Danbury Board of Education Meeting 9-9-20 7:00PM

001okay i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic always bro [Music] of course uh joseph britton jose he will be late okay rachel chaleski yeah kate canetta here gladys cooper yeah lauren daley joe da silva president katherine hodgston here rich jannelli kathy molinero here al russo here amy spelina here and present one coming okay thank you all uh dr sam do we have any recognition tonight um welcome everybody i'm recognizing everyone for being present okay [Music] okay uh kate will you do the public participation information please of course uh due to the unique nature of the covid19 crisis and the limitations of technology members of the public who are danbury residents are invited to send brief comments and questions via email in advance to dps underscore public

002comment underscore boe at danbury.k12.ct.us thank you um sandy do you want to do the uh two comments that you have sure first one is from demesha moore i have a few concerns regarding the school system and mr hannah how do you intend to handle the threats that mr joe hannah made threats of bullying and threats made to families what is your stance on bullying during the principles breakfast mr donovan said that he was aware of the behavior of mr hannah before the newspaper article when did you all become aware of mr hannah's actions why was this information withheld from students and their families were you aware of prior misconduct at past employers of mr hannah i am looking for accountability here who is responsible for hiring mr hannah we the people deserve to hear publicly

003who this is and does he or she or them share the same views as mr hannah will there be training to directly address these issues why was mr hannah given the option of resigning moving forward what is the plan to prevent the hiring of such individuals why do we have racial tension that is obvious in the school system with teachers the next one is from donna bosworth i am writing to the board to ask what mitigating strategies and resultant tests have been conducted within our buildings in preparation for any potential partial or full return of our staff and students the following guidelines come from the cdc evaluate the building and its mechanical and life safety systems to determine if the building is ready for occupancy such as hazards associated with prolonged facility shutdowns such as

004mold growth or issues with stagnant water systems and take appropriate remedial actions ensure that ventilation system signaling facility operate properly there have been concerning reports of legioneer's disease across schools throughout the country consider taking steps to improve ventilation in the building in consultation with each with an hvac professional based on local environmental conditions and ongoing community transmission in the area increase the percentage of outdoor air potentially as high as 100 percent improve central air filtration increase increase air filtration to as high as possible without significantly diminishing design airflow the test of each system should show co2 levels below 800 ppm consider using portable high efficiency particulate air hepa fan filtry i'm sorry fan filtration systems to help enhance air cleaning especially in higher risk areas ensure exhaust fans and restroom facilities are functional and operating

005at full capacity when the building is occupied consider using ultraviolet germicidal radiation as a supplemental technique to inactivate potential airborne virus in the upper room air of common occupied spaces in accordance with industry guidelines most of our buildings are old and don't have this infra infrastructure set up has the cares money been allocated to remediate these issues we can't simply change filters and hope that it is enough to protect our staff and our children especially as we see the rates of cases in the young rising at an alarming rate the cdc guidelines also specifically note that plans should include all employees in plans for example management staff utility employees relief employees janitorial staff and maintenance staff i feel that this mandate has not been followed in regards to these issues or the many other encompassed

006in the reopening plan there has been an absence of teacher voice and our reopening plans which i hope that the board seeks to rectify as we embark on the challenges that this new school year presents and i am just hitting refresh on our emails and that is it for public participation tonight thank you so very much stan um kate will you do the consent calendar please of course i'll make a motion that the board of education approves the items on the consent calendar exhibits 20-82 through exhibit 20-90 as recommended motion made by kate could i hear a second second second about show are there any discussion on the uh consent calendar yes yes a comment um i just want to thank sandy first for the very detailed recording of the minutes and the many minutes

007that are in our packet this evening um i do would like i would like to point out that in the june 24th meeting minutes that it's not recognized who and how members voted um as in with the our other minutes um you know if passed unanimously it should state it was unanimous and if there was one abstention it should state who that was made by then [Music] can that be corrected for next time okay any any other question concerning the meeting uh we will have those corrections uh hopefully at our next meeting okay thank you seeing that all in favor uh could i hear i'm sorry i'm used to the old way uh joe britton is not here rachel chaleski hi kate canetta gladys cooper aye lauren daly aye joe da silva aye catherine hodgson

008aye rich genelli hi kathy molinaro hi al russo hi amy spolino hi that's 10 votes for us thank you all the motion so careful um do we have anyone from the uh employee's booth here no any of our students here it's cooper i'm yes yes okay how are you good evening how are you i'm very well thank you nice to see you sorry i i was a little delayed getting on um no problem no those zoom waiting rooms anyway how are you everybody i'm doing fine how are you very good very good for pumping jumping from meeting um i just wanted to take two minutes of your time to um speak about the um efforts that your teaching staff has been putting in not just the past two days of opening but the two weeks

009prior to that with the new learning the knowledge that we've all been working hard to acquire and implement and just to let you know um that our teachers are tasked with as you know um a ridiculous amount of workload on their shoulders right now and to please be um cognizant understanding um gentle because one of the things that is happening throughout the community as our teachers are getting the the the comments and the directives from parents when things are not going so great with technology so as things are breaking down and we're working out all the tweaks with our technology issues throughout the district and some of them are not even district issues they're they're google issues with our google classrooms um you know who gets gets all the emails and the texts and the

010communication are the teachers and oftentimes the teachers are getting the direct blame for those issues that are issues that are well beyond our control um especially somebody who is you know not a tech troubleshooter but someone who considers themselves very tech savvy um you know we we've i've had colleagues speak to me about parents um already on day two sending you know very angry communications to teachers so i just wanted to put it out there for you know the board record to let our community know and to let our board know that you know teachers are working an incredible amount to make sure our parents are up and connected but there are some things that are beyond our control that you know need to be addressed within uh the administrative realm and not the teacher

011realm and perhaps within the google realm and i just wanted to go on the record to commend the teacher effort and commend the uh the amount of collaboration that has taken place in the past few weeks just to get up and running and just to say how incredibly proud we are of our teachers and um the efforts that they put forth make sure our students are getting the best if we can so i just wanted to say kudos to them and i hope everyone has a great year thank you no thank you and thank you for your leadership and and fully support those comments that you have just brought forth to us and and we know that everyone is working hard and we know that everything is not going to fall in line just because

012you said today is monday or whatever today uh sometime it takes time but we thank everyone for all their efforts that they're doing to make sure that the students receive what they're looking for or need in school but thank you again aaron thanks miss cooper we're doing the uh presentation on the facilities update yes ma'am okay uh during our last special meeting we didn't get to this part and um i've asked rich chalbert and courtney to update the board of all of the happenings that have been going on this summer if um you would include conversation about um i know i know kelly is here about granville to update him as well that would be helpful so courtney take it away okay thanks dr cell um hi everybody totally good to see you all at

013our regular board meetings um so uh we were going to do this a few weeks ago and now we're in a little bit different of a space so i just wanted to let you know first before i go through building re-entry plans for hopefully in october if our students are back in person learning um where we are today um so right now um the buildings are open the administrative staff is in and teachers are invited in if they choose to work remotely from their classrooms the custodial staff is is in our safety advocates are there and we're running our food service distribution from all of our elementary schools right now for the remote learners that are in need of a meal we just got approval from the state to continue running a waiver for our

014summer seamless program which gives us a great deal of flexibility in that any kid can show up they don't even need to be a danbury student it just needs to be a meal for a child um and a family member can pick it up on their behalf so we have some flexibility so if you could let all of your um people know out in the community um that you speak with that there's a lot of flexibility around that they just have to show up and let us know how many meals they want we're doing it monday through friday 12 p.m to 2 p.m to be able to give a little bit of time for people to get into their learning for the day um and um and and so we've heard so far that that's

015going decently well um so we wanted to tell you what our planning process was just very broadly speaking um kevin assistant superintendent kevin walston myself um the health services coordinator kathy o'dowd and rich jalbert as well as richie torres um set up sort of building templates that included every aspect that the individual principal leadership needed to address we can't be in all 18 buildings and we know our principals are the experts in their individual buildings so we thought through every piece of guidance that we had from either the cdc or the american institute of architects um the the parent that just um called texted uh emailed in some comments quoted all of the requirements that were supposed to be falling for guidance for the buildings and i'm gonna address that as i go through that's

016one of the aia american institute of architects guidance that we did follow to ensure that our hvac systems were up to standard and running as well as testing the water quality in the buildings so we developed a template for all the principles to touch on each of the points so so arrival and departure egress in the hallways classroom setup cafeteria meal distribution and then every other common area we thought through every aspect of when a kid gets on the bus to come to school to when a kid a student leaves the bus or their family driving them or they're walking so from arrival to the building to going into their classroom doctor style engaged a consultant to work with us um to advise about signage and flow protocol based on the size of the hallway

017for example and the particular setup of the building whether we could do one way where it was practical or if we had to maintain two-way we also purchased a signage that would encourage that distancing of six feet in the single lines and set up all of that in the buildings now if someone went to look at this in mid-august i think it was like actually early august um i know the date because it was the date of the um mini you know hurricane that happened august 4th um actually on the fifth rich myself and kevin were in the buildings with flashlights because we wanted to get everything ready but if you looked on that day it wouldn't look like that we were it was ready because in order to put things together we had to

