001good evening hatter families how are you doing my name is dan donovan i'm the principal of denver high school welcome to denver high school's open virtual house here uh nowadays this seems pretty routine for what we're doing um we're going to get started and get started here as you'll notice my administrative team is on the zoom the reason we don't have it in zoom is probably two main reasons one while we have one that's a thousand sometimes we can go over that uh for people that are going to be in it and two we just didn't want anybody to crash so you're watching on youtube live as we are sometimes in our car sometimes in our house and sometimes still at school so with that we'll start moving forward if i can get it to
002click there you go our agenda for open house tonight is just introduction so you get to know the administrative staff as they are here what is tonight's goal for you and what you should be looking for out of open house um so we're all on the same page for that and i'm going to talk somewhat briefly over about the schedule we're on right now the distance learning what you should expect and what should be going on with the teachers flex mentor flex what do those terms mean to a parent and how does it work in this distance learning environment you know it is i believe our third third year to starting flex um so in school it's different you don't know if you heard much about it but at home it's different too then we
003have some tips for some parents uh just that we've found in our research and looking at distance learning what works for parents and lastly just some random topics that we are going to discuss and go over and hopefully help you in one way or another so like i said my name is dan donovan i'm the principal there's my contact information that's my twitter handle as they say this is my fifth year as the principal of dhs my previous eight years as principal the freshman academy previously to this i am married and mrs donovan some of you may know is a teacher at broadview middle school she has been teaching sixth grade there for some while while i do have two sons both attend dhs one is a senior and one is a sophomore and we've
004asked all of our admins to share their favorite quote and that's mine by dr martin luther king intelligence plus character is the goal of true education you know when i got into education it wasn't because i had a love of science or or a love of english but i love to try to help kids and that's what we're trying to do so when i started in fifth grade you know my goal was to to try to make a an impression and a change in kids lives and that's why i love doing what i do in danbury and i've stayed with it for my 25th year in this district next i'd like to introduce i believe it's dr martin's we're gonna get a feedback but go ahead hello i am in the same room as the
005presenter i'm megan martens um and i can't believe i'm starting my 12th year at danbury high school i can mark the years because my son was three months old when i started and so that's how i remember how long i have been here on days when i can remember how old my son is um i taught in bridgeport when i began my career and then i moved to the state department of education where i was a consultant with districts urban districts large school districts and really really enjoyed working with danbury and was lucky enough to get a position here i live in newtown with my husband i have two kids they are in third grade and sixth grade and uh three dogs and so this quote really spoke to me um amateurs sit and wait
006for inspiration the rest of us just get up and go to work and that is exactly what i think we all need to be doing right now just getting up one foot in front of the other and i really look forward to working with you and your children to make this um certainly a memorable year but a successful one as well pass it on to mr salvastrini who i believe it was not yet admitted to the uh zoom is our athletic director and he has served here for quite some time and he is available if you have questions his contact information as well as our athletic handbook is online where'd he go where did he go one was there he was there you just went into a fox never back and so i will now
007turn it over to kate festa hello everyone um so thank you meg i am kate festa i'm the supervisor of special education for the high school level um this is my third year in this role um previously i had been a special education teacher at rogers park for many years and then transitioned over to broadview as a special services facilitator um i'm certified in special education as well as regular education but also have a school counseling certification and just like mr donovan have that connection to broadview as my husband also works there mr festa he's the school psychologist so some of you may be familiar with him um and together we live in new town and i have two children a son in fourth grade and a daughter in first of course if you have
008any questions related to special education please feel free to send me an email thank you miss festa next up is miss pereira let me mute myself hi everybody um i'm don pereira i am the level three assistant principal um i'm starting my 23rd year at danbury high school um this is my ninth year as the assistant principal and prior to that i was the esl world language department head and a bilingual science teacher i am born and raised in danbury i'm a danbury girl through and through i'm married i have two beautiful children a son who's 18 and just started college and a daughter who's a sophomore in high school the quote that i picked was from nelson mandela do not judge me by my success judge me by how many times i fell down
