Danbury Board of Education Meeting 2-10-21

001um pretty short ones okay okay good good okay i would like to call our meeting to order as we always do could we stand for the pleasure of allegiance please yes ma'am i pledge allegiance and to the republic for which it stands one nation under under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you before you start could you get rid of the agenda on the screen now it's really it's more annoying than yep thank you i'm sorry i didn't hear what you said oh that's okay thank you okay okay uh roll call cake uh joseph britton present rachel chaleski kate canetta here gladys cooper yeah lauren daley here joe da silva president catherine hodgston is absent this evening uh rich genelli yeah kathy molinaro yeah al russo president amy spolino here all right that's ten

002president one absolutely right we have ten ten that's present and one absent uh doctor said that we have any recognitions uh not at this time man okay okay uh kate will you do the public participation statement that we read at our meetings every meeting certainly uh 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 danbury public school system due to the unique nature of the covit 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

003in advance to dps underscore public comment underscore boe at danbury.k12.ct.us thank you okay sam will go into the comments sure uh first comment is from patty alessandro i am ready to ask the board to give families with special needs students who were granted the schedule of four-day in-person learning in october a timeline for when the schedule will begin now that students have returned to their school buildings while the special education teachers and para educators have been working incredibly hard since september with their students distance learning can be especially challenging for this population navigating google meets and receiving necessary services online can initiate frustration and be an ineffective way to measure and meet the required objectives stated on a student's iep while mainstream academic students may have found other forms of socializing safely during this time

004for many special needs students being in school with peers is the only form of social development allowing special needs students to begin in person on a hybrid schedule after thanksgiving was the beginning of making up the fragmented in-person special education services law since march many surrounding districts with the hybrid learning model see the importance of four-day in-person schedule for their special needs population and i hope the board can quickly work with the school administrators to do the same for danbury special needs students as well next comment is from oswaldo chen first i would like to thank you for your service and for all the hard work you put in by making sure that our children's needs are met second i write in support of the new school budget proposal however in considering that for many

005years our beloved public schools are being defunded i wish you would have proposed a higher amount third you as elected officials must do everything in your power to protect your public school system our public school system is the jewel of our democracy i am committed to support and protect our public schools and i strongly oppose charter school funding in the connecticut budget and miss cooper i am just refreshing to make sure there are no comments and we are all set for the night okay and if somehow um someone comes in a little late uh saying and we'll go back and we if we look at the time okay okay thank you so very much sandy you're right next on the agenda is uh the consent calendar amy would you do the consent calendar please amy

006i'm sorry you're on mute amy can you hear us yes i'm sorry yes i i i'm sorry all right i moved that the board of education approved the item on the consent calendar exhibit 21-14 through 21-17 as recommended motion made by amy did i get a second second and seconded by jody silver any questions on the consent counter 10 cnn uh kate could you take uh roll call please joe britton aye rachel chaleski aye kate canetta aye gladys cooper aye lauren daly aye joe da silva aye rich gianelli hi kathy molinero hi al russo hi amy spelino hi so we have uh 10 in favor of the consent calendar and we still have one person asking so the motion is so careful thank you all uh next uh item seven educational staff representative reports n.a.a.a

007danbury uh christie's a leader dr zolita is not unable to make it tonight okay wanna she sends her apologies okay thank you okay and so we don't have anyone here from nea either i don't see aaron on the call okay good good because i can't see everybody's on the screen okay so we moved down to our student trip anyone from dhs [Music] anyone from ace yes okay good evening bourget members cabinet and community members thank you for allowing me to represent and speak on behalf of the alternative center for excellence as we approach march the ace staff led by kyle truccola as our s.a.t administer administrator prepare to march prepare for the march 24th sat day ace would like to thank kyle for all his efforts in organizing what will be a successful day for

008our 20 11th graders who will be testing i'd like to announce that the a showcase website which highlights students writings paintings and all things creative has been created and is being managed by joanne poles joanne and her poetry students are already planning our annual spring coffee house which will be a venue for students and staffs to read original pieces of poetry display artwork and host musical performances we would like our creativity to be on full display on our tentative center for excellence youtube channel ace would like to publicly acknowledge and congratulate our january students of the month chris pius and brianna villani both students are 9th graders they that are new to the ace family this year and have excelled and engaged consistently throughout the first semester lastly ace would like to congratulate our most

009recent student of the week award winners laura medina medina and xander wickson congratulations to both of you and keep up the great work during the rest of semester two thank you all for allowing me to share the great things happening with my our aria's family stay safe everyone and remain strong thank you christopher okay do we have any of our other students i want to go back i don't want to miss anyone no one here from dhs okay so we move down to action item nine uh mr britton would you like to make that motion sure thank you madam chair um i move that the board of education authorizes the chairperson of the board of education and the superintendent of schools to approve the final plans contract specifications and cost estimates for the ellsworth avenue

010school addition project and the associated board of education space zero three four one five one b e and sign the scg042 forms for submission to the state of connecticut for approvals promotion made by joe did i hear a second second okay rachel uh are there any questions any discussions do we have our architect group that here would like to say anything at this time are there any questions to anyone concerning this act tonight from board members cnn uh kate do the roll call please joe britton aye rachel celestia aye kate canetta aye gladys cooper aye lauren daly aye joe da silva aye rich gianelli i'm going to abstain only because i didn't get a chance to go through the information i was working with the budget so i apologize thanks mr chinelli uh kathy molinaro

011hi al russo i also abstain because of the budget and amy spoonino hi okay that's eight eyes two extensions one absent yeah yeah so the motion is so carried with the two of center okay and one abs okay thank you for attending i'm sorry i was just thanking the city folks and architects for attending for being okay i was just getting ready to say that and thank uh the sites and facility committee uh for putting their meetings together and bringing the information and having their workshop on i think was last week and if i make the wrong data because we've been having a lot of meetings and you know sometimes we forget but thank everyone for the input and to help making this move forward thank you so very much next on the agenda is

012action item b uh okay uh i will make a motion at the board of education adopt the superintendent's fiscal year 2021-2022 budget as presented for submission to the mayor is required by city charter and for the motion to reflect the budget was presented on 210 21 to the board in the amount of 149 million 10 641 which represents an increase to the current fiscal year 2020 to 21 adopted budget of nine point eight two percent or thirteen million three hundred and twenty four thousand six hundred fifty one dollars second second by mr uh december any question concerning the motion concerns a question concerning the budget that we'd like to talk about right now um last night as a result of the finance committee we had voted unanimously unanimously as a result of the workshop to

013recommend to the full board to accept the uh the budget as as indicated here version of this budget today at 5 40 p.m yes yes i was just getting ready to say that okay i i have some things to say as well i do too okay can we ask our question who who was first go ahead amy well i just wanted to say that i really appreciated the powerpoint presentation that we saw last night and the explanations that we heard about each category however i do wish that we had more time to discuss what we will actually be able to include um once we take our budget to the city and we have the final number that they'll be giving us you know i just i i don't this is the fourth year i've been

014doing this and it just feels very rushed i don't quite why it's like this i know we've had an unprecedented year um at with the schools and yet um i just feel that it's it's it's a rush and that then once it goes to the city and we possibly every time i've been here so far we don't get everything and i think that's pretty typical across the state across the nation but then what will we do and how will we with all the we heard last night all the needs you know what we really be able to afford then you want to aggress that dr sal well um i think it is the nature of what we are doing and in terms of uh the information and normally after the board gives us the okay

015then we produce the booklet that will everybody gets and goes to the city hall so that that you will be getting between now and when mr cavo decides the recommendation of the budget to the town then we'll have an idea of what it is that we're going to spend i mean that's always the you know the the catch in this thing last year we were able to um you know we knew earlier because there wasn't a vote so we were told basically what we're going to get and then we we braided it i guess we'll do the same thing this year one we talked about this today as the cabinet because as you know we have the grant and if you look at the grant i sent you the governor's notes today he divided danbury

