Danbury Board of Education Meeting 8-26-20, 6:00 PM

001[Music] indivisible okay kate will you do the roll call please certainly uh joseph britton i'm here rachel celeski here kate canetta here gladys cooper here lauren daley is absent joe da silva will be late catherine hodgston here rich gianelli kathy molinero here al russo here amy spelina all right so that's uh nine present and one on the way thank you uh go down to the next uh agenda item cake and read the uh messenger kobe message that we used to do at every meeting please sure 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 comment underscore boe at danbury dot k12 dot ct dot us okay

002thank you kate uh sandy do you want to go over and start with our comments now before we start into our meeting sure sounds good uh first comment is from dane reese phd as a phd educator at danbury high school with over 30 years of classroom and administrative experience i hope you'll find my comments regarding the reopening of schools to be of value no one can deny the importance of young people of learning face to face in a stimulating environment i found online learning to be supremely challenging and immense workload and less effective and engaging than than i would like however it is a near statistical certainty that if students in schools are open in person even in a hybrid model one or more students family members staff or their family members will die the

003impact of a death in a family whether of a child a parent or a spouse is devastating and irrevocable imagine being the person whose decision results in such a horror we may all be spared this calamity if we just bite the bullet and endure one semester using the fully online delivery platforms that we already have in place having spent three and a half months developing the systems and training the students parents staff and administration in their use that would be the wiser safer more compassionate and more human course of action candace fair i wanted to know if there were any plans to require staff and children to submit a negative covid19 test within three days prior to allowing them to enter school buildings if not could that be considered given the increase in cases in

004danbury barbara webber as a retired teacher and interested grandparent i would suggest that the district have a series of training videos for those who will support students for distance learning it should include basic digital training to access the lessons it should include intros to all sites that are used there should be perhaps separate workshops for primary intermediate and middle school they could either be on youtube or zoom total distance learning means all hands on deck the intro training needs to start with the assumption that the participant knows nothing about distance learning perhaps there could be initial training in zoom sessions and then those who were trained could then offer training sessions to others in english spanish portuguese etc kim mcgrath for the students that chose distance learning during the survey will they be automatically moved

005back into virtual classes within their respective schools if not is there a way to request this change christine fournier when will we get a better picture of the plan for elementary school's day how much life teaching will happen throughout the day will kids who selected full distance learning before the district chose to open full distance learning still get assigned to a virtual classroom or will they be assigned to a teacher in their building daniela nero how will this be different from the end of last year's distance learning will the kids have a certain schedule of classes and daily expectations will the classes be taught live by their actual school teachers will there be one-on-one meetings with their teachers on a weekly basis are they going to be in actual live classes over zoom or google

006are you going to follow a regular curriculum or modify i have a daughter going into sixth grade and another going into third grade and i'm extremely disappointed and concerned with this decision because the end of last year was extremely disappointing as far as distance learning went helen marie quinn how is the district going to handle sped kids on ieps how will all of their services be handled and covered tracy rita what are the ages we can sign up for distance learning child care is this being offered for free to parents who would like their child to be with others while doing distance learning sarah cohen the availability of chromebooks for all students who do not have adequate devices or how to go about obtaining one hasn't been mentioned in a while and is now more

007crucial than ever since the decision of moving to an all-distance learning model will they be supplied and if so when also does the district have any plans to compensate families that aren't eligible for government assistance programs for all the extra internet and energy use required for distance learning i am working from home and require the internet with my son needing his own connection now as well we will have to purchase a more expensive plan for faster service just to be able to keep up working families are enduring more hardships now more than ever and we are already paying for public education for our taxes we can't afford to upgrade our service will we keep having to foot the bill for our children to receive this new form of public education our two-income household will likely

008have to become a one-income household due to distance learning we can't bear these extra costs as well our energy bill was six percent higher during the distance learning months in the spring you can't expect families to fund all of these decisions that they aren't given a voice in you're setting us up for failure michelle de morrow since parents lives are changing on a dime and working parents are struggling to find child care is that the expectation of the teachers as well teachers should be required to sign in for a full workday with without distractions teaching is a job and their own children shouldn't be at work with them they should need to find childcare on a dimes notice like the rest of us working parents anna valenti will students in elementary school have an actual

009assigned teacher from their school will students be seeing and getting instruction live from their teacher on assigned in-person days or is the format changing if this becomes a sign task like in the spring i'm not sure my son will learn much how will he be taught my husband and i do not have degrees in teaching and as much as we want to help we are limited in teaching a nine-year-old what support is there not only for students but for parents to better assist their children our students expected to be on the computer from 8 a.m to 3 p.m monday through friday or will they be able to do some work on the weekends chantel kokat we have opted for full distance learning for our fifth grader and understand the massive effort that was required for

010planning the hybrid model however there has been very little to no information communicated on what the full distance learning will look like what i heard was there would be a dps teacher assigned and there would be live instruction now that we are all in full distance learning my questions are will my son be assigned a teacher from his school or still any teacher from the district is edgenuity still the platform for distance learning if october determines those who will who originally opted for hybrid to go back to that model how will this affect those opting still opting for full distance learning if their assigned teacher is also teaching in class students what more can you share about what live instruction looks like is it interactive or are all students muted for full distance learning what

011is the approximate teacher to student ratio how do full distance learning students get matriculated back to the classroom theresa gibberson can you please address child care options frequency tuition etc additionally doesn't pembroke meet the requirements of less than 16 per class can you please revisit by school i worry about the kindergarten students my son can barely write his name and recognize letters distance learning will be impossible for them what's the plan he is shy and i can't see him interacting virtual by virtually by any means will there be a virtual meet the teacher will the school year pick up where last year left off i know my daughter missed half of her first grade class will second grade pick up where they left off wendy mccabe i believe wholeheartedly that with proper guidance we can

012still do in-school learning simple steps like have all kids tested before before school starts check temperatures daily wear masks sanitize as soon as they walk in the building have sanitizing stations set up in classrooms yes it will be a more a bit more of an effort but these kids need to be in school they need to interact with their peers and teachers there is more to learning than just sitting in front of a computer jacqueline glenn thank you all for all the work that you have done during these difficult times we have two children in elementary school as a parent who will have to work from home during distance learning are you able to provide a schedule or outline of what a day of distance learning will look like how many hours during the day

013will our children be on the computer how many hours will be spent learning from a teacher kristin sawmill what about the social and emotional well-being of our children on your district surveys didn't the majority of parents state that they wanted their children to return to school in person in some capacity isn't it hypocritical to say it's safe for people to send their children to these full-day daycare programs but not send them to in-person school specifically what is the distance learning program going to look like for elementary school students is it really good for them to be in front of a screen for hours each day k mackie this was the email address that i received no name when danbury schools were originally using the hybrid plan for those that chose all distance learning it was

014mentioned that the children will have a designated distance learning teacher from the district it was not guaranteed that they'd have a teacher from their own school now that danbury is doing all distance learning does this change the teacher assignments will my child now have a teacher from her school carol corcoran i am a single mom of two kids a senior who just graduated dhs and an incoming junior at dhs i want to express my disagreement with the decisions being made lately to coven 19. i want my voice heard i want in-school learning not distance learning my daughter needs to go to school to feel connected and to feel normal she wants this too she will wear a mask keep her distance and only go two days a week if necessary but please after agreeing to

015all of these concessions i want you to keep your word back and forth decisions one day yes and next they know has elevated our emotions and anxieties my daughter's sport which was done successfully all summer has now been cancelled i do not agree with that decision either quarantine the ones affected and let the majority choose to play sports or not and choose to go to school or not seems to me all these decisions take away my choices and are based on more fear than anything else why can't you test kids for fever and temperature temperatures like businesses and doctors offices or test them for coven 19 once a week giving up on in-school learning is not acceptable to me don't put us at a disadvantage again because of a few people that are positive move

016forward we accept the risk we feel strongly that we need to get back to normal as much as possible darlene murphy i'm writing this to express my extreme displeasure and anger regarding the decision to start the 2021 school year on a five-day distance learning while i understand and agree we all need to be cautious and take precautions to protect our children ourselves and our community but to keep businesses shut or at limited capacity be afraid to step foot out one out one's front door and to keep kids out of school and out of the classroom because of a virus that of the human race will survive is mind-boggling this virus just like the flu is here to stay and will ebb and flow peak and wane and we all need to live with it and

017get back to our lives fully that being said the fact that dps the board of ed and dr cell have changed courses on reopening of schools three times in five weeks is very distressing and quite frankly frightening it seems the fear-mongering narrative being perpetuated by the mayor the media unions and frightened parents is being listened to and acted on yet logic and common sense or not we all agree distance learning in the spring was a disaster it certainly was better than nothing but not all what kids need or deserve we've been told distance learning this fall will be completely revamped synchronous more accountability etc well now we as parents have no choice but to hope and pray this is the case when dps announced on july 21st that schools would reopen on a five day

018a week in person schedule we knew it was too good to be true as much resistance was instantly received and this ridiculous hybrid model was created fairfield parents and teachers already had options full distance learning or home school but those of us who want our kids in school whose kids want to be in school who understand the benefits far outweigh the risks were given one option to have their kids in school part-time here we are two weeks before school is to start and 69 of us per year pie charts want our children in the classroom are angry frustrated and confused as due to a small uptake uptick in cases here in danbury and the reoccurring fear-mongering the hybrid model has been replaced by the full distance learning model to be revisited on october 1st we

019are told why are the parents who want and neither kids in a classroom not being heard clearly no one making these decisions takes into consideration what's best for kids mentally emotionally academically and socially nor do you take into consideration the fact that many most parents work be it remotely from home or outside the home either way they need their kids in school the board has offered no helpful resources to parents who are now scrambling to find alternative care and coverage for their children which comes at a significant expense emotionally for the children and monetarily for the parents an added expense in spite of the school taxes already paid this alternative care will very likely be in a studying with kids and teachers from different schools locations parts of the city and our state thereby creating

020a much larger and potentially much more harmful exposure than if kids were put in their respective schools five days a week or full day in person learning the logic the lack of logic again is mind-boggling this decision needs to be rethought and reconsidered as our children's society and the future of our community state country and world are being greatly damaged more so than this survivable virus whatever cause tiki rules 21 email address will the ebt cards be used again for the three days each week that kids won't be in school melissa to know my children struggled greatly during the spring 2020 pandemic with their learning my high school senior who was very disciplined and dedicated to her studies lost interest in trying to virtually virtually learn which is very concerning recognizing the importance of education

021and preparation for their future my high school freshman struggled greatly with focus and anxiety the learning was very much a struggle that my son gained nothing through the process other than becoming frustrated and even more negative about trying to learn without the support of a trained professional we all did what we could during those times and we respected what had to be done and did it for the temporary period my son is ready to go back to learning in school face to face because he struggled so much not all children can learn via the virtual method no matter even if the curriculum is able to be given the chance to be prepared appropriately no one model fits all students some students have ieps or 504 plans and are required by law to receive their services

022many children even those who do well and enjoy school become disengaged and lose their desire to grow academically furthermore not all parents can quit their jobs to offer their children the support they need to learn virtually we have to work to continue to pay our bills and taxes and to meet the basic needs of our children so they don't have to focus on primal needs but instead can focus on learning and developing themselves to eventually be a provider additionally not all parents are equipped prepared or have the slightest clue how to begin serving as the lone face-to-face in-person academic support person the world must continue to turn as that in itself is a valuable lesson for our children to learn and experience to be able to adapt to situations as the real world will certainly