018pull them apart so you would have seen that all the desks were pushed out to the side of the classroom and a lot of the teacher materials were out in the hallways we were getting everything ready so that we could space out everyone in the classrooms to the maximum practical amount possible and so the the guidance was to have have the individual principals work with their custodial staff to follow certain templates depending on what the size of the classroom was and what the particular furniture in the classroom was um so in addition we addressed the egress so the movement from when students arrive and this will you know continue to be the protocol we set up these templates and then we met with the principals um individually for each school and then we did building

019walk-throughs so from those four staff members i talked to kathy o'dowd myself um kevin and um and rich albert and rich torres walked through each and every one of the schools to clarify any questions that they had for um you know their particular space so for example one of the guidance was use as many building entry points as possible so if you've got some you know normally kids would have arrived at one or two locations open up as many doors as you can handle so that the students could remain cohorted so for instance great plane had a way to open up great plane i'm sorry hayes town had a way to open up one of the back doors so that all of their kindergarten and first graders were coming in one way and they go

020directly into their classrooms and they're remaining cohorted so they're not coming in the same entrance as other students um the same thing with for just missiles we opened up as many you know points of dismissal as practical within any given um building um cafeteria so when we open as you probably know the secondary um are going to be schools are going to be grab and go for their um well grab and bring bring into the classroom for the breakfast and then grab and go for the lunch and the elementary schools are grab and go bring into the classroom for the breakfast and then um they're um going to the cafeteria in most places sometimes it's a it's a hybrid so sometimes it's some of the students are in the classroom some of the cafeteria it

021depends on what coverage they had and what they could handle in terms of the infrastructure of the individual building we also addressed playground and outdoor use which said that you know maintain cohorting on the playground within classrooms the identification of isolation rooms so we visited each and every isolation room to make sure that if it had it had a window if it didn't have a window we purchased um air flow that was rich on here i don't remember the name the air filter purification that has a particularly hepa filter um for each of the isolation rooms that don't have a window um and we also have swapped out doors so that there's a window in each of the doors for the isolation room so that staff can monitor the children and still be safe we

022visited staff lounges and offices and took out extraneous furniture so that we were encouraging um you know giving people places to be so that they could do their planning and eat their lunch but not congregating in in mass um the city ventilation so um i have an email from sean um he hanley he's been working with us he because i couldn't describe all the work that they did you know directly so i wanted to read from his words they went through and looked at all the rtu's which are the rooftop units and the air handling the units and they checked all the belts monitors controllers actuators linkage arms dampers and filter racks and they replace them with what's called the merv 8 filter or where appropriate and the airflow could handle it what's called the

023merv 13 filter which is just a finer finer mesh of filter and um that's only where the flow can handle that type of a filter in addition we addressed adjusted all of our building controls to allow for to flush the air like an hour earlier in the morning and then two hours after closing at night so there's more constant airflow in the building than would normally be set on our building maintenance system our building management system they also looked at all the exhaust fans and did performance maintenance on them and includes replacing belts and motors as needed um in addition we walked through with sean kevin myself rich and and used i don't know the name of the device but it's uh um it measures the carbon um the co2 within a given room and

024the the parent that wrote in mentioned levels below 800 and they were well below 500 in most cases and where they weren't there were adjustments made to the airflow so we were well well within the range and there are plans to revisit as staff and students return because the co2 is a little bit different when you have more people in the building but we're well below the levels that you would expect to see with people not in the building so we would expect that it would remain the same when people return which is a good sign of fresh air coming into the buildings we do have old buildings we do have upgrades that we need to do there are capital plans to address that and i can say that we're within the guidelines for what's

025recommended for for airflow in our buildings now um okay in addition so this is just talking about the process so dr salle engaged an architect we established all the building specific templates and we pushed those out to the building principals who then planned out every classroom every common space i mean they really thought through every single aspect of the kids being in the building and i can't say enough about the custodial staff i was so so so impressed with how the majority of the buildings were just spotless and i was so grateful to them for making the the buildings look so beautiful this summer because they spent so much time painting and cleaning and getting the the stuff ready before while we were developing that models because while we didn't know whether we were going

026to be falling or hybrid we couldn't tell them how many desks to put in the classroom and how to set up the egress once we had that information they just they they went with it we do still have things to pull out of the buildings we paused on that to let all the staff come in that that is coming in all the staff that wants to be in the teachers to see their classrooms and to take out the rest of those extraneous materials and then we'll go in and pull them out and put in storage whatever needs to be stored um [Music] so we conducted all the walkthroughs and we did revisits as needed where people needed additional guidance there were questions about what was purchased i just wanted to say we did purchase a

027lot of um district-wide equipment we did not push it out to the schools over the summer because we were concerned that it would walk um you know we didn't want to see all the ppe that we spent money on um you know just people taking it home and the sanitizer so we we've to date um earmarked and or spent about five million dollars on what i would call um pandemic preparation whether that's from academic you know pieces so online instruction and distance learning to the purchase of ppe sanitizer disinfectant you know rich rich his entire warehouse is taken up with pallets of disinfectant so when the kids come back we're really ready to and sanitize we're really ready to supply even if you know the country supplies run low i think we're pretty in pretty

028good shape we purchased through kathy o'dowd all age shields for every staff member that would like them and we also purchased backup ppe that the nurses are keeping in case a student comes in and doesn't have the appropriate ppe or or doesn't have any at all we also push that out to our bus company so they have a supply on hand so if the kid shows up at the bus you know we have additional ppe supplies so that the kid can ride the student can ride a bus we purchase additional high school science desks um because they were actually five foot desks and there was just no way that we could get the number of kids that we needed to students in the classroom the very old desks so we purchased those to be able

029to do the distancing uh paper towel dispensers replacing the um airflow the hand flow dispensers which are not recommended um and wall dispensers for hand sanitizer placed in key areas and sanitizer for every classroom that doesn't have it's like a big gallon jug every classroom that doesn't have um [Music] um every classroom that doesn't have like hand washing sync in addition we provided it in the classrooms with hand washing sinks but we're encouraging hand washing through signage and through reminders with training so we also established some policies and procedures so we limited restricted school access to only essential employees and that means that there's a table outside and if a parent comes in and you know wants to bring in a lunch for a kid that forgot to bring their lunch to school they're reminded

030to stay outside and some will come in to get it from them we establish new cleaning protocols for the bathrooms and we we are in the process of hiring when kids come back um additional um seasonal custodial staff for every school and we establish updated fire drills and lockdowns because there's going to be floor signage that's directional floor signage and we wanted to make sure that students and staff know that it's you know go to your nearest exit do not follow the signage on the floors so there's guidance on that and each school established a reopening and safety reopening committees and safety committees with representation from all members of the community school community so that includes paraprofessionals lunch staff custodial staff teaching staff everyone that's involved in keeping staff and students safe in the buildings

031um we've conducted training series um one that cathy o'dowd put together which is what school personnel need to know and it's very fact based and it's linked to all cdc documents and there's a lot of really great videos that we train staff in about hand washing mask wearing water appropriate masks six foot distancing all the things that staff needed to know to keep each other safe fire safety protocols we trained our custodian staff in appropriate cleaning and use of supplies so making sure that we're still complying [Music] with the requirements for keeping asthmatic children safe and making sure that we're not just disinfecting but we're also sanitizing and um people also were trained in their regular bloodborne pathogen um on training series so our next steps while we're getting ready for a hopefully october re-entry

032is to continue to review the airflow maintenance with building staff so you know continually look as people come back into the building as i said keep testing the systems and um distributing the ppe to the nursing staff so kathy has done that this week um and so they're ready to go with backup ppe for people that don't um that show up without it and um kelly has also worked with kathy to purchase special ppe equipment for all um special needs staff that work with students with special needs which includes gowns and gloves and additional face shields and protective desk fields and things like that and as you can see on this slide there's um stickers with one way directional and reminders most of the stickers are down in the schools now and are placed but

033some schools said can i pause on this because i really need to get up and running with this full remote model so they pause for a minute you know while school gets started and we're going to go back into the buildings next week to make sure they have the help they need to continue to finish putting down the signage and then we'll revisit the furniture and room setup depending on you know when we re-enter if the numbers have shifted a little bit um we'll have to look at the classroom setups and help to space kids out more if we can do that and make adjustments as needed um so that's that's our update on on building safety and building readiness um yeah that's pretty much it dr zell we can't hear you though you're still

034i think you're still on view is kelly there i'm here would you update on granville ahead guys like sure um so we're still working on um working with the builder to finish the project at granville which will house eight of our preschool classes um for this year um he is on a tight timeline to try to get it completed for um the first week of october for us um he's been working with the district with the it team regarding kind of the technology infrastructure um we're working with a police officer who's also in security to make sure that we have top notch security installed um you know visual cameras uh you know inside and outside of the building security systems and protocols in place he's also customizing some of the areas and spaces to make