016over two years on our 10 million dollars somehow included it in the ecs i don't know what that means but we'll have to look forward you know as you just said when whatever we wind up getting then you know how do we get the things we talked about last night that's the creativity of trying to use the alliance grant which by the way in the governor's message looks like we're going to get as much as last year at least my first reaction got to study it some more um so that's what we'll do and then we can come sure back to the board and talk about what we can do um the big thing is that's a plan thing amy that we um that we're able to balance things last year the money we had

017wasn't all um the same it was it was leftover money so we could use differently so it's going to be a challenge and we'll get back and let you know what it is that um about getting it late i i do thank you dr apologize yeah and self i could just add also that um the budget that you had in hand about ten days ago from our first workshop um changed and just minor items i know that you only got the final um today but the presentation last night is matching all the detail back up that you got today and the detail back up that you had about two weeks ago we continued to meet and so the things that changed were relatively minor but i'm happy to tell you what they are verbally now

018as well so you felt comfortable it was the removal of three features from the elementary proposal it was consolidating a category for the curriculum and programming support with humanity so the dollars didn't change there but the two categories got collapsed and we added ten thousand dollars for and uh uh uh it's called the interventionist um um we in the one last thing we reduced the bus request and so all of that's reflected in the current package um those were the things that happened over the last two weeks says cabinet kind of refined the budget proposal um and and i repeated that i apologize for the short time frame this year so amy just if any of the board have follow-up questions just call courtney and we'll just sit down and talk about it yeah okay

019well i think then so just feel comfortable to do that and then yeah and we also look forward to this next series of sessions like last year because we know that we're going to be braiding and so a lot of the conversation we've had with the finance committee and also just moving forward is three things you know how do we present the budget to the public and engage the public and super assistant superintendent kevin walston is engaged with the community um outreach as is kate and then anyone else we encourage and that we're also really going to be mindful of building that branded funding so dr kasmir has led a few sessions now that we're getting ideas about that 10.1 million cares funding package as well as talking about once the governor's budget gets more

020firmed up how we're going to handle that additional alliance increment and lobby the city simultaneously so there's a lot of work ahead of us to continue to refine like what this really means and that's the good work that you know we're going to count on the board to be part of and and be timely with and we'll have all this information already at hand that we've started um the care spending is a little quick it's going to be a deadline of our initial submission of february 22nd so we do have some work to do between now and then and you know we're glad to have your support in that in that work thank you courtney thank you amy may i speak no i was just getting ready to call you oh thanks um no i

021just want to kind of echo amy's concerns i have this i had the same frustration that i expressed that you know at our workshop um you know when we first got the budget just last week it changed to our to the following workshop um the numbers change but also just the format so there's really it's it's difficult to see it's just difficult to compare um and um and the braiding of the funds you know i understand you know that's that has to be done but again as i mentioned um at our workshop it doesn't seem sustainable um you know it kind of puts us further into the hole i mean you know dr sally you've been very clear in communicating that the additional federal funding funding is not to be used just to plant operations

022but we're braiding it into the operations budget um and i understand there are a lot of moving parts and um you know this was an unprecedented year are we all sick of that that word i think unprecedented um but um i don't feel you know as a board member i don't feel part of the team that kind of helped to develop this um it was you know it's presented to us in in a very nicely done um but i would just like to request more transparency and collaboration you know with the board as a parent of course i want all of these things for our kids and as a board member i want all of these things for our kids um but this is also a tough year um our community is struggling through a

023pandemic and this is a huge ask and um so those are my concerns i'm not i don't know that i'm comfortable approving something without having the binder before you know we're asked to ask to approve it thank you i will support rachel uh you know and i know courtney opened up her office or her telephone you know because we're not going into people's office right now that the concerns that you raised last night and if there's other concerns you know uh about this budget that you you raised tonight uh maybe a different type of conversation uh with courtney and and uh mr genelli and mr uh russo or whoever you feel comfortable with can answer some of those questions that you know uh we're having and um uh we this has been a sort of

024a different year but i've also been on the board to know that at certain points at times that we have received the binary down at city hall so you know uh things just don't work out sometime on time the way we would like to do but i encourage you that if you you know continue to have questions uh talk to courtney because i know i apologize um miss cooper and and rachel i i was under the impression that the binder is produced after the board votes because that's when the budget becomes the budget to present to the city um and so i do intend to everything's ready to go once we get the vote on the from the board so i would be able to produce that before it goes to the city the deadline

025to the city is the first business day after valentine's day so you know if it would make a difference i can certainly have it to you this week but we typically don't put that book together until um from my understanding until after the board votes because then we have the final budget to prepare not understanding that okay so my question might my comment was i have been in city hall when the board the budget book was handed that's why we were sitting at city hall so that was my only comment so if there's no other question anyone else have any questions i'm sorry rachel are you done go i don't want to step on you again to your comment go ahead no it's fine i just um i think that was lauren but oh sorry

026we've been in previous years we've we've been given i thought we had given the we were given the binder beforehand i i maybe i'm mistaken but i just you know if we're not given the detail how are we supposed to vote on on something but normally normally the budget there's pages in the budget book that can be done and then until like we moved things around sometimes we'd get tonight's meeting and the board would say if you need more x here or that and then they would manipulate put redo the budget put those pages in the budget book and try to get it out i think maybe we start the finance committee a little earlier next year when we know that so people you really want to talk about it because when you say what

027goes in the budget so much of it is um you know just moving forward we know what they are particularly when we have contracts that we've already negotiated it becomes those other items uh rachel that uh people begin to figure out what do we need to move ahead and that's after the after that the move-ahead budget but if we have this finance i get asked earlier then we could start talking about this is what we're thinking about why and that that'll show up in a budget book down the road the pages that i shared ahead of time where the details there is detail as they come these are the ones that i gave you last friday um it breaks it down to the object level the account level but if there's something more specific you

028know that you'd like to see in future like before we produce the book then i'm more than happy to produce it this is what i had sent um over last week um but this is at the account level detail um which you know breaks it down by title and type and everything and it gives you the history going back to i think 2016 fiscal 2016. um yeah okay thank you i think and i i'm sorry lauren to you're good yeah nope yep thank you lauren did you have fun yeah i just had a question so after the city tells us um what they will give us for the budget um and then it's decided how it's broken down does the board see that again like what's taken out or do they vote on what's taken

029out how does that work what generally happens uh we the city will say x and then it goes to its subcommittee of the city right and then they um either adjust or they generally just accept it or you know if they make an adjustment it goes back to the mayor's and then he makes a recommendation after that uh we start putting together what we can and cannot do now we can come back and share that with the board about what's possible um sometimes you know um it becomes necessary to make drastic drastic cuts like that when you only had zeros that was uh that was a whole different ordeal you know um but we would come back and say this is what we've been able to do okay rachel just said how are you going

030to do both when you can supplant well you're going to have to know that we're going to have to figure out what isn't supplanting in the budget and then what what can we get so we can come back and let the board know these are the things that we're doing and then there's some feedback that'll be helpful we'll figure it out because the the bottom line would have been set already you know what i mean from the city we could just move it through yeah we could just move around you know and then what happens also lauren we open up and we all of a sudden get a number of uh students that we didn't anticipate and we had three or four teachers so we got to figure out the budget right you're going to

031buy so that you know we could pay for that right now i get that no thank you thank you and just that and learning between now and then is um an opportunity to speak with council or with us because there was once they received the budget for the months that they put together their package and there's an opportunity to lobby for you know what what you're interested in speak to community members about what we what we're interested in putting forth and and it's a little bit unique this year in that normally there would be public hearings and they're still deciding if how that that'll be conducted last year it wasn't conducted at all because an executive order allowed them to just adopt the budget they they chose but we're hoping that this year at least