023ask that of them children need an in-person learning option those parents who elected this option knew the risks involved and made the decision knowing such preparing to comply with whatever rules were set in place to allow this in-person learning if so chosen just as the businesses and community had to adapt to the new normal soma school systems it seems as if there are two sets of rules one that the schools operate under and one that the rest of the world operates under for example look at daycare centers they had to figure out a way to make it work in person because they don't have public funding their customers had to return to work and hence they had to come up with a way to sustain their services how is it that we can require low

024wage workers to work eight ten or sometimes even longer shifts in stores and restaurants interacting with all different people all day long but can continue to educate our children in a setting where they can learn and stay positive about education these kids are our future we can't throw in the towel and say it is just too risky or complex we owe it to them to offer a face-to-face learning option if the parent decides on such furthermore i am sure you are aware other school boards in the area have made the decision to continue on with in-person learning options i believe our children deserve the chance for their academic social emotional and mental needs to be met see citizen 48 email is anything being done about teachers who are hosting learning pods for distance learning in

025their homes while also teaching distance learning this seems extremely unethical and if danbury is concerned at all about equity of education this should be not this should not be tolerated donna bosworth as a special area teacher in two of our elementary schools i want to sincerely thank you for your concern and support of our students and staff in the decision to start the year in distance learning as teachers we are keenly aware of the enormous pressure that you face in these decisions which impacts so many in our community you know that we all want to be with our students i don't know of any teacher who was happy or prefers distance learning it is a completely new mode of teaching essentially a different job than what we went to school or trained for that we

026need to acclimate to very quickly and requires much more time and effort to do we know all of the pitfalls and issues that distance learning creates for our students and their families however it is clearly necessary given our population and facilities ventilation issues and overcrowding crowding staffing levels and monetary constraints among the many considerations i am sure that you had one that parents might not realize is that special area teachers like myself teach at more than one school usually between two and three but some music teachers go into eight to ten buildings weekly my caseload is 30 unique classes each week across six grade levels with about 650 students to see students in person i would be have been pushing into their classrooms potentially breaking cohorts and cross-contaminating hundreds of students with the evolving information

027just released yesterday the virus seems to be more aerosolized than originally believed there were numerous complications to in-person learning such as this one example thank you for making these tough decisions and keeping our students their families and the greater community safe it is understood that public schools have traditionally stepped up to fill in gaps left out of the broader social safety net and we often do more with less because we do love and care about the students we are entrusted that are entrusted to us we promise to continue to work hard and do all that we can to teach our children support their social and emotional health as much as possible and rally together to press our elected officials city state and federal to provide the services that our families so desperately need right now

028with the decision of distance learning we lower the risk of become becoming gravely ill ourselves or spreading it to the most vulnerable amongst us please continue to follow the science and speak with those of us who work directly with the students trusting us to do what is best for all of danbury's children and our community connie hope i am very passionate about education and the well-being of all children i have watched over many many months as our children took blow after blow i have watches everything they had to look forward to was snatched from them i have watched as everything they knew changed i have watched them being told one thing only to have that changed time and time again i have felt powerless all of my kids struggled for the past five months and

029i'm sure there are countless others that did as well i can tell you firsthand distance learning did not work my children haven't received an education since march what we did have was loneliness and frustration as we tried to just make it through the year my 10 year old cried almost daily spending hours trying to complete busy work without proper if any instruction often she would start at nine and not be done until i forced her to stop at dinner time my teenagers teenagers were forced to muddle through with little to no instruction they ended ended up developing a whatever attitude to just survive the year mind you these are all very self-motivated learners with two parents who are available to them much of the time if this is how poorly it went for children as

030fortunate as mine can you imagine the less fortunate in our area what about those kids the kids who not only come to school for an education the ones who when they walk through the doors finally are safe and cared for where teachers and staff can provide for the needs otherwise neglected have we forgotten about those kids who's going to pick them up like i've done time after time for mine over these months these poor knee-jerk knee-jerk decisions to shut down schools will impact many children and families i have already told my employer that due to distance learning i will need need to take a leave of absence i simply can't leave them to fail fall on their faces in frustration again though i don't know how much good i can do for all of them

031even with the multiple degrees in education i do not mind sacrificing for my kids i would do it a million times over but i can't help all the others out there that's why i write now to you in appeal for those who don't have voices shouting from the corner the children's social and emotional well-being are also being overlooked my youngest hasn't been with his peers in five months unacceptable this simply that's simply not healthy in their development all of my kids have struggled emotionally over the past months this breaks my heart they need to go to school they need to be with their teacher who teachers who love them they need to be with their peers they have prepared our children well the safety protocols are in place we have done what we what was

032asked of us as a community we got the numbers down and kept them down yes i understand there was a slight jump in numbers but that was not in situations where safety protocols were being followed that's like comparing apples to oranges i asked you all to do everything in your power to get these children back into school it can be done it needs to be done and well before october 1st if not i fear the further damage that the poor decision making of our leaders will have on this precious group of children and their families tracy bruno my son will be an incoming junior at dhs and plays multiple sports my immune system is compromised yet i've still chosen to send my children to school and have elected to let my son participate in sports

033as well as summer conditioning at dhs for football i have observed all summer the precautions for every coach and league has taken to provide a safe environment for our children and i have felt safe in letting my son participate in all conditioning workouts held by dhs coaches and staff members i am concerned that with distance learning my son will not receive the same education he would if he was in school school learning and i pray that this year is better than the spring we as parents understand that the school did the best they could in the spring but now we have an ample time to plan so why is there still no clarity your recommendations for caution are noted however the parents who chose in school learning should get the final say for their own

034children just as those who chose to distance learn i am aware of every single risk there is in leaving my house going to the store and letting my children play sports or return to school and i am okay with it i do feel as if we are forced to distance learn we should at least have the option to continue with sports the option was there previously for those that chose to distance learn and therefore should remain these kids have worked hard to follow the guidelines set forth by leaders to continue to flatten the curve as a whole have done a phenomenal job please do not punish them for that they deserve so much more than your immediate dismissal precautions are in place for a reason coaches athletic directors teachers parents and most of all the

035children are more than capable of willing to carry them out so please give them a chance to prove it sports motivates these kids to do better and be better they need this now more than ever please know that i support all fall sports as they've been played in previous years let the kids play and return to school cheryl radachowski it's been challenging times for high school student athletes and coaches since the middle of march when sports were turned upside down due to covet 19. seasons were lost in the spring many athletes never had that at last one moment in their high school career or for their team and the constant uncertainty has lingered into the summer months players coaches and parents were all committed to practicing and playing safely they did everything the state city

036and school leadership asked them to do and i believe they were successful in doing so a few months of conditioning gave hope that these things will return to some type of normalcy in august earlier this week our local leadership mayor mark and dr cell put a pause on danbury high school sports wait have they not done everything that the state city and school leadership asked them to do that wasn't good enough and now they might not have the opportunity to play with their neighboring cities towns and states are able to let's provide solutions to how they can play instead of just canceling altogether many dhs dhs athletes have been playing in summer leagues for baseball soccer softball and basketball and competing in other sports such as track so these athletes have a sense of what

037they need to do to stay healthy and have a season to play for i'm hopeful sports can begin soon for all the kids in danbury the mental strain of not being with their classmates teammates and coaches has been tough on many for many high school kids including my two juniors school sports are their way of doing better in school earning a chance to play at the college level and to have some normalcy in their lives while high school sports isn't the end-all be-all of anyone's life they certainly help young people grow in many ways um and i i just checked the emails and that is it for public participation tonight thank you so very much santa you do an excellent job you know going through our comments we're going to move on down with our

038agenda um we have a couple of action items that we need to take here as a board and then we're going to turn uh the rest of the discussion over to our superintendent dr sale um we have four action item to um put before the board uh rachel would you do action item a sure um i'll make a motion that the board of education except for first reading policy 2150 visits to the schools as accepted by the policy committee 20-78 a second motion rate made made vibration segmented by al and the discussion on the motion i'll take the second on that gladys it was kate okay i'm sorry no problem okay thank you kate any disclasher cnn all in favor of the emotion could i hear um no kate do the roll call please sure

039thing joe britton yes rachel scholeski i kate caneva aye gladys cooper hi uh joe da silva catherine hodgson hi rich janelli yep rich is away for the moment kathy molinaro hi uh al russo and amy spolino hi rich we just were uh taking a vote on action item a which is um the visits to the schools did you have an uh there's a motion on the floor for this and we're actually on a vote so did you want to weigh in with an uh i or an a yeah nine eyes one abstention okay motion so careful thank you all kate would you do action item d sure uh i'll make a motion that at the board of education except for the first reading policy 5141.8 this is uh face masks and coverings is accepted by

040the policy committee through exhibit 20-79 closure made by kate second of all could i hear i thank you that's joe da silva joe thank you in the discussion on um action item b uh yes just a question please yes right um to uh mr walston did um i mean we talked about uh types of masks did cathy o'dowd happen to weigh in on that she she did and cat and kathy is here oh great i don't know if there's anything um the state about what types of masks would be acceptable so kathy i know that you were saying you were waiting an update from the state regarding what types of masks would would be acceptable so i had shared with the board that we were waiting for an update but i don't think anyone was

041if there was one available at this time but if there is an update please let us know um yes thank you kevin um no we have not received any additional guidance from the state in regard to the mass so at this time um the only maps that would not be approved are the type that have the valve which is an exhalation valve um other than that we've had no additional guidance regarding gators and bandanas so i'm sorry and we did make that update that you referenced about the ventilation right okay thank you thank you any other questions thank you rachel um all in favor of the motion uh kate would you do the roll call sure thing uh joe britton joey there can you step away he's muted so i'm not really sure okay uh

042rachel chaleski hi kate caneva aye gladys cooper gladys are you and i not sure if i heard that gladys did you did you weigh in on that i'm sorry can you hear me kate did you call the roll call my connection is kind of okay joe i can hear you now so i'm i'm i'm a yes on that motion okay thanks and gladys i'm sorry yes okay thank you uh joe da silva hi catherine hodgson yes rich janelli yes kathy molinaro hi al russo yeah amy spolino hi that's 10 eyes okay promotions okay thank you all uh captain america could you do action i didn't see please yes that the board of education except for first reading emergency suspension of policy during pandemic as accepted by the policy committee promotion made by kathy second by

043second uh by joe in a discussion on this policy gladys it's joe britton i just had a couple of questions um so just procedurally first reading is not adoption correct i don't know who that question would go to this is just we do the first reading you look over hope the board members will take it home make sure that you read it and then we'll bring it back and we do a final uh exception of the all these policies that's my understanding okay um and my other question is uh just kind of a clarification i'm all for the um emergency powers during the pandemic with all that with a lot of that delegated authority to the superintendent um in theory but i just had a question i don't see a procedure i don't see an