009and got back up again i feel like unfortunately we've been pushed down a lot of times in the past six months and we just got to keep getting back up and moving forward and progressing um that's how we need to be measured not not by our successes but by the attempts and how we overcome our difficulties i wish everyone a tremendously successful year and if anybody should need to reach out to me my contact information is below and again welcome and i hope we have a wonderful year everybody thank you miss forever mr davidson good evening everyone i'm chris davidson i am the principal of the freshman academy i've been at danbury high school for 16 years now five as the principal of the freshman academy i spent some years as assistant principal on level
010two and i started as a business and computer science teacher at danbury high school i am married i have three boys age ten six and four and the quote i chose to share is uh make each day your masterpiece because we really truly have the power to to make our day whatever we want it to be and in these trying times let's try to make it a masterpiece um that's all i got thank you ms daniels good evening everyone it's a pleasure to be here and um i will start by sharing that this is my fourth year as an assistant principal at danbury high school prior to coming to danbury i served as a principal and assistant principal and department head and teacher i taught science um all throughout high school um different high schools
011in connecticut i have a 15 year old son who's a junior in high school i was also born raised and still reside in new haven connecticut and i provided a quote from winnie the pooh christopher robin it's my favorite quote got me through some pretty tough times and it's you're braver than you believe stronger than you seem and smarter than you think and that quote resonates um in because um to miss pereira's point a lot of times our lives can become difficult and we have to remind ourselves to think positively and keep going strong have a good evening everyone last but certainly not least i believe with mr larosa hi everyone my name is john larosa this is my third year as a assistant principal at denver high school i spent spent the previous 12
012years of my uh academic career educational career as the dh um as science teacher and science department head um i was born and raised in danbury and attended danbury high school i'm married to mrs larosa who many students had at westside middle school she's a science teacher there i have four children ages eleven nine five and three three of them are in denver public schools now over at ais and west side and the quote i chose um i've always applied to athletics but also um academic work that i've done and it's from the first native american to win a gold medal in the olympics named billy mills and he said the ultimate is not to win but to reach within your depths of your capabilities and compete against yourself to the greatest extent possible and
013i think that's a great way for our kids to kind of think about their pursuits both academic um athletics and life challenges because we're not always going to be the one that wins but hopefully we can push ourselves to be the best that we can be thanks so much and back to mr donovan because they were all seeing me um hi everybody i'm sarah roy this is my sixth year as the director of the danbury early college opportunity uh prior to that i was a middle school spanish teacher in west hartford for 12 years i am the mother to two daughters uh like mr donovan i have a senior and a sophomore and my favorite quote is when you get into a tight place and everything goes against you never give up then for that
014is just the place and time the tide will turn and it seems like we kind of have a theme here with our quotes where it seems perseverance is what is going to help us to get through this so i wish you all the best evening and don't hesitate to reach out if you need anything [Music] so as you can see we are not experts with any of this but it's our first time trying it and we're all different obviously in different spots and different places trying to do it if you wonder why does mr donovan keep looking to his right because on my on the board over there i can see where the admins are and what's going on over there so that's if you ever wonder why i'm looking to the right so let's
015talk about tonight's goals the goals of tonight as um you know for an open house especially in a virtual type situation is one just meet your meet the class teacher uh you know get to get a feel for what they're saying you know everything or a lot of things are going to be done via email at this point so now you can kind of put a tone to or voice to the email as it comes out next is to you know revisit the course syllabus and look at the course related information to have an understanding of what's going to be going on during that course this time the teacher will share their learning expectations and attendance requirements and their office hours and when they're available and everything that you're going to need to make sure
016that every student here is successful which is our goal and most importantly i think is identify where to get help in the course and and talk to the teachers and peer groups and things like that to see who you can rely on to help you when you get a little jammed up in the course so it's just those are the basic things it's not uh a one-on-one with the teacher about how your child's doing it's probably way too early in the year but remember if you ever want to talk to your teacher you can set up a child's teacher you can set up an appointment for them anytime you want it's convenient for you and the teacher that's when you can start going over individual progress and next steps and things like that so tonight