032even at virtual they'll be able to be public participation and we can give our comments okay thank you madam sure yes oh thank you man i'm sure um first of all a big thank you to rich and courtney for putting this document together this is a lot of work um courtney especially for the magic that's involved in trying to figure out how to allocate the limited resources we have um sadly i expect will be needed and we will need to braid funding again going forward this year um i agree with rachel this is a big ask in this budget for sure just like it was a big ask last year a significant part of the reason why it's a big ask is because over the last decade and courtney thank you very much for putting

033this document this slide into the presentation last night over the last decade um the board received or our schools received a 15 in the aggregate budget increase in a decade that's why it's a big ask this year it's a big ask this year because in 2011 the board got less than a one percent increase in 2012 it got a less than one percent increase in 2013 and 14 it got two less than three in 2015 1617 it got less than two percent increases we did get a three percent increase in 18 and let in a 0.06 percent increase in 2019-20 and last year we got 1.2 million the rest of the increase in money was money that we had that we saved and money that was grant money we were allowed to roll over and

034carry that money it wasn't budget money for our budget the reason why it's a big ask this year and the reason why it is so hard to fund all of this stuff is because frankly we haven't had the budgets we've needed for the last decade we were playing catch-up this budget is a big ask i agree unfortunately it's probably not even a big enough ask to do what we need to do it's just as realistically it's as big as it could realistically be um thank you courtney thank you dr self for putting this together i agree it's a big ask we wouldn't need to be a bit it wouldn't need to be as big as if if we had kept up for the last decade unfortunately now we are stuck playing catch-up at the worst

035possible time but unfortunately we don't have a choice we have to catch up that's why i'm supporting this budget thank you jeff adam chair i'd like to respond to that yes mr wilson um the numbers i have in front of me uh we're talking that 15 million was going to talk about it over a two mil increase in our tax 15 i think we've acted responsibly in the past and and the 148 or 50 million oh yeah okay double our taxes there you go thank you i think we've acted responsibly in the past we will act responsibly in the future we just can't have everything we want so i this is we've been practical it's work and we we have continued to move ahead thank you thank you any other comments i have one yes

036cathy i i understand al i understand your point and it's going to be tough to ask for this and get all of it because people will say my taxes will rise but it's our job as board of education members to advocate for the kids and that's what we need to tell people is this is what we need to raise your house values to make sure that danbury public schools stay ahead of the curve to make sure that we are educating our kids to the fullest extent to make sure that we are following all of the guidelines set down to us from the federal government and the state government that are unfunded mandates but still we have to put them in place so yes i do agree with you i don't want my taxes raised any

037either it's raised to advocate for kids thank you kevin i appreciate what you're saying i i do understand and i do understand that we are advocating for our children i just well i just think we can't take that side of the argument we have to stay on the side of the kids being said that i will go in favor of pushing this budget forward [Laughter] mrs cooper all right yes mr daniella i raise you okay thank you i'd like to ask dr casmara to repeat her statement that she made last night because i thought it hit the nail on the head relative to the need for us for the funding and the building of the foundation and if we don't continue to get as we as we ask for um the issues that it's going

038to present in the future i mean here's the person who's involved in the trenches understands the curriculum and can basically tell you what the the impact is on our staff and what they're trying to do with very limited resources in the past and as we continue that then what are the consequences going to be relative to what we're looking to do ahead so cara if you would just again reiterate the points that you made last night which i thought were very very strong and good about the lack of funding in the past sure um you know and and thank you joe for kind of outlining the the last couple of years and you know it it's no secret we haven't been funded to the to the level that we've needed to be funded um but

039we have very creative and innovative people who have been working with the best that we can put forth for the kids um one of the main concerns you know i think about we had this little conversation about the technology before we got started about flip phones and and jest but it took a pandemic to get computers into the hands of all of our students uh this year and and that's that shouldn't be the case so um the silver lining in the pandemic was that we brought technology into our district for the first time um at a level that our students deserve and that our teachers deserve and we're still working on it we have a lot of pockets and things to work on but it took a pandemic to get there um and these outside

040funds that came in in a one-time fashion to sustain that um approach um we're gonna need continual funding okay uh google chromebooks have a a life span of you know three to four years max um two to three optimum um going to need to sustain you know some of the infrastructure technology that we finally have been able to get moving forward we have visions in danbury to build an academy model to provide opportunities to our students we're going to be opening up a site a location over at the summit that's going to hold between either 1200 and 1300 students we're going to need to outfit that with staff members and equipment and and things moving uh forward to provide for the resources that we that we need to give our kids if we don't start

041to dig out of the hole to make incremental growth towards the budget um this year i'm not sure how we're going to open and sustain that new that new satellite location um we have to be able to fund the programs that we're trying to get off the ground now and that we've been doing in the last couple of years in order to be able to you know even think about opening up a state-of-the-art building and keeping it keeping it running so um you know i'm worried about that cliff i'm worried about when that when the building opens that if we don't start adding and keeping up with the ftes that we need now with the current uh budget and the current enrollment that we have now remember we're planning for um this growth that's coming

042upward uh that that's meeting us at the middle school and and and will be steady on through the high school and so we need to start continually moving up like a staircase in our budget when that building opens i you know i'm very nervous about that the one thing we don't want to do is open up a brand new building and not be able to fund it or staff it appropriately so um we need the resources um we've in the last couple of years with some of the braiding and the work we've been able to get materials that we have not had in the past in a in a efficient manner so um by having some of the materials that we've been able to put in like such as the phonics program and a few

043others we're guaranteed some of the programming that students are getting um and that was a little bit difficult in the past to um to guarantee so we're on the right upswing we've got a great crew in place and we've got a lot of people who are motivated to make change but we have to be able to support our budgets and um we have to be able to to make that opening for that new building and to be able to position our students and our and our staff well for that yeah cara let me just add to that and the board knows you know the perfect storm you've got the growth you've got the new building and you have new graduation requirements which are 25 which is really exciting we mentioned this a few years ago

044it's with let's say it's his current sophomore class correct as when they entered as freshmen so we're adding every year you know i think the number i heard was between the growth at the academy and this you're talking maybe 24 ft's thereabouts to get it done uh that we have to phase in them and i don't want to leave this without thanking the teachers because i go around the district and i know teachers bring a lot to the table they go out and spend their own money and and i see parents donating i just want to take this opportunity thank you to teachers and the parents for helping us out uh it is needed now with that said al never i heard what you talked about but i think my job is to put in

045front of you what i think to move us forward and that's what i have here this is something that will move us forward and it will help build for the next few years so that we can hopefully be prepared to open the matrix now can i just make one more comment about that i just want to mention the niask report you know some of the things that were cited in the nes reports just you know have been having more counselors and um curricular development in some of the special areas a lot of the things that were cited are direct result of things that we have been unable to get over the years that have built up um and that were cited in that report and so um we need to you know rectify those components

046and we need to continue to support our programs and address the enrollment that is this keeps coming down on the way thank you courtney dr sale i i appreciate your point and i'm glad i provoked an honest discussion uh i i guess what what i really have in my mind is we need uh to do a better job of selling this and ex to the public to get public support to move our our leaders towards a direction and that takes marketing and and which is beyond my capability of doing alone i could talk to a few people there are 33 people on board here on this that is the zoo meeting tonight but yeah it needs to be sold and and people need to buy and buy in on it and i don't know how