044end date on when the board would retake that delegated authority or really a procedure on whether or not we vote to end the emergency powers or or what and it just i'm not concerned i know sal will do a good job with it but it's just the integrity of the board and just how um just that power as the governing body of the district would would receive the emergency powers once god willing the pandemic um is over so that's that's my question just for that one specific so miss so miss cooper if i can yes you may there there is a sentence in the policy joe it's it's it's closer to the end of the policy it says the board hereby suspends provisions of its policies and hold policies as identified by the superintendent if

045such suspension is necessary to implement the written guidance from the seat from the uh from the state department of education related to containing of copa or for the duration identified in the governor's order of school closure so in essence when when the governor's um school when the governor's order um subsides you know so so with the policies um now if you're asking do we need you know to vote on this when it ends that that is not that is not detailed in in the policy uh to your point but it is understood in the policy that when the governor's order ends regarding the pandemic uh then so would you know these the powers that are exercised that have that have been granted to the superintendent i don't know if that helps at all does that

046help john right yeah yeah it does so just so just so i can want to bring it down and to try in simple forms in my brain here so when the governor's order expires that's when the emergency powers in this entire block so that's not just the superintendents but that's also those emergency powers for the temperature screening the the segregation rooms for those that are suspected of being ill that all expires with the governor's order that that's how i'm reading it and you know i don't know if the if the board you know has an interest in having a special meeting to suspend this policy or not um and again there's i don't see any guidance in here on how to handle that um but that's my understanding that's how i'm reading that that paragraph

047okay um it would just be i mean i know uh rachel you're the head of the policy committee but my suggestion would just be if there's any way we can kind of tighten up the procedure to end the policy a little bit but um other than that that was really my only question so thank you yeah can i just add to that please um the policy is a living document where we can um modify at any time um these these policies that we're voting on tonight are only temporary um and they can be repealed at any time by the board there are some there's some language in for example the visits to school where the policy is to remain in effect for the duration of the school year or until repealed by the board thank

048you rachel any other questions i'll do a roll call with goddess okay uh joe britton yes rachel chaleski hi kate canela hi gladys cooper yes uh jojo silva uh catherine hodgson abstain rich ginelli yes kathy molinero hi al russo hi so that's nine eyes one abstention motion so carry in if i look like i'm just looking um my it takes they said my inner neck connection is sort of slow so i don't know what that's telling me so okay we just if kate if i look like i'm not saying anything just continue on with the meeting okay you got it hold it up for me uh mr rules up down al would you do um action item d please d motion to the board of education except for the first reading posse 6114.82 coveted emergency

049measures motion made by l i'll second it second by a case in a discussion any discussion on this policy yes no okay uh okay do the roll call sure thing joe britton yes rachel chaleski hi kate canetta i gladys cooper yes joe da silva aye catherine hodgston aye rich genelli okay kathy molinaro yes thank you rich kathy or and i i'm an eye thank you al russo uh amy spelina yes that's ten eyes motion carries unanimously thank you all the emotions so carrick i'd like to thank mr walston and rachel and the committee uh for meeting and going over these um policy in order for us to bring it to the board tonight to uh get this on the agenda again thank you uh all for your hard work the committee and mr washington and

050racing now we're going to move on down to the next item which is twice uh we decided that was very important to have this meeting tonight to keep parents and everyone informed as to what's going on in our school system so at this point i'm going to turn it over to our superintendent dr sale thank you thank you very much and um first let me thank all the parents for their thoughtful comments um and i want to reassure them though those those issues they raised were resounding in our thinking uh throughout the time that we're making decisions a quick reminder that we had a reopening committee the state made it very clear the option was only to return full-time five days a week from the onset we felt that was not an appropriate mode for

051our district due to our space issues and other challenges and um have repeated um appeals to the state to move to a more safer model for youngsters and for our teachers which is the um the hybrid the most recent change was due to medical and we have a full medical presentation and i want people to understand there is no knee-jerk maneuver here it is um heart to mind and soul that we look at what it is that we are doing and make trying to make decisions to align with with that and it comes basically from the medical uh individuals for our local situation so um for the board's understanding uh kathy and kara and dr fong and the times dr bags have been meeting over time looking at data monitoring all that is going on

052during the summer we did have as some folks pointed out how could you have preschool when you don't have the others preschool tend to a classroom no transportation many many other limits that schools cannot replicate when we do return to school so even with that we were monitoring those situations and had some challenges during that time but there was constant communications um when things started changing immediately was contacted by the city officials the mayor um carapanti that we were monitoring very closely uh to see how this may or may not impact um i'll go down unequivocally our our in-person learning was our priority that was our intent that was where we were going until uh things um changed in in such a manner that presented itself with a um a decision had to be made

053relative to the safety of our youngsters so with that i'd like to um now just uh can you bring up that presentation and i will start the first slide in there it's kathy o'dowd now i know what the board would like to ask questions so i say leave it open you know i don't want to happen the two meetings ago when we got to an end i think we need to think these through and ask you questions but would you bring the first one on and kathy if you could introduce the team that has been reviewing all of the data and then start start the um informing the public in terms of how we monitor the depth of the monitoring and the communication that's been going on over time please okay um yes certainly dr

054sal thank you very much uh good evening everyone um my name is kathy o'dowd and i am the health and nursing services coordinator for the district um i would like to introduce our district medical advisor dr jack fong hello hi and uh tara prunty who is the city's director for the department of health and dr bagg who is the city's medical advisor good evening everyone good evening so um this is the group medically who's been collaborating so i just would like to start out this evening by saying that um this was not an easy decision this is not an easy recommendation for us to make to uh dr sal in the district um we want our our students back in school the students want to be back the the teachers the nurses everyone wants to

055be back um but we've always with all of our plans be it full-time in person the hybrid model or distance learning um health and safety has been our number one priority um i thank uh the public for all their comments please know that they are heard and those many issues were part of the decision making um it was not as dr sal said a knee-jerk reaction this is something that we have been looking at for months and um given the recent uptick in cases we have had to make some changes in the last few weeks um and it's not a one-size-fits-all and as we move through the presentation and start explaining the data and how it's recorded um i hope that we can bring a clearer understanding to you um but as disappointing as this

056is for everyone this is a very serious virus it is very easily spread and we have to take into account health and safety number one um so to review our collaboration with the city health department um the district has always enjoyed um a very good collaboration and uh since the start of covid back in march um we have been in contact it started multiple times a week and we have reached the point where it's now multiple times in a day um i would like to thank cara prunty she has been such a valuable resource to us as well as dr begg i appreciate his input his expertise um not only in public health but as a physician who is on the front lines uh working in the emergency department and has been so throughout this

057public health crisis so um i i truly appreciate everything that you have with us um so as i mentioned our collaboration started back in march and um you know as we've moved through we've had multiple phone conversations we've had meetings and we have been watching the data very carefully so how did we get here connecticut initially when we shut down in march connecticut did a wonderful job everyone did what they had to do they stayed at home they only went out when it was necessary people wore their masks we washed our hands everyone was much more mindful of cleaning and sanitation and certainly um the physical and social distancing and as a result we proved that it works and we were able to flatten the curve but what happened how did we get to where

058we are today as the curve flattened and there were not as many cases out there and or many cases being reported people got very comfortable and they got a little relaxed in their practices so those mitigation strategies were not in effect as strongly as they had been before we have seen a lot of domestic travel to and from hot spots throughout the country states where these mitigation strategies weren't implemented and they weren't able to do as well as connecticut there's also through the contact chasing it's been reported that there has been international travel in and out of danbury we also experienced a power outage that lasted more than a week and that resulted in more communal living you know people had to do what they had to do but again those mitigation strategies were relaxed

059and that has contributed to the uptick in numbers um so the state reporting by county versus local data so most of the data that is seen and is made to the public comes from the state department of health but they report on a county-wide basis not a local basis so when we have other towns within the county where there are very few those numbers really uh dilute the data that we've been seeing in danbury um i would say honor about octo i'm sorry on about august 10th is when we started to see a rise in the numbers and that's when um i started meeting with the health department more frequently along with dr fong um dan barry had been at one to two cases a day and it's we started seeing the numbers eight 12

060then into the 20s and as you heard last week we were up in the 40s so that was very concerning to us um so we did meet um as group and we reviewed the data and tara will follow with some of the specifics for you and we felt that um in light of everything our best recommendation to dr sal to consider was the move to distance learning um one thing that was very concerning to us is that a lot of these positive results that we're seeing are children for a long time we were told it didn't impact children very much but over a two-week period 17 of the positive cova cases in danbury were children and the ages were from infancy through adolescence we know that children carry a higher viral load so even if

061they are asymptomatic they are very capable of spreading that infection and that infection not only to other children to parents to grandparents to to teachers to other people in the community um you know it's good to see right now that the children we are seeing are not as sick that is the good news but the bad news is they have that capability even asymptomatic to spread it around so that again contributed to our decision so mitigation strategies and moving forward connecticut showed that these mitigation strategies work we've done it before and we can do it again as a community if we can collectively and consistently go back to what we were doing before we can flatten the curve again and then it will be safe for our children to return to school um so uh

062right now i'd like to turn it over to um cara and dr begg thank you kathy um for those of you who don't know me my name is kara prenti i am the acting health director for the city of danbury um and i just want to say thank you for all the collaboration it's been a great partnership this is something that we have been talking about and discussing for a very very long time um and as we saw the increase in our numbers um as you can kind of see here uh we've been obviously tracking it um and the peak was in april and uh now we've kind of seen we've you know we have our curve here and it's going back up so um we have we had um 83 i believe cases in

063in july and now we're up to 258 or 68 um now in august um so you can see the week by week data we started seeing a little bit of an increase in the middle of july and that's when we started having some more serious discussions i started talking with the state dph state department of public health um to say you know we're seeing a slight uptick in our cases and we were watching it watching it and then after the power outage a small uptick became a very large one uh so we've been you know watching this go on and um and and looking at this closely um for july we had a positivity rate that was just over one percent and for most recently we've had a positivity rate of seven percent and then

064we have um increased our testing as of friday when the alert went out so we have conducted well over 2000 tests since saturday and we've starting to get some of those results from that from the two federally qualified health centers we have a positivity rate of of eight and a half percent and five percent so that sounds uh a little bit better um we are those are our target groups of that are being tested by our federally qualified health centers so that's the number that we're really looking at for our positivity rate our seven day rolling average of of new cases when standardized for 100 000 people is just under 23 it's 22.7 um and on the when you compare that to the state metrics of where you would be for the low moderate and

065high that's right butting up right on the high which would be full distance learning um i'm just going to go if we can go to the next slide i just want to show the trend in our data this is a comparison of the age breakdown from june july and august and it's the you know the age groups of who who are testing positive um the largest increase that we've been seeing um as you can see is pretty dramatic is the zero to nine age group um since august 12th we've had four infants test positive when we had four infants test positive all throughout the whole pandemic so a total of eight but in the last two weeks we've had four infants test positive which is um concerning for us uh they're all from different households

066and it's from family spread um this is something that we're really looking at looking into and monitoring we're trying to do targeted outreach we're trying to increase testing and really take some strong mitigation strategies so that way we can kind of control the spread understand where we need to where we need to target our outreach and move on from there um i you know that's that's an overall breakdown of what's going on locally um these are conversations that we've been having with the state and our local medical team so these are our things that this is the best recommendation that we could make at this time um dr dr pascarella um to comment for us from your perspective at the hospital um i think we we've all thought through the risk reward part coming doing