017is just kind of an overview and those are the kind of things that we're looking for as you go through the night so let's talk about the danbury high school schedule this is the dhs schedule on uh dl distance learning your student child should be sitting with their teacher which is called synchronous learning on the day that they have class so for example if it's an a day which i believe today was they should have been in their block one class starting at eight o'clock in the morning with the teacher streaming live for them now does it mean the class is necessarily going to go all the way to 8 no but that's the ending point because we want to give the students at least a five minute break to get up stretch grab a
018snack and then get back before block two starts you know but every day they are going to be on their classes you'll notice that block four is a little shorter by about 25 25 minutes that's because it meets both days so there's actually more time in block four but since it's uh uh over two days it adds up to more but there's more things that have to be done because it's not a straight block going all the way through the most important takeaway on that is monday tuesday thursday and friday your child should be sitting in front of the computer doing the work from eight to 11 30 unless the teacher is absent that day or they've been pulled for a meeting such as a ppt or something like that then they will have work
019assigned to them and that block time is a great time to do it but they should be sitting there now i know there are questions when we were developing this how come it's different than um the the hybrid time and stuff like that and the state came out with the recommendation that classes should be no longer for high school than 30 minutes was the literature they put out we put out 55 we didn't think 80 in a block was going to be you know doable for kids sitting 80 minutes straight um and things like that so that's why we settled on 55 to go through 11 30 but their day is not over at that point and this is something we need to talk about flex you know flex is something we've used at denver
020high school as i said for the past two years and what flex is is a time for your child to get extra help extensions one-on-one time with the teacher or just ask a question on maybe something they didn't understand so what we did is we set up three flex sessions uh flex pm one two and three on monday tuesday thursday and friday as we start rolling here and teachers start getting um you know into the curriculum more and start getting into content and either students begin to have a little bit of progress or just some question that they want answered this is the time they're going to do it if a teacher asks for dan donovan to come to his flex pm2 from 12 20 to 12 35 just for a check-in dan donovan has
021to go okay they are required students are required to go if they can request because self-scheduling is going to be is open do we open it is open that they can request to go so if your son or daughter says to you i didn't get what was going on to you with uh in class today your response should be did you go to flex because that is the time that they can hit that teacher up right online the teachers are there and say hey um you know can you explain to me one more time i didn't get that my internet cut out i couldn't hear you my little brother was having a meltdown on the carpet because he didn't want to sit there any longer whatever it is i get it we understand that things
022come up so this is a time for them on monday tuesday thursday and friday to go in and get what they need and then from 1 to 2 20 they have assigned independent dl work it's a good time for them to start previewing the next class or looking at what they did in class that day so that's kind of and then wednesday wednesday is a whole bunch of flexes we start at 8 to 8 25 with our mentor flex which used to be called mentor monday but it's not on monday so we took that out uh where they'll be doing scl social emotional learning uh every day so we keep that routine going that they're up in front of the computer at eight o'clock so every month every wednesday they need to be up in
023front of that computer with their mentor teacher who will have uh an assignment to do for them and from there it's just like the rest of them they can go to flexes all the way out until 11 25 and then lunch and then there you go so flex is very important if they are struggling or if the ap teachers need to speed up their curriculum they're going to start using flex in a couple of weeks we're going to start having our clubs and organizations going this is when they'll meet during these flex times so it may look like a whole lot of flex but when we start pulling seven classes and three clubs and things like that there it gets kind of crunched so take advantage of this time so we can make sure we're
024going forward all right our flex enrichment kind of went through this this is just another way to look at it uh you'll see that both times attendance is taken and if you are pulled it is mandatory for you to go we expect you to be there and we can run reports on that and when if someone asks us is my child been going we can go and tell them students will repost a video on how to do it for going for forward on how you can log into enriching students and use enriching students to um to select your teachers that'll be coming out we'll either do it tonight or tomorrow morning through your email so check that out all right tips for parents i think the number one thing that we wanted to do was