047to do that alone i can talk i can i can raise a few feathers i can raise a little bit of exposure but we need to garner total community support that everybody is on board not everybody but the majority is on or on board with the movement that that we want to accomplish and uh you're right difficult year i understand thank you for your comments thank you very much you're closing me down gladys no okay no i didn't close your thing i want to thank you for those comments very well may i just say i wanted to thank um everyone i wanted to thank amy and rachel and elle and joe for all of your comments because it's it's i'm i'm really glad to hear i also just wanted to remind us that and thank

048um that you know kate worked really hard with us on this and rich and the finance committee and al and i want to thank all of you for all of your dedication to getting everything ready in the way that would be presented to the board appropriately and also i just i also want to thank cabinet because although you know you're seeing the um presentations you know last week and this week uh there's been a series of sessions that went into it i think it's once again a very very thoughtful budget i think even though it's a big ask i would advocate that it is still a prudent budget because you know our ask was even bigger until we thought realistically about you know what's really needed for next year and so i hope that that's

049reflected in what you see in front of you it was a lot of work and i wanted to thank all the cabinet members because we met many many times to hone in on what we think is appropriate in anticipation of looking out at that multi-year budget and our future graduate and doctor south vision for for danbury schools and kevin's vision and and so i just wanted to thank everybody so thank you are there any other questions concerning uh the budget cnn uh kate would you do the roll call uh sir joe britton aye rachel chaleski jane uh kate caneva aye gladys cooper hi lauren daley hi joe da silva joe sorry you're on mute i think um rich janelli hi kathy molinaro hi al russo hi amy spolino hi so 9i uh one extension nine

050eyes and we have one extension so the motion is so carried uh thank you all thank you for the questions thank courtney thank the um uh finance committee and um mr genelli and all those members in the committee uh for working so hard to put this together thank you so much uh we move on down to presentation yes you know sometimes you look for the teachable moment the teacher in the other night the question came up about recruitment i thought what an opportunity here and uh i happen to be talking to rod cody oh and we have we've got some things i'd like to share with the board because i think um you'll be happy um to hear about the workings that we're doing wescon and i call it the grow our own program rob

051are you here yes yes i'm ready to share so is everybody ready here don't you have a spouse that works for us somewhere yep she's doing her um corrections upstairs being a teacher these days is a 24-hour job so um by the way i will say it's a tough fact to follow after the budget you put me in a tough spot here everybody's got you know numbers crunching through their head right now and uh you know like any good teacher i'm going to ask for everybody's undivided attention if you don't mind so let me um bring up my powerpoint real quick here we go is that up yeah go ahead rob can i get it yes are we good okay excellent so uh on behalf of western connecticut state university and the pre-collegiate and access

052programs uh i want to thank you for this opportunity to come before the board talk to you a little bit about the partnerships that we've had with the school district for for over 20 years now um and so um what i'm going to do tonight is go over our department and the programs that we have within our department and then uh i also have dr o'callaghan and professor huertas here that teaches our our pipeline program and they can talk a little bit about our teaching pipeline as uh sal was mentioned about uh grow our own so um first slide here we go so um we've really grown our own here you know at western connecticut so we have our excel program that services uh rising seventh and eighth graders uh we are looking to expand

053that program currently we're serving uh 30 37 students we want to take that to 75 so that we can service 25 in each one of the middle schools we did expand that quite a few years ago with the west side middle school which was a good thing um and that again that service is uh rising seventh and eighth graders we also have our upper bound program for our uh ninth through 12th graders that is a grant provided by the u.s department of education in d.c that services students that are first generation or low-income students with a small percentage of academically at risk students and then um what we've done with that program is we've sort of branched out and opened up our minority bilingual teaching pipeline um this is for you know our grow our

054own which we're going to talk a little bit about here we are in our seventh cohort i'm happy to say last year one of our graduates that went through our dual enrollment program at the high school uh then got their degree at western connecticut for education is now working in the danbury school system and i'm proud that that worked and we're looking at having two to three more graduates this year of that program graduates of college with the education degree and then our newest program which is uh in its third year as our computer science pipeline um we have roughly 15 to 20 students in that program um uh that that program similar to the teaching pipeline where students uh treat it as a dual enrollment elective credits at the high school and they'll get

055three college credits uh moving over to our college programs we have the educational achievement and access program this is for incoming freshmen for first-year students at westcon um we give them some tools to make sure that they can get through we are taking applications now i work with admissions to see uh students qualify for that um and we're in the process of doing some interviews for that program and then uh our last program is uh past promoting academically successful students this comes from the department of higher ed in hartford this this program uh focuses on um students of color that are on academic probation and getting them off of academic probation and into a major with the right gpa so that they can achieve their academic potential so that sort of rounds out our programs

056um you know at western connecticut for the pre-collegiate access programs i'm gonna go to the next slide now but while i do this i'm going to introduce to you uh dr katie o'callaghan who's uh a professor chairperson for the educational and educational psychology department at western connecticut and professor huertas who teaches the pipeline program for for westcon i'm going to turn it over to them right now thank you rob and a good evening a chairwoman cooper and members of the board and on behalf of the department i especially want to thank dr sal and mr walston for all they have done to support the program for those that may are new to the board this program was the very first of its kind in the state of connecticut so truly innovative and we began in

0572015 and the state liked the program so much that it became the blueprint for all the other programs in the state and the purpose of the program is to grow our own teachers for danbury so we recruit from danbury juniors and seniors who have an interest in teaching and then they come through our danbury fellows program and they receive three credits of university credits which are funded by the pre-collegiate and access program and the department funds the course instructor and they actually get teaching experience in banbury public schools and some of them say to us well you know now that i've had the experience i i don't know if i want to go into teaching but we've planted the seed and they may come back to it many of them are bilingual which is in

058such a desperate need for our schools and as rob alluded we have uh already coming to fruition in that this fall we had our very first completer of the danbury teaching fellows program who is now a third grade teacher at pembroke and this may we'll be graduating even more from this pipeline program so we're very excited to be working with the district to recruit our seventh cohort beginning in uh 2021 and we look forward to working with the district leadership to expand it even further and professor huertas who i'm going to toss the baton to him in a second has really taken our program and exposed our candidates in the teaching fellows program to pedagogy that is so cutting edge and so exciting for us in our program and also for the teaching fellow fellows

059so i'll turn it over to uh professor herreras hector you're muted uh we have jessica and are we all set for that or we're going to move ahead no i keep let me there you go good sorry i forgive me i i i didn't realize i had been unmuted uh so forgive me so good evening uh chair cooper and good evening board of educators uh board members so thank you very much for having me um and to present and to talk about um the teaching pipeline um presently i am an assistant principal at hartford um but uh and i've been in education for my 18th year um but i am to the to the core still a teacher geek and and probably so um teaching uh for me is or being an educator is a

060transformative and a political um act that i do every day every day every year because i was you know i came from my first languages not english it's spanish my mother came from cuba my father came from puerto rico and i was born and raised in miami and i didn't have superheroes as a kid i didn't have you know you know i didn't uh inspire to be you know wonder woman or superman my heroes were my teachers those i wanted to be a teacher's pet i wanted to be around teachers and follow them um because they inspired me they made me feel special they made me feel that i deserved to to acquire knowledge and to create knowledge and to be empowered by that knowledge and to increase my confidence so i can pursue the

061unpursuable right here i am i just turned 50 last month and i'm just you know a year and a half away from earning my doctorate my parents couldn't even have the language to provide that to me but they instilled in me through my parents and my teachers instilled in me that i had the possibility and isn't that what we really do want for our kids to have that that will and that desire and that agency to act upon what they desire and so what i do in this in these two classes is try to provide that kind of context to our students of color to all of our students so that what they thought was impossible becomes now possible what becomes a pipe dream becomes the reality here i am in 2021 i'm an assistant