067the mitigating circ mitigation strategies but in this case it was the severity of the spike the trend going up with the decision was that the risk versus the reward as some folks pointed out were willing to take the risk um was too great the other timing why the amount of time so maybe you could help think through and educate us further about why the amount of time and and the risk reward factor from your perspective that we should be thinking about please it's like the bag's not there there well maybe i can can you hear me yeah go ahead a little louder well thanks i'll speak and then i'll defer to dr uh so i i do want to thank the parents uh for their passion and their interest and i i i'm a parent

068of three kids too one is in school in danbury now i absolutely understand the emotional well-being of our children those needs um i understand it's a huge burden our parents um the distance learning that we're we've had and we're suggesting i've been practicing emergency medicine in uh the city of danbury at danver household since 1993. um just the last few months i i to to to really put this into context i i've i've had over 50 of my colleagues who work at here at danbury and ambassador brothers where i also work over 50 my cogs contracted coronavirus i've had my my uncle died of coronavirus who lives in connecticut and grandma almost died and the reason why i mentioned that is because if you look at the data not only connecticut across the country our

069younger population are absolute risk for getting uh the covid virus but they're not the ones that have the severe complications what they do is they pass it on to people like my grandma and my uncle and your mom and dad and maybe your your spouse and you're the ones that um will get it i'm not trying to fear mike i'm just giving you the data um in our icu is at uh danbury and the vaster brothers we had um almost 100 people on ventilators and we had over a thousand people who had coronavirus from discharge but not everyone that was discharged was discharged the same many had organ failure uh neurologic damage and other issues for which will never be the same so um if you look back at the pandemic in 1918 we it

070the numbers are are almost the same the curve we had the big break um uptick in the spring things settled down in the summer and then there were cities that chose to go back to some degree of normalcy and they had horrible outcomes and others that uh chose to be more conservative and they actually did okay when you look at the numbers that kara put up there's a delay so while we're seeing a spike in some cases the we and in truth we haven't seen a lot of hospital admissions although absolutely trending upward the number of deaths and severe outcomes there's a lag of a few weeks so that's why we're concerned even if we do distance learning we still are worried about increased number of um deaths and and patients uh who get it

071um when we uh tack on the idea of the the um the uh all the children in school and even though we have uh policies that relates to uh hand washing and masks and social distancing the the lessons learned across our country already for schools that have started early many of them have been open only a week or two and then they end up going to uh social um to distance learning because of a large outbreak so we're never going to hit it right the way public health goes is you try to look at the greater good and it is a risk reward and um i agree and my recommendation is that the risk is too high for the greater danbury area um if we um go back to the model of the hybrid model

072i i do think we need a pause of a few weeks and um i'd be happy to answer any questions as well cara or actually dr phone i'll turn it over to you for some comments well let me ask more questions one of our considerations as one parent pointed out why not you know set baseline data by testing everybody and taking temperatures um do you comment [Music] the ability for just to do something like that in the district with 12 or 13 000 in terms of it so it's well it's there's not only the the sheer amount of work it takes but the validity um i'm not trying to indict our health care system but by the time you have a temperature that bumps up you're you're pretty far along in the illness the the

073folks that are the super spreaders and the ones that spread the illness are the one that don't have the temperature but they still carry the virus and have some symptoms so just from my personal experience the the screening helps identify those who are really sick but it doesn't capture everybody by any stretch also when you're testing people testing them and i've seen this in nursing home arena in our greater denver area just because you test them this week doesn't mean that that gives them a clean bill help for uh the next uh week and also the tests quite honestly for high-risk groups are not 100 um the the number of false tests are in the range it's getting better but it's not a hundred percent that the test is correct so when in high-risk groups

074in the hospital setting we actually have to test someone twice before we feel comfortable that they're okay to go back into the general population so um while would be a big burden if we tested everyone and did tempter and everyone that still would not uh give us a level of safety given the increased rise at least from my um my viewpoint um i'd be happy to answer additional questions dr sale otherwise uh dr fong well let me let me make a few points of comments uh number one is the taking the is a screening test and like all screening tests there's false positive and false negative so it's not a diagnostic test the challenge we have now is that the diagnostic test for the covet 19 infection uh there's a time lag meaning there's no

075such a ta test at this point that you can do the test and have the answer within an hour or or a few minutes there's no such thing so the time lag is is is really the weakness of of the of the test itself now the only proven mitigation actions that are effective one is is uh uh wearing a mask and and wash your hands frequently and number two is the social distancing that you know people discuss about the the six feet or even more and number three is not mentioned all the time and that is crowding crowding that is why people take so much precaution if they're going to fly or if they're going to um uh take the subway or the bus or or the school bus for that matter because when you

076have a closed environment the circulation of air basically any any uh infectious uh will stay in the air for a longer period of time so with those the the going to school for children is not going to be without without the potential of getting infected and the challenge going to be it was mentioned uh by kathy o'dowd earlier and and certainly has been proven that children the younger they are the more likely that they not only carry the infectious viral particles they also may not even have to have temperature temperature or any symptoms so that they can be the carrier for the infection and get somebody else infected whether it's the parents grandparents uncles and great-grandparents and so on so the spread can be through them and and there's no simple way at this point

077now without a quick test to basically identify these children um it's a it's a fact that has been proven without any doubt and because they they don't have a mature immune system and is the immune system they create a particle the angiotensin converting enzyme to and and provide the anchoring points for the for the infectious molecule which enable the infectious molecule to enter into the cell and destroy the cells so basically children the younger they are they can harbor the the infectious molecule and yet they don't have the uh symptoms because the the infectious molecule cannot get into the cells they can only stay at the door they are not entering the house so to speak so all these problems we are we're up against i think you know when you look at it there's

078no perfect solution and uh in particular just one other point which is beyond our control is that yesterday was the day that the 2020 summer this year already uh we have a hottest summer on record because we we have recorded the high the uh temperature that is more than 90 degrees in this year than all the other years that connecticut that has kept a record and you when you have a hot temperature and in some of our school classrooms it wouldn't be you know the kids will not be able to learn properly when as the temperature goes up it goes up so high because we don't have air conditioning in every school in danbury so those are points to be considered and it's not going to be a there's no good solutions and there's no

079good one-size-fits-all i think going back to what dr sau says i think the ideal situation at this point as long as we don't have an effective vaccine than the hybrid model which we hope by controlling the spread and the spike that we can move towards that so we'll see when we analyze the data on october 1st and see what we we can do to improve the situation so so so um i i'll pause there but for the board's background knowledge in listening to this and looking on looking at what's going on across the country any return and the risk and then dismissing schools in a week or two seem in my view too disruptive of a path to take and in fact there wasn't any rationale for me to move in that direction so that's

080why i certainly appreciate all of the thoughtfulness of the advisory group here and they did look at things very very deeply and um in our in our estimation this the least disruptive and the safest to begin the year with the hope as mo all appearances mentioned to get the back to get back to in-person learning so um gladys that was this portion there were many questions asked about bl and what we did today was we went through many of the questions at that time and incorporate it in a pr presentation so we could answer a lot of the questions that the parents are asking so whenever you want me to go to the next phase which would be if you want to bring up that um that the next slide um kara madam chair i

081i have a couple questions that might be appropriate now doctor sal would prefer me to wait i can wait no i'll pause now i'm not gonna i'm just saying whenever you guys are ready to get the next phase let me know i think i know the answers to some of these questions but i want to confirm them um first and i don't know this may be a question for either of our doctors or for cara but um let me i'm gonna make sure i'm right at 22.7 cases per hundred thousand we're bordering on not having an option under the state criteria but to go to distance learning anyway correct is that right no the them those actually those metrics are set by county so it would have to be fairfield county going to that to

082that metrics um the state has been the state laid that out they want us to look at things by county but because of our uh trending of our data and the number the our our seven day rolling average that's why we were given consideration okay because our rolling average was bumping up against that number right and it was trending so we saw a trend it wasn't just one spike it was a trend in that direction right and this and just to make sure i have this right the the the decision to go to distance learning and i guess this may be for dr cell this is medically based this is based on the advice and recommendations we received from our medical advisors our health department and the scientists okay last but not least doctors this

083might be a good time to for one of you if you could to dispense for everybody the notion that covet 19 is just like the flu because there is no more nonsensical or dangerous idea right now than that first thank you doc um so yeah so if you look at the numbers um the death rate from uh flu is anywhere from one in a thousand to maybe two in a thousand in connecticut and you know the numbers could be numbers can be uh somewhat variable uh but the numbers of connecticut we've had uh um about 4 400 deaths uh out of 52 000 cases so i mean that death rate is by at least my numbers is about eight and a half percent so that's significantly significantly uh exponentially more than flu um and so

084um that in our society the the number of deaths from uh kogud so far um supersedes the number of deaths from uh almost any uh tragedy that we face in this country it's it ranks right below world war two deaths and right above world war one death um but is to answer your question um it's about one to two in a thousand um or point one or point two percent for flu but in connecticut it's well over uh uh 10 times that it's about eight percent some of the numbers early on so only two or three percent so what that means is if we let um if we had more uh relaxed um policies uh and we had a thousand cases and even if the death rate was only two percent that means that 20

085people would die out of those thousand people that that got uh covered so um it's actually it is pretty significant compared to flu thank you doc and what is that number for um under 18 doctor so the the death rate for um under 18 is a is much lower um in fact if you look at the uh i just want to make sure i'm not immediate if you look at the numbers across the country um and that's where some of the challenges are we have not had a lot of depth from uh covered in the pediatric population although we have had um a number of uh bad outcomes from other illnesses that uh seem similar to kawasaki's so that's where the challenge is when people look at the data so geez i haven't heard a

086lot of children that died so let's just let them go back to school public health is about the greater good and so the parents who say not a lot of kids have died they're actually correct it's the greater good and it's everyone that they're potentially infecting that gets the uh overall mortality rate much higher thank you sir thank you dr sell i'm sorry i'm glad i should let me know if there's any ques more questions that's why we i thought we should open with the medical team uh because they're so intimately involved in the data and dr begs is working this every day seeing and living it and he was very passionate in um in in providing us strong leadership and understanding that the depth of uh returning dr sal i have a question um

087based on joe's question too i think um it is a virus correct just as the flu is a virus but we this is a new virus that has been introduced to the humans um we haven't had a chance for her immunity we haven't had a chance for um an inoculation against it so are we saying are we going to say that there is no safe way to put these kids back in school until we have a vaccine mine is an opinion but i'll let the doctors go first yeah i mean i have an opinion on this too so let's talk about the range so the worst scenario is that um you're correct the worst scenario is that we may not be able to go back to school till we get a vaccine right if you

088look at two of the pandemic of 1918 it was almost three years before everything subsided um uh the best scenario is that we as a country and we look at lessons learned in some other countries if we pay attention to all the public health recommendations and we can truly get the rate of covert down to a low enough number and we get the proper testing then if we do have a slight outbreak we can trace all those people and and shut it down uh locally uh so it doesn't proliferate into a huge um event where we have to close down schools so i am hopeful uh i'm truly hopeful that we can potentially open uh october 1st if if we get the uh recent outbreak under control but um it is a range and that's

