001here I'm in need I'm the director of Family School community partnerships and so this is a important part of the work that we're doing is wanting to talk more with Julie students and families about their feelings their thoughts fears anything you want to tell us about coming back to school in September so I'm gonna let dr. Walzer through also in June a little bit of welcome to and then we'll jump into how do you raise your hand tell us a little bit about what school you're in and what grade and your thoughts so mr. Walston so good afternoon everyone great to see so many students on the line in their proud parents by their side and what we can't see students we can see parents so happy to see so so much involvement this afternoon
002so one you guys might be aware students you might be aware right number one I hope the last three four months away from the school buildings finds you and your family well we are trying to prepare our schools so all of you can come back to school building that is safe safe for your teachers safe for our staff safe safe and most importantly safe for you the the governor if you hear some noise in the background that's my dog who decided to start drinking water right now as I'm talking to you I so I apologize so the governor released on guidelines for back to support further safe back to school guidelines on Monday the district meeting Danbury Public Schools we are wrestling with on those recommendations and trying to figure out how we can safely
003get you back into school how many things safe to get back get your teachers back into school and even our parents who drop you off and pick you up make sure we have appropriate protocols in place for safe dismissal and safe arrival on a daily basis some of the questions that have come up from your teachers and are in our early morning session is you guys are probably aware of the social distancing rules and wearing a mask and so a lot of questions have been raised and now how are we going to handle kids walking down the hall all what are we gonna do about sharing materials in the classroom is this going to be safe for my kids so that the teachers have expressed a lot of concerns about your safety and we want
004to make sure we come up with protocols safety protocols to make sure you're safe and everyone in the building is safe so today is very important for us as we've got feedback from our parents as we've gotten feedback from our staff I'm going to make sure we give feedback from you two to kind of thing to learn about what you feel like your priorities are to make sure we have a safe school reentry in the fall so dr. Ann Mead has put together a really good process I'm gonna ask mr. Walston if he'd like to just respond in a sentence or two just some of these or sure hi Zach so Zach we we are number one we don't have all the answers let me just say to you and everyone on this call and
005the answers that I might provide might change by the time we open up school but right now our initial plan particularly at elementary school on the thought particularly at elementary school and middle school that thought is is that we would have students eating into classrooms and part of what we need to figure out is if we are eating in classrooms how are we gonna get food safely to your classroom who is going to be available for supervision so that staff can also have an opportunity to eat lunch themselves Oh will we be asking teachers to eat lunch with you so those are some of the things we're trying to figure out but right now the thought is if we're not gonna all congregate in the cafeteria together we would bring food to you that's a
006great question is out great Thank You Zach Amanda Pascarella so so and I just wrote me Amanda is it possible you can include your question in the chat box because I I couldn't understand you at all it was kind of going in and out on my side I don't know if anyone else heard you so they can I can hear you but it's it's it's very blurry it's not a good connection okay you put in the chat okay Amanda thank you so much so how about while you write that one and we'll go to the next question and then I'll come back and answer your question is that okay of course thank you okay thank oh now we can hear you should he try again yeah my friend [Music] Oh middle school/high germs there okay
007you know really weirdo me it's your writing skills please put it in please put you a question in the chat absolutely and I will circle right back to you great well go on to gabrielli and we'll come back to Amanda yes can you hear me yes is there any possibilities now we're gonna have like open school this year and have a full day year round hi Gabrielle er what would you mind me asking what level you're at elementary middle or high school finished middle school I'm going to high school Oh congratulations so I yeah you must you must be anxiously awaiting a response to that question so so we're really at the moment the plan is the governor has requested that we all go back to school in the fall but but but the expectation
008is we're supposed to go back to school in the fall and it's supposed to be done safely part of you know in and those expectations are that we're going to be appropriately socially distance that we can keep everyone safe and we're trying to make sure that we can do that for you for all of your friends for all of our teachers and for all of our administrators in the district and so the answer to your question that the quick simple answer to your question is yes the expectation is we will open up schools in the fall and you know short of a resurgence we will continue to remain in school throughout the school year but it is a strong possibility that we may have some modifications to what school will look like again in the
009fall whether that's full distance learning but are we going to school the whole week or is it gonna be some days we go to school some days we stay home yeah I know I understand and so we're still trying to figure that out and and part of this feedback this feedback opportunity is to get to get it full understanding from our community meaning you what you feel like is the best the safest way to re-enter our schools so do do you have a feeling so so dance to your questions Gabrielle we haven't made that decision yet but the governor right now expects us to all be back in school in September there may be some modifications to that but as of right now and you know we can we can certainly advocate for something different
