001her business that we have is we need to elect a chairperson for the committee um and so uh we'll open up nominations for that i'd like to nominate you kate thank you joe um is there a second i'll second it thank you amy and uh all those in favor all right i apologize i should have asked if there were any other nominations first um okay and then for uh uh co-chair do we have any nominations for co-chair nominate amy okay and i will second that any other nominations seeing none all those in favor aye aye all right amy is the co-chair very good um so you know now i think we need to to start a conversation around the table here um you know i i have a couple thoughts about what i would like
002to see this committee working on um but obviously that's a group decision uh to decide you know sort of where we're what direction we're going to move in um you know my thought right now after [Music] the budget passing through the board of ed last night is that we need to you know center our efforts on outreach about what the budget contains and what the process is uh for the budget now that it's been approved by the board of ed where where it goes from here and what the process is and um what we ultimately end up with as a board from uh the the city once their decision is made um so those are that's my thought as far as you know the the kind of information we need to be imparting to the
003public right now um but i'm certainly open to conversation about other things that folks might want to do with our time here if it's okay kate i'd like to also suggest in addition to the budget timetable and and to answer your questions uh what i would like to do is is to understand your or the point of your agenda tonight is the community outreach is to try to work together to simplify the budget so that collectively the people on the board can go out into the community and to advocate for this budget as i've expressed in my workshops i you know work with courtney to keep it on the the simple side and we can further reduce the complexities of this to perhaps more layman terms and courtney and i and kevin had also discussed
004about doing a little bit more in terms of the presentation that we got the other night importantly so that was more personalized by having videos or conversations of staff members or students that that can comment on some of the proposals we have and what the effect would be if it doesn't happen um so it again i go back to the word humanize and people understand what the impact it is if we get a good feel for the numbers and are able to explain these numbers in in layman's terms so that you know we have a comfort with it then we may be able to go out into a team and with the inroads that dr mead and kevin has made in the community they may be able to set up appointments as well as you
005know gladys and her affiliation with the church and other organizations we may be able to go out we is the board not just only this group because it's going to be a large undertaking go out and advocate for the budget um i think we've picked up momentum in the last two years on the part of the public and particularly the strength of the teachers union starting to come forward and say support the funding to the board of ed i think we have to keep that momentum up and i try to have pointed out last night with kara you know again reiterating that although the the funding is a lot of money it's unfortunate but historically you know we've been cut and it's caught up with us and if we are going to embark on more
006sophisticated programs such as the pog or the the academy or anything else we want to do we can afford not to be funded if we're not funded we can't do the other stuff then there's really no sense of moving forward with the the other programs is my feeling is because it'll be done very haphazardly it wouldn't be like getting a high school as we did and we couldn't afford to open up the high school we had to do it over 30 years which was really kind of kind of stupid so yeah no to that part i think the first thing to do is to try to get the budget and i know it's boring you know the people to go through numbers but again if we can get it so that it's simplified so that
007we can convey the emotion that augusto conveyed in his presentation to what kevin had mentioned on the social part it gives us a feel that we know what we're talking about so we're out presenting this you know people see that it comes from the heart and we have passion for this stuff not just reading off a number from receipts and saying we need you know x number of dollars for psyop coaches etc etc um so you know i think the first thing you do is to you know come up with some sort of a program to further refine the presentation that courtney did again uh and kevin had conversations about possibility of doing that and then you know you putting together uh a proposal to the full board to round up the troops to see
008how we can go ahead and get some some some troops to to go out and and to canvas be the public you know we've got a presentation to the cyp pto which has a large audience but a lot of things we can do it's just a matter of having it organized and when it comes you know be prepared when these these particular meetings come up so that we're we're engaged as a team and the group be able to make the presentation and then it's not only with the buddy but from the budget ends you know there are other things and your your subject of community outreach falls into exactly what dr needing and kevin have been doing over the course of the last number of years um so that's important you know whether it's again
009going out and explaining the portrait of the graduate and at some later dates go out and support what the concept of the academy is because i'm a little bit confusing um so again it's most important to get out into the community and over the years that i've been on the board that has been one of the slowest inroads that we've had and a for foreign me the hispanic community basically would be lost because she took a tremendous undertaking to have them have confidence and trust in her so that that could be the relationship with the border bay so we've come a long way it's taking us a long time now we gotta capitalize on that yeah well and i think you make a good point rich you know um in particular right now i think
010that there are a lot of parents and families that are paying much closer attention than they normally might be to what's going on with the schools and that presents us with an opportunity to work on that relationship building that you're alluding to you know i i i think all of us have heard the frustration that um this pandemic has created for for folks and it's exacerbated a lot of situations that we've been dealing with in the schools for a while um and now i think you know with more folks watching the the uh the meetings at home because they're able to you know attend virtually um and and uh you know hear about more what what's going on you know i think to your point um you know you you mentioned that um you know
011that the city-wide pto has has a broad audience um and that there are certain groups that are already kind of doing this kind of work but we need to put this in language that is easily digestible and one of the things that happens at our board meetings is that works we're we're sort of speaking a language that doesn't always resonate with with everybody who's listening um because this is language that that we all hear from you know either our you know our administrators um you know who are education experts um you know or language that we've been exposed to after year you know a certain amount of time on the board so we're familiar with it when we use like the knee ask report and we talk about that uh we talk about you know
