Danbury Board of Education Meeting 2-24-21

001yes it's really nice to see all the beautiful smiling faces tonight uh kate would you do the roll call please certainly joseph britton present rachel toleski here kate canetta here gladys cooper here lauren daley here joseph de silva here catherine hodgson here richard gennelly here everyone's here okay we have everyone here we're going to move on down the agenda dr sayo do you have any recognitions um not this evening okay uh kate will you read the uh strip for public participation the board welcomes public participation and asks that comments be limited to three minutes the public may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them the board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about board of education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the

002danbury 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 dot danbury.k12.ct.u s thank you so very much i'm saying here you want to start with our comments yes ma'am first one is from lisa ruffles parent of three school age children after a very long and challenging school year in regards to covid it appears things are starting to head in the right direction with governor lamont's most recent announcement i would hope the danbury district is looking to expand on our current hybrid schedule as soon as possible larger districts such as hartford have made a decision to return

003to five days starting march 1st for pre-k through 9. they are keeping 10 to 12 on a hybrid schedule for now other districts such as norwalk are already operating with their elementary students in person full-time we should be implementing a similar plan for getting our k-5 students back on a five-day schedule for families who choose to return and then hopefully build from there between our hybrid schedule quarantines and snow days these kids are barely back on any real level to have the impact we need we missed our opportunity to return in the fall and i hope we don't make the same mistake again it very much concerns me that our efforts to close the educational gap has only widened this past year have you seen an increase in students performing below grade level if yes

004what is being discussed and or planned around getting students adequately prepared to pass by the end of the school year lastly our district received grant money through the emergency school relief fund under under the cares act how will that money be used in helping us not only recover but also meet ongoing cdc guidelines and plan for future pandemics yet to be seen alison benid casa i again ask that the danbury board of ed evaluate and find a way to get the children into school data from surrounding districts the country and even now worldwide does not support the continued remote education and rather supports in-person education and schools being low risk for exposure my elementary kids are suffering academically and socially socially give us the freedom and choice to put them back in full time stephen

005and perezkevi runtos we need to get our children back in school full time this year for their emotional mental and educational health we have three children in the danbury public school system a freshman in high school a sixth grader and first grader so we are witnessing what is happening to our children across the three school levels we have been patiently and consistently doing our part to protect our families and our community recently our own family's collective mental health has deteriorated and we believe that the lack of in-person education is driving much of it one of our sons a high honor student is suddenly unmotivated and disinterested in online learning even though he is engaged when he goes in person both of our sons tell us that they are bored with remote learning and try to

006find other ways to occupy themselves during online class time we have personally seen the negative impact that this detachment is having on their willingness to learn and more importantly their base of education which they will need to build on in future years we do not think that the danbury public school hybrid model is meeting the needs of our children and we question why there hasn't been more discussion about going back to full in-person instruction the board of education would be negligent in the responsibility to our children if they do not give families the choice of full-time in-person instruction during the school year danbury board event needs to explain to us using specific covet statistics why most other large school systems in the state including stanford and hartford have gone back full-time in person but we

007have not heard of any plans proposed by the board of ed for this to happen in danbury again we need to get our children back in school full-time this year for their emotional mental and educational health uh next parent is teresa no last name what is the plan for the special education students to attend in person four to five days a week especially those who have been identified to attend in person four days back in october many surrounding districts are already uh at four to five days it is critical for some of in this population to have who have limited interaction and or those students who require supports that are just too difficult virtually and creates frustration kathy snow a lot has happened in the past few weeks i would first like to extend my

008sincerest congratulations to dr sal it has been a pleasure to know you and i hope you enjoy a very much deserved and well earned retirement i would also like to mention that i am in support of the school budget that will be presented by the city council and was happy to see the committee on community outreach has met a few times and is working to put together a one-page summary type document of the budget highlights separate from the budget i would like to request that some of the cares money be used for long-term fixes versus short-term pandemic solutions things like water fountains with refilling stations and light sensors in rooms a few years ago i asked about removing the hallway doors into bathrooms similar to the mall or the movie theater of course there would

009need to be privacy partitions from the hallway and there would still be stalls with doors but removing the hallway doors would eliminate a physical touch point this could also help reduce vaping i asked the board to please look into using some of this money toward long-term benefits my next question is regarding getting students back in school using round figures about half the student population is fully remote and the other half is hybrid of the hybrid population we are 25 percent of students in the buildings for blue co cohort and orange cohort can we please get to the point where both cohorts are in the building at the same time which would be the 50 capacity that the district submitted as the plan to the state back in july i believe the plan allows for fifty

010percent of students to be in school as it is only had two groups group a with with live instruction of fifty percent of students in school and group b distance learning with 50 of students at home our current model of 25 of students and buildings was from a surge in covid back in july we seem to be going in the right direction as the numbers of new confirmed cases of covid from the state website kathy o'dowd has said in prior meetings that the spread of covet is not due to being in school i believe she has been tracking all schools since the start including the catholic schools and science has shown that covet is not spread from being in school with everyone wearing masks and using dust shields as well as numerous other strategies in

011place i would hope the district can flex and get more students back in school especially since there has been so much learned about covet now is the time for the district to move in the right direction and get our kids back in my final question is what is the plan for next fall i expect that 100 of students will be in the building full time for a full school day especially since all teachers and staff are able to get the vaccine i am asking this as we all know how quickly time passes and my understanding of policy p6114.81 the emergency suspension of policy during pandemic under temporary powers granted superintendent of schools item number two the last sentence ends with the authority will remain in effect for the duration of the 2021 school year or

012until repealed by the school board it seems as the board is going to keep this in place for the duration of the year so i am formally asking the board to begin discussion now to ensure all students are back in school full time in the fall katie williams given the dramatic decrease of cases here in danbury in conjunction with the announcement that teachers will be vaccinated starting march 1st i would like to know when the board of ed plans to have students return to five days of school instruction other districts across the state are using the current data proving that schools are a safe place for our teachers and children to support their decision to bring students back into school full-time for instance hartford will be welcoming back students in grades k-9 starting this coming

013monday march 1st for full in-person learning as a point of reference hartford is currently seeing a rate of 30.5 cases of kovid 19 per 100 000 which is very similar to that of danbury which is at a rate of 40.2 cases per 100 000. in addition districts such as norwalk bethel brookfield and new fairfield have all been successfully running five days of in-school instruction at the k-5 levels with minimal transmission being seen within their school buildings furthermore newtown is full-time and for k through 12 and new milford will be transitioning their students back in full time starting on march 1st danbury hesitated in september when all but two districts in the state began the year in the hybrid model i do not want to see danbury again make a misstep in their decision by not

014following the guidance and reopening at minimum k-5 five days a week in-person instruction soon the cdc's newest guidelines urge districts to bring a minimum of k-5 students back full time when community transmissions is moderate to low which would be a rate of 10 to 49 cases per 100 000 again danbury is currently seeing a transmission of 30.2 cases per 100 000. these indicator indicators put us well within the guidelines set by the cbc to bring at minimum our k-5 students back to school full-time as a parent i was struck by the dramatic change in my son's personality and overall mood when he was able to return to school in the hybrid model he is a loving and fun-spirited kid and it wasn't until then that the negative effects of the extended time away from being

015uh became fully transparent after his first day back he was chatty and giddy he had a renewed renewed passion for his work and wanted to share everything that he had learned the days that are remote or even harder because in his words it's so much more fun when i'm in school when they went remote because of weather my son had a complete breakdown because he missed his in-person days this is traumatizing to watch as a parent and completely unnecessary since the guidelines show that he should be in school he comes from a household with two parents that are in the field of education he has the full attention and support of myself who's a former former danbury teacher and still he has struggled mentally and academically there is no substitution for in person learning and

