgrade access to technology and connectivity for the long term and i really think we need to be forward thinking right now as part of this work certainly we did we did enough to get through the pandemic um but i think uh you know part of par part of the conversations we need to have if we're going to be a one-to-one district that we're going to have all of our all of our kids walking around with laptops um there's going to be an increased demand on our infrastructure and i think we need to do an assessment probably to to make sure we can meet the needs of all of our kids whether they're at home or whether they're in

040school and i think with an assessment is going to be needed really soon and so some of the resources that should be allocated you can see up here we've identified a few uh provide assistance and training for our families talk about that a little bit earlier increased professional development for staff um to continue to develop their skills to provide remote learning um and you know open with maintaining upgrading technology uh for for the long term kevin could we could the assessment of our existing system fall under uh a reimbursement for this i don't know courtney any thoughts on that one um assessment of our current network technology or software um i'm thinking more networked like the the the network itself like the uh the incoming signal and the disbursement of that signal and the connection

041of all those like the hardware the hardware itself sorry my signal's bad as you're saying that because i'm coming i'm hearing you in and out yeah it we do believe it is eligible um and it's a big upgrade that we're about to to need um for the whole overall infrastructure so um i think it's like 395k that we put forward in the budget i believe this will be it'll be eligible for under esser our challenge there is that you have an ongoing maintenance cost we're just going to have to be mindful you know of that ongoing maintenance cost um being funded with a grant you know is an operational need so that's that's that conversation but yes upgrading the wi-fi where we need to upgrade the wi-fi and putting the right servers in place and

042network maintenance contract in place can is eligible um yeah at least the hardware portion of the of those pieces are eligible okay great thank you yeah and then and then not terribly different from what the last slide um but school facility repairs and improvements to reduce the risk of virus transmission and exposure to environmental health hazards i mean you know this this one could be a big one for us and so i think another you know some type of inspection or assessment would be necessary um you know and this could be some opportunities to upgrade um continue to upgrade our infrastructure and so you know we'll be all of these things will be part of the considerations uh moving forward and so in here in this next slide just provides kind of a list of

043activities or eligible items eligible activities under esser so i just wanted to share this [Music] and i again this is just kind of repeat of some some of some of the items we've already talked about but improving coordination with the district on to include improving coordination to respond right and prevent uh the response to coronavirus uh planning for coordination between schools and families during long-term closures so you know we were you know unfortunately if we would have another event like we did last time make sure we're ready to make sure we can continue to make sure our our kids are fed during during any time of long-term closure making sure we can still provide access for families of high quality online learning um you know like we did during the closure this time um but

044again as we continue to have more and more kids connected there's likely to be more and more demands on the system so we want to make sure we're ready for it provide principles and other school leaders with the resources necessary they need to address the needs in individual schools this was mentioned in the previous slide about facility repairs and improvements to enable operation of schools to reduce the risk of virus transmission [Music] of course address the learning loss and you know whether it's programming or staffing to help to help support all of our students provide mental health services and supports and this could mean staffing this could be programming on this could be professional development for staff so there are a lot of different directions we can go in under that one planning and implementing

045activities related to summer learning supplements after school programs and addressing the needs of low-income students students with disabilities english language learners and so this is again going back to the academic learning loss and making sure we're addressing those areas and other activities that are necessary to maintain operations and continuity of services and continuing to embl employ existing staff and so these are just some of the activities that are eligible under esser um and so you know when when our community is thinking about the 10.1 um certainly there are guidelines but there as you can see there are some flexibilities that that could be part of the consideration so what's next for us we will be submitting an application soon um in uh we will be submitting an application soon courtney mentioned that earlier and that

046that will be in about a month from now in early april as part of this application process you know we will be engaging we will be engaging stakeholders as part of our process to help inform the submission of that application um and frankly we we are we are looking forward to that um you know as part of that process we will have a needs assessment all of this will you know help inform how we can address students needs district-wide and improve student outcomes we also understand that you know we as part of this process we want to make sure we're engaging community but we also want to make engage all of our bargaining units as part of this process um and and we will right because because we are partners in this work and then

047last but not least review the current funding streams um to ensure any remaining balances are used to support current needs in accordance with our approved applications um and so that also will be part of the process moving forward um courtney did you do you need to provide any clarification on this last slide before i close out one little bit so something that rich has asked for and that i'd like to to ask his opinion about doing in a finance committee would be we have crf current virus relief funds we have cares act one we have cares act two and now we have this new federal stimulus money coming so just to be really clear for either a workshop or um how we talk to the board about it i just want everybody to know you