089why i feel bad for the parents who think that maybe we're not doing our job we can't make up our minds it's a fluid situation and it's actually a credit to cara and the team at danbury public health who are looking at the numbers and it's a day-to-day decision you know sometimes uh people are quoting uh sports um and you know uh if you look at a football game if you get down two touchdowns you don't go with your same game plan you got to open up your playbook and start being aggressive as opposed if you're doing really well then you get conservative so we have to be allowed to be fluid in our decision making and um dr sal turn it back over to you well maybe i can add another dimension to this

090because if you look at the seasonal influencer uh we don't eliminate that besides the virus change every year so why why is it that with the vaccine you know we we basically the kid can go to school is because there's such a thing called hurt immunity meaning if you vaccinate enough people when you go beyond 60 or so then it's it's the the viral particles in this case in particular is transmitted from human to human so if you have enough human that are that are immune to the infection then yeah the kid can go back to school and the vaccine just helped to keep that hurt immunity and in fact that's why it's so important that every winter that we should all get the flu shot because in in getting the flu shot you not

091only protect yourself you're also protecting the community so you can't have the vaccine but you will not eliminate this virus never i'm sorry go ahead no no i just say not likely i wouldn't say never i mean look look at smallpox i mean you know it's eliminated yeah and look at polio is a good example in many countries in the world now is eliminated not the world but smallpox is eliminated from the world but polio is eliminated from many countries so kathy in in in my view um the enemy the enemy to the good of the perfect is the good you know if you can't make it perfect and i think if the good for me would mean the review that that we would have would put us in a position where we were prior

092to this the start of this which with all the mitigation strategies that we have in the hybrid model reducing the number of in youngsters there reducing the number of youngsters on the bus all of that that would be going on would put us in a position i hope that we would be able to return while we wait for the therapeutics and the vaccine because you know when we get there is is is when we get there but i think as so many parents pointed out coming back the social emotional is very very uh strenuous on the youngsters the way we're doing things so it's my hope that it's good enough at that point won't be um you know perfect but it'll be good enough me too sal i'm just making the point that this is

093always going to be in motion until a vaccine as dr fong says you know we have to have 60 vaccinated and get the hurt immunity going and there was some questions also about athletics and and just know that um we allowed the youngsters to return um the pause in that simply was because of the pause in town where all of the sports teams were you know sidelined i think it was true very true that our youngsters and their coaches were following the proceeds for me we were and for the medical team we thought we would wait at least this week to see how the numbers are going and if there's any group that could return that that's been a model group the way they've handled themselves but i'll let kathy comment about that because i

094think those parents deserve an explanation kathy regarding the in scholastics um yes um dr sal thank you um i will be uh again collaborating with cara to get the data um we've done testing every day in danbury this week so um by tomorrow or friday we'll be able to look at a lot of those results and be able to um offer you a recommendation thank you kathy thank you gladys anytime we want to go to the next phase which is the oops sorry gladys i have a question whenever i can start interrupt go ahead joe um i just had a question um and please direct it to whoever to our docs uh maybe but um just with the whole the way things are trending right now and your professional opinion i know how october 1st

095is looks like it's a good time to reevaluate and there's potential to go back into the classroom but what i can't wrap my head around is um is the transportation and the school buses can you give a professionally say that there isn't going to be risk on the transportation in the school buses that can find space like that with a bunch of kids and fall when we're getting it right into flu season and right when there's about to be another when they're saying that there's going to be another influx of kovid and it just that i i mean i i'm all for reevaluating whenever we can because i would love to get the kids back into the classrooms but just what i can't wrap my head around is just how we're gonna be able to

096do this on the buses and how we it's just i'm wondering if you could just clarify that for me well i have an opinion on that so there's two pieces uh first of all um we collectively are only as good as the weakest point in the day for the children so even if you do a great job at school um if if you have that 20 minutes on the bus where the social distancing uh hand washing the mass break down then the whole um then uh children at risk so part of the reason why i personally think it's good for us to take a pause until october 1st and not necessarily suggest the whole semester ago distance learning is because i want to see lessons learned from other school districts around the country who were

097more liberal i want to see what they what happened with their school buses and i feel bad that that we're going to benefit from their maybe uh not optimal experiences but that's my viewpoint um i want to see lessons learned so i don't know if dr fong has a different viewpoint no i have the same same viewpoint i think it's important i mean my my recollection is a few days ago the the school bus drivers actually uh picketed uh to protest because they they also would like to have protection they should they want the plast the uh the shield to protect themselves they want monitors in the school bus to uh to make sure that the children are having the the mask on and behaving properly so yeah i i think dr beck is absolutely

098correct i think that is potentially the weakest point and uh and we have to address that uh when the time comes in october one of the things um joe is that the hybrid model automatically puts you half the number of students in the bus we also believe that at that at the time we were looking at returning we had about 23 to 24 of our student bodies were going to be on distance learning further reducing the number of youngsters that would be riding the buses added to that high number of parents we've had to take precaution at the schools uh to create some kind of differentiated entrance time and doors so that knowing that parents are going to be driving so with all that said it is the hope that the buses would be reduced

099substantively so the spacing would would be um making it safer safer not 100 and the advice is when you can if it's not cold keep windows um keep windows down the other thing i just remind the board if october with cooler weather then um because we're not permitted to use fans um you know that's been our mode for breeze in the schools other than a few have air conditioning that would also make it uh another factor in returning uh but joe that that's what we have with the buses right now okay great thank you guys for answering that but just so like if we're only half packing these buses i mean i've seen some of them and they're packed with like 60 kids so if we're half packing a bus with 60 kids with like

10030 children that's still 30 children that are going to be on this this bus and i and you know the fact that it is our weakest link i hope that we're going to put a lot of resources into this because transportation is relied upon a lot by parents um in the district and it's just i'm all for us wanting to look and see what other districts are doing i think that's great but it's just personally i mean i don't have any kids but if i did have kids in the district i sure wouldn't be putting them on a school bus i don't know if you guys would but i definitely would be putting up would not be putting them on a school bus for the rest of 2020 and that's really just what i wanted

101to say on that but i'm all for us seeing what other districts are going to do and i appreciate you know the attention that you guys are putting towards this on making sure that we get this right because our margin for error is zero we have to get this right and so far i think uh we're we're getting there and the decision to go remote was the right one at this point so um thank you guys and that's uh all i wanted to say on that any other questions got to say you want to move to the next line yes i just want to really thank this team uh just know that uh you're on uh on call every day i just want to remind you of that so thank you very much cara dr

102fong dr veggs and kathy certainly appreciate it very much yes can you roll this i i do have it up can you see this guy dr cell okay yes good um let's start going on it then okay so um the next couple of slides really deal with some of the questions that parents have rightly so about what distance learning will look like uh moving forward um in sort of this quick shift that we that we are making um and so we'll talk a little bit about the instructional expectations and how those may be different than uh what folks experienced in the spring and uh what it'll look like and then we'll show a k5 sample of a school day that we uh have just sort of landed on where we're working through ways to provide

103more structure for for students particularly at k5 um where things were a little bit um looser in the spring and so i will i will go over all of those so um i think the biggest uh differential for students in the spring um is in the word is i think we could capture it by using the word consistency um so there were varied ex varied levels of experiences throughout the district with uh distance learning in the spring but mainly that was a training issue is mainly because of um sort of our inexperience with doing uh live interactive lessons and that's something that we hope to shore up this year through some training and some and some additional guidance that we're going to provide for teachers um so right off the bat um we have created

104some non-negotiables if you will of how google classrooms need to be organized so that we deliver a more consistent instructional experience to students so that parents and students can find information a little bit more easily little things like having a course syllabus or a course grade overview that sort of anchors the classroom where parents can go to get all the information that they need in one place logins codes things like that where they can go reach out for extra help the teacher's office hours and when they can expect um what that instructional day is going to look like in terms of the schedule so we think that that will provide um some consistency there for folks across um uh the schedules will be structured uh with defined meeting times and so we heard very loud

105and clear and we really combed through the surveys last year both the parents uh and even the students and their feedback about what you know what would have helped you more and so having sort of an organized weekly overview of what to expect for the week where and when do i have to be at what time what's due and um you know what's expected of me synchronously versus asynchronously so we do plan on having a weekly planner and of course the the um these course syllabus uh for all classes will be in play um we're trying very hard to reduce the number of google classrooms at the k5 level that students have to navigate that was a bit of an issue in the spring so there was just way too many classrooms particularly at the

106youngest levels so we're doing a comprehensive special area classroom so that students will will go to one classroom to access art music media and pe uh working through some of the challenges with with doing that and having a shared classroom but we think that it's worth the extra effort in organizations so that it's a little bit easier to make sure kids can get to the right classroom and don't have to log in and out as much so we think that that will help we're working with our staff right now on understanding you know very much the startup organizational expectations so what are the what are the first two weeks what are the goals in the first two weeks um immediately connecting with kids and communicating with families reaching out building some community in the classrooms

107uh that we missed over the summer that um in some cases started in the spring and as well as uh front loading with social emotional learning activities um and making sure that we're connecting with students and and recognizing where they are in this whole process maybe some of the traumas that folks have experienced in the spring we certainly have some professional development that i can speak to in another slide but we think that this organizational front loading will serve everyone well we provided a teaching and learning guidebook for the teachers that just went out and so it kind of clarifies what those expectations are it gives some guidance on things like grading and reporting absences and all the lessons will be virtual interactive lessons we're working really hard to um start the conversations around blended

108learning strategies so many of our teachers in the spring learned pretty quickly some great tips and tricks on how to weave some of these strategies into their teaching uh bag of tricks if you will um this fall we're going to be engaging in something called blended learning strategies for the fall of 2020 by author catelyn tucker so our folks will be engaging in that starting on monday um and we feel really good about that training and what it'll provide in terms of um structure and vision for how to to create the most engaging lessons that we can possibly put together for students um there'll be a combination of synchronous and asynchronous so while most classes will will every class will meet synchronously there will be some asynchronous work so synchronous is when you're meeting in

109real time just the way that we're doing now and asynchronous means that the teacher may post some content for students to engage in um at a more flexible time uh at their pace um we the distance learning schedule is a compressed student day so um students will not be in school from eight to three uh going course to course of course we compress the day down it's an abbreviated day with the expectation that students will complete some independent practice um and i'll go over the k5 sample because that seems to be the um what is most on parents mind is understanding what that k5 k5 daily routine looks like um services will remain intact with modifications one of the benefits of having a structure day is that we're able to identify the blocks of time

110where students will go out for services and work with other staff that they need to they need to whether it be special education esl or or intervention services we will be going back to regular grading so in the spring we allowed for the default was a pass fail um and while that was certainly uh applicable given the uh kind of really dire situation that we were in the spring um now that we're back in the fall we'd like to make sure that students are really engaging and invested um so we'll employ the regular grading policies we'll also have an honor roll as well uh so long as um you know we're able to operate officially in this environment and so we'll be continuing to reevaluate that but as of now we pursue we will be

111proceeding with regular grading um our lesson of our lessons will have embedded social emotional learning activities staff will be receiving some training on that this week along with some additional training that kelly truechess has put together that is really high quality around trauma and covid uh related trauma and students will be engaging in some of their independent practice activities that are adaptive such as ixl and raz kids and i just want to clarify around and ingenuity we're using this as a resource at the secondary level in grade 6 through 12 in the courses in some courses um we have many courses where this applies and then but not every course will have this an edge annuity is a resource for teachers to use to help deliver course content so it is not a platform per