035sure that we have sufficient um space for our related services such as our ot and pt um so they don't have to uh share joint spaces with uh the physical education teacher like they currently do um and i'm really excited i think it's gonna be a nice new facility um you know rich and his team are on kind of standby to help move in our stuff as quickly as possible um and as soon as we get the um green light from the city that we're approved to start moving in we will go ahead and do so but um there are some finalizing things that still need to occur and so i keep in regular contact with him to try to ensure we can get get in there as close to the start of october as

036possible thank you i don't know if you have any questions of course it'd be a good time are rich albert um is he there richard he is i'm sorry that i didn't even get to acknowledge and rich has worked incredibly hard all summer he is here rich rich anything to happen thank you uh no just to you know uh [Music] you know reinforce uh what courtney said you know we've been working very diligently school by school making sure the you know social distance stickers are on the floors we've put up approximately 200 pieces of plastic gas dividers for secretaries and safety advocates um we've done more painting than we've ever done in the past 10 years with the amount of time so if you go to schools they're looking cleaner and and nicer than they

037ever have been and we just keep on working towards the goal so so question i would have of vietnam richard courtney wednesdays where we've decided as many districts to use it as um making sure our staff and students are not in for um extra cleaning so you want to talk a little bit about your protocol during that day so people are aware why we're doing it sure the the the goal is uh to the only people in on wednesdays are school lunch because they're still distributing food and we're basically doing a deep cleaning every wednesday which is a thorough king of every room and disinfecting it is a two-step process you have to clean first and then disinfect so that's what we're doing on wednesdays all touch points uh bathrooms light switches doorknobs uh desktops

038out of the game and the board did hear a little bit about some extra um personnel coming in during the day any comments about that to help with the cleanliness sure we have uh job posting for what's called a temp custodian uh when we go to a hybrid plan we plan on bringing in an extra custodian at all the schools uh specifically to clean the bathrooms and disinfect during the day uh state guidelines recommend bathrooms that are cleaned twice a day as opposed to just at the end of the night so that's what we're going to be doing and i i can't let's go without asking kevin kevin's is the liaison with the uh with our program in terms of the um the established mitigation program and i heard a comment about no teacher input

039i do any comments about that kevin well i i think we mentioned this in some of our previous meetings the the the true teacher voice is going to be found in the reopening plans of all of our schools so courtney in her presentation earlier she mentioned that every school is going to have a local reopening committee and so these plans are going to come alive at our campuses throughout the district all 18 schools with the support of teacher safety advocate nurses para professional all of their voices and participation in the process and so you know i i think we had heard some of the feedback earlier in this process when we were you know first um revealing the plan um and accepted responsibility it certainly could have been greater teacher participation but we made sure

040as part of this implementation process where really counts in our schools is that we're asking our principals to make sure that the teachers paraprofessionals they have appropriate uh representation so we we did note this from one of our previous discussions and feel like you know it's everyone is going to have the voice that they deserve um as these plans are being played out as implemented at the schools thanks kevin i think i'd be remiss if i didn't thank the city sean and antonio for their help um you know they have over 70 buildings and they did come in and prioritize and work with us it's been difficult so it's been a good team approach a lot more work to do i think this dl time has permitted us to do some refining we're learning from

041some of our suburban surrounding district what's going on to help us out but um i need to thank the city for all of their assistance as well so i think unless people have questions we can move on guys i just have a quick question yes cat okay um i just was wondering if there's an update about the osborne street facility no i mean i i go well let me just uh update you in general the matrix uh things are still moving forward uh what does that mean that means that people are looking at it that are decision makers so i have not been uh told anything about other than um the state department the building group they look at they're um they're comfortable with the idea so from that standpoint i guess going on but

042that's all i know the osborne project um courtney do you have any update on that i'm sorry i was on you i think um as far as i know we're still on track um the funding was approved and it's for next year like one year from september um so september 2021 um that would be yeah so as far as i know if that project hasn't shifted and it's it's timeline at all the only thing we're doing kate we're trying to anticipate and look for um particularly now because we have to move a lot of desks and things out of schools we're looking for another site that may may be available um to to take care of us while this year goes through and then we figure these two years of construction so we have a

043place for everyone to um put supplies and and park our uh are added uh storage issues so that's what we're working on okay but that's all i know at this point dr sal if i could add um the city is in the process of uh you know finalizing i'll consider the project um i've met with three architectural firms this week to show them around osborne street uh so you know they are in the process of narrowing it down to uh selecting an architect oh okay well i don't know if the whole board heard you um because you you so you were engaged this week to meet with some architects and they went around looking at osborne so this screening for architects is what you're saying yes okay all right thanks richard i've got a question

044for courtney any other questions yes i do uh gladys i have a question for courtney uh and that is important at some point in the near future is there a way that you can give us a cost analysis in different categories not specific details i don't care how many faucets and stuff you you you bought but uh how much do you spend on these um pandemic situations in terms of last year how much we spent on the last year's budget and how much we spent on it in the current year's budget and can you determine from what sources of revenue that came from in other words was it all uh cares money or part of this food from our budget etc etc if you can furnish us with that when you feel you're at a

045completion date uh i'd appreciate it oh i'd be happy to rich yeah it's a little a little bit of a moving target in that depending on what we continue to do i can tell you right now what we've committed and encumbered based on you know our assumption that we'll be back in in mid-october or october and then if that changes we'll just give you updates but yeah we do have something that we have been tracking all the spending for last year this year against the cares act money the new coronavirus funds the additional technology um that the state gave us um directly as well as um our our you know grant carryover funds that we had this year so i'd be happy to share that yeah great well the question may be kind of difficult

046in these figures and i just suspect what we're talking about a material cost is there any way to estimate or evaluate what a labor cost is attributed to to do this i know the labor that you purchased for outside contractors etc is there but our own internal staff in terms of man hours used you know is that a possibility to to try to estimate something like that that's a good question you mean um man hours used in preparation and planning for exactly such as you know risk job is spending you know three months of his time basically on this and other things i could work with you on some of the concepts on that but i think it'll be an interesting exercise when we put both these numbers together a firm number for material costs

047and another realistic estimated cost for labor i think we'll find out that this cost is a huge huge outstanding process oh for sure yeah even just in the time commitment that cabinet and rich and principals and and teachers oh my gosh yeah yeah yeah i'd be happy to work with you on that thank you thank you very much and you guys have done an outstanding job personally i want to thank you all uh i'm going to ask glass that's okay to speak on behalf of the board because i'm sure the board feels the same as i do both the teacher janitorial staff the administrative everybody has done an incredible job uh and and uh i i do adhere to what aaron had mentioned that people have to be a little bit sympathetic to the opening

048of this to basically be patient so that we can debug stuff that we've never done before and thank you again for your help thank you gladys uh okay uh courtney thank you and thank rich and your entire team for doing a great job we certainly appreciate it and we know that we will continue to do uh um a job that's going to uh continue to make things uh better for our students once and our staff once they come back to school thank you again thank you gladys that means a lot to us thank you okay uh before we move on to our action item uh rachel i want you to do to make the um the motion for the the action items we need some uh we we're going to table uh the four action

049items until our next board meeting and uh once we make a motion to take there's no discussion so uh mr wallston would you want to come on and just briefly uh let us know why we're going to table this and just wait until next month to um accept the uh four action items yes miss cooper so we we just asked um so that the board in the community has more time to review um the the four policies we posted the cape version of the policies um but the policies that this board of proof of first reading were actually the appropriate ones the right ones however we posted the cave version and we just just want to make sure that the community has an opportunity to see the appropriate ones uh for the next meeting so

050we did make the adjustment uh that joe had recommended i know he's not i don't think he's on yet that joe had recommended and so we did make that update um and so that was actually noted um in the agenda um and then we'll we'll have everything ready for the community to see in time for our next board meeting uh thank you mr watson and thank rachel who's chairperson of the policy committee uh because you make the money we're gonna do all four of them at the same time okay sure i'll make a motion to table action items a through d until our next meeting [Music] by uh rachel could i hear a second yeah uh second who's i amy sorry okay the motion was uh made by rachel's second by amy all the uh

051kate could you do the roll call please of course uh rachel scholeski aye hi cal russo uh amy spolino i passage unanimously thank you all uh superintendent's report thanks and listen to this one this is this is going to be overwhelming but if you look at the um the agenda uh cara aptly put three put a goal out there and i just want to reinstate it for the board what was our goal for the opening was to get students connected and we'll comment about that tonight with gina build relationship and community in the classroom on social emotional is something that has been very important and uh missing link in many respects and we and uh we're acknowledging that need um the orient students to the norms expectation and tools that they will need to be