012the the t fall uh evaluations we talk about all these different things that for us are very you know we kind of understand them already but people who are listening to that are not going to process it the same way and and so i think in that sense you know maybe our approach with the community relations is going to be a little it's going to look and sound a little bit different than what our approach is as as board members around the table um right so i think to your point you mentioned me as and and certainly kevin and doctor may can speak to this the public may not know what nes is but the net effect is if we don't get the accreditation then there is a specific problem with the graduation of these
013kids right from a high school right have an accreditation their diploma is worthless i mean i think that's that's something that is a very easy sentence you know to get to resonate with people you know if you find out that your kid has worked this hard to get through high school and their diploma doesn't count for anything or doesn't hold any weight that's a very easy concept for folks to understand and i think that's the kind of you know that's exactly the kind of approach i'm talking about rich where we we bring this down to uh you know a world an understanding of what the consequences for people who are in the system so you know i firmly believe and i've always believed that everything we do in in the school district affects your child
014unfortunately we see that if we move the bus stop you know we pre-coded we had a board you know board room filled with hundreds of parents we talked about a hundred million dollar budget and you get a half a dozen people there yeah but you've got to be able to demonstrate what the impact what the effect is on exactly i keep using examples about guidance counselors and a good part of this is that how much of this is in the budget you know we had questions about conversations with amy today and it came up yesterday uh at the meeting as to the request that we're asking you know i i firmly believe and i firmly believe i i do believe that that our responsibility is to put forth a budget that supports the movement ahead
015of the kids and they'll be kids in in danbury it's up to the mayor of the city to juggle our request relative to the balance of the city and and therefore that's his job that's his problem but it's our job to advocate for for what's going to move us ahead and as terror made very important we can ill afford to take less and if we don't get it from the city then it's the state we have to make these challenges to us and our local representatives you know we can't move the momentum that we've had the last couple years yeah and i think and it can't just be our momentum rich to that and it's it's got to be momentum that comes out of the community whether we're pursuing that at the city level whether
016we're pursuing that at the state level whether we're pursuing it you know for you know just a community effort um the the folks who need to be vocal about this and and to participate in this more are you know the families who are going to be impacted by it and the students who are going to be impacted by it um you know the teachers um frequently show up for for the um the budget meetings um and the budget hearings and um you know they certainly have a vested interest but um this is a service we're providing to the community and i think you know we have two tasks ahead of us i i often want to appeal mostly to the the the families i think you know the students who are in our school system
017because i think those are folks who have a you know their own interest in it but this is this is a broader discussion too within the community about why we need to support healthy schools um because that's you know we've we've had this conversation i've had this conversation with a number of you that impacts the the housing market and and what the value of your property is going to look like and it also impacts what your leadership for your community is going to look like and those that's something that i think is you know when we're talking about the long-term um strength and health of danbury you know having having good strong public schools are a big part of that equation we're obviously in a situation right now where you know we've we've sort of
018been through a period of money being you know pulled away from from our work here we can't make it up in a year we can't make it up in two years we probably can't even make it up in five years i think you know to the point you're making we just need to put forth our best effort to advocate for the money we're asking for this year because we're you know courtney and and the rest of the administrative staff have put it into context for us right they've said these are the things we need this is why we need them this is how we're planning for bringing our schools to where they need to be to support the community the the community of students that we have um and so we just need to follow
019that lead that they're offering us with you know providing that context to you know all of the families in our community and to to all of our community members you don't need to dominate conversations i'd like to get the opinions of kevin and dr me but we also have to explain to the public the the effect of the the cares to money because the layman they hear that danbury got 10.1 million dollars and simplistically if you're asking for 14 million dollars they can say well the differential is just four million dollars that the city has to do it so we have to be able to explain the logistics as to the restrictions on what the cares money are is and if we use the 10 million dollars for the 14 million the next year we're
020going to be in one you know yeah that's a good point rich that's another so what i'm saying is that our troops our emissaries that go out there should be involved in this and have every bit of information to to be able to to sell you know there's like a sales person you want to go out there you want to sell this particular product you got to know how product is manufactured you got to know what it's going to do you have to have a belief in it if you want to make the sale and close the sale um so you know i think there's a lot of training or an output that we have to do to get out our group together and and then we get a marching order from kevin and dr
021mead and they say okay go out there you know we schedule this we schedule this um and you know they can take care of certain things that that's the way i envision it but it's a team it's a team effort you just can't leave it on to you know dr sal i have one video thing and put it on youtube well and and we're not doing our work it we're not doing our work if that's the way it ends up so um i'm curious from joe and amy um and certainly you too as well gladys um you know what your thoughts are and you know sort of where you're approaching the committee work uh i'll go um i totally agree with what you're both saying and i being a person who's not really a numbers
022person and yet the way the budget was presented this time and and last year it was like this too with the powerpoint presentation and then you know all the extra information we had from each person in the categories i thought it was excellent and i was able to i was able to get it and understand it and i would like nothing better i i like going out and talking to groups of people i'm um it's just one of my uh one of the things i do well but i need something to take with me and unfortunately i don't speak spanish or portuguese that's a real drawback but um had somebody with me i mean i've got the boldness but i need to have the information um written up and with just all these foot like