016given the downward trends in cases the low transmission of the virus within school buildings the teachers accessibility to the vaccine and the guidance of other towns in the state i implore you to bring our students back in for full time miss cooper i am just refreshing to make sure that there are no other comments and that would be it for tonight thank you santa you do a beautiful job of bringing those comments uh to the board uh so we move on down the agenda uh uh before we move i i can't would you do a personal favor for uh the group would you go back and read our mission statement and our 2021 district goals because i think that has sort of been put on the wayside for us and i think we need a

017refresher of course the mission statement danbury public schools in partnership with families and the community provides transformational learning experiences designed to nurture thoughtful and prepared graduates 2021 district goals goal 1 growth in student learning and achievement and college and career readiness for all students goal two family and community engagement goal three fiscal responsibility and planning for growth goal four professionalism accountability and organizational learning thank you so very much kate uh now while you're the hip could you go ahead and we can do the consent calendar certainly i'll make a motion that the board of education approves the items on the consent calendar exhibit 21-18 through 21-22 as recommended can i hear a second one okay amy seconded okay kate would you do the roll call oh can we have discussion i just have a comment

018yes um i just want to say that i'm thankful for the attachments in the minutes um particularly when it comes to the um the budget presentation and the budget detail but there are two different versions of the school budget history pages 13 and 53 in our agenda packet and i'm just wondering if we could get just whatever is the correct version of that to us sometime and i have a third version in the binder from last year just they don't line up for um i'm sorry there's two different versions to rachel yeah okay there's there's the one in the budget um presentation in the deck and um then in the budget detail further down on page 53 just different numbers for last year i know last year was kind of um it was a different

019circumstance but i just would like uh you know what's correct there yeah it's for last year yeah i'll make the correction and have it reissued as part of the board packet thank you okay thanks for noticing that thank you courtney any other questions or discussions moving on uh okay yeah yes yeah i don't see anything that has it makes reference to point through 21-22 um i'm not seeing i beg your pardon i have the wrong version i'm sorry okay okay thank you okay uh kate will you do the roll call joe burton aye rachel celeski hi kate canetta aye gladys cooper hi lauren daley aye joe da silva hi catherine hodgdon hi rich gianelli hi kathy molinaro hi al russo hi amy spelino hi okay we have uh 11 in in favor so the motions

020will pass thank you uh our educational staff representative reports uh do we have anyone from nea aaron no i don't see her doctor zaleta no i'm here okay thank you so thank you welcome so what i did um to report out this time was to ask all the administrators to share with me some of their silver linings with all this madness and chaos i think it's important to always focus on some of the positive things that have been happening so i'm going to share with you what was shared with me first i'm going to start with the curriculum folks the esl supervisor mrs clift shared with me that despite the challenging year the k5 esl bilingual staff have been able to consistently meet our weekly for professional development with technology new curriculum implementation and assessment

021alignment teachers have been able to meet in small groups to strategize and determine best practices when teaching english learners and psyb coaches have been able to assist teachers by joining synchronous sessions to demonstrate the sciop model interactive teaching methods with remote learners and more the department has been able to tighten up your curriculum needs and be on the same page with extra time allotted for planning and professional development on the student side due to all of the above english learners k5 have been able to participate actively in remote learning they have learned a tremendous amount of technological skills and our youngest learners are able to access the google meets google classroom type click on links and more our attendance in esl classes have been high and students are speaking more than ever due to the

022implementation of our new curriculum on the math end our supervisor dr mead shared that there's been a true focus on the standards in mathematics at the k5 level as well as finally slimming the standards they have weekly grade level meetings with two math coaches that have provided more focused pd with teachers than ever before the six stem coaches have worked tirelessly to provide coherent lessons and appropriate practice for approximately 250 teachers and 5 000 students at the elementary level she could not be more proud to be a part of this incredible team of instructional leaders also the ability to integrate science which is near and dear my heart this year has been a huge silver lining at the k5 level and the integration has increased engagement for our teachers and students in speaking with the

023elementary principles principal of pembroke dr apple shared that after completing her mid-year teacher evaluation conferences the teachers overwhelmingly reflected that they had very close relationships with their students and families this year in fact they said that they have never been closer to their students and their families and they're also reporting a stronger sense of grade-level community across families as teacher assignments had to change these excuse me teachers continue to be amazed at the technological yeah technology skills and flexibility that our elementary students are demonstrating she's amazed at the techno tech i can't get that word right tonight technology skills and flexibility that our teachers are demonstrating too she also shared that two-thirds of her teachers have taken the yale sel course and loved it they have many have commented that they not only solidified the

024foundation of their beliefs in seo but it's also helped them personally students are demonstrating a comfort level and ability to express themselves appropriately and accurately while identifying effective coping strategies it commented that the grade level teams in building and across the district have never been so aligned and on track with curriculum implementation and collaboration is high lastly she shared that their lunch waves with only a maximum of 36 students in each provide students the opportunity to enjoy a more peaceful and calm socialization time principle of shelter rock ms marshall had shared that they have increased their efforts to celebrate students they've maintained their monthly student of the month program where teachers select a student and then the class has a morning meeting to announce the selected student the teacher reads a summary of why the

025student was selected and then the parents are given the teacher summary in addition also to all our students hybrid and dl have been enjoying spirit days twice a month students are photographed observing all protocols during these events for their school yearbook teachers are being creative with mass breaks for the students with games like simon says or eye spy to provide the children with social interactions and fun they also have teachers who are coordinating movie nights with permission of the parents and teachers spend a friday or saturday night virtually watching a movie and they also include all siblings in the household principle of stately rough mr cerlix shared that at sadly rough the parent communication has been a top priority for all staff all of the teachers have been using many different apps emails and live

026meets to communicate with parents all the hard work that is happening in classrooms and updates about our school are being communicated instantly throughout the day the silver lining is that he feels there's more parent communication than ever before and feels that he's established a new way to keep parents more informed and be more part of the classroom everyone has been utilizing technology more than ever before and has helped all of them see different sides of their families principal of millridge primary ms tarcy shared that one of the things that her school is doing a great job of is that they're getting their families involved despite not having to have them come into the school some ways some ways they've been able to do this is through virtual attendance um so that they don't have to

027worry about child care and that they can attend from work and attend more flexibly they've had special conversations or guest speakers at their pto meetings and they have had fantastic attendance they did presentations on reopening and the importance of attendance and how attendance is monitored in the in-person and virtual environments and lastly a presentation address can i send my child to school this presentation was about when it's okay to send your child in and when you should keep them at home it focused on sick day guidelines quarantine rules and who to contact for more information we shared that our pto attendance has hovered somewhere between 30 and 65 families on a given month which is considerably higher than years past they've also been working with their families to plan fun and engaging events for students

028both during school and after to try and bring our students together they're doing a great job at celebrating special events and building community despite the challenges some of the things that they've done are virtual story nights with staff reading to the kids virtual family bingo night bi-monthly spirit days dress-up day for the hundredth day of school kindness week and a virtual holiday concert that they live stream and watch together as a school at the same time she said that they're really making the most of the situation still working very hard to build in memories and school experiences for our students they're also trying to build a welcoming school environment despite the fact that we cannot physically invite our families in at king street primary principal dr rocco shared that she thought a silver lining was