048know what each of those funding streams is supporting and then what our process is for this application so um as kevin mentioned you know there's a assessment tool that we have to use and we are using for the state guidance to develop our plan for the 10 million dollars that's just kicked off so we've identified sort of stakeholders to lead each of the target areas so remote learning learning loss family engagement social emotional and they have to engage stakeholders and then identify what rubric they're going to be using to measure the effectiveness so demographic information so qualitative quantitative information to um align it with our and then also align it with our mission and our smart goals so our strategic plan and so it's it's involved and already um you know from the academic side

049tara has led some teams that have identified um possible uses of the karzak money and then cabinet's going to go come together and prioritize those and then talk to the board about it so we've got a short time frame and there is a rubric for which we discuss it and i just want the board to be aware and the community relations group to be aware that you know there's there's four basic funding streams related to coronavirus relief each has a little bit of a different purpose or application process and i just want people to be aware of that so i'll be having a workshop with rich about that as well as how that ties into our current city budget needs and the potential uses of those funds for some of the new things that we've

050asked for yeah yeah i got a question could i ask a question kate yeah of course richmond yeah courtney the 10 million dollars is that's a one-shot uh infusion correct correct and it's a multi-year one-shot infusion it's over two years okay yeah two and a half yeah two and a half and what we're trying to do is to equate i'm assuming we're trying to equate what's already in our budget with what some of the provisions or thoughts that that are in this 10 million dollars that we've already come up with that we can use correct correct now the goal is to so the guidance from the state is not to supplant operations um and to fit within those like required um um you know points that that kevin just made for uh learning loss you

051know to celebrate learning loss and um address social emotional needs and um digital learning but yes the point is yes so the the thing that we have to assess is the risk for the future so a lot of the things that we put forward in the plan from the city um are personnel related and so to the extent that we do decide to shift those items into that grant we run the risk in future years of losing those people or that funding okay so what's the risk of us utilizing the 10 million dollars in creating or paying for improvements etc and then down the road what do we do at the end of two years pull a plug on the the we just pull a plug on on what we've already spent to ten million

052dollars for i mean i i would stay hopeful that because it's nation this is just me speaking i'm not speaking for the district but it's a nationwide effort that it would continue to be sustained in some way but yes we can't count on that it's not in any budget it's only appropriated until 2022 you know and so it is a risk that we run but it's it's it's a risk shared by the rest of the country with the investments that they're making thank you and it's part of the reason why the acceleration of the alliance monies um they maintain the original the original um numbers that they were going to because danbury was expecting an acceleration in those um in the alliance monies and um i know the government had mentioned recently um that they

053may they may pause on that acceleration and if they make but if they maintain those numbers i think the cliff that we're concerned about right now we would be less concerned about right courtney and i don't know some thoughts that you had previously yeah and and to yes like so we definitely need the state to at least you know maintain the commitment to the alliance levels in the two years down the road but in addition i just want to say so dr sal's stand on this is that we both need the 14 million dollars for what we put forward for operations and we need the 10.1 to mitigate learning loss i mean that's his his um position um so and we also have to prudently plan for if the contingencies what ifs so the what

054if one is we get less than we ask for from the city um the second is what if the alliance funding remains on flat you know we have to be prepared for all those contingencies and so i'm prepared to talk to the board about that you know through you reach the finance committees as well just i'm not as hopeful down a row that this is a continuation you know i sort of look at it worst case scenario or even i think what will happen you know it's just it's a shot the arm and then a couple of three years when maybe the virus thing is is under control and it becomes a normal flu shot every year that we're stuck with programs and we pull a plug on it and then we're scratching our head

055and say sorry we can't afford it anymore we could air conditioning but we could air condition all of our buildings and use the 10 million dollars you know that'll be something but yeah so every piece of you know what what each group is examining when they go through they're very carefully thinking through things that are i'm not going to say one time in nature things that give us long-term impact and would not leave you know if for example there's a train the trainer model for social emotional that's expensive but we get a big bang for our buck with our current staff and we could retain some of that you know and it's for social emotional and it's pretty it's it's a really well-known model that we just have we've wanted to implement and we haven't

056implemented now might be the time that's one of the things that's being put forward as an example you know buying libraries for our kids it's mitigating learning loss you know it is important so yeah just rich people are definitely mindful of that we're not hoping but but to your point earlier most of our budget asks were personnel so no we can't you can't have it i wanted to ask a question about that courtney because on one of the slides i think was the second to last slide there was like a last line that says it could be used towards you know additional staff are we talking you know so when we talk about supplanting operations we're talking about not using that money for the existing staff that we have but any new staff that we