062principal out of school i have an office and i i can i can help people transform their lives and it becomes uh not only a job it's my vocation it's my vocation i do this for from corazon from my heart and uh and i try to do that for the kids in the pipeline so that they can be that transformative agent for those students too because if i open that door i have to keep that door open so more people can come in because they have to i can't close that door behind me i always must leave that open and i keep those courses available i i have these courses so that that conversation is not only uh had but sustains them so that they can go on further and um in the future so

063um i'm sorry that i got a little bit too um excited about this stuff but this is my love this is this is where this is where hector grows and and uh so thank you very much for listening to me and we have each of you an enjoyable evening thank you for being excited about education and thank you for being excited about working with young people and telling that they can go as far as they want to go thank you very much thank you chair cooper rob you have more sure so you know um what i wanted to do next is introduce to you uh jessica cornell she is our assistant director of of our department um and the programs that i talked about earlier the the actually i'll go back to them the excel

064program the upper bound program the teaching pipeline as well as the computer science pipeline we are in the process of recruiting right now um and increasing some of those numbers in the middle school program as well as in a teaching pipeline as well and i'm going to turn it over to ms cornell to talk to you about our recruiting efforts so that you guys can now be our messengers to get the word out so that we can get as many students uh you know reviewing their applications as possible thank you rob good evening chairperson cooper and members of the board i thank you for the opportunity to address you all so hear me jessica can you hear me yeah we can hear you can you hear me what you did before you did this job

065so i was actually an educator i was teaching at westside middle school um spanish and then rob recruited me so we can help create more teachers so yeah the lob took you away from us is that what i hear yes i just wanted the board to realize and where did you go to school where did you go to high school well i went to denver high school and then i went to wescon for my undergrad and central for my master's and i'm actually in my second year for my doctoral degree so hopefully thank you appreciate it oh yeah thank you so much i really appreciate that and um you know it i this is the reason why we love our programs because i was in the student in the program i came from ecuador at

066the age of 12. parents didn't know english i you know they didn't know english myself and i was in a student at the upper bound program at the high school level and now i have the honor of working and helping other families who maybe are in the same boat who are the first ones to go to college who maybe come from low-income backgrounds and teaching them that you know things are possible that they can make it to the college piece and you they can go to any college that they want not necessarily western so we're currently recruiting for racing seven eighth and ninth graders we have reached out to all the middle school counselors they know about our programs we have a great connection with them we also have reached out to some community programs

067in danbury such as the jericho partnership or you know some of the churches and we're having our first info session on friday from five to six virtually so we would love if you know of anyone in this public schools or if you know or any other organization that maybe can share that information definitely reach out to us check our website and then we do have a facebook and instagram account where we post stories or things that we're doing so really appreciate that and for the minority and teaching minority teaching pipeline computer science we usually start recruiting on april 1st so right now it's only for excel and upper bound and the application will be open onto april first and then for the minority and the computer science will start on april 1st thank you rob

068yes yeah i'm i'm here sal yep here we go all right um i just i i thought we'd take an opportunity for this rob because i i think you know i've been seeing things that you know that we're not recruiting and uh you know i think people need to know there's been a lot of work being done substantive work with our kids growing our own and uh because of europe leadership and jessica and the university with catherine and hector i get it hector okay um it really make a difference to keep our kids and uh we have found when we try to recruit outside of danbury um it's very hard to bring folks here but if we could like that spark hector talked about in danbury you got these kids these youngsters like jessica want

069to stay in danbury and they have immediate connection to the community and to youngsters and families which only breeds more and more success so i i'm just very proud of the program and i wanted the board to an opportunity to hear what it is that we're doing and i'll keep quiet and maybe a few have some questions if it's okay for that okay rob sure sounds good so thank you thank you for that by the way too oh come on one yet thank you kate i don't know if i have a question for you rob but i did sit in on when you guys did a presentation uh not too long ago and i was really impressed with the manner in which the students were speaking about um what was going on in the program

070um you guys are turning out an uh you know incredible um incredible students and i just want to commend all of you on the work you're doing because um i think it's going to make a big difference as we we continue to put our efforts into this thank you yep thank you you know one of the things i want to say i'm most proud about of my staff that that includes everybody you know from our our secretary uh to mrs cornacchia at the high school as our site advisor to mr corrado who's working is we had a seven week summer program during coving you know we we are the typical uh bread and butter of our program is a six week summer component that would start two weeks after you know they're done with high

071school uh and then we would run through the summer and give them the month of august off last year we ran we gave him some time off then we ran a seven seven week summer component that butted up against the academic year um and so we haven't stopped moving we did do the teaching pipeline last summer and in the fall so that continued to move forward um and i think that's what puts us in a good position today um in in april first to recruit some more for that teaching pipeline as well so again i i you know we're all educators i i hired all educators now that i think about it you know jessica you know has a master's in education director has a you know a master's in education i have a master's

072in education so i think that helps us a lot in the job that we and katie of course i'm sorry you know but you you have a master's in education you know and that helps us a lot to get this job done you know because we understand students and we understand teachers understand the counselors and everything that we're going through and i think that really helps us out a lot and i know i have a question to ask um go ahead kathy um when you are recruiting the students they come through um how do you recruit them i mean i'll give you an example rob why don't you talk about what we're going to do next week or in two weeks um i'm doing a lot in two weeks which so there's there's many different

073ways so just will talk about one way i'll talk about it another way you know through the excel program essentially services as a feeder program to the high school component um at the middle school the counselor's advisors we also have teachers uh that that work with us uh at all three of the schools um that help identify students that would qualify for the program and so that that's that's one component the other outreach component um just go ahead we want you to talk about that so for the especially for the minority teach bible and computer science we meet with all the counselors at denver high school we explained the program and then they sent out emails to naviance or they since they hold their junior meetings they know maybe the students and the careers that

074they're looking at so we get names through that as well we also reach out to classes such as like the child development class because maybe they're interested in being teacher the infant toddler class maybe psychology so just to see you know if maybe they know some of the teachers who maybe some of the students who want to go into teaching and i mean before covet 2 we will go in the cafeteria and just have a big sign who wants to earn three college credits because that's the main thing you know they earn three college credits and how is it funded that they earn the credits so it's a partnership yeah it it's definitely a partnership between you know the public schools the wescon as well as our office so i mean is that through grants

075yep yes okay yep okay so the the orig the origination of the the teaching pipeline came from the department of education in hartford it came in through seed money um and i worked with you know uh sal and and bill you know when bill was here to try to try to secure some of that seed money the problem with seed money is is that it tends to dry up right and they expect for the district to absorb the cost um because i do have a federal grant that targets students and they believe in dual enrollment courses because the the data shows if you have dual enrollment course you're more likely to go to college uh in complete college and and that specific grant the goal is for students to go to college and complete a

076four-year degree within a six-year six-year span um so that's one of the things we have to report out on our performance report and things like that so you know that that's how we've done some of the recruiting um if that answers answers your question yes that's fine thank you excellent and and how about this and coming to the board of ed and talking about it and hopefully you guys you know you know spread the word as well so just to end this i think kevin and kim will be doing some interviewing uh of candidates and uh that's how um you know we wind up getting jessica and the rest to advocate and the youngsters that we have in the program have just been terrific just terrific educators and um so you know that that's that's

077how we start populating our uh faculty yeah so so currently we have two two that are coming through that are gonna be applying for for jobs you know specifically with danbury that came through the programs and and are looking forward to that as well um and again those are those are students who are graduating from westcon not not danbury high going into school so you're getting a quicker return on those guys and how many juniors do you have coming in what do you think um i was ready for you i brought my sheet here so um currently it looks like we had we had seven juniors rising so those are right they'll be rising seniors for next year so that's all in our pipeline yes thank you yep but again thank you guys and again