023rich said simply but the bullet points there's quite you know there's quite a few things here i mean at least five points that are really important you know the knee asks so important the implementation um i go back to augusto and and the the psyop coaches and and and the whole you know bilingual piece um i mean also of course our um i'm all for the behaviorist uh specialists who need to help us out now until you know we get our kids back to a place where they're in in a good way after what's happened in the last year and you know teachers families everybody um so there's just there's like five or six points that could be easily made and and to your point too kate i've been on one of those pto meetings
024at broadview where there were 27 parents on it that's i've never been never been to a pto meeting with 27 parents five but not 27. so we can't this isn't a real open an opportunity to to have more people hear us as far as the parents go and uh and i know ann and kevin do a great job with community outreach and there's just lots of places we can take this but again we we're kind of racing against the clock we kind of have to let people know i don't know when danbury day is you know everything things kind of turned upside down hopefully it's going to straighten out more this year but um because it's the city but it's a state also that has to hear our story you know from from us from
025from families it would mean a lot more coming from families so that's where i'm at i'm ready willing roll up my sleeves i can i can write i i like writing but we just have to simplify it and make it really understandable and in a hurry yes i respond to that real quickly because you just get me really excited about something that we used to do and um in new york city which is we called it a one-pager so you know if there's a way to be really pithy you know and very visual and translated you know that we can get those talking points down to a single page that we can just fly to the community that might be something that would be really helpful um you know in this short time frame that
026we have with like links to refer them for more info and how to get in touch with us and things like that because then you would have that translated doc and we could just fire it all over the place it doesn't have to be a whole power point where they sit for 40 minutes you know no i had just put in the like you like read my mind courtney about that one sheet because i had it like on my screen ready to like recommend it i saw this i found this really cool graphic which just had like yeah that's it right there and it just it pops and it just it it takes what what i was gonna say is we need to like pick five key parts of this budget that we know that
027the public would understand like we know what state funding is we know what city funding is you know what it increases like those types of things and just get it in a in like a one-pager like courtney was saying in front of people and and circulate that somehow i think because i i think it's a lot easier for people to understand what you won't get than what you will get and i think there's value in that and i think that's a value that is is seldom exploited because if you're kind of you're what is it it's like you're appealing to emotion almost which yeah is not always the best thing but sometimes the right thing and that's kind of that's kind of where where i'm at i talked yourself hi guys hey dr sarah of
028the tax the the the property tax impact which is you know thanks to al brought it to our attention you know we can talk about that and say what you're going to get for your money so you know these are all great ideas that one page you know equates to the elevator speech but you got to be able to talk around the details as well and know the the infrastructure but you don't want to bore them to you know yeah um so and it's the legislators too we should try to get you know if we can get a meeting with them make a special presentation to them and get them on board so perhaps they could do something for us in the state or at least be on our side to advocate and get some
029funds for us but i think so um dr sal how you doing good are you just did you want i don't know if you wanted to jump in you're you're certainly more than welcome to do so um we're just talking over you know sort of what we're going to do strategy wise with the community relations how that's going to relate to the budget yeah well i think courtney was with me today we had a little powwow with the city i mean they're the picture painted is we know you have a need but the economy is really tough in banbury things are um um are very difficult for city workers to get out and collect uh revenue and i didn't get a very good feeling you know i think there's a yeah i would say there's
030a willingness to work with us but you know um to what extent they don't know so you know i hear you guys talking about going talking to everything everybody i think what you need is really people at the um council meeting getting up and speaking i don't think your legislator is going to help you much the governor has put his budget out um you know the really rich the bottom line is with the city and um i think the pain the picture i got painted was we want to help but it's it's a difficult time i mean and you know i've heard it from day year in the year out so i don't you know if you want my suggestion it's i don't say we we rate city hall yeah people just get up and
031say without these funds this is what happens or with these funds this is what we can service right there's a willingness on the city uh everyone they're looking at your 10 million dollars i think and that's why i think there's more value in putting out what we won't get than what we will get right and that's that that's where i'm at yeah we've got so we've got to come up with a a and prior to you coming i said to the layman who thinks we get the 10 minute because the subtraction from the 14 and basically we're home free but we've got to be able to you know really really realistically say that of the 10 million you know to be creative we can do this because of this it affects maybe the one-time cost
032however if we apply the entire 10 million to this then we have a huge problem next year so that perhaps our ass reduces from 14 million to let's say 14 to 12 million i'm just making up numbers but the other thing is on the horizon you know we're proposing a 90 million dollar bond plus or minus if we don't get this money i say take the bond and burn it because why are you going to build a building if we can't support the building or you're going to have a structure and it's going to lie vacant for five years and all the work we're doing in the portrait of graduate that needs the infrastructure for the academic people to be trained to to help this stuff if we can't do it then we put that
033on hold and and so we just move ahead and we become a a school district that just operates on maintenance you just turn the lights on and it's the same old thing we don't move ahead and your academic rates go down you know i think people have to be aware of what's going to happen the fact that there's no money available somebody's going to be able to have them pony up and understand what the consequences are of not giving us this money you know i don't want to say it's scare tactics but you know i understand the problems out there you know i understand it's you know prove it is knock the hell out of things on the other hand life goes on you know so i think you know covent presents an opportunity for
034us rich um to talk about some of those consequences that we're already seeing um you know and and you know that that also presents an opening to have a conversation about potential consequences that we may see if we don't you know step in and do this work so i i hear the passion that you're expressing about um you know making sure people you know understand what they're what they're getting when they either you know opt for the cheap version of the product or the more expensive version of the product you know i mean that's i think everybody can you know appreciate that the contrast and the quality even if they are ultimately from their own perspective making a decision based from a purely financial position um and i think more people in our community want