057might bring in that are specific to these goals we might be able to fit under this umbrella is that what i'm hearing um yeah i i do think that just like we did last year you know it's it's still part of our operational budgets part of our operational budget needs but and when the city comes back with the response about the funding um we can look at that and and yes some of the things that we put forward would be eligible um we would have to figure that with the unions like it's described uh how that would how would that would work if they're grant and termed positions for example but the counselors the um student support specialists certainly a lot of the curricular investments you know would could be considered mitigating learning loss okay

058so we're going to have to figure out i think how to navigate that conversation at the city council level um you know which i can certainly appreciate you know the different interests that are being represented you know by the city but i think um you know i i kind of concur with dr sal's point that we need both both sets of uh funds to come in um you know just from the presentation we had from dan and megan at the last meeting and hearing that they had you know programs that they put in place specifically to address some of the things that were happening you know some some you know problems that they saw happening at the high school level and then had to cut them um and i just don't want us to wind

059up back in that place because um you know that's not that's not doing our work to provide the best possible educational experience for our kids right right yeah i i feel like when we get on the other side i'm sorry miss cooper did you want to say something okay you know i i know this was not a finance meeting but you know the committee sort of go hand in hand and that was my question you know as far as looking at the 10.1 million dollars and knowing that we are asking for what is 13 million or 14 million whichever the number that we're using um as we approach the community and the common council uh you know first thing that they would say well you have 10 million so why are you asking for 13

060million and i know this is coming off a grant and you know there's specific things that you will be able to do with these funds but again uh would you and i think courtney has said it early that you know we'll move forward and ask you know with the 10.1 million then we will also continue to ask for the 13 million from this city and i i guess i'm just trying to to to figure out you know is this going to be a uh you know i'm just trying to get some thought as to how you feel about that for me one of the challenges is that it is a challenging year so i and i understand that for the city and i know that our our ask is higher than anybody in connecticut um

061one of the challenging things is that in this is my opinion every year that we don't put the funding it out forward we're stepping backwards so two years from now and this funding goes away and i don't know how to play that politically gladys so i'm just we're with the community or what's palatable but i do think that every year that we don't invest we're further back in the hole because just the cost of living if it goes up two and a half percent every year for us two and a half percent is a lot of money you know because we're a big district so three years from now if we don't get our two and a half every year then we're seven and a half percent behind and um you know so it's keeping

062pace with the local commitment and and we have to do that rationally rational understanding of where the city is right now with um the pandemic and the loss of revenue um but that would be what i would say so i don't have the answer i think i i kevin can you yeah so i i i will say and and and and and courtney my my thoughts quite frankly are are connected to a statement that you made earlier when you talked about you know you're really hopeful that the state maintains um you know those funding levels that they had committed to previously and and i feel like um you know if if we can begin to think through a three i think a three to four year budget is necessary now more than ever and i

063feel like it's going to be necessary for us to partner with the city to talk about what our needs are and not not just this year uh but you know 2022 2023 because when when when these grants sunset we can't be back at at ground zero again um you know when we get to the other side of this uh obviously we just talked about uh the many activities that are eligible um under this grant and and and we will address them you know i'm confident we will do right by kids and families with that work um but but when the grant sunsets right we we obviously we need the gov state to continue to maintain their funding levels um but i think we also need to work and partner with the city and and and

064hopefully that they will also maintain the levels we need them to be at the end of these three years not just this year but when that grant ends we need some type of commitment from the city to say when we get to the other side of this right because we we we have a little jump start over these next couple of years but when we get to the other side and all that money is gone we can't be back to where we are right now we have to be in a different space in terms of a commitment from the city and i i i'm hopeful that these next couple years gives the city the opportunity to grow you know and get the support that they need um to help refresh um you know because i

065quite frankly i don't pay attention to that side of the ledger in terms of with the city dynamics um but but but we will need some type of assurances when this is over you know given the continued growth in our community given um the growth in our schools um we're going to need a support that's different from the from from the support that we have right now and it can't just be enough to maintain the additional staffing it needs to be enough to maintain the staffing plus the the investments we've made over these last couple of years yeah and and i think that needs to be part of our planning effort and i think we need to start partnering with the city like asap right i know the state we need those comm we need

066them to maintain their commitments uh but i think some partnering in conversations need to take place with the city as well thank you thank you uh courtney and mr walsh edrich kevin you know you're i like your point in saying that we're going to partner with the city this is very complex and it it's complex and and it creates a burden for us in terms of going down a road and feeling assured that we could follow through with our commitments is there a way that we could work with somebody in the city to as we prepare this you know as opposed to just giving a presentation what we normally do which i'm sure is just too complicated for them to hear in in a one hour or two hour session so maybe it's it's possible