112se although they do have platforms we are not using it in that capacity um we are using google classroom as our learning management system edgenuity is uh sort of a co a co resource system that uh works alongside uh whatever the teacher puts out in terms of their curriculum and pacing through the google classrooms i just want to make that clear students will have some responsibilities and ingenuity for engaging in that content taking quizzes and responding but the teacher ultimately will make those assignments through google classroom which is our main platform this is a k5 sample schedule so every like every year teachers i'm sorry principals will put together a schedule that um exposes our students to the district curriculum so i just want to point out that the school day here will be correct

113this is elementary this is k5 uh this was the one that was was on everyone's mind in terms of what does the day what's the day going to look like at the k5 level secondary has always been scheduled into courses they get a very rigid schedule it's very obvious what those what those classes are when they meet k5 has been a little bit more of a fluid day of blocks that get scheduled um so it's a little bit less visible to to parents and and to to the outside unless you um happen to have that individual teacher's schedule so the day at elementary will start at at 8 30 so um and i you know i regret not color coding this a little bit differently when we when we met but this was being tweaked

114right up until uh this morning because we were making some adjustments and i i do believe we'll continue to make some adjustments as we once we get started to make sure that we are delivering the most efficient program we can the day for elementary will really start at 8 30 and i'll explain what this is in a second um so students will have their morning meeting they'll uh the teacher will engage in some um some social emotional learning activities to build some community to warm students up to the day and of course to take attendance and to cover some any morning uh any morning uh informational uh sharing that needs to happen uh they'll have a reading class they'll engage in some small group instruction and phonics um particularly the younger levels this is a

115kind of a sample um they'll have a special so they will engage with art music media and pe this will be sort of an abbreviated time they will have math and math practice in this block and so the teachers will be scheduling flexibly in here so this is the idea that this is more of a whole group lesson and then there'll be some small groups and whole group lessons small groups and again the teacher has some flexibility in there on how to arrange that and we'll reach out to parents to make sure that everybody knows what that schedule is and they'll also be embedding some breaks um in in real time for students as they need there'll be a writing block and then this is a fixed block called win or esl so this is

116an intervention block or a what i need block so if students need some services they may go to special ed they may go to esl they may go to an enrichment and they may stay stay with the teacher and so we will um see students will be assigned to specific um additional instruction in this block and then then that is the end of the student day at 12 30 for most students there'll be a lunch break in here and then it is possible that we will work with some populations and some students for additional small group support um or special services so it could be special education it could be um another reason to reach out to work with a particular student um so the student day is really 8 30 to 12. now if

117you go back up here at 8 o'clock what we're trying to do and this is the one of the pieces that we're working on right here is that we would also like to offer because this is really a truncated day we would also like to offer a morning enrichment session so it would be an asynchronous post for eight o'clock where students can log in and it could be a great pe warm-up it could be a great um brain engagement activity in any one of the art music or pe classes um sort of setting the stage for what they may see in their class later on in the day so we're trying to build um just more opportunities for kids to to connect but that this would be a little bit more flexible in the morning

118that knowing that sometimes the morning routines are a little tricky for for the young ones but it's also a way to quick connect kids who are ready for a little bit more um and and can do that between 8 and 8 30 but if the student is not really ready at that time or the parents then they can log into that asynchronous uh offering at another time later in the day um so we're trying to uh make sure that we have some additional enriching experience to engage students and to kind of change it up a little bit so this is a fairly structured day as you can see there's some time and flexible time with the teacher will will work with students wednesdays are a little bit different this is a really heavy small group

119day where kids will get much more uh targeted uh independent work with the teacher um and we keep this in line because this is very similar to the hybrid when we where wednesdays are really about kind of a more intense small group instruction so um across the week from eight to you know eight to nine you can see that this is really where kids need to um be logged on and reporting and ready to go for the morning um straight through and the student day for most students will end at 12 30. and so there are a new comment parent asked about where i call curriculum compact thing in terms of oh yes sure so um it's a great question so there were some questions around you know what art will folks pick up in

120the spring where you left off how do we know you know what is it that students will be experiencing in the fall so um our curriculum team have sort of analyzed the parts of the curriculum that we feel that um were necessary so if the if if a student was in grade three um and there were some really key standards that needed to be addressed in order to be successful in in grade four that those were front loaded at the beginning of the year and that we would prioritize uh this the most important standards to make sure that kids had a solid foundation as we as we move on so um still at grade level expectations but weaving in and spiraling up uh priority standards that are critical for for learning and are foundational for

121success to move forward so um we are making those adjustments um the first couple of weeks of school you'll see way more social emotional connectivity activities um getting kids oriented to the digital environment uh making sure they understand what their expectations are in a digit as digital citizens so you will see a lot of front loading work um and community building and uh norming with students in the beginning which will pay dividends down the road when it comes to being able to have more efficient meeting times at their schedule time so that's what you can expect um across and i know this was a real concern with the with k5 um [Music] could we ask the questions please oh sure okay we're going who has the rachel yes rachel yeah this is um it's great

122to see a schedule but it's um very structured and uh it like causes me anxiety just looking at it because um it doesn't build in any transition time for you know if you're talking about the little ones like go you know having half hour break or blocks and how you know moving from one to the next and just so right so you have to so the teacher will be so the classroom teacher will be with the students so right when they log in from 8 30 they'll be they'll be working so they'll have that one teacher for the first block in the in the in the morning and so the teacher will build those those breaks and transitions in to get to get students to the next place um we talked a lot about um

123moving students through so having the special area teacher come into the classroom having the link that's in the classroom and the teacher shepherding the students to um to get to where their special area teacher is going to engage with them and then transitioning back so rachel to your point transitions especially with k12 are are some of the more most difficult uh things that we need to work on um this is a generic schedule sample um and and that you know at the youngest levels that those transitions are taken into consideration i will be taking with the teacher so um we're gonna we're gonna start off with as much structure as you know as we can things that we wished we had in the spring um and we're gonna reevaluate every couple of weeks to make

124sure that it's working make sure kids are not getting lost in the in digital space and that we're connecting with students and so that's really the the most important piece about front loading is making sure that the kids are still with us um and if it takes a little bit of time to to ensure that that's the work that needs to happen so it's really not about you know if we don't have students following what we're teaching on on the on the front end uh you know we're we're not going to move forward so um this will take it might be a good transition time to talk about a little bit about what you're going to do about the k kids at that point the kindergarten ranges okay sure so there should be a letter

125going on if it hadn't already gone out um and i'd have to double check to see if it went out um but we're going to be doing a kindergarten orientation uh rachel with some of these things in mind so we were originally going to have um not have the student not have the kindergartners start with everyone on the full day but come in over the course of september 8th 9th 10th and 11th for sort of individual orientation appointments um sort of like a a boot camp if you will to learn with the parent to understand how to connect to these environments how to log in how to navigate where to find the google classroom and to have it do a little bit of a walk through so a letter will be coming out inviting uh

126notifying parents that there will be orientations during that week and then the schools will reach out individually to set up those appointments so we so we're you know again taking the time to front load those things that you know if the students aren't connecting then it's all for nothing so yeah so we do have a plan to do that i just don't know if the letter went out so i can double check on that okay thank you sure man i'm sure i have a question yes mr disney yeah real quick i i i like the very much like the schedule i like this the notion of synchronous learning i think that's going to work i think kids are going to need that this kind of goes back to a question i asked in in the

127winter because when we were first doing this during the spring about kids logging out in the middle of the night kids being on early in the morning and late at night knowing you know how appropriate it is for kids and how are we dealing with all of that i think you were the one who pointed out we legitimately have kids who may not be able to log in during you know at a particular time of day because they may not have helped or they may be in a grandparent's house they may not have internet service or whatever how are we dealing with those those kids didn't disappear since the spring how are we dealing with them because this sounds like they have to be on from 8 30 to 12 give or take yeah if

128you chose distance learning you opted into that you volunteered for this you better be on but you're now volunteering everybody for it i believe we need to be on distance learning now for safety but how do we deal with that well you know i think i think one of um you know one of the things that was difficult in the spring is that um frankly not everybody was doing live instruction so um you know when when you have a live lesson and when you are engaging students and and there becomes an expectation that they're you know that we log on at a certain time and that we're going to be engaged um you get you get a better turnout so um in many cases we had a work that was um sent out asynchronously um

129and it almost kind of uh created a situation where stu where students are like well i don't really have to log in till later or i'm not going to get this to later i'll just wait till my parents get home to help me out with it um and so we you know we definitely had it was very random right so the day we dragged out it was kids were logging in at any time and completing work teachers were trying to respond to kids from the minute they woke up till so late at night to make sure that they connect so to your point that you know we still have kids that it will be difficult to attend to a specific schedule um and we're going to have to find ways to reach to reach out

130to them we do have a lot of independent practice support so we have imagine learning we have ixl for new mercy and literacy we have something called raz kids and these are programs that are adaptive practice so even if we can't quite get to a student during the day we can at least make sure that they are are on and logging in and doing those practice things that they've most kids have been accustomed to they they know how to get to those and they can do their practice independently until we can connect with them we do have some additional time you know built into the day where we may be able to connect with students but um you know we'll have to you know create come up with uh you know some some additional alternatives

131to to reach our kids who may not be connecting um you know there's always going to be a a group that that will not connect or will sporadically connect and so um the outreach that we did in the spring i i thought was phenomenal our folks were relentless at calling parents calling connecting with kids creating meetings and setting up times that that work for students so i don't anticipate that that outreach will stop um in fact you know i think we have a very committed group that is kind of whatever it takes to to reach our kids in the community to make sure that they're connected so no doubt this will be this will be tricky so the minute you put a structure in place it becomes an expectation so um you know we have

132to do our best the alternative has been a little bit more free-flowing which created other issues as well no doubt i just want to make sure that we're not setting up a situation where a student who can't legitimately can't mom and dad both work the children are at grandma's house or at a friend's house without internet service or without any assistance or whatever and they can't log in in the morning i don't want that child absent because they're not they can't log in at 8 o'clock in the morning or 8 30 in the morning for reasons beyond control especially if they're k123 you have been a whole lot of independent discretion so i just want that kid to be absent or missed because they can't be on are the synchronous lessons being recorded so that

133a student can catch up on a synchronous lesson later so so we do have one of the things that we um that we were happy to be able to secure um again very you know uh recently we do have uh mini lessons um that are already pre-recorded that the teachers plan to to use in some of the hybrids so so while they were in school we had pre-recorded lessons uh from from our some of our curriculum partners where students can actually still see those lessons so we do have ways to get the curriculum to students and at the k5 level in particular our our coaches are supporting um a lot of the lessons and so they're doing a lot of pre-recording also so they're building resources for the teachers to use so there's still there

134will be a good deal of pre-recorded resources um that that teachers would plan to use alongside a live session with kids and so those are still be available and now we'll have to find um have to find a flow and a pattern to make sure that those are delivered to students who may not have checked in during the day so are we holding kids absent if they're not on in the morning so they'll be marked they will be yes they will be they will be marked they will be marked absent so the plan right now i'm sorry if i didn't understand that that question earlier about the absence um right now i find it a little troubling that a child who can't log in at 8 30 in the morning for child care issues is