035the quality education you know the the one that that um is going to have the supports for their kids especially now after having been through a really difficult and traumatic school year where you know the resources that they've come to rely on that the schools have provided for them have not been available that's i think that's an eye-opening experience that many people have been through and and though right now they may be directing their frustration um you know at our at our schools because they they are in an untenable position um the reality is that that that awareness is something that they have now that they don't that they didn't have before so that's something that i think we can we can have that conversation with people and and encourage them to be aware of
036the consequences that they they may face down the line if we don't make a a better choice for our community um i don't want to um i don't know joe you thank you for uh for posting that graphic up gladys i don't want to skip out on you if you had anything that you wanted to to um you know say about uh sort of the direction we're moving in and you know how we're gonna move forward you know i think that the community relations committee can do a lot in our community as far as right now putting the budget information out i certain environment one pager and and it's going to be very important how this group can pull this committee can pull the families together that really doesn't understand uh the type of language
037that's being taught or being said and importantly and you can and to say to them okay uh we are asking for um ten thousand dollars for these two positions and then you lay those two positions out so they can understand that one of those positions might affect my child okay and it could be you know our counselor you know so many things have been cut over there the years and and i understand that we need to start putting back because if we don't stop putting back we're going to keep falling deeper and deeper in the hole and the money is never going to be there uh to for them to say we're going to give you everything that you're asking for but we need to stop at some point and say okay who is that
038we can get to help support this budget will you come out on this particular day voice your opinion and support our budget because we can't keep managing the schools the way they are and just look at you know over the last couple of years you know uh the the the city has really uh cut us what four million dollars people need to know that they they're thinking that each year we're getting a raise and we're getting a raise but how is presented to uh the community and and the way it's presented is it looks like we they are giving us money they are but they're not giving us nothing to really jump up because we are in turn come back to the table and look at those things what we can cut and say okay
039they uh the high school asks for two counselors we're gonna have to give them one because we can't afford to give them two so i think when people started realizing that um you know and just put the information out there start working putting the information out there now and and start moving this committee forward and then after the budget season then there's other things that this committee can do but right now i think we should be focused on getting the community involved in the budget process and understanding though it could be six um powerpoint it could be eight powerpoint but something very simple and clear that they can understand and say okay uh you know i will support it you know kate and everyone there um some places can argue less money less teachers larger
040class sizes well you don't have the space and you already have large classes so when when people say well what do you what's going to happen when you don't have these things the things that will fall to the wayside is really the attention that the youngsters are going to need and when you looked at the budget you heard courtney last night talk about the support personnel you heard cara and kelly talk about that i think that's the emotional truth um because we we don't have room and your classes are big they're going to get bigger i said a few years ago my fear is that we look like the big cities you're gonna have 30 in the classroom well guys we're pretty close you know i mean we're 25 kevin keeps trying to keep him
041down and it's a fight they're 26 28 so i guess as i'm reflecting we talk about the loss of the support of the youngsters of social emotional you know uh in this budget there's a lot here for that i think that's an appealing part and then and that's the truth of the matter that's will go away yeah i don't know what else because you you know your glasses are big already yeah no i think that that's uh that's that's a really um a really direct point um and and i think it does have a very strong emotional appeal i mean one of the things that for me stood out with this budget was the discussion about the climate specialists which kevin i really appreciated that you know your ability to to translate that during the
042meeting so that people understood but you know i don't i i can recall sitting at board meetings where we had you know parents who stood up to talk about some of the conflicts that were spilling over from the community into our schools um and being very concerned about the safety of their their kids um and and very concerned about the way that the discipline piece of this was being handled um you know those climate specialists are you know our schools our administration coming up with um you know the necessary support we need in order to address something that everybody including those parents uh coming to those meetings acknowledges is uh an obstacle for for our schools and for our kids so that that to me is the kind of thing where you know you look
043at that and it says climate specialist well maybe we need to you know spend a panel breaking down what that is and talk about it in the context of what we've heard from the public what we've heard people come into our meetings to talk about and we're here you and we want to give you this and we're trying to put the solution in place and we need your support to make that happen you know those i think you know when you talk about and and i saw your your notes here in the in the chat thank you i do agree that we have to you know we have to we have to be prepared to address some of the things that i think are going to come up in conversation um the school buildings themselves
044were closed for a long time and people have you're correct they have wrongly assumed that we've been saving money because of that um the reality is that in some ways our costs actually went up um depending on you know what we were what we're trying to accomplish um you know and i and i think that you know you're talking about um you know the freshman sports and um you know that's another piece that's something that's meaningful to people that people came into our meetings to talk about that's important to them so let's meet let's meet the community where it is and let's focus on the things that are important to them even if they don't necessarily align with what we think you know need to be highlighted points because the goal is gaining you know
045is building a relationship with the community and gaining their support that's the goal and there are lots of different ways to do that and i think over time we're going to be given the opportunity to educate them about why the things that we think are important um you know are being discussed but in the immediate let's let's choose the things that we know are already motivating them to participate um city has a realization of that and you know from you know would would like to help and i think we just need to as you just said get those get those those those points that uh resonates with the citizens so that they can agree that this is something that's very important i mean their willingness to work with us everybody's under a strain string i