067that i'm not saying who but maybe it's possible that somebody in this city whether it be the finance department basically it should be the f well i don't understand who it should be but somebody within the city understand what we're going through and at least the rationale and and the need for this stuff so we're all on the same playing field um and they have our at least they have our thought process as to what we're trying to do um you know to engage them early on in our process as opposed to later on so we build a partnership a true partnership as opposed to just going in without you know how in our hand and say you know give us you know whatever funding that we're looking for so it might be a thought

068that we can reach out to them and and ask them to to at least stay there and understand what's happening or have yourself or courtney and whomever discuss with them the legalities and and the and the issues of this money so they understand uh it and they could pass it on to to their council people so that when they have to make a decision they don't automatically as mrs cooper said you know deduct the 10 from from the 13 or tell you look at your problem you got all this money now you know don't come to us um but go ahead amy i just have a question have we ever richard i'm sure you'd know the answer to this but have we ever had a workshop at the city council meeting you know take it

069to them instead of you know having one and hoping they'll get on the call or something like i think that's a great yeah a number of years ago or you know i don't want we had one um but i don't think the times were as complicated you know they were normal times where we needed money you know to say that but that that hasn't changed in 14 years i've been on a board but the the last two years have been complicated with also with this additional funding stream that we have and and and now with the rug pulled out from under us regarding the the alliance funding you know this district in a horrendous horrendous position you know we're guessing we're promising a lot and you know can we deliver and and if we deliver

070fortunately can we continue to deliver so you know somebody in the city government has to understand our plight and uh you know i don't know whether it's a workshop amy or whether it's a one-on-one conversation with the administration and and the mayor and then whomever in the finance department but my feeling is is we got to build a partnership and and part of the conditions kevin that you indicated you know in one of your slides and then i think was to last was facility upgrades and i think a lot of that isn't that part of the city's responsibility to take care of their buildings or does that come under our responsibilities technically i believe it's the city's responsibility yeah so um but anyway it's it's complicated these are all our kids in the city they're

071not the board of ed's kids you know they're they're the danbury kids and and the city of danbury you know which is basically us has to be under you know has to help us understand this plight that we have in into fulfilling a a an obligation and we've got to we've got to be able to understand what we can do if i can just um i just wanted to follow up on something that amy had mentioned earlier amy once you brought that up i couldn't help but think about a sites and facilities meeting we had it feels like centuries ago when you know when we were sitting down with legislators when we were sitting down with city council members um you know mayor mark was at the head of the table and all of us

072were sitting there and you know we we were partnered in that discussion um and at that time that was about you know the you know trying to launch the work of the matrix um but in many ways it was an opportunity it was like a workshop because we were each each of those different subcommittees were um speaking to each other about the progress or lack thereof um and kind of what work needed to take place in order to move the work forward um and it would be wonderful at least in my eyes if we can have you know just trying to think about that structure if we can have similar conversations whether that's the finance committee um you know whether that's a community relations committee whichever one would be appropriate i don't know but it

073would be great if we can find a way to meet with them and you know continue these discussions in some kind of long-range planning i agree i think rich we have a really good working relationship with the finance director and it's helped us tremendously you know in terms of you know just everything that we we've needed that that's doable we've been able to achieve with the finance director this year and i i think that that us doing a presentation to the fight the fire director um dave saint-hilaire he does know all this information about esser and us or two we share it with him um i don't and he's influential certainly however he's not the one you know that's making the decision so i do think the council is a place that we could have

074some impact in terms of really informing people um like amy mentioned and maybe the finance committee and including dave as a partner there because um you know he has been a wonderful partner um with us maybe if maybe we need to bring this up with with the mayor and get his in our thoughts about who that would be indoors work with the sr2 planning as a way to get a hook you know to get that interested potentially yeah i think it's time that kevin and courtney and everybody else i think it's time that we form a partnership here in the city and it's not board of ed against the city and vice versa yeah this is as i keep saying the these are our kids and and the city has the same responsibility in providing

075you know a good education for these children as we do and as times get more and more complicated you know we've got to work together to make things work rather than just adversarial i think gone are the times we go there with our hands on our hat and say we need this and then walk away with whatever we get and we do magic and everything goes away and the next day you know it is something else this stuff is not going away the implications that we have here with the funding that we're asking for in in the budget plus all the complications that this 10 million dollars and who knows what's down the road may be but all these one shot one shot uh infusions creates a problem for us and i'm glad you like