052successful in the digital environment no easy task the high school is still handing out uh computers we are handing out computers setting up hot spots doing a number of things so our kids are engaged and uh it's evolutionary keeps happening daily uh for us um you heard what aaron said um i thank the board for your indulgence and permitting us to have those extra days because i think they were spent well um although we would like to have had them in person but we had to make a modification and uh the work that kelly with her staff and kara and her staff and all of them it's just been incredible um to roll this out because it doesn't happen with without the teachers in the classroom each and every day and those three that goal

053is really relevant to us um so i will start with um kara uh i will reserve some time at the end i do want to make a comment regarding uh a situation that was mentioned at the beginning of the meeting by a parent but i would like to go through this first if we can so with um we'll start with uh with cara in terms of um unlike hartford and some of the other communities we were able to start without a uh without a hitch somewhat uh but go ahead kara so just to dr sell's point you know there's been a uh just a tremendous amount of hard work that has gone into the planning to get ready for um for the opening that was this week um so i i do want to commend

054all of the um teachers and administrators who put in extraordinary hours administrators for probably at least a month and a half leading up to this nights weekends vacations uh they're around the clock and um you know planning and preparing for eight days of professional development was no small feat and receiving that professional development if you were a teacher was also not easy to do so there's a lot of information to take in there was a lot of planning involved and then we're also kind of trying to make this shift with uh new learning as well as working in an environment that that we're not used to receiving professional development and so um it went relatively well again there's a lot of information in over eight days um and a lot of hard work that has

055gone in from all parties and it's been a true team effort on everyone's part so i just want to make sure to put that out there um so the one of the things that i think is really important for the community to understand is that um you know we're in a period of making sure that we are number one priority connecting kids and that we are um ensuring equity so there's been a a huge uh push to get kids connected to technology gina could talk a little bit about the laptop distribution but that has been an ongoing process to anyone who needs a laptop principals have been meeting uh students and families needs round-the-clock with convenient times to to do pickups robocalls multiple languages you name it to make sure that we get the access

056uh to students as soon as possible um we have really good connectivity rates i spoke to every school principal today um except for one um to just you know how is it going you know what do you need how is the connectivity what are the biggest issues that um that you're dealing with in terms of connectivity and and we had some definitely had some um initial google glitches there was a nationwide uh issue with google meets of course our i believe it was uh in part due to the fact that every probably 75 of the country was logging into google classroom and google needs um on the same two days so they're probably working on on their bandwidth and how to handle all of that traffic but um we definitely needed to manage to get

057through today as well um and it was it was intermittent it wasn't everybody and it wasn't at all times but there was definitely a few glitches there we had some typical connectivity issues in terms of um my password how do i get in how to how does this work um and people kind of maybe waiting until tuesday morning to try to read through some of the information that was shared and teachers worked through the day to connect students and at the end of the day on both days they reached out and circled back to students who maybe didn't connect in the classroom um every single principal particularly k5 and even six eight mentioned that the pleasantly surprised with you know one or two kids missing maybe three in each of the classes and that in

058many cases they had accounted for at least one or two of those students as either new students that were still registering or had they had contacted the phone in the office to say that they were having some issues and they were working through some of those so um there was a pretty good deal of connectivity um and that made many of us very happy and i'm sure carowinds will update you on sort of the overall percentages but um over the last couple of days it was it was pretty good um and not too far off from what we would normally maybe see during a typical year where people are still coming back from vacation or they hadn't quite checked in yet so i'm relatively pleased with the general connectivity um but number one is to

059make sure we're connecting with kids and then the next piece is really so now we get kids connected how are we engaging them how are we um attending to their needs how are we building community and navigating this new environment building relationships all over again um particularly being sensitive to the fact that we may have new students who have never stepped foot in our buildings just yet and are and need to um they need to orient themselves to their classmates and feel that connection with their teacher and with the students that are in that room in a digital environment which takes a little bit of extra finesse um to be able to do so um big push on the social emotional learning and building those relationships and eliciting from kids sort of how they have

060been where they have been and letting them know that we really miss them and that we're happy to have them back um along those lines uh while this is taking place in the classrooms we've had kindergarten orientation taking place uh this week and finishing up this week and principal after principal mentioned how fantastic that was um the having the tents outside was a huge success kids were coming in um we got a chance to meet the parents as well as a student and really do that one-on-one walk through with the technology which was so needed with the kindergarten students i wish i could have done a maybe a first and second grade orientation too but that um has ship has sailed a little bit so we're doing that orientation now uh through through the regular

061regular means but the kindergarten orientation has been going well um the other issue the other piece too that was a real focus is it's going to take some time for students to understand how to navigate their google classrooms um we put in some new structures and organizational pieces and teachers are walking students through just how to navigate that environment where to find links um how to you know hear where their where their weekly planner is where the course syllabus is um will be open houses that will be upcoming where teachers will walk parents through those google classrooms and how to get information and what they can expect in terms of sort of the weekly overview um so we're happy about you know that those organizational pieces but they do take time to um orient students

062through um they're also asked to kind of work on digital citizenship and so for those of you kind of you know what is digital citizenship it's really about understanding what a student responsibility is in a digital environment how to navigate that environment responsibly um understanding a little bit about cyber bullying appropriate behavior and how to sift through lots of information that they'll have access to and how to navigate that appropriately um and with integrity so um there's a lot of work ahead there we also have lots of programs that we've been able to resource for students you'll hear things like ixl razz kids imagine learning ingenuity there are read 180 math 180 we have all sorts of different programs at different levels for different reasons and so students need to be able to understand how

063those programs operate what their responsibility is for those so you will see over the next couple of days at least next five or six days or so the teachers will really spend time working on that as as classes become ready and students are connected and they're operating um as a as a whole and ready to go they'll start moving into more academic and curricular pieces but for now it is connect build those relationships and orient um to the digital environment and when those things are done well then this um the students can and teacher can move more efficiently through curriculum um and be able to concentrate on on those next pieces so um we were very pleasantly surprised today with that um the last two days with the reports um and over the some students

064have already received their supplies the district purchased um a fair amount of supplies for students so that everyone has access at home to be able to participate and to utilize tools that they'll need so we've sent home markers dry erasers pocket pals art paper will be going home math manipulatives and a variety of other materials composition notebooks art pens so if students haven't received those bags yet the schools will be scheduling a pickup time that works um best to do for distribution uh very soon um and trying to think if there's anything else that we had we did have a couple issues with um a little bit of bombing in google hangout so we did have a couple of students where um you know they had accessed another classrooms link so students shared their google

065me link out on social media and other students access that so um we we have uh you know we'll be addressing that with students but that is also part of the division did a digital citizenship which is why we um have to have good conversations with students about how they should behave in this environment so um you know these things will come up and we'll address them as they as they uh surface um i also want to address a little bit about um a couple things about special areas so there were some sticky issues k5 in special areas but it was mostly along if you can envision a virtual handoff to another teacher so instead of a teacher walking their class down to art music or pe we have sort of a virtual handoff um

066where students are are guided to another link and so we're working through sort of practicing that with both the students and the teacher as well as making sure those google meet links are up and running so we'll be pushing through that um and then there were some questions about um flex and asynchronous uh learning and so we did receive a couple of emails about uh wednesday high school and in some cases at the middle school and so on wednesdays wednesdays is primarily a small group instruction day basically for the district and so um our program is made up of both synchronous and asynchronous experiences as well as some defined times for small group instruction so on wednesdays particularly at the high school where flex is noted um and particularly once school gets underway more and

067more the academics start to flow out of the high school there'll be a lot of expectation for students to be completing asynchronous assignments on wednesday but also plenty of opportunities to access small group instruction and one-to-one support with their teachers and so we thought that that was a very important day for students to be able to do that um you know some some parents uh got an email today that they were thrilled that that was built in because they're worried about screen time and flexibility and we have some parents that are not happy about it and want it to be pure academic uh driven day so in terms of like direct and direct live instruction so um i just wanted to clarify a little bit around what flex is and how it's used typically during

068the regular school year and work week there's uh 40 40 minutes a day dedicated to flex that's over 200 minutes and so we have sort of tagged that up and compacted that on the wednesdays so it also provides some flexibility for students to receive the small group but then also to complete some of those asynchronous um coursework that they'll have as the year gets starts to progress i'm trying to think if there's anything else along those lines i think that is so all of this going on uh question sometimes comes around i know and me jiren here how can we support parents to support the youngsters are you on in i am could you briefly tell the board what we're doing with that good evening everyone so over the last um three or four weeks

069we have um at the family and community engagement center spent a fair amount of time working with parents that have come in that have questions about connectivity about how to navigate the different platforms that we're using um so my staff has been working with them as well as supporting central registration from that we have um just recently this week deployed a fair amount of staff to help out with interpreters as interpreters at the kindergarten registry or kindergarten orientations big kudos and thank you to staples who has provided us with over 500 bags of materials that we have distributed to the schools to go out to students in addition to what we already have purchased so families were able to buy either five dollar or ten dollar bags to um distribute and they're already packed up