046get that and i think your job my job is just to present to the public what our kids need to to learn and to be safe and be supportive i mean it's not really that simple and i think your budget is it's not a an extravagant budget yeah it's one that will do some of that not to the extent that you need rich always says well is that enough no but it's a start and then you know yeah and it's hard because you don't want to be shamed to not ask for what you need you know and and and that's what tended to happen sometimes i just feel like this straight and this is what makes me feel so bad is we've been operating on a presumption that we're not going to get what we
047want anyway therefore let's not ask for a lot you know and that is just there's just so many things just morally wrong without feeling that way and and i just like it breaks my heart for you guys crafting the darn thing you know you know we've invited ann and kevin like them you know to chime in and give us their opinion in terms of what they've heard and how they can direct this to to facilitate you know to get this thing going well i think and i hear you i hear you um mr nelly i think i and i agree with you and i'd like to hear from them anyway but i do want to make sure so for this initial meeting um you know i think we can talk about the methods of of
048doing the outreach but i think our first step has to be what are what are the um what are the things that we want want to put together to do that outreach you know we need to if we're going to come up with a one-pager and we can talk about that or we're going to come both the social media campaign we talk about that we need to talk about the specific points um that i think are going to reach people in order to make a move on the the next step so that is i just don't want to lose the threat of that conversation um you know as we move forward all right fine you know it's a good point you know to to your point and if you reduce it to one page then
049i'd say you know my thing would would be to talk to the hot button items a number of years ago we were making a picture of legislators dr sal had selected three or five things that we put on a little little card so it was like a 30 30 second elevator speech this would be more than that so if we could agree on what the hot button items are and the pros and cons of those things right visit a budget we focus on that rather than the total 14 million dollars which becomes a little bit more complex uh again in addition to that let's take that as the first is a first start if the the general consensus is that would be a good way to go then we just figure out which of the
050hot button items and and start to get educated on that stuff to uh to do it and we can get that as a starting point as to say okay the first meeting we've at least you know come up with a particular action plan yeah and and and i think you know this is the hard part right is is you know in this initial brainstorming you know um trying to narrow down uh the 14 million dollars that we're looking for which is a substantial amount of money and we're asking for a substantial number of things um you know we've got to figure out what are the ones that are going to resonate the most with with the folks that we're going to be talking to you and that that may look a little bit different depending
051on what our audience who's in our audience um so i think that that's something that we ought to consider as well uh you know depending on how we're we're going to do you know the the different forms of outreach um and obviously you're working with um you work a lot with the hispanic and latino members in our community so what we put together you know to present to that that audience might look a little bit different than say um what we're taking to the city-wide bto or if we're trying to reach out to some of the kids who are involved with sports you know and those are they're going to be a little they're going to look a little bit different but i think it would be helpful for us to go through the budget
052and look at you know what each of us thinks is you know the most um the pieces that will most resonate in our community um and then you know um for for the other pieces of this you know it seems like everybody's kind of on board with the one page document um and i think that that's that's good in terms of physical distribution of a piece of paper but um if it's designed well it's also really good for a social media presence um you know and and i think that there are different ways that we can uh you know kind of push that messaging so um does that sound okay to everybody i think we need help as to what because i you know the one page and what i call the hot button items
053are uh you know i think that's that's important you know the entire budget's important but we're gonna have to take a lead and you know put our best foot forward to say which will have more of an impact and and uh to get across you know maybe and there may be different variations of one pages two that that we can do but if you start with that um you know that that's fine i just though and i think to that point it would be you know ann and dr sal and kevin to tell us what they feel is is the best shot you know to do for subject matter to put across to capture attention you know that's really going to be an attention grabber and once you get them there then you can go
054on and support the rest rich i did ask mr miller sterling to work with us and get some vignettes you know as we did last year of actually the kid or a teacher some parents making a comment when you figure those areas so it's kind of more authentic uh and that just would you know just send our message not just from you or me but from you know our um our students and parents yeah as part of the presentation so he was going to go through his um archives and see if he could find some stuff that pretty pre-made and we can kind of insert into the segments of the budget so we are you we are working on that for you and i'll check with you thank you maybe you could align it with
055whatever those talking points you know or didn't like the um when dr saul said vignettes but like from a marketing campaign it would be really cool if you decide those you know hot button items you're going to touch and then how that looks visually and then align like the comments with that so it's all streamlined that might be cool i'd like to hear can we hear from ann and kevin so if kevin wants to go first that would be great i'm actually taking what you're talking about i'm putting in into a grid we hurt families during covet 19 and the proposed budget addresses so i'm starting this off because this can be the the beginning of a one-page info so if kevin wants to go first that would be great i didn't want to go
056first but sorry thank you kevin so i i am if i'm hearing the ques if the question is you know the one page and what's the attention grabber um i i personally i need more time to think that through um just in terms of i i do feel like some of the people on this side of the call um that we need are not here right now um i you know we have students who are on the board that quite frankly i don't feel like we leverage enough and if we want to appeal to the public i feel like they should be partners in this space with us right now um they are more than capable of helping us you know make inroads into the community um you know i heard the point made earlier