076that multi-year id you know idea because i i think that's critical you know that shows everybody strategic planning on our part and and uh it's time to work as a team if we don't work with the funding source we don't work with the people that write the checks so that they understand our plight and you're right it may not only be with the mayor may not only be with dave's and saint hillard but maybe to the full council is to have a what you call a workshop but some sort of a presentation to them in terms of what we're faced with so they see it firsthand and then if time comes again this year and they allow us to do the the presentation they will be more aware of the significance of our budget rather

077than just listening to it for the first time and trying to absorb everything so it may be something we want to consider look at thought rich thank you could i uh uh interject a brief uh word or two i think it's uh it's very important that if we're going to form a relationship with the city i think you should not just do it once a year and this is what has been happening over the times you know we get to the budget we sit down with them at education in their education committee once a year and we have to start planning to not do that once a year and and as long as i have been on the board that have always been some type of communication about the budget not as much as going

078for a workshop of anything but when they have put their education committee together everybody comes to the table and we sit down and it's only once a year so if you're going to look at a formula partnership let's say we start meeting every two months every three months or whatever and then you know because once the education commission committee is formed you get those people involved which is i think it's about 10 12 people and then you can't form that relationship with the common council and have them all come in and then everyone have a full workshop on uh the budget and i think this is to me the short stick of it is you know we only do this once a year yeah so we're gonna form the partnership let's say okay we no

079we need to start sitting down in september october okay then the next two months you know and just keep pushing and pushing and pushing until we sort of get them on board with what we are trying to make them understand that we need as a district yeah good one yeah totally agree if we're going to partner today i totally agree that's what it would take i'm just thinking about the number of meetings that we've had to try and understand the complexity all of this stuff and and we see your you know the monthly finance updates and understand all those mechanisms so i have to imagine from you know an outside perspective that's that's a lot to absorb and you know they're weighing that against the things that they're looking at every month in terms of

080budgeting and expenses so good points all around thank you yeah i think one thing just when dr sal briefed and i briefed mayor cavo but dr sal spoke mostly on the current budget it was really informative because it was it was similar to kate's kind of highlights you know and and the one pager we we spoke to like five or six points he really heard it and he understood the need and he knows he's constrained but it was a good opening point for him to hear and i was surprised that he didn't know some of the information even though he was president of the council but now in his mirror so i mean it kind of circles back to all the points that gladys made just sustain the the relationship like start the relationship sustain

081it not just at those one meetings and really look at maybe workshopping some things with them in a way that that gets their interest too but i got another question amy amy i'm take your version and i'll take you after that rich i i think that it's uh an opportune time also with a new i don't know if you know we don't know if it'll be a mayor cabo or someone else but uh excellent time to get into a new group with a new leader um right i mean just like you said courtney that you and uh dr sal went to see mayor cabo and he didn't wasn't aware of something so it's it may be a good time good time to do it yeah yeah edward you know we're struggling with trying to present

082that budget to the general to the parents of the general public to support it just think of how difficult it is to to present this concept to them so that the publicity that they get from you know the patch or the news times or wherever they get their information the headlines read you know the danbury public schools get you know 10 10 million dollars and somebody sits back and says ah you know again to my point what are you bothering me with you know you know you're you're flush so this is complicated you know as we're hearing it tonight can you imagine the complication we're going to have in trying to get this across to and if we stay with a one-pager concept is to get this across across to the general public which says

083basically these funds are different to be used differently than our regular general budget um you know if that's a way to phrase it so it's creating again more of a communication problem for us to reach the outsiders for those people to support us to continue to to have them support us rather than to lose them because they they don't understand the implications of all this money you know they just hear money and you know as i said the layman will subtract one from the other and say it's home free and go on to something else yeah but i think part of our work here too is um building awareness about the things that we're lacking in our current structure and obviously we want to be um careful about how we're presenting information and and careful

084about how we're we're talking about our schools because i don't think anybody here would disagree that our schools do a really fantastic job with the resources that we have it's just a question of helping people understand that we don't have the resources that really are are what we what we want to give our kids and that parents are asking for and that that students are looking for so um you know that's that's a piece of this as well is helping folks understand what it could look like to have you know a high school that has a program for gifted and talented kids what a program would look like to have sports at the middle school level what it would look like to be able to have expanded arts and uh and music programs you know