025routines uh you know have a designated workspace so they get up their routine is they get up they have breakfast they do whatever they do in the morning before school and then they get to their designated workspace on the bed uh is generally not a good thing because then they're sleepy so get them up get them moving so they know that when i sit at this desk it's time to go to work communication with school obviously it's not in person but if you need to have a google meet with someone then you can do it um you know but if you want to communicate through email with teachers uh you know they're going to be inundated with emails while they're teaching and planning and stuff like that so give them a little extra time to
026respond and if it ever becomes a an issue you can just reach out to your son or daughter's administrator and they can help you out with that uh next is use flex i already talked about that use flex to your advantage it's a great time to get small group and start construction if you don't want that make sure that kids are staying active get them outside well i know it's getting cooler out but we got to get them outside and get them active they're not walking around this building you know they're sitting in a chair for a long time so make sure that and self-care make sure that you as well as the students are practicing self-care which just means that you have something to unwind with whether it's exercising or eating a cake which
027would make you want to think about exercising whichever way you want to go with it the self-care part take care of yourself because it's completely different for everybody some random topics uh the district decision to go about going to hybrid you know when are we going back i know that they said they're revisiting it around october 1st i do not make that decision to come straight from department of health and dr sal to what they're going to do i feel very comfortable if we go back to a hybrid that we can social distance in danbury high school the sats and psats on october 27th we will be giving the uh s.a.t to seniors there's been two times that we've sent out a form that you log in we're going to give it in school so
028far there's been about 225 kids who have signed up to take it it's very difficult to find sat places right now so if you're a current senior and want to take it go look at that form and fill it out underclassmen photos you're going to get information coming out it's going to be in what we call the new gym not the gym but the new gym not the old gym or the main gym the new gym um where it's just going to be walk up service you come in you tell them your right name and stuff it pops up you sit down take your picture uh life touch has these a whole bunch of protocols they have to follow you know we're going to have people there to make sure students are socially distanced you
029come in one side of the gym you walk through take your picture and walk out the other side so that information has been going out so take a look at that like i said clubs and organizations are going to be starting up very soon so look for that it's a great way especially during flex to get kids involved in the school and what we're looking for same thing for student announcements we're trying to come up with something fun and exciting that we can do um in order to you know still be attached to the school we're missing a big part of that right now no one more than the uh admins who are kind of sick and tired of staring at each other in the same rooms and dealing with each other we'd much rather
030be dealing with students but we'll make the best of it i just said that for there because they're here um so we'll be moving on with that lastly school supplies instruments and ap books there's something that went out that wednesday we're going to be having a pickup if you received one if you didn't get an email or notification from us then you don't know anything but if you're most likely an ap student or art student instruments we're going to start handing out the supplies that we have to make sure that you're successful in those courses if you did not get an email from us or a phone call then don't worry about it your class does not need it so from now what do i do so i'm over by a couple minutes here you're
031going to go into your using your child's google classroom link so you may need them as you're screaming down the hallway right now how do i get into your google classroom you know have them sit with you and pump into the google classroom link pop in and see what your teachers are going to be you know starting off with 1a we sent the schedule out they're about 10 minutes long and a 5-minute break in between so you can locate where you're going but use the link that is in your child's google classroom now why didn't we want to send out a whole bunch of links because we have had a problem with students getting a hold i shouldn't say if there are students we should say one of them was from maryland um students other
032people bombing different google classrooms so we're trying to keep a tight lid on those links so i didn't want to put one out and that's why we didn't do a google zoom um we've had some issues in danbury with those so we didn't want that to happen tonight so it was kind of just a 25 minute presentation so that's where you're going to go to using your child's google classroom link you'll be able to get in there obviously if you have any questions or concerns please email your child's administrators we'll make this this because i believe we're recording it it's also uh youtube mr miller thank you very much mr miller for doing this um you know online so you can go look and see what's administrator you would be talking to so with that
033uh you know let's have a great night and a great year and if you ever need anything from us please do not hesitate to to reach out and we'll make sure we get through this together so now you're off to block one at 6 30 which is in about one minute don't be late to first block