135going to be marked absent because they're only allowed certain number absences for the year sure if they log in at any point during the day okay excellent nevermind you answered my question yeah i'm sorry i'm sorry yes yeah so they have a pretty wide window to check in and of course continue to i'm sorry if i if i miss the spirit of what you were i probably asked a bad question thank you no it was good okay any other questions or again this is a sample schedule the individual buildings um are are working to create these blocks and they're spaced out differently in every building every grade level there for example their win and esl time will be at different times because the teachers have to service all kids so um you know this is

136just an idea of of the type of structure and the amount of time students would would be attending uh thank you carol uh carol my question is and we've heard it over quite a few discussion about some parents saying that um they just their kids are really not into the distant learning that one teacher uh where there might be two children in the house or one going to one school uh that teacher is is more engaged and more up to uh the lesson plan versus another one and i don't know if that's true but that's what some of the parents are saying and you touched on the early training what are we going to do and i know everyone is working hard to do their best and they have were thrown into the situation in

137march and what type of training are you going to provide for teachers that we can still sort of have everyone up on the same level and then hopefully we won't have to hear those remarks sure so thank you i'm glad so it's a great question um you know i just want to preface my response to that by saying that we haven't physically met with our teachers since since march um so everything you know all of their training as well has been has been virtual so and virtual is different um but we have uh we did do quite a bit of of training in the spring through our super users they were amazing with helping our super users were on dps employees that had a high level of technology skills and were willing to share with

138other colleagues and so we identified about 130 of these folks between the elementary middle school and high school level that offered uh that offered to do workshops um and tips and tricks and so while some of that skill building helped with smaller engagement strategies and smaller ways to organize classrooms the overall there really wasn't a vision in the spring for how to approach blended learning how to approach interactive lesson design and so that was the missing piece and so now that we have our staff back we have um prepared for them uh blended a blended learning training course so it's an actual full course with lessons and opportunities for collaboration and then we're giving folks time to plan along those lines so um how to make lessons more engaging how to make them interactive how

139to build more collaboration strategies into lessons um so that students are are less passive in those lessons and that they're and that they're actively engaged in the learning and so it'll be a work in progress we are just getting our folks back they returned uh today actually and we had sort of the first meeting of uh where all this is going and so they're learning alongside one another and you know i had a former teacher friend made a comment about um i'm approaching the year like a first year teacher again like i have to keep an open mind and you know be open to the learning and so i thought that that was um really stage advice to to everyone is that we open our minds to a new vision um and i have to

140say too you know not to belabor the point but we you know the blended learning and use of digital tools to build interaction engagement and lessons is not something that we should be thinking about just for this pandemic in this situation it's really how do we leverage digital tools now that we're in almost one-to-one situation to um to instruct students differently and to engage them differently and to build some student agency in the way that they um participate in their own learning so you know we're excited about that um you know my approach with this and the approach of cabinet is that we have an opportunity to make some lemonade out of some of the lemons and to move instructional practices forward not just for the pandemic but but for danbury to move it forward

141for our district thank you we have any other questions to uh carry for board members if not could i i'm just going to change it up real quick um sandy could you come back and do that comment it might affect what carol is putting forth to us sandy yep i am here thank you my apologies there were two comments i'm sorry three comments that had come over but they had been marked as read already so i did not catch those and then we had two comments that came after i finished would you like me to read all of those um i mean i do like do yes yes go ahead we're here to sort of inform the public and so they can listen to the uh instruction go ahead um you got it so we

142have melissa fox um please address the following questions in tonight's board of ed meeting will the food service distribution continue or will snap benefits kick in again last week a mailing was supposed to go out to all families no one has gotten anything did the information not go out please go over in much more detail what a day of learning will look like and will teachers still be working from their classrooms uh steph abdullah i'm writing this email because i believe our children should be on the hybrid model distance learning did not teach my children anything and my honor roll now incoming freshmen really struggled also i do not think elementary students should have to be logged in during school hours because many parents like myself have to work how can i work and be

143home to help my child with distance learning i do not need child care as i have a 15 year old and a 7 year old but my 15 year old can't help my seven year old while completing his own work please reconsider having the elementary children log in during a certain time and maybe allow all assignments to be due by the end of the day so parents can work with the students and still be able to work also i don't understand why our high school students aren't allowed to continue conditioning when they were when there were no incidents since they started in july caleb schlissel how will commitments to extracurricular activities be maintained there are a variety of students who are greatly disheartened by the indefinite suspension of all activities especially robotics given the intricities

144of danbury high school's robotics program there are a plethora of limited but suitable ways in which the organization can continue to thrive regardless robotics is simply one example of a club that could function during covid how will judgment on the status of specific extra curriculars be administered what is the reasoning behind preventing smaller groups of students to meet under social distancing measures is there a plan for evaluating the safety of extracurriculars in the future extracurricular activities comprise an extremely significant facet of educational experience and they must not be ignored when making decisions for the 2020-2021 school year uh cynthia little my son has been playing football ever since he was seven years old he loves football throughout the years playing football taught him accountability accountability discipline life skills and teamwork he knows in order for

145him to play football his grades have to be at a certain average so he works hard to keep his grades up so he can play football with his teammates please please let football continue the season all the coaches are taking all necessary precautions and safety for our kids and for their families as well please don't take the season away from our kids they need this and the last one kathy snow i'm writing tonight not about the decision to begin school entirely virtual but rather about high school competitive teams other than sports specifically the robotics team at dhs and before i begin please understand i'm a huge proponent of sports as my son is also an athlete my plea to the board of ed and school administers is this allow non-athletic teams and clubs the same

146ability to meet that sports teams have been given i know everything is on hold regarding sports conditioning for at least two weeks but when they are allowed to begin again the same consideration should be given to our teams the district has said in the past how much it tries to achieve equity and equality when it comes to things such as school funding i want to ensure the same level of equity and equality is given to its own students when it comes to teams during this covid pandemic please let students on all teams practice train and compete both on and off the field the physical and mental well-being of our children is critical during this trying time thank you i am done thank you sandy okay nick are we going to continue carol yes okay um

147so i'll try to be brief a little bit more brief on the rest of the slide so uh i spoke a little bit about the blended learning training and i think that's one of our most critical uh that we can offer our teachers in uh understanding what those lessons need to look like to build engagement um there's a significant amount of safety and health related training that was covered uh today and i believe part of tomorrow are related to our reopening plans sel and trauma training so we have social emotional readiness units that were prepared by ed advance at the state that we intend to draw draw down strategies from as well as the trauma training that kelly chuchas has provided the district and folks will be engaging over the next couple of days and

148then training on various other supports and resources such as edgenuity at the secondary level that'll be a little bit further out in september that will start a few weeks in as far as technology and devices go i'm going to let gina jasmine uh speak a little bit about sort of the technology work that's been happening in the background and and all the work that's been going into that thank you kara uh so we're gonna continue our device distribution as we did in the spring based on our survey data we have approximately 15 or 5200 students who have chromebooks from the spring we had them keep them over the summer so um it didn't matter what our model looked like in the fall they would be ready to go and that includes if a fifth grader

149is going into sixth grade they would just use the same device that they already have so they don't have to come pick up a new one um the the difference is that over the summer we received the rest of our windows laptops from the connecticut partnership and um that distribution is slated to start on tuesday every uh 9th or 12th grader in danbury public schools will receive a windows laptop in turn they will give back their chromebook that they used in the spring any new students or students without devices will have a schedule based on their school so each individual school will be sending out a notification for distribution could be as early as tuesday and will be for the rest of the week the kindergartners part of the distribution for them is going to

150occur during their orientation so when they come to school for orientation they will receive their device they will get to log in they will get to see google classroom and all while having uh the support that they need right there um this year is a refresh for the dhs teachers and so um throughout the fall the dhs teachers will all receive a new macbook and in addition the state had a everybody learns initiative that they rolled out um at the end of july and i found out yesterday that we were awarded 936 new chromebooks which should be arriving sometime in early november and 11 137 internet vouchers as part of the initiative so what that means is that families who um have come forth or identified themselves on the survey as not having in adequate

151internet will now receive a voucher from comcast to have free internet for one year so i'm very excited about that because that was a definite struggle that we had in the spring and a big concert of ours for um getting every student connected gina it's show to solve a quick question is that 1137 internet vouchers or 11 137 because you said 11 oh i'm sorry one thousand one hundred and thirty seven right thank you yeah thanks okay you're welcome are there any questions on the technology before i move on okay all right um and so i just you know folks are always concerned how are our services addressed in in this distance learning environment uh one of the benefits as mentioned before with having a structured schedule is that special education students will receive individualized

152schedules for their live instruction via google meets so any related services will be addressed through that esl services will be more easily delivered in the structured schedule as well once all of the schedules are finalized so um having those structures enables us to access uh students a little bit more easily and predictably is kelly doing this section yes so um just to specify a little bit further is our special education students will receive a unique schedule um which will outline all their special education and related services all of those services will be done in a synchronous or a you know virtual meeting between teacher or related service provider and on the student these will be done in small groups or one-on-one depending on what is in the student's iep what we will attempt to do

153is schedule around the um instruction that is occurring um at the k5 level for example in the classroom so we do not want to pull students from their reading or math instruction in their first grade classroom for instance but we want to make sure that they get the extra support and help that they need let's say um in reading uh through their iep goals and objectives at a different time so every single special education student will have a google classroom page um at the pre uh pre-k through fifth grade level all the related services will be on one google classroom page to streamline the places that students need to go at the 612 level many of the special education services are done in a co-taught model where general ed and special ed teachers are working

154together that will continue in a virtual environment and students will have individual google classroom pages for each of either the special ed or related services that they receive um and so we are really going to scale up the amount of synchronous or in-person live instruction via the computer that we're doing um and we were very uh successful at doing this over our extended school year um summer school program um so we're going to continue to build and grow and similar to all the points that cara has previously highlighted through her slides all the special education related services staff are participating in the blended learning professional development the social emotional learning they will be following all the schedules and guidelines as outlined um by the general ed teachers and then layering in the additional support and

155services that our students need and the esl services will operate very very similarly where students will receive their in classroom instruction in their general ed environment plus any additional services scheduled around that time any question from board members to kelly seeing that is the additional presentation uh there's a few more slides gladys i could okay i'm sorry about that uh just to move through uh parent-teacher conferences that are on the on the current schedule i'm sorry the school calendar we will still continue to to hold those during the week that's indicated on the school calendar they'll be virtual we're going to have a schedule set up around that we need some time to work through some of our current startup issues and then we will get to um how we will structure an approach to

156um inviting our parents in for the parent-teacher conferences virtually um ann mead is i believe on this call as well she was going to talk a little bit about the parent and family supports that we have in place before we do that um could you go back one one slide uh i'm not sure where it is one thing um parents may be wondering about the um the sa the sats you might want to comment about that also i in terms of the question about teacher you're a scientist or how that may be impacted can you deal with those two please karen yep can you say that last part again sam i said the sats one and secondly the assigned teachers that they're getting and how they may impact it returning from the hybrid uh yeah