085at all levels you know we have some good things in place but you know we've had to make cuts to a lot of the programs that we have into a lot of the experiences we could offer as part of a robust education that extends just beyond the pure academic piece of this i think one of the things i can do is also look to other large districts that are recipients of a large amount of money that are also struggling and find out how they're talking to their city about this so you know we can we can get some common language because i know just seeing from my casper group the business officials they're struggling also with how to convey this message that'd yeah this doesn't kevin this doesn't even throw into the picture the the

086financing of of the the the the academy you know i i think you're gonna just you're gonna be as short as me in a little while and and i think that's why it's so important to partner with the city on this um because like i said earlier you know we don't we don't just need the state to maintain their funding levels but we need to get the city to to commit to a funding level that's going to make sense for us um you know when again when we're on the other side of these grants and they sunset uh because we we can't be we cannot be back at ground zero um you know we'll be opening up uh the academy um at the high schools we'll have you know again increase population growth around around

087the city we have an annex that we know at ellsworth that we know is going to fill up um this all requires additional staffing you know across the district and so that's that's just our you know base base staffing that we need to to continue to move the district forward um you know not to mention the contractual obligations um you know that will certainly be an increase in us in our in our city fund in our city budget um and so you know that that's just enough to maintain our budget um you know never mind the initiatives and the enrollment growth that we're anticipating uh over these next two or three years um and then and then the grant monies will be gone um and again that's that's why it's so important to try to

088you know start to get commitments from the city and the state um to maintain these things and continue to move forward yeah and perhaps the city could help us advocate to the state to to reinstate that alliance money again we act as a partnership and so we're acting as a city and and not just not the educational part of the city but the city you know in its entirety in the city government plus the board of ed is is asking the state to to maintain what they've agreed to do so i think it has merit so so kate i just wanted to make you aware uh while we were talking i moved the agenda around a little bit just to make sense um before we close out um i did want to give ann an

089opportunity to review the community invitation that we had developed i think the two surveys that i had um that i had included the links for in this in this in our agenda um it was really just for information only we just wanted to make you aware that we had developed uh surveys on behalf of the district to get feedback to elicit feedback from our staff on how they would love for us to use these funds um you know given given the guidance that was provided but then this similar survey that anne had developed and her team had developed for parents families and community as well um and so is that is that going out district-wide just to clarify it is they're both in draft form right now uh let me just put this back up

090um they're both in draft form right now but yes that is the idea um and are you still there i'm here okay um you want me to start with the community invitation and then go to the surveys okay sure now watch it not work because i don't know you still have 79 days left in your trial so yeah that's right that's right that's right thank goodness so we felt it very important that we um have listening forums with our families where they have an opportunity to speak with us but then also to have surveys so there's multi-modalities modality ways that families can get information back to us we've had several conversations already with groups in the city questions have come to my office i'm sure courtney has fielded some too about what is this money

091what's this going to do for my family um and it's written up in the newspaper and communities um like ours are doing some of the same things so next week on tuesday and then thursday and thursday we will have um listening forms the first one is that march 16th that one will be done in spanish by our frc through that group and then we have two on thursdays one in the morning and one in the afternoon one in the evening and that will give parents community members time to get there and then respond to sets of questions i've been fortunate enough to attend a couple other districts to see how they've done it and what i like about it and what i don't like about it i do believe that we need to give some

092parameters up front of what the money can be spent on and help channel people's energies very much like what we just did here on the different areas that money can be spent on so that is that invitation that will go out tomorrow to folks and kevin if you can how about you want to do the family one ann sure so this is a survey and as you read down through it i'm sure you'll say wow that's just a bizarre idea as i ran it through my team today they're like hmm i don't know but you know when we're trying to build a sense of community we wanted to throw out ideas of what families felt were important and not important and of course one of the big ones on here was a community garden around

093pollinators right there you see it a community or school-based pollinate pollinator vegetable garden that's huge our experience for our 21st century programs have been huge for that with parents you know partaking in growing the vegetables and reaping them and so how can we use that money then um can't do food carts but we certainly can do projects like that that help feed families um and so this survey here that is both for families and community is pretty wide ranged of the things that we threw out there that we'd like to hear from feedback from them on how important it is to them or you know maybe it's not important at all and so we'll be able to take the data that we receive from this survey to be able to help direct our priorities into

094the grant and how that's put together of course at the bottom i did leave a section for open comments you know what did we miss what other ideas do you have from this so this as i said is being discussed in the community and we are getting questions so i um expect that it will be hopefully well filled out and that families will feel comfortable about putting comments in the bottom portion wow i didn't think it was that long but that's okay i was going really slow in yeah no that's all right what other learning supports would be helpful what educational programs um you know and this particular one here these questions here the learning support is around what's important for the student and then what learning programs would be helpful for the parents to