057about translating translation and you know we could have kids speaking in kid terms or other kids but at the same time appealing to families around this community and so i i think that's very important i don't think we should be leaving that out um just in terms of audiences and kate i don't know if you're ready for this part of the conversation but you know we the teachers have they've already supported us like publicly and i think it's important to capitalize on that support and make sure we're in front of them and walking them through the rationale behind these budget ideas you know we've had an opportunity to make this presentation to admin um but you know we have an entire troop force out there who we also need to communicate with and make them
058aware of the supports that we're that that we know we want them to know exactly what they're fighting for um and and and help them understand why we've you know landed on these certain positions to help move their work um and you know and then of course there are other you know other groups that i feel like it's important for us to get in front of you know without going through all those details but you know there's a part of me that's smiling as we're talking tonight because i'm thinking to myself as rich opened up earlier you know we have some really really big plans ahead and if we don't get everything we need in this budget i feel like that's okay don't get me wrong i want every penny that's in this budget but
059we really need to plant the seeds and continue to educate the community because we have some huge ass coming like there are some huge ass coming our way and so if we have if we can continue to go out and educate this community about the budget process and to riches into richest point earlier listen we just approve the bond in this city we need to educate the community and say listen you just approved a bond and now to make that work move forward now this is the support that we need from you but a lot of folks can't even necessarily connect those dots because they don't understand the connections between those that work um and you know going to amy's point that she made earlier you know i just need some talking points to get
060in front of and i think you know ann and i and does an amazing job helping to land and identify the groups to talk to and i know that because i've been in front of those groups with anne but one group we haven't talked to specifically and that's the group that doesn't have kids in our school system and we also need to get in front of them right and so whether that's amy and i and you know rich janelli and courtney or you know whoever the people are the players are and probably a kid with us um but we also need to be in front of that group um and just remind them of why it's so important for their property values like this is an investment in their community and walk them through the
061benefits of and again we may not win right now but i do feel like it's important to educate the entire community of the direction of danbury public schools everything that's been started with the pog work everything that's been started with the danbury academy i'm sorry whatever we're going to call it um like we need to communicate and educate the community kate and you made that point early and it's like resonating with me you know and i know amy's an educator so like like we're ready like just give us our lesson plan we're ready we can go out there and do it so i just wanted to just make sure i started with those things but i really feel strongly um part of the translator people who need to be on this team we have students
062on the board who are so capable um i would love if they could be in this space with us and talk and strategy and talk about how to get in front of their peers but also how to get in front of the public and and also if like and just because that reminded me of something kevin because when i was in peer leadership at dhs i know we needed a ton of community service hours and if we're just looking for troops that can help us i know that's another good resource and those are equally you know capable students but totally we need the bog and everybody that's at those meetings they should be here too because it's that they're weld some knowledge for sure the plti as kevin and i have talked about is another
063group that is an excellent and excellent group so let's say for starters or like you know handle you want to go before 41 sure sure no what i was doing was you know using those emotions that we just spoke about so you know uh we heard our families during covid19 and robo's budget addresses and it's just a simple table that we can later put in that infograph um your concerns about your child's social emotional development and therefore placing climate schedule specialists will provide targeted support for your child um a high level of students who attend college the work that needs to be done around the ness accreditation you know and then explain what that is huge movement in town right now about strengthening the el serve esl services um and then that this budget supports
064additional psyop and esl teachers um you're concerned that students aren't engaged alternative programs that engage students and then we can put down exactly what those pieces are in the budget to say we've addressed your concerns and then i i totally agree with kevin is bringing in some of these kids i think you know if we can get them to do some of this marketing that we need done um and then target i i think we can't leave out our elderly population our older population in town and get on some of these shows on channel 23 that they offer um that are um need some some more education about what this budget is going to do for them and then of course the younger population as well do we want to to take sort of steps
065to say okay what is going to be done in a certain sequence so that at the next meeting you know we can come back for example you know as kevin said uh let's just say to develop the hot button items so as i call hot button where he needs more more time and other people to collaborate um with that being said uh there will be other aspects of of of fixing up the budget to coordinate with um to coordinate with other other individuals to to express their teachers or guidance counselors to express their their points of view people in the in the trenches to express their points of view on the budget if we can come up with a couple of three tasks you know that we can get moving and then at the next
066meeting and i when i say the next meeting we don't have to wait two weeks because times are the essence here so yeah you know to the group is kind of a frequency you know the frequency of which we can meet it may be other meetings maybe 15 minutes or 20 minutes just to polish ups and move their heads but at least we can get something done check off you know what we've accomplished today and meet again and say okay you know we've done this we've done this um you know and give out the assignments to whoever wants to do it and then we report back in a short period of time yeah rich i think that's a very good point because i'm looking at what courtney started posting in the chat which is you
067know a rough sketch of what the the timeline is here you know the mayor's gonna be reviewing the budget through the fifth of march um you know so that's our you know our our when our time is already ticking down um i think you know if if we can leave this meeting with you know a couple action items um you know so that the next meeting that we have which i you know what i'm hoping is that we can kind of meet weekly uh for the time being um i don't expect that that's going to go on forever but for these first few meetings i think we need the consistency of a regular meeting and i think for you know doing it in a you know a weekly timeline is going to help us you