157i do have that piece in the last fight a little bit when we talked about that yeah we talked about the challenges but in terms of the sat right now we're evaluating our ability to um have the sat and psat we're not we we have a practice sat in the middle school that we decided to um to postpone or eliminate for this school year we'll roll that forward for next year it's just too difficult um to pull that off in terms of the high school we're having conversations about how to do that and do that safely so that we give kids a experience um and have the opportunity to have those scores but again a lot of this is is all related to some of the conversations we had earlier at the beginning and so

158um we will uh update parents on on how we're going to proceed with satpsat thank you you're welcome and i'll address the question at the end sal about the uh the teachers yep that's on everyone's mind thank you good evening everyone thank you for hanging in i think this is a a long presentation but full of information that will help um all of us as well as our families um so our first piece will be a the family school agreement we talked about this when we were still thinking about the hybrid model this is an agreement that will help us develop an understanding of expectations that will support student success such as parents checking in daily on their child their children's distant learning as well as what we're doing in our schools to prepare ourselves

159for the remote learning and what families can do and one of the big calls for over the past few weeks and through the family surveys that we've run is helping families become educated on the best way they can support their children so we will be running several different workshops in many different languages about setting up and navigating the google classroom we feel that as some one mentioned earlier before we need to start off from the very beginning with that for a parent who may not have no knowledge up to the parent who has done some of that navigating it with their child um we want parents to be prepared um to be able to help their student so that will be one of the offerings we'll also be offering some communication strategies um both for

160families and for teachers it's embedded in some of the teacher pd that communication between the parent and the child and the teacher what we found in the spring when we were doing distance learning was paramount to the success of of the instruction that we had we'll also look at some curricular program training around literacy math and science so parents can become more familiar with what the curriculum is and how to support their children and then we'll talk more about in another workshop about supporting learning at home some things that they can do to set up and we want to make sure that families have the technology as gina said as well as the internet um connection and the supplies that they need to be successful at home on another note we'll also be offering after

161school tutoring through our priority school grant and our 21st century learning grant by certified teachers um at the end of their day we have many that are willing to support students um either they're in their class or enrolled in the after-school tutoring program to be able to support their learning i'm proud to say that we changed a little bit on the website today on the home page of danbury public schools to put up a whole new sheet on community resources we will be moving some of what is in the home page over to that page and making it a little bit easier to navigate for families to be able to get things that they need from community resources to ebt cards internet services training online in multiple languages and things like that and lastly we

162are working on a full day care option um working with ed advanced to do something at the pal building uh final details will be coming out later tomorrow or on friday as well as we're referring parents to 2-1-1 which is our united way run info line here in connecticut um there's about four or five programs right now that are offering other alternatives for full day care for their children um who need it um and so we recommend that you call 2-1-1 to be able to secure where those places are they also give you um can give you your choice whether it be a center-based larger care or a family childcare home so um i will entertain any questions but um i wanted to be brief um because of that i think many parents uh are

163really struggling with this daycare we need to spend a little time talking about what we're trying to develop although it's not finalized but i think we have a more obligation to try to work with our partners and reasonable care by providing facilities at no cost cleaning up would you talk a little bit about that right so we're working with at advance which is our regional education service center out of litchfield in danbury to provide a program at the pal building for about 54 students again social distancing use a mask all of those health features will be employed during the day as well as supporting their distance learning where dr sal and the board has also offered schools to have small group of students in them during the day in groups of 10 to be able

164to support learning as well that we are donating the facilities which is helping us keep the cost down but at advance would be running those programs as well we believe it will be about 50 to 55 a day for care care for kids will be able to be used for those families that are familiar with that uh will also be in collaboration and talks with the united way through their alice fund to help support families who may be struggling financially to be able to gain some scholarship dollars so we are aware of the need that our families have we recognize that this is a really a tough time for our families to be able to um survive and work through all of these things and so my team our elp managers my parent educators and

165family educators that i have as well as our liaisons are there for our families to support them they're an integral part of the delivery system to make sure our families get what they need so please feel free to reach out to us and ask those questions we are at osborne street but we're asking that you called us for appointments for individual meetings and because there's an area of expertise for you the comments made from from from high up is how can you open up the school and say that it's not safe and one and safety could you comment why this is distinctly different okay so if we were to open up a true hybrid um hybrid model in our schools um it that entails children waiting at the bus stop with other children entails riding

166on the school bus more movement during the day once they arrive at school we're talking um in this model that we're proposing um groups of 10 children cohorted during the day probably three groups in the school using their own separate classrooms or the gym or the cafeteria so the numbers are much smaller they're not having unfortunately the opportunities to um mingle with other groups and this is following the guidance that we've been using in our early childhood centers and we have found that that works but it's a very different and modified program than what you would see in a normal in school day where everyone was there thank you can i say ask a question glass gladys oh go ahead i just want to ask a question um so ann um so as far as

167these supports for parents the communication strategies the you know curricular program training support learning at home how will this be done will these uh parents be doing this virtually or will they come into the building you know at osborne yeah it'll all be done virtually um at osborne right now we're trying to protect the staff that's there that are all essential workers at this point in answering phones um planning for buildings sites and facilities so we're protecting their health so all of these workshops will be virtually i've been in communication with many of our other district family support providers and directors and they have had good success with offering all of these workshops either on using a zoom or google classroom it also gives the parents an opportunity to experience what their children will be

168experiencing in real time so it's a it's a sense of comfort to the families um and then we'll we will pre-record them we will also bar gently borrow some other uh videos that some of our partnering districts have used to have those up there for refreshers so there'll be a large kind of a cafeteria plan of different trainings that parents can take that they need we'll also include some social emotional things looking at depression and suicide with our children and some things like that um that parents have asked for okay it'll be in the three languages yes absolutely great okay great thank you good okay cara unless there's any other questions of you this is i know for the board because you've been asked and all of us we're gonna work diligently kim has been

169helping us figure out how we can work with some of our groups to do notifications so that we could support parents and keep these prices reasonable um so you have my word on that that we will continue working on that go ahead karen so uh two two kind of major challenges that we have moving forward that you know we're still working on and we spend quite a bit of time discussing um moving forward is how you know as as we we clearly had a plan in place for hybrid and had to make a quick shift we have assigned students to the teachers who they would would have been assigned uh if they were coming full time in person so those students will start off the school year with a school with a teacher in their

170uh homeschool um however uh you know given all the uh challenges that we have ahead of us ahead of us and decision making um knowing that there are program selections that there are staffing ways to staff differently and that those some of those staffing assignments may need to shift some students may not continue with the same teacher they start off the school year with so that is something that we'll have to evaluate as we as we move forward um things that uh like enrollments leaves and any accommodations that staff have asked for all play a role into you know how these decisions will be made so we'll make our best um our best effort to keep t students with the teachers they are assigned to in september um but knowing recognizing this is a very

171unusual year and that there's a lot of movement um happening uh programmatically and with staff and that we will organize those adjustments um as we as we can um the other issue that it's not just danbury that's that's facing this but um a lot of the programs um and licensing and software and things that we've purchased and use are we're a little behind on in terms of integrations and uh rostering and scheduling um that has recently changed i'll get classic example is edgenuity that we've that we've partnered with um every country every every state in the country is trying to access ingenuity at the same time so um getting technical support getting questions answered um and things like that have been very slow going um they just uh are beyond a level of saturation that

172most of these companies can handle so we're working through we don't think we'll be too delayed but um just know that if every you know if ixl isn't up on day one or edge annuities not available till week two that that's you know we are working through those and um you know we are we have a timeline we're working through that but there's definitely some delays and and instances when it comes to technology acquisition everybody across the countries is trying to secure the same technology and programs at the same time in the same couple of weeks before school so i just wanted to point that out that we're working through those and uh oh okay and these were uh i think some of these items were uh addressed at some point social media kevin do

173you want to comment on any of these yeah so so one let let me just say to the board and for the community um the the team has been working behind the scenes responding to all of the questions that were that that was shared tonight for public comments uh we made sure that we incorporated um incorporated those responses in the presentation this evening but i also want to make the board and the community aware that we will have the q and a's available on our district website and then also on our district's social media pages and so some of you know some of the areas that you heard this evening questions about social emotional support supporting families with child care you know what happens to my my child's school schedule pre and post remote learning

174um you know most of those things have already been well documented in the presentation tonight um but again we will also have it available in a q a comment on the website in social media so the um comment uh for the board you may recall i think one of the things that um that i've been struggling with and bringing bringing the youngsters back to in-person learning um it's gonna be different we knew that it's not normal so you know my goal was to try to keep things as normal as possible so the interscholastic sports are something we've supported we've had the we've had the parts because of the medical conditions and that will be re-evaluating however the clubs and other activities as part of the what we do at the high school or in the

175middle school where it's appropriate we intend on having those clubs operate we that's some degree of uh normalcy for our youngsters many of them are depending on them so um you know barring anything unusual which i would know we expect to have those clubs that we've had in the past so for that um that is a given and that will happen the extracurricular activity is predicated on cic regarding what they do and how they do it but we will closely review all of it and then make the decision for the best interests of our youngsters i don't know care if there's anything else on there that so i i do i do yes i do have one thing i just want to point out you know that this is all still relatively new um and

176i just want families and and and parents to exercise patients with the beginning of the school year exercise patience with the teachers um and and and you know have some um you know give us a give us some time to get started um our teachers are working very hard they're walking into a tremendous amount of training coming up in the next week or so and uh school starts very very soon after that and so like i said we are we're working through some things but um we are going to be very patient with with students and families and we're just asking that you do the same with our teaching staff as well as we get up and running thank you okay um that that's all i have uh there's any board members have any quick

177questions we had a lot of information brought to us tonight and i hope some of the answers some of the questions that we had were answered uh i just want to take the privilege by being the chairperson just one thing i want to do and it should be quickly i understand that we have three council uh members that are here and i would just like to ask them do they have any question i would allow them one question each if not then we'll move on gladys i appreciate that i will respect everybody's time you guys are great thank you for having me gladys uh same for me i really appreciate the opportunity to be on i had a lot of questions that that were answered tonight so thank you all for the hard work that

178you're doing i want to just say thank you as a healthcare professional i am immensely proud of the team that has worked on this and think that you've made a very tough decision and uh congratulate everybody on the work that they've done nobody's going to be happy but you did well thank you no thank you um if there are no other questions or comments i would just like to remind the board um our next scheduled meeting unless it's an emergency meeting is september the 9th okay and i would certainly like to thank the leadership of the board of board members uh for always having questions and when i go a little astray they support whatever we're doing uh to make sure that we have a good meeting and that we sort of understand what we're

179doing as board members uh and other than that i would hope that everyone will have a safe labor day and please be safe protect yourself and protect others and thank you all so very much i know this was a long meeting but to me it was worth it to make sure that we get out the information uh that we need to get out to pence so without anything else dr sale you have any last minute comments no i appreciate um you know uh you're taking the time to um diligently go through this and ask the questions i think um take us in a position to inform parents and you've got our commitment to continue that we'll continue communicating with with all i think at the next board meeting we will update you on the building

180safety the budgets and things of that nature i think that would be helpful as well but i do thank the board and the community for taking the time and their due diligence and in in letting us know what their feelings are but i assure you those are in our mind and we will work to a successful resolution to many of them and we hope to get back thank you thank you dr saleh and your staff thank you all um i need a motion to adjourn this meeting it's about 8 30. listen to a journey move by kate that's right a