070and ready to go so they're out in the schools ready to go to the families um we were able to add to cara's and her team learning manual guidebook a whole family and school partnership guide onto that so that fam so that teachers have more resources at their fingertips to be able to connect with our families out there as we know once that relationship is built then we have smoother sailing um especially in the digital environment we um are working with jen um to update the website and under family and community resources we have a new resource page there that is chock full of tutorials and multiple different languages we actually did one on zoom and google etiquette um so that parents can review that i'm thinking we might want to put up something on

071digital citizenship as well and then we have a child care program that begins next week at pow with at advance and that is enrolling families we are seeing a large uptick in family child care homes taking more children the office of early childhood um let the family child care providers normally they can only have school-aged children for a very small amount of the day have them now for longer periods of time so older children may be in a family child care home with their younger siblings so that's helping cohort families together a little bit more and the children are getting support while they're there lastly through our priority school grant and our 21st century learning um program we will begin tutoring next week after school with certified teachers for children that have been identified either

072by their teachers or by their principals as needing more help and so we'll start that um roll out after the teachers regular day around 3 30 or 4 give them a little break and then be able to work with students that still need more help so my office as small as it is um really does work hard at um getting the parent the resources that parents need um answering the phone we take over 150 phone calls a day from families um looking for everything from food to supplies heating fuel things like that so busy office and we're looking for looking forward to finding our new space temporarily while we move out for the construction at osborne street thank you gina as long as you're on could you just quickly update amber up to registration on

073how that's going because you remember what happened to us last year gina are you there yep i'm here yeah speak up okay can you hear me no hello no yeah that's better that's better okay um yeah i i will speak about enrollment and um and then move on to devices and technology is that okay no just stay with enrollment okay so um we're still seeing enrollment come in certainly not at the rate that we did last year and currently we have about 130 kids in the queue who are handing in their paperwork and we're verifying their information um some kindergarten um kids and um but we're definitely not seeing what we saw last year uh as far as a big surge right that's been what i've been that's what we've been uh monitoring um i

074know that was always on his mind so um before we get to the next phase here seeing how we're talking about parents and technology you talk about the hot spots and and how you're working with parents and then we'll go to kelly will be next to talk about setting up for her special programming go ahead go ahead gina gina okay so um so if we do have a few hot spots in the district and um and any parent who has reached out to me we have given access to the hot spot for them my big push is going to be with comcast and the internet vouchers which we were awarded through the state and um i got information yesterday that we should be receiving um some more information on when we're going to get the

075vouchers and how they're getting to us next week they were just the state was just finalizing their deal with comcast and they've already finalized deals with um smaller internet providers and um cox and comcast were the last two that they had to update so i anticipate once that happens uh we'll be able to hand out our vouchers um currently many principals have reached out to me um with families who have reached out to them about um a better internet um connection and um so so we're gathering all that information and as soon as we can we'll get those vouchers out anything else about technology update then you'd like to alert the board to as long as you're up um just that the device uh continues we're concentrating on kindergarten last week it was all new

076students and anyone who had a broken device and we will keep keep along with that and any anyone who needs help if they have a broken device and they don't know where to go can visit their school website there's a link on each school website to reach out to a technician um for help and and we monitor that on a daily basis so technology connectivity carol um maybe it's better to go to carawanza and then the kelly keller runs you want to talk about the connectivity i think a lot of administrators were pleasantly surprised at the amount of students gary you're going to have to speak up it's hard to hear you so um i think a lot of administrators were pleasantly surprised around how many students they had in attendance um when they were

077working um with their staff and speaking with their staff um we had an overall rate of 90.4 across the district which is a couple percentage points below um are normal for a stay attendant we are working out several procedural issues and protocols around attendance that we need to kind of sure up the state gave out some guidance at the end of last week around more specific definitions and reporting that we have to do um so i i imagine that this um this number will change as we go in and make corrections um through friday um i i believe you know we're seeing a a higher rate than expected kind of at the uh the 912 level um it was pretty close to where they were last year considering um that were remote um i think

078there was a three percentage point difference or four i'm sorry four percentage point difference at the elementary it's slightly dipped below what we normally see um but that's to be expected as our youngest learners are learning to navigate this new system um we'll be working with um elementary and secondary principles tomorrow to speak more closely around what the protocols are going to be around attendance and and how to identify students that are not engaged at all those students do have to now be reported to the state so we'll be closely tracking those numbers and those families and and reaching out okay uh kelly um so beginning tomorrow we will um start in the special education department in bringing students in to conduct evaluations we will be using rogers park middle school as well as sacred

079heart which is our um one of our current preschool location so we'll be doing preschool evaluations at sacred heart or early childhood center and we'll be doing evaluations for students in kindergarten through 12th grade at rogers park middle school we'll be using one floor of the building it'll be one staff member one student per classroom all ppe has been provided or will be provided as well as sanitizer lysol wipes spray to clean materials in between students we are scheduling students either one or two students per day to come in and work with a staff member and we have staggering start times so myself as well as a special education supervisors will be present and on-site we will be having parents drop students off at the door with a few rare exceptions for students with certain

080needs but parents for the most part will be leaving the students with the staff member the psychologist for example that's conducting the evaluation will walk the child down to their designated location all things will be sanitized and cleaned in between students they will work with the students we'll make sure that you know we give them appropriate breaks between evaluations snack breaks and so forth so we should we're excited to bring kids in we'll have about 15 kids at rogers park tomorrow and about seven or eight students at the preschool level so it is a small group um we'll have at least one staff member for every student that is present probably a few more with the administrative oversight um and we've worked today with christy a big thank you to her and her team for

081graciously letting us to work in the building as well as kathy for making sure we have all the ppe set up and courtney and her team for helping us to do the extra cleaning that's needed as a result so this will be one step in bringing some of our meteor students in to do part of their programming that's required by law um and then moving forward uh depending you know and working and partnering um with kathy and the health department as well as our medical advisors one of the questions that we are considering is um depending on the decision that gets made on october 1st particular consideration to our high needs special education students so those students that are in self-contained programs and whether or not we can bring in small cohorts of those students

082into school safely for the month of september um you know the health advisors did not feel that it was in children's and staff best interest to do so um but certainly um it is something that the state has asked us to give special consideration to um and so my team and i are already working on preparation um you know should that uh be a reality across the district we have about 1700 special education students um and what we would deem as the high needs as outlined by the state and their guidance um would be about 300 of those students um so a much smaller subset of our special education population but still 300 students and so is a sizable number and how to go about doing that safely and that doesn't mean all day every

083day but that does mean for some time with live instruction with their special education and related service providers um just for the board's knowledge um in looking at the evaluations that we're conducting starting tomorrow we did slightly alter uh the evaluation responsibilities uh typically our school psychologists don't do our academic testing it's just policy and protocol and the way we've done business in danbury um they are fully qualified to do those evaluations and so in an effort um to utilize their time and energy to get the evaluations and connections with kids through that done and keep our special education teachers who usually do the academic testing in front of kids so that they continue to receive that live virtual instruction um we've made that alteration um it will be a slight change we are getting

084parent consent to do that um but we did feel it was uh in the best interest of kids to have them have the time with their special ed teacher through the distance learning on virtual instruction and then designate a majority of our school psychologists time to work on the evaluations so that's enough quite a bit um kim wanna update the board with the staffing how we're putting this all together yep sure so um this year we're just rounding the bend on completing teacher hiring we still have a couple of um vacancies open that we're trying to fill now um but so far this year we've brought in 113 teachers um to give you an idea of scale last year at this time we were about 163 so we're definitely lighter but 113 certified staff members

085were processed by my two full-time staff team members we did all of their onboarding virtually this year which went very smoothly we figured out how to do their id cards remotely so that their id cards and laptops can be ready for distribution upon their arrival so those certified staff members have all been processed and onboarded at this point in addition to those 113 we've also brought on 30 of our regular either building subs or interventionists people that are working daily in the building with students or as substitutes those folks are now in place and they are serving primarily as substitutes on the occasions when we need them in the full distance learning model at the same time we've opened our substitute teaching pool we have about 250 substitutes currently in there we're in the process

086of continuing to stay in contact with them because they won't become active until such time as our students return to the hybrid model so we're trying to maintain connections with them so that we can keep them engaged in danbury so that when we're ready to call upon them they're available and that will include rolling out some training some video modules for them to watch just to keep them as i said engaged in addition to that group of people we've also onboarded 22 non-certified staff members outside of the pera and tutor ranks so this would be for example new nurses and other non-certified staff members so an additional 22 of them we have seen an uptick in resignations from our para and tudor staffing we believe that some of that may be because it they have

087been remote now for quite some time and some of them have found other positions in other career paths in other places so we have so far held off on backfilling those tutor spots in particular um and i'm working with kelly closely so that we'll be prepared to pivot to in-person learning in whatever form it is that we have it and we'll have the staff available to cover those needs at the time that we're ready to enroll them so right now we're on a pause for um filling those tutor vacancies of which we have quite a few as well as edge albert mentioned earlier the seasonal custodians who will move slowly through bringing those folks on board with an eye toward having them in place when students arrive in the building in addition because we are