078this is a huge collaboration you know what we all kind of are working in different areas you know dr o'callaghan of course you know she's you know chair and professor of her department i have my department uh professor huertas you know he's print he's being a principal in a whole nother district and and then we're kind of getting it done here so and and obviously the board of ed has helped out as well because we're servicing your students so i really appreciate that so this is a true collaboration that's really working well i just want to recruit more to be honest with you yep thank you on behalf of the board we would like to say thank you for the presentation and thank you for everyone that uh for information on the program thank you

079again for sharing the information with us thank you thank you and good evening thank you thank you uh next on the agenda about the same superintendent's report so you're on mute yes i'm on you thank you um best part of me um you've heard a lot about the portrait of the graduate and things that we're doing i think at some point we'd have a um a larger discussion about it um but for the boards um uh we just had another meeting uh amy you've been there i know you listened in i think you uh you've been witness we we've done a good the group has done a good job of outreaching doing focus groups and talking about you know when you rise and leave this school system in danbury as a as a high school

080student what skills and attitudes should that person have and i'm just really proud of the work that they're doing and the way they're going about doing it and i know dan um kevin talk to um board member and also um talk to gladys about maybe we ought to have a workshop about just so you get the hogan's thought and it'd be great for you to have so uh that that that'll be coming i just wanted to be aware your representative i believe on that is amy amy i don't know if you have any comments you want to make just quickly about it or kevin sure thank you thanks dr sal um i didn't know what i was getting myself into when i signed up for the portrait of a graduate and they have been um

081it was going in one direction when i first started a couple years ago but then they kind of have picked up with another um facilitator who's really taken us i mean she and the team right the team of people have taken us like through i think once a month we're meeting we we've done focus groups we break out into uh small groups on our on our zoom call and you know now we're drilling it down to the five or six um qualities you know that we want uh all of our students to have kevin i see you smiling there uh you've learned a lot over the last couple of months amy what you've learned a lot over the last couple of months it's been great to be a part of it um and it's it's

082got just a lot of different people involved you know teachers administrators community um and so on so and students uh so it's been uh i think we're i i i they serve us dinner which is pretty amazing and um on zoom so that i mean it's available if you want to go get it at mothership but i just like that really everybody's committed basically committed to meeting that once a month and we're we're getting the job done and we're we're about to we're getting there i mean i think by the spring we'll we'll have it yeah so graduate but i would like to do a workshop i think that would be an awesome thing to do for the board go ahead kevin so dr style i do have a um a quick share um with

083the board in the community uh before i do i just wanted to say to professor huertas who um i have not had the opportunity to meet in person yet um but and i think kate will agree um if you want to get an idea of what a portrait of a graduate looks like in danbury public schools when you look at the students that he has worked our students who he has worked with um in that program and you would not think these were high school students you would think they were graduating seniors from college and not potentially graduating seniors from high school so you did an amazing job just wanted to thank you for your encouraging words tonight i think dr o'callaghan has left us for the evening but her vision on this project has

084been amazing rob you and jesse appreciate your partnership and leadership in this effort so i just wanted to thank you both thank you very much sir so here is the share and i and um i mean thanks for that wonderful introduction um i also want to stay because i know it was important and carrick thank you for grabbing me today and you know saying hey let's make sure we're collaborating on this um i wanted to make sure this is like a three or four page slide by the way let me just start there um secondly i wanted to make sure we connected the dots for the board and for the community understanding how this theoretical portrait of the graduate begins to um you know begin to connect to the work to curriculum to experiences for

085kids um and so i want people to begin to understand the connection between the pog the portrait of the graduate and what this means for actual kids experiences um so here's the update and so you might recall you know we had some work initially around our vision and our mission statement so i just wanted to start there quickly um these remain unchanged but it has kind of anchored us in our work with our pog work um and you know just to be clear that the adopted policy the policy that this board adopted around equity and diversity is also apparent and amy will tell you um equity has been mentioned and discussed as part of our pog work and resonates throughout throughout throughout all of these discussions um the portion of the graduate just as a

086you know try to put together or identify a definition for you and it represents danbury's vision and when i say it represents danbury's vision what what we have are we have folks from higher education we have parents we have teachers we have administrators we had students we don't have students at this point but we will re-engage students again we have folks in the business and industry and all of them have helped to inform dan barry's vision for the 21st century skills character traits and or social emotional competencies that students will need to succeed in college career and in life right and so these are the um attributes or categories that amy was referring to that we've landed on thus far and so over the last several months you know we have surveyed our community we

087have met as a coalition uh we have met as big large focus groups and this these are the six categories that we have landed on um for our portrait of the graduate thus far and when i say thus far they might be modifying of this language but these are the six categories that have been uh produced from all of our outreach and that's a communicator collaborator innovator a thinker someone who advocates and a self-reliant learner and when we talk about communicator we're talking about communication can come in many different forms um graduates need to be able to communicate their own thoughts and emotions as well as effectively engage with the thoughts and emotions of others a collaborator graduates need to be able to work well with others to solve problems and create solutions collaborators are

088respectful and open-minded to the ideas and opinions of others an innovator requires problem solving and creativity a thinker associated responses also include flexible thinker adaptive thinker diverse thinker skills include analyzing and evaluating information detecting bias and determining source credibility an advocate the highest form of celebrating cultures and diversity is to protect them advocate for the diversity and difference in others even when it's not aligned with self-interest advocacy is tied to just to to just cult this isn't just tied to just culture but can apply to any type of difference in diversity and last but not least a self-reliant learner is emphasis on the growth of the learner over time and the use of skills to transform life for self and others persistence and reliance are key and as you can see a lot of thought

089has been put into this language thus far we will continue to massage this language as this work continues to develop we have the way it works we have a coalition which is kind of a tight group um in which amy is on we have representatives from our our schools um teachers and and administrators um and so that coalition we we invite a bigger stakeholder group from higher education from industry et cetera and so there's 35 40 people in that big group and we get their feedback to help inform this language let me just walk you through our next steps and so here's kind of a timeline for our portrait of the graduate initially uh we did pause for a while when the pandemic was at its um you know added zenith if you will and

090when we felt and we realized that um the pandemic was not going away and we were going to continue in this remote learning uh platform that it was time to re-engage our community and we did and quite frankly to with i think we've had a lot of success and so from from now until march 1st we will be engaging the community and focus groups to examine the categories and descriptors that i just shared with you uh for march 15th uh the coalition the coalition we will have a big coalition meeting to look at the results of the focus groups to further shape the categories and descriptors um and so we will you know we'll get feedback from what i just showed you on a previous slide um and then the real exciting stuff begins to

091happen we'll bring in a graphic artist and begin to discussion to help visualize what we've developed um we'll set up a second round of focus groups to be held before our april meeting and then in april we will use the results of the focus groups to finalize the categories and outcomes right and so now this begins to slowly begin to look like a poster for the community um and for all of our schools and really begin to become something real that we will be looking to present to you soon and may 4th um that will be our final coalition meeting to approve our portrait of the graduate and then talk about next steps and in our next steps we would like to we are proposing um a board workshop for may 12th um that is

092currently an evening for a border bed meeting and we're proposing a workshop prior to the board of ed meeting um we'll you know our coalition members will be part of a presentation to the board in the community um and then we are asking at the subsequent board event meeting um that the board consider um endorsing um the proposed uh pog um between may 12th and june 1st we'll be finalizing action plans and action plan side slows slideshows excuse me and then we'll need to submit all of the materials to the bar foundation who is um who has who has funded this effort um that we applied for i think gosh i think it's been almost two years now and and i wanted to make sure again connecting the dots to curriculum and experiences for kids

093um it was important um that carrie and i you know made sure we were connected on his presentation so i'll hand it off to karen now kevin um so just to kind of as kevin said to connect the dots a little bit um running concurrent to the work on the portrait of the graduate um are this flows in to be in my report i just want them to know it go ahead yes okay um running concurrent to the porch of the graduate um has been work on fleshing out the broader ideas behind the academy model that we've been talking about um and so you know as we move ahead um you know you'll start we will start to have more formalized meetings with broader uh stakeholders around the academy model we did do some exercises