029that the student independence and confidence in their use of technology is growing exponentially she she stated that she loves hearing the student comments to the teacher in grade three a student commented miss b when you come into my breakout room can you be sure to mute because i'm going to be making my flip grid a grade one student shared miss w i couldn't get into my special special can you pop the link in the chat for me again a second grade student commented when my teat when the teacher was having some tech difficulty said paul please and started humming the jeopardy theme song he commented that with the hybrids the students eating the classroom with the teacher present has helped build relationships and great conversations are taking place in these small group settings that would

030not have been possible in a larger group king street intermediate principal dr hislop shared that king street intermediate celebrates a 600 increase of parent attendance in our virtual parent and family engagement nights famtastic math game night in january and rally for reading in february one more night is planned in march and information about their nights can be found on their campus website using the intermediate tab special education supervisor ms campbell shared that a handful of our neediest self-contained elementary students returned to school with the no tolerance for wearing a mask through staff collaboration and family support the students are now wearing their masks during the school day their tolerance was built up over time as the school days passed the staff maintained expectations and the students rose to the challenge at danbury high assistant principal

031ms daniels shared that silver lining was enabling student voice connection and leadership during their sel times with the dhs documentary series also the developmental development of the dhs visual virtual peer tutoring to support students with distance learning outside of school hours and the re-engagement and return of chronically absent students through teacher and administrator outreach outside of the school day assistant principal dr roy shared that something good that has happened this year is that teachers and administrators are more adept at using technology and virtual environments to differentiate learning for students teachers have developed lessons that allow students to progress at an individual rate while gaining personalized feedback and time with teachers through regular class time and flex periods at the high school principal dinardo at reach endeavor showed that students are admitting they are glad that

032they are in school and that they're working and their work working to improve at the middle school level west side principal dr leblanc has shared that they have been able to use wednesdays to host their normal school-wide events the peace poster invention convention science and engineering expo history day and geo challenge they've had they have created a system for evaluating projects live with students and community volunteers as judge judges we have successfully interviewed all 750 west side students and we complement our events with a public-facing website and wacky and zany opening and award ceremonies on youtube at broadview assistant principal ronaldi shared that through challenging times this has also brought some positives through the use of technology she has seen more students responding during lessons students who in the past may have been too shy

033to respond in front of the entire class are now responding in pear deck desmos chat boxes and other online platforms not only do the students get a safe place to respond the teachers are also receiving in the moment formative assessment information in addition to increased student engagement she has also seen increased parent communication teachers are communicating more frequently with parents and have been using apps like talking points to help navigate language barriers rogers park i'd like to share that we were able to participate in the american bar association diversity outreach program this year this is a program that in the past has only occurred in the major city that the aba holds its annual conferences like chicago or new york due to the covet program due to the covig the program was expanded across the

034country i was connected with one of the judges who was one of my teachers ants who was a retired judge and we hosted five diverse female judges last wednesday for a 90-minute session with our social justice club these students learned about the three branches of government the rule of law and very important judicial independence they broke out into small groups and had the opportunity to ask judges questions and then we got back together in a whole group for a final q a session both both the students and the judges enjoyed the experience and we're looking forward to working with them again in the future in fact one of the judges was from connecticut and she and i have already started brainstorming how we can work together in the future both virtually and in person with

035not only our students but also our parent community by hosting a naturalization ceremony at our school that's a lot i'm sorry that was probably more than three or four minutes but i think it's it's a it's good to focus on positives and i appreciate being able to share that with all of you and thank you for bringing such positive information to us is anyone having a question thank you again okay you move on down to our students or in our students in the audience okay hello everybody hello i just have a few things to say since the last time we spoke um as you all know dhs has gone into a hybrid model students were able to enter the building for the first time since march of 2020 we are so excited by how well

036it is going um but the weather does seem to be getting in the way danbury high school boys track and field begins in four weeks and students can contact mr murray for more information on how to try out the danbury high school pto has been putting together an adoptive senior program where parents and community members will be assigned a senior to send a small gift each month until june during the large snowstorm in the beginning of february dr tucci put together a snowman contest where students submitted images of their snowman as a historical figure and she received over 20. the history honor society is putting together a project based on student experience during their pandemic they're asking students that send in images videos or documents that outline how they dealt with isolation this project is

037in partnership with the danbury historical society and that's all i have for you guys thank you thank you okay do you have anyone from ace good evening board of ed members cabinet and community members thank you for allowing me to represent and speak on behalf of the ace alternative center for excellence ah i would like to remind you all that the a showcase website which is under design will highlight students writings paintings and all things creative that has been created and is being managed by joanne tolles joanne and her poetry students are already planning our annual spring coffee house which will be a venue for students and staff to read original pieces of poetry display artwork and host musical performances we would like our creativity to be on full display for our alternative center for

038excellence youtube channel ace would like to publicly acknowledge and congratulate our students of the week for the week of february 8th to the 12th cat crews and samantha seguencia ace would like to acknowledge tyler scherrer jen sadino jason janos and brian galaza for earning honors for semester one our high honor students were josh portland chris pyth kristen valen villani spencer robbins and jalen batista and congratulations to brianna valani for earning distinguished honors lastly kylo chicola and his students have organized an ace care kit drive with donations being dropped off this week february 22nd to 26th ace is collecting donations of new socks individually packaged snacks hand warmers disposable fakes face masks gallon ziploc bags bar soap band-aids wet naps and mini water bottles drive-through donations can be dropped in the ace care kit bin at

039the bottom of the steps at the entrance parking lot side thank you all for allowing me to share the great things happening with our east family stay safe everyone and remain a strong thank you chris okay okay if there's uh no question for any of our students we're gonna move on down the agenda uh we're gonna ask uh mr joe de silva to do action item a hello hello hello oh there we go sorry about that i apologize i froze up there for a minute yes make a motion in action item 9a january 2021 operating results and analysis general funds grants project motion that the board of education approved the january 2021 operating results analysis general funds grants projects in accordance with uh 21-23 it's on page begins on page 60 in the packet thank

040you joe uh could i hear a second a second this is kate okay kate uh are there any questions or discussion or any questions to courtney seeing that the dude the roll call kate joe burton aye rachel chaleski aye gladys cooper aye lauren daly aye joe da silva aye catherine hodgson aye rich genelli hi kathy molinaro aye al russo hi amy spolino hi so we have 11 in favor and the motion is so careful thank you all right you want to do policy uh action item c sure uh i move that the board of education except for first reading oh did you say b or c gladys we're on b yes we're on b but i thought we we shifted that one which is that that is that is the correct policy thank you okay

041so i'll make a motion at the board of education except for first reading policy 1312.2 community relations slash appeals as recommended by the policy committee exhibit 21-24 i hear a second a second okay aim a second any questions concerning the policy i i have a couple uh yes if i could thank you um i think this uh this policy is good i'm all for being able to gripe to your elected officials and your your district um i just had a couple issues just with the language of it i know it's just for first reading but just to for when it gets kicked back to the policy committee i i noticed that um in the actual language of the policy when it says like the superintendent shall review any complaint and conduct it really doesn't put

042a burden on the district to review it or to conduct this in um investigation or whatever in a certain amount of time so i would just recommend just for efficiency of you know our our government or you know our elected officials to maybe see if it's possible to put in like within 10 days from the receipt of the complaint or or something like that and um i just the language where it says the board may but is under no obligation to review the policy amend or refer the policy etc i don't really see the point in having but is under no obligation to i just feel the board already knows that they're under no obligation to amend any policy so i just think that that might unintentionally influence the board when reviewing the results from