088not engaged in in-person learning we are not running our elp program right now so that is our before school and after school programs those employees have been furloughed for the moment um so they have been told without a fee-for-service model in place that we can't um maintain their status as active employees for the moment we're hopeful when we flip back to the hybrid model we'll be able to staff again many of those folks are existing danbury employees so they're our teachers our paraprofessionals our other substitutes so um they're at the ready for or will be at the ready when we're ready to move back into that in person model with elp i've spent a lot of time over the last 10 days or so working very very closely with union leadership of all kinds not

089only with the teachers but also with the administrators but also with all of our non-certified unions um we've spent a lot of time talking with them answering questions about what it looks like to be back in the buildings and i'm happy to say that those folks are all back in on a full-time schedule with the exception of wednesdays except by invitation and so those folks have been moving through the preparation process and helping us to get ready for the moment when we all hope that we can welcome students in some fashion back in person so a lot of conversations a lot of um tweaking and a lot of really listening to the feedback from the folks on the ground about what we can do to make sure that they're comfortable and safe feeling good about

090being back at work in addition to that um what is new this year for us is the accommodation process as we've talked about repeatedly in the past we have quite a few staff members who are very concerned about the impact that um this their serious health conditions have on their ability to report to work in an in-person model so right now we've had a total of a hundred of our employees requesting some sort of accommodation of that 161 of them are teachers certified staff members requesting accommodation and among those the breakout is 24 at the elementary level and 37 at the secondary level in addition we've had 36 non-certified staff members similarly request accommodations the requests range from enhanced ppe or enhanced cleaning protocols to the opportunity to work fully from home without entering the

091building and interacting with students or colleagues um so right now um my team member jen gonzalez has been my right hand left hand and middle hand on this and we are in the process of engaging as required by law but also just by good labor relations to meet in person with every one of those hundred employees so we have started that process everyone was asked to submit medical information and as a follow-up now we're sitting with each of them on zoom calls and we're having discussions with them about what we can provide to them in terms of reasonable accommodations without an undo hardship on the district um so the non-certified folks are more or less finished and we're moving into um with the exception of tutors we're moving in now to the certified staff members

092um and we'll be meeting with them um daily we've been doing this for about 10 days and i would imagine probably for the next two weeks and part of the conversation is not only do they have what they need in terms of accommodations for right now in the full distance learning model where there may be teachers that are coming in certainly in the special ed context but also when we flip back to the hybrid model what can we do to for them in order to accommodate in some cases that's going to be the ability to provide a distance learning teaching opportunity and only distance learning but those will primarily be focused at the elementary level and so the other conversations are can we provide similar accommodations across all levels so as i said those hundred

093or so meetings are going on now in addition to that we have seen a small handful of our staff who are seeking assistance through the family's first coronavirus act which has a variety of provisions in it that include provisions not only for their own health and safety but also provisions for child care in the event that their child care situation which could include school has been closed so i'm working with those folks again under the auspices of the family's first coronavirus act and the provisions there um for leave or intermittent leave and we're proceeding through that handful although um we do anticipate that we'll see an uptick in those requests when we are ready to pro to move back to the hybrid model lastly as we round to the bend on those pieces um we

094are turning to reporting obligations because those continue so my team is working on making sure that we know who is where which certified and non-certified staff members are located where and we're in the process of compiling those reports that are required by the state with october 1st numbers so that starts and lastly um the negotiations continue and um thank you to the two board members who are going to participate in the nurses negotiations with us um many of you might recall that that contract actually expired on july 1st and so we are working under the old terms but have been collaborating closely with the nurse's leadership in this interim period um and so we're ready to schedule that meeting for the end of september and we'll hopefully move forward to at least get them an

095interim agreement so that they can have their terms and conditions set anew with this turn of the new school year so it's been very busy um great kudos to my team they are working around the clock and i think they've got everybody where they need to be at least virtually with what they need to do their jobs and i will say you know i have had the great pleasure of talking with so many staff members including teachers and non-certified staff in the last two weeks in circumstances are really really difficult these are people who have got some real real issues to deal with and they have been um kind they have been generous and they are working very very hard to do the best they can right now with our um opening this week and

096um i echo aaron's sentiments from earlier tonight i applaud the efforts of the teachers um some of them are working under some really difficult circumstances and um i say to all of them we will get through this and we'll get you what you need so that's the end of my report thank you kim because it was asked just you know who hires teachers just tell the board that process is because we were asked at the beginning of the meeting sure um so the way this works is when we do a posting typically many of our postings are for backfilled positions so people who have left the district and we need to replace them but some are new postings or different kinds of postings the posting goes up we check to make sure that we've budgeted

097the the position and the posting contains what it needs to contain and through that we consult with administrators often central office folks and building principles posting goes up and then at the building level we have a really decentralized process so building administrators are typically responsible for screening it can be volumes of applicants for an elementary position we may get 300 400 applicants who go into the pool apple track is a great function for us for sorting so we're able to kind of sort through and help our administrators to do that with what they're looking for they whittle down a list they create a short list for interviewing often the interview includes a panel of other teachers in the building or other staff members there's often a demonstrative task it might be a lesson it might

098be a live lesson it might be a writing sample that committee then will make a recommendation through the building principal to central office we have what we call a final hiring report once they have checked references they've checked kind of check to make sure that the people have or at least purport to have what they're looking for they send that to central office where it's again vetted by dr sao myself often other administrators in central office we take a look through and set the process of placing them into the salary scale at which time i will personally call to make the offer to employees or potential employees talk through with them any questions on certification if they need alternate certification or a durational shortage permit whatever it might be and and that's where that process

099ends so um in some it's a it's a very decentralized process but it has the checks and balances of coming through central office for that last kind of big picture look okay well thank you because the question was asked i thought she's so that's how we hire also um the next biggest thing that we have going has been the review of uh our mitigation work particularly with the uh with kathy o'dowd and with cara prunty and they're with us tonight and the two things i want would like to first update us on what's going on with athletics because we've been working with that diligent as we mentioned two weeks ago when we had to go to remote and also the review process for looking at data in terms of our return so um cara parente

100are you there i'm here and kathy so we'll start with karen then kathy you can chime in go ahead kara uh so just a quick update about athletics uh we started or we will be starting um we made the recommendation to dr cell today to be able to start modified practices friday with following the same almost the same exact protocols from july with the understanding that we will be monitoring this very closely and if anything changes then we'll have to make adjustments to that um in reviewing things for uh going forward in october we have um a time set up to meet towards the middle of the month where we're going to be kind of looking at how the numbers have been trending what's going on with the metrics um specifically you know in regards

101to labor day weekend uh two weeks after that and also with all of the other schools opening in the in the area in danbury so we're going to see if that has any uh implications on our metrics in danbury is there anything else that you want to add kathy um thank you cara um and again thank you for um your collaboration and all of your hard work uh karen and i continue to communicate pretty much on a daily basis sometimes more than once a day we will continue to look at the metrics and we're also collaborating in with the health department and the community health centers to offer coveted screening sites at our schools we've had a number of drive-through screening clinics um and you know that's certainly certainly helping us to get the testing

102numbers up and getting the data that we need so that we can make a safe evaluation kathy and cara i think as a board member i'd like him to hear this i've been talking to surrounding superintendents learning because they're opening early uh one thing i could tell you that not many folks are riding buses that was a question i think someone had asked um but um that that's that's something to observe but also we observed three districts the last two days that have entered into covert and they've had to alert their community regarding the event and what procedurally and i know it's in our our re-entry plan but uh kara or and kathy could you just briefly review for the board so they hear what it is the process that we were going through if

103in fact a student uh is reported to have covert so that they are aware about what will happen sure um so if if i'm notified that we have a student or a staff member that has tested positive for covid um of course dr sales notified our medical advisors and i immediately contact cara at the health department and we have to evaluate this on a case-by-case basis um depending on the situation if it involves someone a classroom that's been in a cohort we will have to determine whether we have to close one classroom two classrooms or an entire building um sometimes we may have to close for what we call uh presumptive uh for two to five days so that we can do a proper contact racing um and as i said it would be on

104a case-by-case basis so the closure would go how how just the board here is how long the closure the closure um well if it's once we determine the positive case and say we determine if a cohort of just one classroom uh then those students everyone would be uh sent home to quarantine for 14 days and to be covered tested i have a question i'm sure gladys there's a question um i had the mute oh yeah i just have a quick question for kathy or cara um i i'm just trying to get an idea of how we're having the course of events influence what we're doing and what's going around us today new milford schools are closed for the next two days because they had a positive covenant test newtown public schools is a positive cova

105test now mind-bogglingly they won't say whether it's a student or staff member and it doesn't appear that they've closed anything naugatuck high school is closed because of a positive code test with a student so obviously we did the right thing by not opening because the dominoes are falling and they've been open less than a week how are we taking what the those experiences that other districts are having and how are we going to use that to influence what we're doing and decision making going forward so we will be following on addendum 5 which was presented several weeks ago at the board meeting we have the scenarios from the state on how to respond if someone tests positive how we would respond in terms of closing we have if a student presents with symptoms uh we