094with the board as you remember um to kind of dig into what that looks like with that um what that model looks like i'm kind of absent of talking about the building specifically but as far as the academy model design planning is going just to give you an update we're currently as you know in collaboration with the state of connecticut as a pilot school working with representatives from the national career and academy coalition um connie magic has been uh she's the director of their professional learning and she has been guiding our work our partnership with them will span over the next year or two um and and we were on a sort of the uh standard timeline if you will for learning about um the development of these academies and how to best position danbury

095for them um as you know the the building and the timeline has kind of exacerbated our need to further our understanding in a way that's a little bit more concentrated we reached back out to connie and said you know is there any way that we can meet sooner and more often than with some of the other pilot districts in the plan that we have had in place and uh she she agreed and she went back and came back with that to us and said hey um i have a partner you know uh would you be interested in working with jay steele and and we might be able to do some uh accelerated collaborations and so the name kind of rang a bell for a moment like j steele and uh turns out j steele he's

096actually the national career academy coalition president but he's also the mastermind architect behind the academies of nashville uh which is a nationally recognized white house recognized [Music] national model and transformation for education at the high school level um so we are extremely lucky and excited to engage with them we have planning sessions uh tomorrow um so there's a small group of us that will be working the collaborative effort between uh debris high school leadership team uh with dan donovan dr martens myself a few others cabinet members dr sal um kelly truchas and some additional assistants and curriculum administrators to get together to work um all day with jay and connie [Music] in a very intense way in the next couple of days so we're very excited about that opportunity um and so we're looking forward

097to kind of continuing updating you on that um once we get to this place and how this ties in with fortune of the graduate is that everything we do in the portrait of the graduate with the academy model design will be intertwined so the the attributes that kevin mentioned before so we want our folks to be good communicators collaborators innovators thinkers um self-reliant thank you i was wondering if i was going to pull it off kevin because they've changed a few times that how do we create opportunities and conditions through this academy model and and k-12 pre-k to 12 for our students to um to shape our students so that that is the outcome um and so that's going to be very exciting work and it has uh curricular uh implications so when this work

098um merges and comes together and that's that is the goal um we will be looking at all of our lenses and in our curriculum programming and the opportunities that we provide kids uh through those categories through those opportunities um we had uh i was happy to be in amy amy's group in the last uh portrait of the graduate session and we were kind of wrestling with language and thinking around this idea of of what it means to be an innovator um and we talked a lot about the conditions for learning that we we design for students to give them practice with this to give them a framework for design and innovation and amy said carrot do we have that in the curriculum now and it was a moment where we we paused and i paused

099specifically and i'm like no but we have to build it in right so there are pockets of this in our district we have um some wonderful examples of where we encourage innovation and design and we provide this space and time to do this level of thinking um but to do this work well we need to be intentional and we need to build a scaffold across our k-12 continuum to grow out skills in these areas same with collaboration same with communication um same with uh you know being a thinker and critical thinking so where do we provide those opportunities that's very exciting work it's very deep work it's work that needs to be resourced well when we redesign courses so circling back to the budget we would like to be able to um you know rely

100on a continual source and resource to to grow the work over the continuum and as we work through uh this transformation and redesign effort as a result you know as we plan in the next years ahead we'll look to align all of our budget strategically to sustain that vision and to continue to further this the model that we have now embraced and i think that's it for me and we'll give you some updates on some of the meetings with uh our national career academy coalition partners in the next couple of months thank you guys um for the board for the board um you know i think um now you mentioned something you know about the budget and what we do is one of things i've said to the board years back when we don't get

101what we ask for is that your challenge is not to do what you need to do with the budget but how does this district move ahead with the resources it has that has been the thing that keeps me up at night and um when you don't do it in on financial resources you do it on the backs of people like cara and kevin and kim and kelly and my folks that were in at the high school with melissa and it's on their backs and then and dr mead who's on here searching out as you heard grants so we get grants so so that's been what we have been able to do is when we don't get it it's not about which would have been real easy throwing the towel the people don't throw in the

102towel not in danbury that's what's impressed me so much they get this passion they get lit like hector and they go and you know be damned about the resources they figure it out and that is so important that's how we've got ahead you didn't get those schools of distinction the blue ribbon schools and the rest on just that you got on hard work by the teachers the administrators and everybody putting it together this project should be the venue for development of a budget this should drive categories of the budget on how it's being developed over time once the board says this is what we expect our graduates to do and it would be incumbent on us to figure out these segments of the budget how are we supporting the budget it just becomes more realistic

103and a talkable budget that is one of the things i see us being able to do once we put this together and then the next step is to look at a rising eighth grader and looking at a rising fifth grader this is not just about the high school this happens down in the elementary into the middle and then into high school it's a real k-12 a pre-k-12 operation so um you should be really excited i'm really excited it really will drive the work here in danbury for years to come and the summit is just another place and that's what it is but it's what's going to go on inside based on this work so thank you all for doing it and i just wanted to share that with you tonight and you could see the

104workshops will be coming up the other thing i have on the agenda is opening school you know we've opened i've been kind of saddened on monday and tuesday it seems the pattern of closing school happens every seven days and those kids got hit with it and it's been too bad we have opened um the middle school now has been moving about they started that this week after two weeks of kind of figuring out this is what school is like this is these are the rules it's how we move around um this is how we do social distancing this is how we act when we're grabbing and going and on the bus so we're moving about um so that's going well yes we're being challenged kids and teachers are being quarantined and that's on our website

105and and that'll be the way we do business the good news is i am seeing the um the infection rate at four weeks ago i think i mentioned last night it was like 172 100 000. and you know with with a lot of hanks and people upset with us we waited instead of implementing right off after the holidays and what i'm seeing now as of today we're down to 42 per 100 000 that's a substantive change so i'm glad we waited it just gives us that much more of an opportunity to keep our kids in school and minimize the possibility of infection being you know being transmitted we also received information as monday uploading all the 65 and older so everybody in our district teachers staff everyone at 65 is going to be able to

106be vaccinated and that's happening i know voting up right down the road what we don't know yet but we're told will be coming soon whether it be the faculty and the rest other staff members that are under 65 and i'm hoping that happens sooner rather than later so we can move ahead i'm hearing and and um just one of the improvements that cara has been working diligently with is you know how do we engage the um students that are on the hybrid that are at home and she's got some ideas on how we can do engagement how we might be able to um you know involve them much more during the day you all have to remember that when we put together our plan we did it under best practice as of september so we

107learned a lot and i think what we're looking at is through that lens do we have to make other modifications as we go ahead and i think you know we want to look at the things that are successful and practices that we can modify um i'm going to keep quiet and ask kelly because i know that was brought up about you know you've been looking at your kids and uh kara might have a comment to me so i'll start with kara uh any comments about the opening would you like to make um you know we're still obviously you know um in the in the process of gathering feedback um we definitely you know are working with folks to you know implement in a way that is more meaningful to kids and the connections at home

108during the school day so you know how can we best support students during the asynchronous components of their day while also still involving them um to a reasonable degree to some of the to some synchronous experiences in the classroom so we're getting feedback on that um and we're also discussing you know is there a way to use maybe some of the funds that are coming our way to to take things to a level that we we previously were not able to do before so we're still having those conversations we're discussing those things with principles now we're looking at the instructional day and our ability to deliver on our our instructional goals um which is always the you know first and foremost is our ability to deliver our curriculum in this environment uh in the best