043an investigation into a complaint about a policy and and just thirdly and this is my last one it says must be signed and that kind of implies that a name should be attached and i just wonder if it's possible to maybe allow people to give anonymous complaints just because i think that you know people may be afraid of retaliation against their child or maybe it's even an employee that's giving some sort of complaint so that's just kind of my recommendations back to the policy committee so that's that's really all i had with that uh mr walter mr washington do you have any comments or or for mr britain or joe number one thanks for the comments um joe i i can share with you in our committee um you know we did go back and

044forth about the fact that the board was was or was not under any obligation and i and and i think um the the committee's intention in that line was just to make it clear to the community that it doesn't mean that by submitting a complaint that there's an obligation to change the policy uh but your point is well taken uh you know as a response i mean we don't have to of course as a board i'm not talking about me i'm not i'm not a board member but the board does not have to change the policy uh but i think that i think the committee's um concern was just wanted to make it clear to the to the community certainly they have a responsibility to review the policies and any concerns that the community might

045have that they were no under no obligation and i'm certainly happy to you know bring this back to the committee for further discussion i'm not sure how the committee how the presence of the committee feels about this one yeah if the intent was for the the public to know that just a complaint doesn't necessarily mean that something's going to change i i think that's fine i was just making sure that the board members understand that i mean i'm not telling everybody everybody knows we don't have to accept everything or change anything but that was just my my one um fear and and thank you for clearing it up i think that's yeah madam chair can i just add one comment um i think just to zoom out just a little bit on the discussion um

046there are lots of mandatory processes where we'll have to do investigations and complaints on complaints things like bullying title ix violations there's sexual harassment complaints so we have a whole wealth of different kinds of patchwork policies that require us by law and by policy to go in and conduct investigations to review the policies to speak with the complainant depending on the kind of area that we're in this policy was intended to kind of plug one hole which came out of if we have other programs um where something's going on in a program maybe it's an after-school program it's a morning program maybe it's a dull ed maybe it's somewhere else and there's a concern by a parent either about tuition whether the child still enrolled in the program whether they're booted out of the program

047anything like that we didn't have a policy to plug that gap that provided for a parent or a caregiver to kind of come into central office and have a conversation about that and so part of this policy is really intended to plug that gap um so we have sort of all of these other policies about operation of law are doing a lot of what you're pointing out in terms of um you know statements um who's signing them how long we have what's the statutory timeline this one is is a little bit more um mundane if you will because it's kind of hitting a different area where we just didn't have a policy and so when we looked at it originally what kevin and i talked about was you know if you have a complaint about

048your teacher or you don't like you know something that's going on with your child you always have an avenue to come into central office and talk with the assistant superintendent and or the superintendent and this is intended to kind of provide that same avenue just in case gotcha thanks kim okay and for the discussion comments yeah i would also just like to add um that that the base of the policy came as a recommendation from cabe and we tweaked it with the help of all committee members um and you know i just like to hear i know joe da silva you had raised your hand and some of that language you know you helped us with though um i i specifically added the line that we're not that the board's under no obligation because while

049we know that it's very important that the person filing the complaint know that in the first place while they're filing it that we're not under any obligation because the the way it reads without that line it it it doesn't really say that and i think it needed to expressly say that we're not under any such obligation um similarly the fact that it needs to be signed was from cabe and i'm never going to support a policy that allows an anonymous complaint under any circumstances ever because anonymous complaints are how you get crackpot nonsense i understand there is the risk of people being concerned about retribution and all that i get that but if you're not putting your name in a complaint i can't take it seriously and i can't investigate it so um that's kind

050of where i step off on that but the the signing part was from cave that was part of the draft policy that we got from kate any other discussion thank you joe i was going to come back in and uh i saw that you thank you okay thank you both of the chairs okay uh kate will you do um the roll call there no other questions or discussion excuse me joe britton hi rachel chaleski hi kate canetta aye gladys cooper aye lauren daly aye joe da silva aye catherine patterson aye rich jannelli aye kathy molinero hi al russo hi amy molina hi we have all 10 all 11 people in favor thank you the motion is so caring cathy marmaro will you do action item c okay motion that the board of education except for

051the first reading policy 6159 instruction special education as recommended by the policy committee 21-25 mostly made by kathy second oh second second okay any questions and discussion on that motion santa kathy uh i'm sorry kate would you do the roll call of course joe britton hi rachel chaleski hi kate canetta aye gladys cooper aye sorry lauren daly aye jojo silva hi catherine hodgson hi rich janelli hi um kathy molinaro hi al russo hi amy spolino hi okay uh 11 in favor of motion so carry uh lauren daley would you do the last action item d please lauren lauren you're on you i'm sorry sorry i'm just trying to find it hold on i gotta open the other screen the very last uh action item alarm you're so quiet sorry awesome i'm trying to get it

052i can't find it um i cannot find parents i'll read it if you want me to could you do that no problem all right i make a motion that the board of education accept the first reading policy 6171 instruction special education as recommended by the policy committee 26 21-26 page 75. motion made by catherine second technology joe it's joe okay joe okay okay um any questions uh discussion concerning these uh policy cn9 uh kate will you do the roll call certainly joe britton aye rachel celeski hi kate caneva aye gladys cooper aye lauren daly aye jojo silva aye catherine hodgson aye rich gianelli hi kathy molinero hi al russo hi amy spolino hi motion so carrick we have all 11 board members in favor of demotion okay um i want to thank the policy committee

053along with uh mr walson and everyone for getting together and bringing these policy uh forward to the board next on the agenda is the superintendent's report thank you thank you madam chair um just information you all know we do have our lobbyists and i'm sure we're going to organize a meeting with our our contingent um legislative contingency alone but if you're interested in the cave virtual day [Music] but anyway that that's the date chosen this year you know we're working with um ryan bigham for our own um session that we need to have with our contingent um the next section um i did send you um a copy of a letter that we've drafted to the governor um i can tell you very seriously this does impact the cities as you see in my letter

054we represent just on the 45 percent of the total number of students that are in connecticut over 65 percent of indigent those that are indigent um so we have a real need and i think a few years back the governor at the time decided over over a lot of conversation court cases a way of assisting the cities and equalizing access to education modified ucs grant included groups that were very needy and were very difficult to fund with operational budgets and put in a plan and you know our plan was the 10-year plan for danbury the governor's current position um if you take your time and look at it we all know in fact one of the parents mentioned the essa money the sm money coming to us uh was our conversation with the state was

055that it was to be used for items that that would mitigate the um the pandemic impacts some of it could be construction some that could be life safety work but majority should be spent on kids and closing gaps and focusing on standards that we were not approachable or even possibly doing some pd work with our teachers and that money should have been going that way um but the governor's taking advantage of it um whether or not they were required to do that um i guess in his position um he's uh indicating that that money could be used for operation i will tell you that the state department has asked us to put together an essa grant that was really focused on the intent um telling us that it may change you know in the future

056but that's how we're going to construct it if you look at the three areas that i that we articulated in here the regression from the equity principle the esser money and the fiscal cliff i'll start with the end in mind with the fiscal cliff i mean most of you've been around long enough to know that one-time sources creates nothing but a tremendous disadvantage when that money does not come into the district any longer which right now you know our current budget almost under just under six percent of it is is there just to turn the lights on and that was to meet some cliffs that we've had over time with uh um allocations that were you know one percent two percent um if this in fact um budget goes through you're going to be facing

057something three years down the road that is really terrible on the on the taxpayers in the town and of our children and we've tried to bring that attention to the to the governor we've asked from private sessions uh to no avail and and took this course i will also tell you that that significant cliff um is not voting well in hartford with many legislators um but with that said i think it's incumbent on this board to really express to our our delegation the impact it's going to do on not just the education program but if in fact that creates the cliff um your numbers are going to be unless taxes are raised um you'll be we'll be losing staff and and going to numbers that are right now are very high in classroom which has