106have criteria for how they're assessed who goes to the isolation room who gets sent home what the response is if they test negative or positive um and again it's on a case-by-case basis because it may differ for example at the secondary level um where students once we're back in the building um they're not as cohorted as in the elementary schools it's just not possible with their schedule so depending on the contact training we may have to close the entire high school versus just one or two classes i i think maybe i think i asked the question badly to where we're gonna be doing going forward analyzing and deciding which point in the next few weeks whether we're coming back in to what degree are you using so let me let me try to hand so

107let me try to answer that that that's not enough yeah i will tell the board right now i was uh contacted yesterday by the commissioner uh who was asked by the governor what is danbury doing uh in terms of re uh returning so the question to me was what are you doing and what we're going to do is follow the law which is to look at the data just as we did with the athletics and to make an informed decision regarding our situation winston's has been distinctly different than the surrounding towns uh i don't know much that i could take away to say what happened in newtown would necessarily impact us what i can say that will be impacted what's happening in danbury relative to our our data which would would help us to make

108a healthy decision that's the best way i can approach that and what i told the state is in conversation with kara and kathy um we are going to wait the uh the two weeks now we're particularly concerned regarding the uh labor day and what it may bring and at that point at that point you know me with our two medical advisors and the whole team as we did when we went down when we decided to go dl to make a decision uh cara parenti any any advice to us on that scale bring us some other perspective yeah i think that right now everything is data for us to collect so that's the advantage that we have right now is that we can watch and assess how the community spread is happening and how other schools

109are are handling these situations um we can see you know if their mitigation plans and their plans are working um there's a couple of things that are happening that are that we want to watch uh one is the labor day one is the other schools reopening the private schools and also um the fact that wescon is coming back so those are some some things that we want to watch very closely and monitor and that will all kind of impact how our metrics are going and then see where we are in a few weeks i don't know if that answers a joke but that's about it absolutely absolutely yeah terry had everything i was talking about and tara is very detailed you know whenever she has she has the data available so we can look at

110the metrics whether it's a low moderate or high risk based on the positivity yeah much as we did with the athletics which yeah just a quick um comment request for mr 20 doing what we're doing [Music] in the numbers and damn right now still support distance this morning i can't i'm gonna repeat back [Music] yes okay sure [Music] i'm not i'm not sure what you were saying um i also might not have a good connection we're not receiving the information the question clearly and and we can't you know answer it we can't hear i don't know if anyone else can clear it [Music] i think dr sal may be trying to call him okay yeah i couldn't get i couldn't get through i can't unless he wants to write in the chat yes okay mrs

111cooper i've got a question all right excuse me mr janela do you have a question yes yes to tim um can you mention that on the new hiring that's exactly 100 and you can't hear him either yeah he again you had mentioned this year from the new high risk was 113 and it was down from last year of about 160. aren't we budgeted for that higher number try one last time i heard the question the question was if we're down essentially it was if we're down 50 people are we budgeted for 163 or 113 um we're budgeted for the 113 we're budgeted for the lower number um so these people that we're hiring are are primarily backfilled positions with the with the simple exceptions of those student support specialists that we brought on this year

112um but other than those they're all um vacancies that were created by departures so we're literally um plugging holes if that makes sense yeah so the shortfall is not going to create a a problem right correct thank you very much you're welcome i'm sorry i believe our still continues [Music] gladys i we're having trouble with al's unless he puts it in the chat oh yes i don't see it in the chat um yeah mr janela asked the question and could kim uh because i i can't understand what the question was yep so i understood so um i i had made a comment earlier that to give perspective that we hired 113 teachers this year and last year at this time we had done 163 right and his question was were there budget implications for that

113because the lower of the lower number and my answer is no we had budgeted for the teachers that we've hired this year and they are almost exclusively replacing people who've left so last year we had more people leave and had to fill the gaps um this year we've had fewer vacancies and we have not brought on volumes of new positions we haven't created a lot of new positions so um we've remained fairly static so we're plugging the holes um basically if that makes sense [Music] and share mr russo posted his question in the chat okay i believe our number supports continued business learning am i correct uh cara i'm going to say yes but right now we're moving the mark cara brunty yes that's a good question um so there's a couple of things that

114go into our numbers that would make us decide whether we go distance learning or hybrid um one of those things is trending and so uh we have to kind of wait until we can establish a trend and so um since we had our outbreak i would say that we've now stabilized uh we would want to see more of a downward consistent trend um so right now i would say that we would still support distance learning at this time [Music] thank you [Music] thank you cara thank you uh are there any other questions go ahead i'm sorry i'm sorry um kim i think this one because you you mentioned there were a number of paras and tutors that were not returning do you have a fix on that number or like a rough amount um i

115don't i don't know whether kelly has it feels like tidal waves because they're all coming at once but um i would say it's probably right now we're looking to see whether we have failed to pick anybody up with the with the new opening of school because remember everybody's distance working um so i would say it's probably about a dozen um kelly i don't know if you want to chime in anymore it's probably about a dozen so far and we've had a few more this week kim so i would say we're up a little over 15 now so um but we have sufficient support um in this distance learning environment and we'll look to bring additional people on board um you know when when we um come back in person the other thing we've done is

116assume some other roles and responsibilities um into support and the in within the paraprofessional um union uh our unit such as our iss peras who are not needed in this environment and we've pushed them into support so it's made up for some of the openings that we've had so i think we've effectively utilized resources but we will need to backfill those positions when we return to in-person instruction um and then i just had a couple other questions um one was about um who's in the school buildings and whether or not the teachers are supposed to be in the school buildings right now while we're distance learning or if that's courtney mentioned that that was up to their discretion i think i just wanted to clarify that point so right go ahead kim uh right now

117um let me start with non-certified staff because that's clearer um right now our nurses custodians safety advocates and secretaries i think that's all of them are all working four days a week in person in the buildings paris and tutors are only going to work at the request of the special ed department to assist with any of the testing or anything like that that's going on and administrators are also working four days a week in their buildings so teachers have been invited in if they'd like to come we have some buildings just anecdotally i've heard are full with teachers who are teaching from their classrooms with no students and with regard to the remainder that's a topic for our discussions about the reopening plan with the teachers and negotiations okay great thank you and then i

118just have one last question uh i will uh see the floor um i'm just curious about the um and maybe gina this is a question for you about the connectivity for those teachers who have been in the building um i know that when we have you know all the students in you know it's obviously a different connection situation but with the teachers running their their lessons remotely out of the building are there any issues that are happening with that so um mostly i haven't heard any but i don't think that there are a lot of teachers in the buildings in the middle school and high school we've had consistent connectivity always and um you know even when the students were there you we averaged every student had at least three devices they were connecting to

119our network so if we say that they're connecting one and every now everybody's going to connect one that kind of mimics the connectivity as far as the elementary schools we did over the summer push to have wi-fi access in every classroom because there were a lot of dead dead spots in elementary schools they're older buildings um wi-fi doesn't go through concrete right a lot of interference things like that so um currently we are in every building um installing uh wi-fi access points in just about every classroom so we anticipate when they come back um that they will also have strong connectivity as we have at the high school and the middle school and based on um the technology that and the white papers that google puts out on resources for classrooms and and how much

120resources it takes um we should we should be fine with um with the connectivity so um but as always we never know until we you know get back in there so that's okay we're seems to be more resources than we anticipated okay thank you and then um i guess just on a follow-up on that i'm sorry um in terms of uh like the the the hybrid model which i assume is probably what we're gonna roll back into when and if we go back in person um the if there's like synchronous teaching so the teacher is you know in the front of the classroom and they're teaching and their kids streaming at home you know to that connection and there might be kids in the classroom who are also connected to google classroom i'm just asking

121you know from a follow-up point because i do i see at work and i know when we're talking bandwidth like what we're talking about here so i just um it sounds like you guys are sort of preparing for that eventuality and you're feeling pretty confident that with those that expansion of the network that you'll be able to sustain all that streaming that's that's true um surprisingly google classroom um doesn't take the bandwidth um in streaming that say like netflix does yeah i'm thinking more like not high yeah high def it's not high definition and so according to google um you know and based on and what they've given us we should be fine okay thank you and the checks in the mail okay um i don't know if there's any questions but i do want

122to just address uh that opening comment regarding uh you know the opening of which is opening school with the um high school teacher um one it was about the hiring i think kim explained how that went but i would like to tell the board i can make this public statement that um we were somewhat knowledgeable uh you know towards the middle of august there was some unusual activities going on this particular individual never had any other issues presented to us and being there was no school no students in school the if someone's in school and something like that occurs then we place people on leave in this case school is on session so we go through the process and that's what we started doing uh we got to the process where um conversation was had