095enhance their learning on how to support their child's learning and then what did what did we miss um tell us what else you think so that's that survey and then um two like kevin had said we wanted to make sure that we reach out to our union members our staff they're the you know on the ground they're the ones that um we also want to hear from you know where do they find um you know where's the importance for them um so is it you know summer school programs credit recovery at the high school extended day for acceleration and intervention and so uh these surveys are vetted by the cabinet they're vetted by our curriculum experts as well as to what areas the staff feel necessary we also did under on dr casmiro a large

096um a bit of work with our admin council broken down into the learning loss areas and pd of what they feel are important so we're trying to challenge this as courtney said channel it i'm sorry as courtney said as quickly as possible but by doing due diligence in the work that we're being done to capture everyone so that um when that button is hit i think it's april 5th the proposal has to be in we feel that we did our best job and put our best foot forward in getting all of this information uh put together in a timely basis that's going to fit the needs of our community that's it thank you ann thank you it was a very thorough list so thank you doctor thank you well i want to ask you guys

097a question about this because i think part of um part of what i try to think about as we're approaching anything that we talk about with the schools and how we're supporting our students is thinking about those most vulnerable kids um you know and the most vulnerable families that are in our community that either may not be able to offer feedback for one reason or another um you know we're trying to make it as accessible as possible obviously but some folks don't have internet or don't have the ability to to access you know things this way and i'm also you know thinking about the percentages different percentages of people that might respond to something like this you know where some of the priorities that maybe we should have as a district kind of get outweighed

098by the responses that we see from this feedback here um and and i'm just wondering if there's a way we can sort of address that equity piece absolutely so one of the things we'll be doing is it'll go out through a robo call it'll go out in the email but we'll also be placing it into the google classrooms for students to bring back to their parents we know for many of our younger students the parents are sitting right there with them and so we're going to ask teachers to bring it forth during their classrooms to show parents talk to parents a little bit about it um and to get the word out that way and i think that will um to your point kate will really help um gather those families that we often don't

099hear from but are hearing from more and we'll also work with our 21st century programs and the elp program to reach families as they're coming and going um picking up their children next week to make sure that they're aware of this and that they take the time to do the surveys excellent and it's in the forum and is are these both available in uh spanish enforcement okay wonderful thank you so much for translation thank you maybe we could also put them in our just we don't have that much time left with the one week distribution of the food oh absolutely yes absolutely yeah very good thank you thank and you okay last but not least from us anyway um um courtney did you have any update on the budget timeline yeah well i just can

100i do you mind if i just share from they don't last years just because i want us to be mindful of the time and i just want to i know we don't have this year um let me find oh where is this okay hold on one sec i'm so sorry i didn't have it ready to go i mean i did but then i went out of it here it is okay shoot your screen okay um so they haven't published this year yet but here's where we are like in terms of like a comparable time frame so we had our february 14th submission between the 10th to the 20th so last year so roughly along the same time is when they're preparing their budget for binding meaning you know the finance director it was working with

101the mayor and then we're working towards that date of roughly i think it's april 5th this year because it's that tuesday when the mayor will present to city council and then city council has basically those three weeks in april to review and then the the proposed budget is printed by the danbury news times and it's formally adopted on may 15th so to say we don't have much time um to get out whatever message we want to get out with the community or if we want to initiate some forum with the city council i don't know yet i don't know if you've heard kate because dave hasn't told me yet or rich if you've heard the format that they they haven't decided i know that the executive order expand it expires after the april deadline so

102i don't know if they're going to take advantage of that again and it'll be like last year where there's not like a public a formal public forum um as soon as i know i will let the committee know um or as soon as any of us here but for right now just so you're aware that this is the debt around april 5th would be the date that we the mayor would be presenting to the council and then the three weeks are when the council is doing its review and we'd have our committee meetings if they're going to be held as well as the education sub committee meeting correct yeah and we can certainly ask for that you know and i think we have every right to ask for that um traditional meeting even if they

103decide that they're going to go forward because we didn't have it last year um but that's that's the timeline so yeah thank you courtney i haven't heard anything from um any of the folks that i've i've reached out to about how that schedule's gonna work so yeah i apologize that i don't have it yet i mean they're just mired in their current process at the moment as well so and then court um kate the last the last piece for us um you know and has already spoken to next week on the community engagement sessions around esser um you know of course you know between city council and esser these these both of these things have kind of uh jumped in front of our other engagement sessions that we wanted to participate in but but we