058led to some of our issues about returning to school but i will tell you that that's a major problem not to mention the equity there are towns that are gaining money when there are urban settings that are losing money very inconsistent and we're not understanding uh why that's happening so i just ask your patients if um you look at the 109 million dollars that we're losing on in these districts and then trying to hold the es the ecs money for two years by pausing um does nothing but create havoc and equity for our kids in terms of equal access to a curriculum just not fair the yes or money for the board we will put together a budget or a recommendation and we use that that's going to mitigate our um our pandemic loss you

059know summer school extending time um but i want you to know now the state department did come back to us and say told us that if something happens to the governor's budget and we have to use those funds we may have to recalibrate our budget the yes or money so that may or may not happen so i just want to put you on notice now um i know um the the committee may want to i don't know if it's the public relations committee or any other committees may want to take this up in terms of um how to move forward i've got some interviews with reporters i'll be talking to pto about it um i've sent this to our legislators and um although i won't be here i will be here in in my soul

060to make sure that i do all i can um to make sure that we we don't go down this path and that we fight hard and and let people know how it's going to impact our kids so um if you you know i appreciate if you go through it you have any questions uh please call me um about it i think it lays out the argument um very clearly this was sent to governor lamont as you can see we have not heard back yet uh and we'll see what the response i did talk to our ex-mayor who's advising the governor and i think he even though this might not be a good idea you know uh but he's worked with them and hopefully those in hartford would look at this that have experience in the

061urban setting to kind of mitigate this this proposal because it is damaging to the cities um so if you have any questions then you can uh please get them to me and um i'll try to uh answer them and if you need any other information i'll provide it to you oh um sorry kate had a hand up and dan joe dr sal i just want to clarify and make sure i understand this correctly um if they freeze this funding we're looking at uh 2.7 million for the next bump for next year and then 2.7 million after that so really a loss of over seven and a half million over the course of those two years that should be coming into danbury is that right yes okay and when you talk about uh the potential of

062recalibrating the budget the use of the esser funds are we talking about the state basically affording permission to use it for operational purposes right okay that's what the government's suggesting yeah in this proposal now but the essa funds are federal right so well well okay i'm my understanding although it's limited at this point because i've asked those questions i think it's up to the state to determine that okay no at least we're told at this point from the federal contingent that there are no statements within the um within that act prohibiting the use of them for operation that was a state decision decision yeah look at the purpose of it because anyway so the governor took um took his uh opportunity to say uh that it could be used for operation fund okay thank you

063for clarifying i appreciate that i thought john i i did um i've sp dr cell just in line with what you said i've spoken to both representatives godfrey and ner conte both of whom were less than pleased with the notion of pausing this funding and they were both they were going to work to see what they could do to to to change this thing neither one of them thought this was remotely a good idea um so obviously we'll keep those conversations going and i'm sure you can reach out to them directly and and and have them further that conversation but yeah no i spoke in fact i spoke to both of them the day the budget came out and neither one of them were particularly amused by by that proposal i think the more we

064do that and call them our contention has been no matter what side of the aisle that sean um it doesn't make sense um so yeah that was their view as well so anyway um call them and talk to them that'd be great um you want me to move on madam chair yes if there's no more questions yes so really c should be under the next or discussion um you know i guess i just should be discussion so let me let me just start by saying that in the beginning when we looked at our challenge for returning the fall our main issue was space and i and that has not changed in terms of aggregate number of students if they were to return that put us in a position to move towards a hybrid for safety

065and during that time um my advice that i was following following was the advice of our advisors medical advisors and um you know whether we had a hiccup there october not the advice at the time i've explained that we did what we did um moving down at this period of time what if we knew you know then what we know now i think the lens would change somewhat and um i have a meet had a meeting last week with our medical advisors and i do want to go over some good news with all of you i think the parents that spoke in the beginning of the of our meeting and had talked about some of it in a glossary way there's some specificity that indicates to me um that uh that um you know as

066an advocate for our youngsters that um we should look at this differently we should look at this in a way that um uses the uh the best practices that i'm finding out from surrounding towns that have been implementing this uh because they they've been able to do it with lesser numbers of infection rates and also we'll be able to do what we know now about the primary transferring of the virus as recent as yesterday morning the statement was made it is not a regarding problematic for youngsters it is the the problem of the virus for adults i think we've all known that and um you know and and it's coming to fruition in ways that are going to put us in a position to do some other uh more aggressive uh returns when you couple

067that with the vaccines so let me just revert back what you what what you see on the agenda is in person learning we've gone back to the hybrid and we've gone back because of space right now we've been looking this steadily over time we have about 228 classrooms that are over we call the minimum that could not achieve either six foot or three foot minimum for social distancing and we are studying that uh analytically in terms of what it can mean for us in terms of increasing the amount of time for students to return but i think it's incumbent on me to tell you as a board that we have an opportunity to gain some time we have an opportunity to expand some time even while we study the space utilization challenges that we have

068and i want to start the conversation so you have a full gestalt of the of the actual infection rate in danbury uh carapanti if you could go over those numbers and talk to the board about what we have seen since we've um returned you know waiting out the um the impact of the holidays i think that that's where i'd like to start the discussion and then we'll move on from there is that possible sure thanks dr sal um like the rest of the state danbury's numbers have continued to go down uh so currently we're at 23.7 cases over the last 14 days per 100 000 our positivity rate is about 4.6 over the last 14 days um so we are in a better place than we were uh seeing a few weeks ago even um

069so that's been steadily decreasing we've been monitoring along with with kathy o'dowd um and her team any cases within schools and quarantining and doing contact tracing and that seems to have been very effective so right now community spread is is still happening but it's much lower than it was a few weeks ago the uh numbers that you were seeing could you share with the board in terms of the collection and what what you're actually analyzing we're talking about the waste product talking about some other items sure yeah so um danbury is now part of the statewide program where we're monitoring the wastewater and any traces of the virus within wastewater as an early indicator of what's to come in the following weeks in terms of new cases and same thing that's also showing a downward

070trend of a virus being shed in the wastewater so all around our indicators are looking a lot better uh with that the the cdc came out with some new guidelines and one of the things that they're talking about as a critical component of making sure the environment is safe is contact tracing and to be sure that districts have an aggressive comprehensive um contact tracing so um kathy maybe you can clear the board on how what our approach to that is because i think that is really an important element to any return in person um sure dr sal thank you good evening everyone um we do have an aggressive contact tracing uh protocol in place um it starts with the identification of a positive case which that information comes to the school nurse it's shared with

071the principal uh with myself certainly dr sal and the cabinet dr fong and kara so when we do have a positive case identified in the school our contact tracing begins with um who that person is uh where they have been in the building um where they have been in um in less than six feet of distance uh for 15 minutes or more that's the criteria for identifying a close contact um if it's necessary we need to look at if the if it's a student if they've been riding the bus versus a parent transportation and once all that data is gathered um it is shared the letters go out we notified direct contacts by what we call a red alert robocall where parents are asked to check their email immediately for an urgent um kobit 19

072quarantine message regarding their child and the letters go out through school messenger so that they can be translated into spanish and portuguese we do a follow-up once we do those calls for a direct contact or a close contact we get the principal will get back um a report from school messenger who answered the call if the call was blocked what went to answering machine and then there will be subsequent follow-up phone calls just to make sure and confirmed that every close contact who needs to be in quarantine is notified and then as we ask that people stay in their quarantine and be tested those results are then brought back to the school nurse to confirm that everyone is safe to come back on the date that's identified for them uh again we work in collaboration