109way possible so we're revisiting um a couple of areas and we're still working with um some some principals now and we're working with the coaches and we're working i will be soliciting some back uh feedback from the teachers as well kelly yes thank you kara and sal um so very similar to uh cara the goals across the special education department and related services departments are no different we are looking to maximize instruction to students to make sure that they're making progress towards their individualized programs um as you guys know back in late november we started our re-entry by bringing our special education students our high needs special ed students not all of them um in uh for you know in for um hybrid model and they were our first students that came back it went

110very successfully the students did very well and i have to give a lot of kudos to the staff uh the special education staff are um live streaming while they're teaching kids in person because we are trying to maximize the amount of instruction that those children are receiving every single day regardless of their location that said we certainly do recognize that some of our higher needs special education students do have a need to be in person more and so cathy o'dowd myself and the medical advisors as well as cabinet have been speaking about um you know as we had previously indicated when are we ready to bring in those students four days um it is certainly a goal of mine to do so and to do so sooner than later but we are still having the

111conversations with the health health experts because that is certainly outside my area of expertise to say when is it safe to do so what this would mean is in certain populations it'll be cross-cohorting of kids so you will have a special education student that requires more support in person that will be exposed to both cohort a and cohort b and so we are currently going through all of our different classrooms and environments and looking to make sure that we're making the safest choice first that also supports them educationally um and so more information will certainly be coming on that um we you know some of the things we've talked about is a phase-in um you know do we start with some of our younger students or some of our more intense programming and start them

112back and then slowly build up on that um and we've also engaged in some conversation at a later point about looking at some of our esl newcomer students and and whether or not they could benefit from a very similar model so that's sort of what we're doing and you know we've noticed around where schools are having uh in person for the elementary and um you know we called the l for secondary so we're looking at something like that perhaps um when we have some delays or we have some school um affected whether maybe everybody doesn't have to be impacted the goal here for the board is to try to increase as best we can in school in person learning and that's what that's what that's the goal so i think yeah we're making improvement over

113time and uh but over and over uh it is going well and i just want to ask kim anything you want to update on the vaccine because that has been a question no i i think you summed it up dr salads it we're really in a holding period right now on that um we were really happy actually to be able we put in about a hundred and maybe 160 names in this last 65 and over group which was terrific and we've been getting them you know getting feedback from them people are really seem to be able to get in they're very grateful i'm fielding a lot of questions about what's next and we just don't know the answer so um we just continue to put out as push out as much information as we have

114um and i think you know to be honest i think people are just comforted by by sharing whatever we know um and we're just in a little bit of a holding pattern now in the vaccine so kevin anything you got to come off from you i think carrot and kelly covered it with the opening okay so uh i guess we've got it covered and and that's all i have um sorry you did see the um governor's um i guess speak or his state of the union none of this has passed yet but uh we'll have to go through it but it looks as though our alliance money is okay i think um it looks as though the money from the government the essa ii as i mentioned before is in there but he split it

115over two years even though we could use it all at once if we want um and he also has a choice program in there i see for um endorsement so i will have to go through it but right now that's the way i mean thank you madam chair thank you dr we're gonna move on down the agenda um board chair report uh i don't have anything right now do we have any of our committees we had quite a few of our committee's reports from tonight but do we have any committees that would like to report tonight other than the one that have already reported madam chair would it be possible to ask a question related to the superintendent's report yes yes um two two questions i understand obviously that we're it's a moving target do

116we have any rough idea of how many people total are quarantined at the moment through the system it was 75 two weeks ago if memory serves cathy's on she keeps the website hi good evening um yes i do have some numbers for you um so um i'll just give you the summary first from january that's fine so for the month of january we had uh 159 cases reported we had 220 close contacts identified and 243 were in quarantine and uh for february as of today we have had 33 reported cases uh 44 closed contacts identified and currently we have 44 people on a 10-day quarantine thank you so the quarantines and i will also share with you uh the quarantines that we had out at the end of january beginning of february everyone has returned

117and there has been no uh reported positive cases um so there has been no in-school transmission fantastic thank you that was one and then one quick question for kelly um you mentioned before bringing some kids back in a four day model and that may result in cross-cohorting that's an exposure risk for the kid who's cross cohort for the kid who obviously the student who's obviously involved is that not also then a bridge between the two cohorts yes you are correct it is a bridge between two cohorts and let me provide a little bit more information joe a majority of these students are students that um are in our self-contained programs so most of them are in a you know in a contained classroom where they would be exposed would be out for things like specials

118lunch um so there are minimal exposures outside of that that classroom but there are some and so we are thinking through that um so um ride most of these students ride our specialized transportation or mini buses but again coming in with other groups of students so there is some exposure there so those are the health and safety things that we are very carefully looking at to make sure that we make the best decisions not just for the high needs special ed students that we firmly believe should be in more but also for everybody else um and and it's a very it's a very careful and delicate process sure thank you that's it thank you madam sure thank you are there any other questions we'll move on down um i don't have a question but i

119have some uh committee updates um just wanted to mention that the building committee the city building committee met yesterday courtney was on and i thought we were going to hear from antonio you know before or during our vote today on the ellsworth edition but just to share my notes there were um there are three phases of construction um general construction ffa and playscape phase um they broke down you know the the projected costs of um the school and the administration part of it the grand total would be 11 million uh timeline is to get a final state review on march 2nd hopefully approval early april mid-june um enter into a contract and begin construction and then open for occupancy um in 2022. um i also was on the dhs pto meeting on monday this was

120their second virtual meeting of school year there were about um 37 participants they are working on a beautification project for the campus they purchased signage for the athletics entrance um one on the brick wall and another freestanding sign if you haven't seen them they're awesome they look great um so they're going to continue that and they're also focused on their seniors um in order to keep spirits up and they're also uh very eager to learn what the year-end activities will look like this year so um that's it i also um would like to have a policy committee meeting sometime soon um we have you know just some um basic things to take care of um and uh we have two um sped policies i believe um that need to be updated and then we really

121need to continue our um the policy audit um and get back into a regular routine of meeting monthly to continue that um so i don't know um if now is a good time to kind of work out a schedule um but if we could start meeting soon mr walton i don't know what your schedule is like but um could we meet as soon as next wednesday yes that works for me and the policy committee members does next wednesday work i think they can do that yeah you're thinking like six o'clock like we used to do rachel yeah does that work for you yep i can do that okay is it still going to be on zoom yes yeah i can do that too yeah great so we'll set a date for next wednesday at six

122um cara can you post it please okay thank you and then i also just want to ask um you know i see some council members on the meeting and um very appreciative of their involvement and and wanting to be here um but um were were all council members extended the invitation in the zoom and you know i mean we already have you know over 30 participants on the meeting so i'm just wondering if this is a board meeting or a council meeting there's a board meeting what do you mean i'm lost there's a board meeting is that what you mean yes oh yeah it's a board meeting i would just like to thank councilman santos and salvatore for taking the time to be with us okay anything else right um no i think that's it

123okay thank you are there any other reports we know we haven't uh because of the uh virus there's other committees that's going to come out in a little bit probably next month that we'll be able to get a much better selection and more information from our committees but i thank you all that are here that made the reports and all the workshops that we've had and those uh committees that have reported uh if there's no other discussion i need a motion to move into executive session so moved move by who is kate can i get a second second motion show move we're gonna move right into our executive session emily you have a separate there is a separate yes there's a separate link that was sent to the board members so we have to leave

124this meeting and then sign back on to the executive session link uh may i interrupt before everybody leaves are we supposed to vote before going into executive session yes okay i just want to make sure because i want to document yes well i just made the motion she consecutive and uh all in favor of the motion all right cara did you just send out that link i sent out the link earlier earlier tonight around six weeks we got it doctor yep um madam chair one question about the executive session before we go into it are we anticipating needing to take any action as a result of the executive session no no no no okay thank you bro everyone has the link they've received the link okay very good