068know cross off the major tasks we need to get accomplished before we're actually starting to push this message out we need to do that quickly and come up with that plan quickly because we need to take advantage of whatever time we have left to do that education work before the budget comes down in april um that said so i think that the two things that we need to think about and and this is what i would ask of the group and and uh i certainly um welcome your feedback about you know whether or not you are in agreement i think it would be great for each one of us to come up with a list of hot button items a minimum of five points that you think are really important to make and if there
069are others absolutely add them to the list but i think it would be good to see what each of us important from their perspective and i think also you know something else to think about are the communities that you are currently connected to um where you might be able to do some outreach work i think would be helpful and and you know certainly for for kevin for you and for um for you anne um you know i know you guys are in touch with a lot of different communities so um you know whatever uh whatever groups you think um you know we we can maybe maybe the better way to put it is if you can come up with your full list and we can figure out you know sort of what our order of
070operations is going to be for approaching each of these different groups obviously kevin speaking to your point earlier you know getting our students engaged in this process early on allows us to spread that message further so you know we can prioritize having an audience with with that group you know earlier so kate we're using kevin and i actually worked on that today coming up with a group with lists of um groups that we can meet with that we already have contacts with that that's a really easy part to do um and and so you know absolutely we can get that done the um other piece is to think about um educating some of the students to be part of that presentation they think that you know who we're going to be the people that are
071really going to be able to carry that that message forward and those of us that are in this school can certainly um recognize some students that will be really really good at that and would you suggest based on that thought um once you select the students that maybe courtney go through and and and make the presentation for the budget to them so we get they're up to speed on everything we had and they could share the same same feelings of the opinions i'm not sure that the students would address the like the the fiscal budget side of it so much but more talk to their experiences about why something like that is important to them and to families and please and and then talk about you know and please you know vote for this budget
072um help us um you know move this budget through the city so that i can keep getting those services yeah like that was wonderful and what your thoughts are about courtney we're losing you i don't know if it's like a civic engagement lesson oh i'm sorry can you hear me better now yeah okay like a civic engagement project so much like those kids who got got out the vote you know i could very briefly help you to just teach them about when the budget happens great you know just that kind of like so that they know like and how you can be there and impact it with a voice so whether you know whatever interests you here's when the budget happens here's how the sausage gets made and here's how it gets presented to the
073public yeah you know we could develop something like that real quick for the kids to get a civic engagement lesson and learn in that way too and those kids that did that get out the vote and they got that reward yeah and into your point dan so i'm a very simple person i got to connect or illustrate my own mind the connection here but would something be where there is a a services that i'm going to put that's where i can that are inadequate in the district to to the kids i'm going to pick on something let's say guidance counselors where if that if that's an issue where the student feels they're not being serviced or something along those lines so that they can to your point they can talk about that and then we
074can cover that is to say okay you know the funding on this is why we need x number of dollars for this for these particular people uh okay i just wanted to figure out my own mind how how things would work out of a control freak as you can hear so i'm sorry um but i have a lot of passion for this i mean it's it it's i get excited about this you know and and uh if i were employed by the border vet i probably get fired because i shoot my mouth off too much but but there's there's a lot of passion i have and i just don't understand why it's so hard i understand the dollars and cents and i'm retired now i'm not making the big salaries i was making before but
075still there's there's a value in education and then when i sit back and i listen to the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on political campaigns you know if you know if there's no end to money and we're struggling for for this it's crazy absolutely crazy it's so frustrating you know it's like the the money is gushing out here and just being wasted in the ocean and where they can make an investment in society you got to protest it just seems to me diametrically opposition uh opposed so but uh i'm just sorry that i i get too emotional and to the older audience i could certainly i know lynn waller you know hates to see me at this time of year because i usually blow her audience when i say we need you know 10
076million dollars and they all say well we're on a fixed income you know what's it do for me i don't have kids in school but you know i i think in that result is we've got to keep badgering that one as and her point she wants to sell her house and the the better the district the more people will be camping to buy our house as opposed to moving out of the district so it it's uh it's a good educational process too as you said to the different parts of the community that will benefit for this and we have to show them how well and i think you know to that point rich i think doing the outreach to different parts of the community whether or not they're going to be a receptive audience is
077still important um you know so that that we're not um you know we're making the effort to include people in the conversation that's that's an important step even if you know we know that there's going to be a certain number of folks who are just you know for whatever personal principles are not going to be supporting it that conversation still needs to be had and and i think it's also about working on the culture the larger cultural conversation about why education public education is important so okay i know there's a i know we're getting close to the end here but i just wanted to offer a little pushback on on how to leverage the students number one and then wanted to get some clarification on your ask also uh in preparation for the next meeting
078so ann and i and part of my pushback is to my colleague ann because ann and i have been in meetings when talking about partnership with community whether that's with parents whether that's with kids etc and i think i was envisioning more the kids are actually part of this process with us right we have kids on the board who are on the board of education typically you know you know and and i i feel like they should be part of this conversation and have full context and then and then they interject and understand where they could be leveraged their voice could be leveraged i i think i'm more comfortable with them telling us where they feel like this is where i feel like i can best support this or you know whatever that might be