073with kara uh and then there's further community contact tracing on her end thank you so um yeah the other part of three-legged stool we got the contact tracing we've got the um as i said the um the regression of the infection is the vaccine and uh kim uh could you talk to the board about where we are with that i think that's an important tool yep so um as you know because i've been talking with you um over the last multiple of weeks we've been waiting anxiously for the governor and the state department of health to open the eligibility for vaccination to more of our employees so um yesterday it's dog years this week yesterday the governor opened both the category of age 65 and up and also educational sector employees and right now what

074we're doing is um we have run lists of everyone that basically everyone that receives a paycheck from us and we are sorting them so that the one criteria that we do need to meet is that we need to try to focus on those who are going to be in buildings working with students so um for example those who are working remotely who have no contact with students will not go in at this time so um this is a process of going through our lists reviewing people who are working remotely reviewing all of our categories of employees and making sure that those lists are as accurate as we can get them for now um we are going to upload them on monday with kathy's assistants and cara prenti's assistants and i will say i i've been

075doing some fashion of this job for many many many more years and i care to admit and without those two at the helm we were going to be sunk um both carapanti and kathy have been magnificent through this um and trying to organize um the lists trying to make sure everyone gets accurately uploaded and then that everyone gets communicated with um so what will happen is once those lists are entered and uploaded on monday folks will get an automated email from the cdc that invites them to register in vams and then kathy is going to be working with me to message to our employees the quickest way really for folks to be vaccinated we're looking at running some clinics in district it's going to be dependent on supply and that's all very much a work

076in progress right now um and i can tell you that these folks are on the other end of my phone calls very early in the morning and very late at night as we try to work out these details so um i will say i i sent an email to all hands about a day ago just sharing with folks that this was the news and i will tell you i've had dozens and dozens of emails just folks expressing relief expressing excitement expressing optimism some people have sent me pictures of their grandchildren i mean i think people are really excited about this and i think it's it's what's giving all of us a little bit of a spring in our step on getting this across the finish line so i'm hopeful that in the days that come

077in the weeks that come as we meet again i'll be able to give you some more information about how we've done with this progress but for right now full systems ahead everybody's firing on all cylinders and um hopefully we're going to get there soon garrett brunt did you want anything to that i just want to add that we're still waiting on getting confirmation of when we're gonna get our uh allotment and what what our allocation of vaccine will be so as soon as we get that information we can spread that to you guys and i'm just anxiously awaiting that information from the state can you do what is a target amount of allotment um well i would like to target to try and get all of our staff that you guys have identified for us

078done within the first two weeks they have said that we want to be completed within the month of march i would like to do it sooner than that so i have put in a request for to cover everyone within the district um that i've been given from uh from kim and kathy uh but i have not received that confirmation yet i should know in the in the next couple days whether we can move ahead with that not and whether i'll receive that allocation so what i want the board to hear is that what you've been able to do and i'm thanking create our own system on our own campuses if we get the vaccines that you're requesting could have all of our faculty and our staff our bus drivers done within the two weeks right

079at least first dose well thank you very much you guys have just been tremendous so thank you can i ask a couple questions oh sorry kathy oh that's right i was just gonna ask um about the april vacation coming up and people going on vacation uh to another state how is how are we going to handle that when they come back is there is there going to be some kind of protocol for um for them yes there is the quarantine him or kathy who wants to yeah i i can speak to that um so there is a connecticut travel advisory um which basically states for anyone that travels um they are required to have a negative cova test either 72 hours before returning uh to connecticut or they can test at any time after coming

080back to connecticut however they do need to quarantine until those test results are back and submitted to the school nurse in terms of kind of communication what we continue to push out to all of our employees is that my office and and jen gonzalez in particular is our human resources specialist who has been wholly dedicated to all things covid and to leaves of absence absences sick time covid days so she is really familiar and works hand in hand with kathy on that so for anyone who has questions about it um jen is a really good resource shoot an email but right now you know obviously our concern is that um for those folks who do travel we're going to see ourselves with a number of people who may be required to quarantine and that's going

081to put a stress on our system for sure yeah so we'll send them out i'm sure we are getting questions about it but um you know i don't intend on canceling april vacation um what we've learned the adults have been responsible hope they would continue to be responsible um rachel you had a question yeah and just not only for staff but for families will there be some um you know awareness made just in the risk of travel but also for staff will there be designated clinics for teachers um and also with the prioritizing within the teacher group um just wondering like the ones who may be working remotely because they have an underlying condition if they are vaccinated then perhaps they could be in a building so i don't know if there's you know any

082thought around that all that is being worked out procedurally the advice that we've had there'll be um there's there's some technical legal issues but kim is um uh going around but certainly um there's a people be more more apt to come in that are vaccinated but i think we're working through all of those idiosyncrasies some of it are very very difficult personnel issues but we but that's part of the um strategic thinking let me say it that way for kim and i will thankfully leave kim to sort out the ada compliance issues in a past life i worked for somebody who did ada compliance and it's a nightmare um just in case we aren't able to do clinics for staff or do direct set up our own vaccination site will staff be afforded the opportunity

083to use personal days or sick time or something like that to go get a vaccination if we're not able to set it up ourselves right or are we not sure part it was we're not sure um i know that kathy and i have had conversations about the clinics not interfering with work hours um so we've been working really hard to to think about how we do that in district working around school hours so that we don't impact we're also giving some serious thought to timing in terms of the week because some people do have side effects the next day so we're trying to be sensitive to that um but people will have the option of also going into vans and and signing up with an appointment anywhere else in the state that they want to

084go and we would ask that you know they do what they can to avoid the work period because we could see some significant stressors that way as well but we've got much further than that yet thank you so so let's um continue this walk down increasing and in person learning so i mean this is what we're facing i think that's uh that's good news for us and the good news um should impact uh our purpose of of having our school system and bringing our youngsters back um from um from all of the vl that we're having or from the hybrid so one of one of one of the things that um we're studying very deeply um is is in terms of our needy group returning returning in and i'm all also looking at the day

085of the week that we're at this point as a bet as a best practice that we feel because of the way we're handling our um cleaning that we'll be able to take advantage of wednesdays so right now we are looking at um returning youngsters back on a wednesday to begin with and also looking at some other days of lending the day so that we can increase the amount of time our youngsters are at school when they do come in with that said reproductively we are looking at some other um options for improving the number increasing number days now we have been not sitting back but making calls around because we keep hearing of districts that are um uh that are um you know in full um in person in fact two weeks ago um i

086was listening to the boston superdome schools for the diocesan and we called them right up and we really couldn't get good answers from them because what they say on the air and what's really happening all the time isn't really necessarily what's going on i just want to say that so what i've asked kevin to do for me is that we've been making phone calls uh locally to see what's going on and to see in fact the best practices that that are um are able to allow districts to increase the amount of time now i will say to you that our our our data now is matching the data of these towns that's why i have the interest in the fall it was not we were four and five times the the infection rate but right

087now we're at the same point or lower then and as um cara pointed out we have an opportunity so kevin maybe you could talk to the board a little bit about what you've been able to you know research out and compared with the kind of uh best practices that we're doing so i could get to the next phase of my conversation can you do that absolutely so so i just want to share with the board in the community what we've learned in some of the feedback and how other districts are getting all of their kids in and there are various models i know we've heard some of them as part of our public uh public statements that were made earlier in terms of what other districts are doing originally as part of our reopening plan