104still have plans also to present the city the the city budget as as we had initially intended um so ann would you mind to help close this out at least from our perspective um kind of what our next steps are i know we had identified some different constituents constituency groups throughout the city of danbury and talk about our next steps there as well right so um and i changed the letter a little bit to reference the budget details that courtney did in the presentation that's listed on our website um and for that for right now that's the master kind of information that's out there from that presentation that courtney did um until we get a date from the city or we really know what the city is doing it's really hard to ask people to

105become active at this point except to reach out to their council people and so once we get that date we'll be able to um continue and circle back with all of those groups to make sure that they're um you know asking their constituents and their stakeholders um to help promote this budget right and and in the letter and had um developed a letter inviting these different constituency groups constituent groups to join us for a zoo meeting so that we can present that overview of the budget that we had talked about um so and maybe it's probably best to invite them right after the esser engagement so folks don't get confused and think it's the same session so you know maybe we can send out those invitations next week and then probably in a couple of

106you know in a week or two we can turn around and engage those folks as we had originally planned correct correct in the meantime can we um also and i don't know if we should go through your doctor meter or through you kevin um to set up a meeting with the democratic town committee and the republican town committee um i don't know if that you know where that falls into the timeline but my feeling is sooner would be better rather than later but you know depends on what your guys schedules are so well i'm i'm i'm available um right so we could just make that make that happen but we'll have to circle in dr sal and you know let's talk strategy and do it as soon as possible okay absolutely okay thank you kevin

107go ahead richie had your hand up yeah i last week we had at some point we had talked about engaging a conversation with the students um we were i wasn't looking for them to advocate you know for for our budget or get into a legal conflict with them it was more of an understanding that they understand what we're trying to do for them and have them look at the components of the budget so they can give some feedback on it that'll help us to either reinforce that what we're doing is is good for them or if we could pick up more information from them that maybe we didn't have in here that we might have missed that was the point in terms of engaging the students with that i assumed it would just filter home

108if they get excited about it and then talk to the parents about it but basically it'd be good to have their feedback in this as as another interested in party uh in in the budget process so that if something could be done to put something together with the the whoever it is at the high school whatever group up there that donovan feels we can do it and um it might be interesting i agree i i i agree rich i i think in in in similar but but different way um as we got feedback from dan and meg i'm hearing firsthand of the impact of positions being available or not available i think it would be um valuable for us to hear directly from kids to hear you know how service how they're impacted by services

109or lack thereof at the school i think that would be good for us so i'll circle back with dan and and see if we can get get get some kids for us to speak to it would be good to build for our next year's budget as well like to get that engagement and say we had students involved and these were their thoughts you know to continue that once we build it this year yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah i just want to say a very nice job tonight excellent job you know a nice agenda fantastic um there was one of your slides in the agenda packet was um a multi-slide relative to the high school that kept flipping it confuses me because it goes too fast and i can't focus on what it is is there

110a way to play with fonts on that and reduce yeah and reduce that to something that's manageable um even if you extend it to to not eight and a half by 11 but legal size paper or something you know if you have to do that but it might be better on one sheet rather than have a scroll because personally i i find it difficult to to read it you know comprehend it and the next slide comes uh unless i don't unless i have the ability to stop um sure so so rich that um i put that together and and it was based on the feedback that we got from dan and megan and i can i can adjust the fonts i can adjust the content of the slides i can adjust the time that those

111slides are up so if you feel like i could certainly go back and add you know time to that the idea was that this would be pushed out through social media um and the the intent behind choosing that format is that you know it sort of happens in the background as somebody's like looking they don't have to do anything they don't have to uh click on anything they don't have to increase the size on anything it's big enough that they can read the content right in place i'm not just you know i'm not saying anything negative about it it's just that my thought would be the other would be a good mailer or something a good takeaway that that you can have as a hard copy takeaway you could shoot it out to again a

112pto or principal and tell a principal to give it to whomever and and particularly in the high school if this is addressed as the high school and it's you know somebody could click on it and and print it out uh the the other one you know suits the purpose that what you you designed it for but it had a lot of good information on there and it was you know good bullet points so it's just another way that we can get a message across sure i think multiple formats is is great um and that's something if you guys are okay with i can work on that kick something back to you um and i can do that for the other one as well just to have it okay so kate that is it for courtney

113ann and i um unless you have any additional items for us uh no i just want to open the floor to the committee members and see if anybody has any other questions or feedback they want to share i think we're i think we're set here so i will ask for a motion to adjourn moved motion to adjourn i got a motion from joe and amy you'll take the second on that let's take a second all those in favor aye thank you so much for coming tonight thank you guys you