010but right now the expectation is also all kids are back in school with masks in September and socially distance to the best extent possible okay thank you okay and then and I'm sorry I couldn't give you something more you know like definitive right right but it's it's really a moving target right now thank you I appreciate you I appreciate you right so we have a lot of hands up so I think what I'm going to do at this point is I know you all want to hear from mr. Walston some feedback to your questions we will make sure that we first of all we are recording this and we will publish something down the road more definitively to answer your questions but I think at this point we just want to hear from everyone so
011if we can start off with Jennifer grant please hi I'm a student at Danbury high school and I last year the halls were really really crowded and it was really hard to get to class in general but I'm really like worried as of now with going back to school how it's gonna be handled because I could barely get anywhere and I know that now with the whole Cova 19 thing it'll be even worse having everybody so condensed into one given area so I was just wondering about that yeah Jennifer that's a great wondering because we we share the same wondering we had a great meeting with administrators this morning and as you and they echoed the same sentiments we had it we had teachers in middle school and the high school who also expressed concern
012about about of students in the hallway and how we going to safely be able to move students around the building given how given how crowded we are and and this is why we have this is why we raise concerns about you know the re-entry and so we're hoping that there's an opportunity for some modifications to the plan but we don't know we don't know fully yet but right now we're certainly you know planning on a full reentry and coming up with protocols that within reason Jennifer to keep everyone safe and so one of the things that we talked about is having staircases that are one-way hallways that you know follow typical you know streets traffic patterns so everyone's on the right-hand side of the hallway if you can envision what that would look like to
013try to try to mitigate the risk of exchange of you know germs while kids are passing in the hallway and then of course the expectation is students will be wearing their masks but but we do we fully understand your concern and we're trying to come up with options so that we don't have so many students in a school that once particularly the high school great thank you and we'll move to shame or please hi I'm a student at Rogers Park and for transportation there are many students that don't have an option for going for having a parent I've them to school what are we gonna be able to do for on a bus when they're already overflowing and I don't believe anyone will be paying for more buses how would you sort out yeah hi
014Shay thank you for that question and so you guys are not making the questions any easier for this I'll tell you that right now honestly Shay we don't have an answer to that question certain part of part of what we plan to do is to survey our our families to get a feel of what what families will be taking advantage of of our school busing and what will not and then and then with that information we can kind of determine how much reasonably how much social distance and we can do on our buses we had a survey pushed out to our community earlier and we got this sense from our parents that many of them would be driving their their children to school but to your point not everyone and so we will you know
015our thoughts where we would come back and have another survey that's a little more definitive this is exactly what school will look like in the fall once we have those details in place and then and then you know and then pull our our families and ask you know the plane is in your child to school do you plan to send your child to school on the bus will you be picking your child up from the bus every day and then begin to use that information to determine how we're going to socially distance if we can safely do it and then what additional resources we might need thank you I love the talk that's going on in the chat box so if parents have a comment or want to add more um please feel free to
016because it's great to hear from lots of different folks and so Griffin please hi so I'm a rising senior at Danbury High School and I'm going to preface this by saying that I understand that you may not have answers to as many things as we would all like but I think we all appreciate that the efforts that you are taking to make the return to school as safe as possible um one caveat to that is I think that having read the budget for this upcoming year and understanding how high school children work there is no way that enforcing social distancing or mask-wearing is going to be effective in any capacity on buses and I think that in order to alleviate that something needs to be done to reduce capacity on buses because as it is
017we can only in order to keep people 6 feet apart you can only have like 10 people on a bus and we do not have money for enough buses so I think something along the lines of staggering who goes to school on what days as much as that might not be fun for us it would help keep down people in the hallways people on buses in classrooms and I think that if we don't do that that the amount of people that aren't able to be driven to school or drive to school is going to be completely overwhelming and also yeah that's a good point Jennifer the amount of people that will just outright refuse to wear a mask is going to be a problem whether we want it to be or not thank you for
018sharing that Mateus please we're not able to understand you can you put your thoughts [Music] the taste we're not understanding Mateus we're not understanding you can you put your message in the chat box for us please thank you and we're gonna move on to lowering our cherry please hi I know this is a probably low on the list of things but both of my kids do marching band in the fall are we looking at what we are going to do as far as after-school activities are we shelving that and just really concentrating on what we're gonna do in the classrooms hi Lauren so we we did receive guidance from this day around extracurricular activities and I'll just speak to two you know one of them deep being actually regular activities you know meeting CIA SI