088we had included an hour plan of six feet social distance and were feasible but at the minimum three to six feet and the three feet comes from the american academy of pediatrics that was the minimum guidelines that they had provided and then of course the cdc was mentioned in six feet were feasible throughout this process i mean so what we have learned from other districts is that they are using that three feet social distances guideline as a minimum and that is allowing them to get up to 18 to 20 plus students in the classroom and so what they have expect have explained um is that they have removed from as much excess furniture from classrooms as possible to try to maximize that space but but but however we are learning from some of our urbans

089and you know some of our neighbors right around town as we pull them that they are getting you know a high number of students um in their classrooms higher than we have right now in our blue and orange cohort and you know there's an opportunity now given the feedback that we have from our architect who had done some studies for us prior to school year and i think we have some opportunities now to revisit our own classroom layouts and we'll be polling our principals um and revisiting those classrooms to see what the maximum number of students that we can get in all of our classrooms but now with this with this new feedback and what our neighbors are doing and some of our bigger urban districts are doing three feet appears to be the number

090that they are using um as a guideline so um just for the board and to understand danbury high school is the largest high school in the state so you could talk about norwalk where they have two or three high schools and uh hartford has a sundry of high schools a lot of them have space the challenges that we're having still just the operational of lunches and things of that nature which impacts our schedule so we're studying this very deeply to see how and what options that we have we are again looking at the elementary in terms of increasing time so one of the things right now that we're looking at and i'm going to let kelly speak to our needy students coming back and as we start looking at our wednesday as an option of

091of um maybe focusing on that first as we study the other days of the week and the number of students as i said to you before we have 228 classrooms that have over the 19 or 20. we had about 104 classrooms at k5 that are over that 20. so we need to look at this in terms of uh how they can come back safely no matter what's going on around us we have to do what's safe but the criteria and the best practice the mitigation strategies for danbury the masks are important we have in every class on a desk we have those a little individual partition given all of that we have some opportunities so i'll let kelly talk a little bit about what we're doing what our elementary and then finish up with some

092of our thinking about wednesday go ahead kelly thank you dr sal good evening everyone as you know i've spoken throughout this return process about who we've deemed the high needs special education students and so this is a unique group of students that require more time in person to receive their instruction predominantly this group predominantly not all attend self-contained classrooms and the level of support and instruction that they that they require um is best done in person um and i have to start by saying that the teachers the staff have done an amazing job in a distance learning format um on you know tweaking and changing their methods you know coaching families and caretakers to work with this particular population but i'm excited to be able to share with you this evening that we are looking

093to return them four days a week um i receive uh questions you know on a daily basis from from this group of parents and i certainly understand their desire to have their children in school more um so i'm glad to announce that we'll be returning them and we're going to stagger the start so next week starting on march 1st we will be bringing in the k5 population of high needs special ed students and then the following monday on march 8th we'll be bringing in this the 612 so the grades six through twelve um special education students um for our preschool population the percentage of children that we have accessing in-person instruction right now is lower and we were afforded the opportunity to be able to bring in all preschool students four days a week um

094so i am announcing this this evening letters uh staff were made aware earlier today and they knew this was coming so this is not a shock they've been planning for it for weeks just waiting for the definitive start date the staff and i have to thank them publicly are just they they lit up they want these kids in school they want to see them in front of them so that was wonderful to hear um and truly their support along the way um i i couldn't have done it without without the team um so we did meet with the medical advisors cabinet did um we made sure that they felt in looking at all these different classrooms and and the population of students that it was appropriate and safe to do so um and so uh

095we are very um you know excited to be able to move forward and feel that we are doing um things with safety uh first and foremost in mind um the notification will go out to families tomorrow morning um it's drafted and ready to go just sitting i wanted to be able to share it with you this evening and i again just want to thank you know cabinet kathy o'dowd the medical advisor team the bus company my supervisors the the special ed and related services staff um everyone has really really worked hard to um lift this initiative off the ground and and lastly to the parents and families that have partnered with us they haven't always agreed with the decisions they're anxious to have their children back in school and certainly i understand that and i

096just think it's wonderful that we've all been able to reach this point and i'm hopeful that this will be a first step in potentially bringing more students in more often um if uh just the last question i know we'll receive dr sal had referenced the wednesdays um you know right now these children will be coming in the four days so that's monday tuesday and again thursday friday um if the district moves to bring in other children on wednesday um these students would then increase to five days so i don't know if there's any questions about it um all right thank you thank you thank you i don't know was there a question i didn't say no all right so um for the board i think you know let me well let me just say the

097community we did talk to the representative for the teachers union and we did speak to the representative of the administrators christie and um aaron and i want to go on record by saying they're enthusiastic and supporting to bring our kids back our teachers want our kids in front of them they understand the value of that and the administrators want them back as well um that attitude um that's a very positive attitude and that's what working towards so i i'm studying the um the numbers when i say i am in all of us as a team um i'm i'm thinking by next week we can work out some logistics of the wednesday as a first initial step and we're looking at the length of the day has some options as well so we could get something

098uh to to increase the amount of time students are spending in front of teachers with the goal of using the best practice to open up our um our opportunities even further as we move towards um april particularly now with the alignment of our vaccine so um you know i i did want to uh i promised the board i'd come back at this meeting and update you i'm really really pleased at the way the members are going and the uh positive attitude about getting our kids back so with that madam chairman i am um i'm through the the the uh all the mitigation the clinton we have some news coming to you about the uh the cleaning and stuff but we're not ready to to make those announcements but keeping the facilities clean making sure we

099have a comprehensive contact tracing making sure that we have the minimum social distancing the masking and the venting those are all things that we have and the money that courtney had has put into play and the city's helped us with some of those maintenance construction things so we're ready uh we're we're poised to bring that kids starting um as we just mentioned thank you dr say anyone having a question for dr sal kelly or kim i do glass yes joe um and i'm not sure i think this might be for kevin um the new cdc guidelines that new four stat the new four status chart that the cdc has come out with um where we seem to be infection rate-wise i think the recommendation was something to the effect of six feet social distancing to

100the greatest extent possible is that any different than the guidance we had before that seems to be a little different than the old cdc guidance i'm trying to measure that in trying to square that with the three foot six foot dichotomy and how do we make that work at the high school how do i make three feet work at the high school um good question joe kevin i think you know those are the questions that we had thank you it's kara parentheon tara yep okay let's just corroborate uh joe what i've asked that question i tried to read that the narrative and kara knows we talked about it with the medical advices last week and maybe you could share some insights for us yeah the the um recommendation is three feet but if when possible

101i mean the best practice is six feet it can go to three feet and then it says basically whatever is feasible between three and six feet okay okay thank you i love the idea of trying to get kids in more times and longer days than anything else i just wanted to see how that squared with the new policy thank you well our challenge is uh as you can imagine you're gonna get 8900 kids eating lunch of course right and and and that's what i try to tell people when they come well you know they're doing it here you have the largest high school in the state we got to figure out a way of doing it there safely and then you have two large middle schools um so with that said we're going to look

102at the best practices that's happening around us and um start with moving moving towards this wednesday with the idea that we can grow even further safely this may be an unanswerable question about the high school but i mean i'm assuming advanced calculus has very few students in it very easy to socially distance that class a class i would never have taken but how many kids are there in the average social studies or history class or science class at the high school or is there not an average well [Music] because we're loading things up there's well i said 228 are over the let's say the 20 20 okay that we have 104 4k uh k5 okay the high school had there's about 50 classes um that challenge and what we're learning joe there's different ways how