079or look like um and so i i just want to offer that for the group consideration um because i i think quite frankly we would benefit from their feedback and as they get more comfortable in these discussions i think we would have a different we might just consider approaching this a little differently than we would would have otherwise i mean i feel like if we're just feeding them then we may not have their you know their perspective if their perspective that's right you have to we have to use their gray matter that's great knowledge too those those you know nice graphics they're much better we could we then bring them in for the first part of the next meeting i would love to have them here we don't know if they want to be with
080us just don't tell them we can extend the invitation certainly we get a mothership yeah i will send you a pizza myself that's right so so kate is it i i know you had asked about kind of giving us some homework for the next meeting but i'm wondering if maybe we can get some some points and courtney and i can get those points prior to the meeting and then maybe we can have something for this group to consider you know and maybe we can have something ready for this team to look at you know based on the feedback from this group and you know we can be a week ahead um so kevin what do you think about um you know we can't obviously we can't do this as an email thread but what if
081um you know each of the committee members here was able to um and i don't know who that wants to be the the point person for this or if there's somebody who's willing to be the point person for this but if if each of the the committee members here could send you know their their list of hot button items um and and the audiences that they are are in contact with already um to that point person and then that could be consolidated into a single document that you could share with the the students we all we all have the like their gmail accounts through the district right so could have google doc work yeah yeah let's make that can that work also for everyone on this call wait wait wait wait wait wait i think
082i just want to be careful on how we share that for for uh board action when google doc i think it's all great but i'm i'm a little worried about that um [Music] it might not be a problem it just hit me wrong um you know the caution's always been not to use kids and that's not what you're doing you're actually having the kids informers but under the word about the google doc um let's think about that the other way to do it is um you know is to send information to the chair who can get it to cara right and it goes right to kevin and then he can get it to the kids right it comes from him not from you where it's back and forth because then you're doing public business i
083just i digress that's all makes sense okay thanks dr sal good to know but if they get at the care of the kevin and then they could get the kids involved and and get exactly what you would like and get them to the meeting uh prepared to kind of give us some ideas he sent it to cara with cc uh king just like she's you know could be in a loop so i think that's a good idea um that'd be great so are you saying you want a point person still like one of us to collect email from everybody or we just go right to cara i think cara is going to cara is going to be the the uh person that the information gets sent to i would like to be cc'd on that
084um you know because i might i might just put my own document together and um you know that's gonna that'll filter through cara to kevin and then he can um you know interact with the students and for some feedback um can we can we set a day for that to happen because i um so first let's let's talk about when we want to meet next i don't know if thursday evenings generally work for this group i don't want to speak on behalf of everyone else though so joe's good who else here i'm good except for next thursday but usually thursday night for me i'm fine i'm saying this and i haven't even looked at my calendar so i probably should do that um so that's the 18th um is there a night that works better
085for you amy next week um you want to move it up to wednesday the wednesday would be okay for me i don't know about everybody else right we have a policy meeting we have a policy meeting at 6. um you know i don't know that it i think these initial meetings are going to run a little bit longer than an hour so i'm reluctant to put on a night when we already have another meeting in effect um what about tuesday the 16th i know i can't yeah i'm ready okay yeah tuesday's bad tuesdays these days no good okay um thursday and i i mean i'll get my list in i mean maybe okay just to go ahead if you're going to keep it on thursdays okay and you know the good thing about it now
086is that we're uh we're posting these uh committee meetings on the youtube channel so you can always uh you know kind of catch up there if you'd like yeah um okay so next thursday at six um i think we should uh you know be prepared to continue this conversation um if everybody could get something to uh cara and cc me on that by let's say um monday is that enough time kevin for you to be able to we'll make it work we could try it sooner i mean we could try you know to if we haven't if we say monday morning we say monday morning to get his cara and that way she can hopefully turn it around to you by uh someday late sometime later that's right it's thursday night okay there is a
087day off but cara doesn't mind work she's off tomorrow right she won't she won't like me anymore we'll do it sunday night oh yeah this is president's day that's right yeah we'll do sunday night sure sunday night yeah i love getting the homework assignments though okay i feel like i feel like i'm in a class right now oh it's good it's good we've got to move it forward and we do we don't have a lot of time here guys i want to be sensitive about that even though the um you know the mayor's gonna be reviewing this through march the reality is like we have some education groundwork that has to take place um you know so i think you know i'm also going to be assigning myself the task of working on like sort
088of a draft of you know what the the budget process is you know from start to finish once it leaves board of ed hands so i'm going to bring that to start the conversation next week um about the information we need to include uh that education needs to start happening sooner much sooner rather than later though it's going to take time for us to disperse this message to the community um and you know with keeping that in mind and keeping in mind that we'd like to get folks to that you know the the public hearings that are going to be happening in april after the initial budget presentation and i i don't think that they've worked out exactly how that's going to happen yet so you know we're going to have to kind of be
089a little bit nimble and flexible about um you know how we are encouraging people to participate they can still send emails um you know to our mayor and our city council as well in advance of the presentation of the budget so that's i just think you know the more that we can build momentum for this the better off we're going to be um all right i think we're winding up here but i'm wondering if anybody has any additional thoughts they want to impart to us before we [Music] make a motion to close this can we just next um thursday night get some dates on the calendar when we'd like to meet with these different folks just because we have focus groups going with the pog i just want to make sure that we're not asking
090the same folks too many times but also you know spring if sports come back families get busy again and if we can get um some ideas of dates that we want to do this work um to meet with the constituents and our stakeholders and that's that would be wonderful okay that's a good quality together my yeah zoom happy hour [Laughter] are we all invited rich yeah next friday night you have to bring your own drinks though sorry all right um with that in mind uh i'll entertain a motion to adjourn