123and um um the decision was made with um to follow the law which in connecticut um there is the the teacher dismissal act that we have to follow uh due process and while we started that process the uh person in question ms dana decided to resign so uh you know we don't fire someone that doesn't uh no longer works with us so we've made the proper notifications to all of the agencies that needed to know regarding uh this behavior that we felt was terribly inappropriate unprofessional demeaning to our student body and the whole community and i know the board does not tolerate it nor do we tolerate any of that so those are the occurrences of what happened this is a personal matter but we speak to it because it was somewhat public uh and

124then at this point that individual no longer works for us there was a good very good question in there about what are we doing and going forward and kevin i'm going to ask you to spend a few minutes talking about what we've done the last year and what we're doing in terms of the um identification of equity and um you know respecting each other's um um cultural references can you spend a little time doing that for me kevin sure sure so so one um as i as i'm hearing um the parent express her concerns and and and then share those questions for us as a as a as a school community um i couldn't help but think about uh some of the work that we talked about last year um and and and this is

125our work about portion of the graduate and i and i recall being in in in engagement sessions where we've asked two questions to engage engage anyone that's been in front of us and many many people who are watching you know listening this evening probably also recall seeing these two questions um in our in our various surveys and in the portrait of the graduate questions what are the hopes aspirations and dreams that our community has for our young people and what are the skills and mindsets that our children need for success in this rapidly changing and complex world and and one of the competencies that we that continue to resonate with all of the groups that we met with was this idea of civic engagement and and frankly i think the concerns that the parents shared

126is a reminder that we as a school community have space for growth in this area um given the social climate in our country and numerous examples of racism and social injustice uh we we we have been planning to move forward with our commitment to lead explicit conversations about racial and social injustice as well as opportunities to take on issues that impact gender and gender identity and more um some folks on this call probably aware that through the work of danbury works the town in our city has already been um involved and engaged in dialogue about social injustice um in danbury public schools we started conversations with our admin council last school year i'm sorry at the end of the 1819 school year and then had had some initial discussions and and began discussions with administrative

127group but and then talked about responsibilities um of our coaches and literacy coaches and folks who impact curriculum and so this work was starting to you know get deeper into the organization and then of course we have the shutdown and some of the planning that we had to continue this work um was you know we had to put a pause on these things uh but but we acknowledge that it's time to engage our students you know more explicitly engage our staff more explicitly and then continue and deepen the conversation with our administrators in in this work um i i think you know what happened recently is is a stock reminder for all of us um that if we're going to you know graduate students who are civically engaged um that we need to be more

128intentional about socially what's going on within our country and and right here in our own community um and so you know i know we've had various discussions about how this can be embedded you know throughout our curriculum how it could be embedded you know during our um during our time in the in the mornings or you know times of data that we've carved out for social emotional um and and you know first we need to get in front of our teachers and have intentional conversations about these things so they can lead conversations with their kids in a safe space david want to mention the upcoming meeting we're having yes i'm sorry so which one with the naacp do we have that scheduled yes well well the naacp has invited us um to talk about number

129one our reopening plan um but you know i anticipate also conversations about what we're talking about right now as well thanks kevin i just wanted to make that public i thought it was important um so in closing i i'm extremely proud of our folks i thank you for the letter that you wrote last two weeks ago acknowledging that work um you know opening it face-to-face is one thing but opening it the way we have had to open it learning as we go through has just been incredible and this team would care of kevin kelly and courtney rich chalbert um and kathy and cara brunty it's it's really been a team effort with the town so uh i'm very very proud of them if anybody has any questions i know i see emails going to board

130members you know and just follow them to me and we try to get to those parents and you know talk talk them through some of these issues uh with that um i think i'm through uh gladys okay any board members having a uh last minute questions gladys i do yes rachel i apologize i had my own connectivity issues for about 10 minutes there um during this meeting um this was already mentioned just let me know and i'll rewatch what i missed um just can we talk about instruction for a little bit what i'm hearing about already on day two um as far as hours is that it's not enough particularly at the high school level and um i just can you just briefly talk about how that time is so different from the other two

131models the hybrid and the in person and that it should really mirror um you know a full distance learning program already my two kids are are sitting at the computer for four hours non-stop and i can see their eyes just it's appropriate for them um so yeah i'm sorry um no yeah and that's you know it's it's interesting because the the you know the feedback right now you know it's um you know why aren't we in a full six hour seven hour day what you know what is it that we're doing and then and you know a few minutes later we'll get an email that says that this is too much screen time even just the time that we have so you know it's it's really it runs the gamut of of opinion and you

132know both it's personal and it's um it you know it's very you know we've done our best to create a balanced program that we think um serves the best interests of kids and in a distance learning program and i know some people like to compare us to surrounding towns um you know we we didn't compare ourselves to surrounding towns in spring we had to cut we had to do what was best for danbury and i thought that we did a pretty good job in the spring of of of meeting the needs of our kids the best of our abilities and we're doing that now as well so um so six hours six and a half hours of screen time is not good for students when you're doing um a good blended learning program so we're

133not trying to replicate the traditional school day we're trying to actually create a blended learning program that will also serve us in the future as well and that means that there's a combination of both synchronous and asynchronous work and the asynchronous piece is a level of flexibility that we provide students um time and space to perform similar work but at um a place particularly with the older students that they're able to do so independently so what is it that has to be done in an in-person live interactive capacity and what is best served um offline and asynchronous we're also trying to um do work in something called flipped classroom where there is um learning targets instructional modeling and guided practice that's combined in a flipped experience so once students start to log into their some

134of their edge annuity programs they'll have some independent practice and independent work in an asynchronous fashion that that mirrors and supports some of the synchronous work that they're doing as well and so that makes up really a full and complete instructional day um and probably then some right and so here we are we're um not even quite as into the um how how many how long we've been sitting in this meeting and your eyes are already um tired and dry and for many on this call we've been in zoo meetings all day so um you can imagine what um our you know sixth grader seventh grader is experiencing as well they need to get up they need to move um the things that we normally do in a classroom when we assign student independent work

135in a classroom while the teachers working with other students um we can do that asynchronously offline and we allow students to choose time and space and when to do that um and again it's it's far more suited for the older students which is why you see a little bit of a discrepancy in the schedules and once the academic stuff starts to kick in um those asynchronous times and those flex times will be will be well utilized um but yeah at the same time we're also offer able to offer some support to students who really need that additional one-on-one we actually free that that space and that time up for students to be able to do both but it's flexible and that's the key to a good blended learning program is that there's flexibility in there

136and there's some student autonomy in the choice and time and space with which they complete some of the independent work that they're assigned that's great and we've only just begun so and we have only just begun and you know we will be continuing to evaluate um how the scheduling impacts what the student outcomes are so if we're not liking what we're seeing we will take that into consideration we'll make timely adjustments as necessary great thank you okay [Music] thank you rachel are there any other questions okay we can move on down the agenda you fit your uh complete uh dr sam you finished yes i am thank you okay okay so the next thing on the uh agenda is uh we had a discussion i i i don't think we not taking care of that

137uh we don't have an information package i don't think okay the board chairperson report uh quickly um on tuesday the 15th we have a board workshop the information was sent out to you at least two weeks to give you uh the opportunity to look at your schedule and please i would like 100 participation at this board workshop so please uh try to make the a workshop uh on the 15th which is next tuesday at six o'clock sorry to interrupt is that going to be virtual or in person it's going to be virtual thank you okay uh thank uh all the board members for your continued support for communication outreach letting parents and and the community hear what was going on within the school system in the month of july and artists i know that some

138of us could have been doing other things except you know saying let's make sure that community know what we're doing and i want to thank you for your support in the month of july and august uh some other there's a couple other things i'm going to make sure that we discuss this at our workshop next week i'm not going to get into that because we've had a lengthy meeting uh my last thing will be um elected officials uh coming to or being a part of our uh zoo meeting the procedure is and i'm going to say this and we'll talk about this later if an elected official could become a council person would like to be a part of our meeting we're going to ask board members you are not to give out the zone

139information we've you've had communication concerning that and we're going to ask council members not to go through another board member to get your name or get on the zoom meeting tonight please call superintendent secretary and ask her to make sure that you be on the meeting when we have a board meeting uh let's just do and respect uh one another and do what's right uh we're gonna have the superintendent secretary uh set you up and make sure that you can be in our meeting okay um uh that's about all that i have the other uh little dirty house cleaning we'll do next week okay uh one thing that's one one thing uh as you retreat next week uh and uh i just bring it up and you know my goals for this year and then

140you know i set them up if you guys could talk next tuesday about those areas that you'd like me to focus in this has been a very unusual opening yeah so i would appreciate that thank you and thank you dr sale and my last comment i made a statement and i think i had a discussion with a member last week my impression was all council members were getting the invitation concerning our meeting my understanding is the communication goes to the mir and um i was always on an impression that it went to every council member so you know we really have to tighten up some things work together and respect one another so uh you know from my understanding now it would be carol to uh get you set up to be on our zoom

141meeting if there's no other questions or no discussion i entertain a motion to go into executive session a motion made by joe seconded by second assessment by okay okay i need to see you guys faces so i know who's making this motion don't care uh it's 902 do we need a break you