103to do that so let me see here's something i'd like to pose to the board and i this is something i could use some advice on um at the beginning of the year there were um stringent recommendations and you know we had to do this and we answered that one of the things that worry us very deeply are the we have approximately 37 percent 38 youngsters on dl when we put this planning model together that we have to make and those assumptions are based on parent choices um those parent choices produced in in-person students as we move towards a more aggressive in-person model we may have a number of dl folks who want to return and um the original thinking was you know you have to give them a window of about two weeks i've

104written the state department i finally got an answer back today and the answer was that it's a local decision in terms of how that may roll out when i when i'm talking to some of these districts that um even parents mentioned tonight you know they're telling parents you once you make that decision you can come back if there's space safely or at the end of the quarter we're going to have to look and review that because of the strength issue and a minimum of three feet if all my kids come back and come back it puts us in a danger zone right we can't do that but we're going to have to look at that procedure and to be fair to everyone that when we move down this this this pathway of increasing in person

105that um you know people are going to be in line that want to get back and would not be able to get back in as quickly as they want and i say that to you because you'll get the calls and you'll get but that's what we're faced with because danbury is oversubscribed with the number of students that was the argument we made in august that has not changed the only difference is was as kathy pointed out in the parent comment tonight you have almost half your kids home well that's only if they stay home okay so that's what that's what we we're we're we're working on thank you and how are things currently dr sal at the high school i mean i've heard some um rumblings through the rumor mill about you know not everyone's

106um respecting the social distance um but that's only you know through the rumor mill so i'm just wondering if you've heard if you've had any feedback from the high school how how things are going no no i i i will say to you i haven't had any someone asked me to um you remember the thing we worried about rachel with the masks i haven't there's been one or two but that's special cases and kids refusing to wear masks that hasn't so i haven't heard that this is the first i haven't heard anything from the high school kevin or or cara kelly any any any anything we're getting i i didn't hear anything in fact i'm getting at the high school dr sal is that things are going well there you know um admins aren't well

107on top of things um you know like anything else when the kids return back to the buildings they have to get used to the norms and the protocols um and the new expectations just like anyone else um they're teenagers but um you know they've been uh things have been going relatively well it's been it's been quiet good yeah yes yeah my office is at the high school so um and we've had no problems good um today um aaron daley shared with us a survey she had done of the nea membership that reported back that a lot of people were like a majority of people that were surveyed were satisfied with the masking and the distancing that was happening in general in the schools not particularly to the high school but in general that was some

108of the feedback that they got well that's good news you know by and large i think once we all got back we're understanding uh the the the challenges and the kids have accepted it very well respectfully and the teachers are feeling comfortable i i will say the board so the the the coming back in is is is something i got to deal with the other thing i think is that we're going to do what you know this uh you know creative innovation this disruptive innovation we may have to have a partial hybrid um and um going on while we have kids come back i don't think we can have a pure system not with the growth that you have in danbury so there'll probably be some mixing and matching a creative solution and i will

109tell you um we've been thinking about this creativity for a long long time we do have an opportunity to do something about it so by next week we'll be looking at this expansion wednesday but we'll be hopefully maybe at the next board meeting we'd even have better information about increasing the number of days beyond the three and two because right now the only way it would work would be one would come three days a week and then two days a week on and off until we can expand it safely so that's where we're at if anybody has any other questions um you know there's a good time to ask there's a lot here i realize that it just takes a lot of planning okay okay thank you dr sam well thank you everyone certainly appreciate

110it okay um next on uh our agenda we have an information item it's just for information am i correct dr sale yeah you're right congratulations right okay uh before i go to the board chairperson report do i have any uh committee's report yes i have a policy committee okay go ahead uh we met last week um reviewed and recommended the policies that were put before the board today um i just want to thank the members the four other members that came out willingly i know it's not one of the more exciting committees and also again to thank kevin and kelly for their help last week i would um just want to make sure we're all set to convene our regular monthly meetings um starting with uh march 3rd at 6 00 p.m is that doable

111mr waltzen it works for me absolutely um and then yeah that was it for me okay thank you are there any other committee's report uh okay yep thank you gladys um just want to report back from the community relations we've met twice and i think we're making some good forward progress here our goal is around helping educate the community about the budget that was approved and thank you very much to uh to mr wallston uh to courtney and to dr mead for participating in those meetings and helping us move that messaging forward so we look forward to reconvening um next thursday and uh we'll just uh we'll be hopefully meeting with members of the community to give them some info accessible information about the budget thank you kate thank you could be part of it

112kate that cause letter thank you thanks dr cell just a discussion we had talked about looking returning to in-person broadband meetings at beaver brook and i you know had a discussion with dr sale uh as we had talked earlier about why at that particular time that we could not go back at to be rebrook and have open board meetings and and some of those uh issues are still there at beaver brook and with consultation with dr sale uh we sort of looked at uh probably having our first in-person board meeting uh the very first board meeting in april again i was kids back into school everything is moving alongside the way that you know that no one is uh getting infected or whatever we have to stop the process again so we're looking at going

113back to in person in april along with consultation from the health department and everything else that entails in making this decision so i hope that the board members are sort of comfortable with that and uh move toward doing that and making sure those things that need to be completed will be completed and if not then we'll look at another alternative date but right now uh the first board meeting in april any questions in the discussion madam chair april 7th excuse me uh i think it's april the 10th mr uh i'm sorry l okay i am showing on looking at the agenda april 7th the first wendy board of education regular meeting because april the following week would be april vacation week okay gotcha okay okay will this be at beaver brook or is it no

114good point it might not be okay because that's a small space for yeah plus right now that's what i had said joe that once we work out all the details start information back and it might not be feasible for us to do it okay and we had to work maybe have to wait and look at another time but you know we we talked about going back in april okay first board meeting april maybe the gym at danbury high school yeah i said that before al i think that's a great idea or how about the parking lot maybe the traffic yeah there you go okay and uh my last thing i i attended a workshop uh on february 18th that cave was putting out uh the diversity equity and inclusion i i think uh it was

115a very interesting workshop i think at some point uh you know i'll have more a discussion about that i know we have a uh open agenda tonight and uh i don't want to keep people up too late but you know the workshops come on uh lying and they send them to you and if you were interested in taking them uh take advantage of them because we all can learn from listening to other people and how other districts are doing at these uh k workshop um that's sort of all that i have and if i forget anything which i'm quite sure i did uh we'll have a brief discussion about it at another time if there is nothing else on the agenda i need a motion maybe let's make a comment to mrs president i i'd

116like to thank her for her efforts for the vaccination program i first-handedly experienced the fine job that herder staff are doing thank you thank you al and just uh briefly i had i had to go over to rogers park and i was intended to tell dr uh zelita uh last week to uh get my shot and uh it was arranged through uh my church at new hope baptist church and everyone that came into rogers park were just making comments as how clean the building was so kim could you take that back make sure our custodians and everyone was just saying how you know there's no paper on the floor look at you know and the people was coming in and out so that goes to show you that our custodian and his staff and everybody

117was really doing uh their job to make sure that our buildings are well represented thank you thank you for saying that i'm sure they'll appreciate it uh if there's no other questions or discussion uh we will entertain a motion uh do we need to take a break no there is a separate link for the executive session okay thank you carol so we will go out and go right into i need a motion to enter in so i'll make a motion that the board of education convenes an executive session second by russo madam share can i ask you a question are we intending do we need to come out of executive session back to the public session to vote on anything no okay so this way we'll be adjourning directly from executive session not coming back

118here okay thank you made by kate second about you motion soul care