019release some information about sports and after school sporting so that's one and then the other one is and so for example band instruments Orchestra they have released some guidance on on those content areas and also performances and spoke to you know the fact that those things can be done but with increased increased social distancing so for example if it's Orchestra strong you know string instruments etc Orchestra singing instead of being six feet apart it will need to be extended to twelve feet apart they encouraged us to you know take advantage of football fields and really large spaces that can accommodate you know large size groups of you know thirty five to fifty students because oftentimes we know how big those groups can be and they also encouraged us to have you know smaller smaller group
020sizes for training and you know practicing and then bring the bigger groups together only when necessary so there is some initial guidance on making that happen the expectation is if we're going to open up school fully in the fall that all the extracurricular activities will also be part of the school experience okay great thank you so much you're welcome and of course that doesn't make it easy to make implement but the expectation is is that we would have pro opening up for it thank you for asking that question because I know a family a lot of families and students are probably wondering I'm just gonna turn my camera to the one sitting next to me so she can give you her thoughts like in classrooms there should be like only like three people like for
021the blocks I think they should only be three people at a time doing it and on the buses only twenty people thank you and and what's that was what's that young lady's name Riley okay so Riley but we're gonna get you on this share a Google Doc so you can help me with this plan please good correct she was also concerned about children's masks snapped by other children so that was awesome so let's so and so and can I can I speak to the mask because for those students who are on the the the district is expecting to have an extra available mask for students and in those cases anticipating that those things can happen and so you know the the state expectation is anytime we enter a building everyone would have a mask on
022anyway but we also understand that you know mass will break you know students might lose their masks and you know whatever might happen it so we wanted we will we will definitely have additional masks available for kids throughout the school day and staff as well great okay and we'll go to Zac please what about switching masks and kids with asthma yeah yeah so so so Zac I'm sorry is your question students with asthma making sure they have a mass that is well make sure that they're wearing a mask that protects them I'm asking is since wearing a mask for a prolonged period Kenan bothers kids eyes my and inhibit their breathing so much that they will have an asthma attack sometimes what are we gonna do about that and also three about after every three
023hours we use will have masks and other masks will need to be switched so what what we have talked about extensively in whether this be for students or for staff but students specifically is making sure we've identified all of our students that have compromised immune systems in any way and so students that crew-cut who have you know asthma who have you know other conditions that could be compromised in this you know going back to school to make sure we have some type of consultation with our school nurse and the students and their family to walk them through you know the expectation is when we go back to school so is that that that was a great question I appreciate you asking you muted in yeah thank you is Trish to Robinson place Trish I was
024wondering how are you going to manage the cafeteria because lunch break and there's a lot of a lot of people in the cafeteria no how exactly and you have to take your mask off to eat so how exactly are we gonna space out everybody in the cafeteria we're gonna eat in our classes right and I'm sorry can you repeat your name again I even in and out can i am i coming through now having technical problems yeah sure am i coming through yes great great thanks go ahead no answer I it is from we're all thinking about about eating the cafeteria and trying that have been spaced out so we're trying to UM work that through obviously you can't use a mask while you're doing it so we'd have to work through some way of
025getting the lunches to folk get into you so that you can't eat them while you're spaced out that's something that's concerning to us so thank you for the question great glad to see you're with us dr. Sal wonderful all of these in and out in a night okay all right great we'll go to have you here please hello I go to Westside and my sister goes to DHS and in the bathrooms we need soap hot water and it's individual paper towels at our schools we've run out pretty quickly because either it's because of the amount of people that go to the bathrooms or people doing pretending to be funny and just wasting them so how will these [Music] how will these be provided let me take that so Xavier sent some of the things that
026we've talked about is increased cleaning and disinfecting protocols throughout the day so that is definitely something that we're looking at we understand it's an absolute priority for our buildings because we're going to be encouraging students and staff to be disinfected on a daily but you know on an ongoing basis throughout the school day and so we will have disinfectant materials in our classrooms and in common spaces throughout the school but we also recognize that there's going to be a need to make sure that our our our baths our restrooms are adequately stocked and so that that will definitely be a priority for us some of the questions that were raised earlier throughout the day as well was what we have you know increased or additional custodial staff throughout the school day recognizing that they can't
027you know be everywhere at the same time whether that's you know making sure bathrooms are cleaned you know have ongoing cleaning making sure were wiping commonly-used spaces you know like doorknobs and when folks first into the building and so we we have an Iona and beginning to think that through of what that's gonna look like an impact that's gonna help on a budget but we are mindful that that's gonna meet that needs to be a priority for us because we're certainly gonna be encouraging everyone to keep their hands hands clean throughout the day I have a few more questions should I wait again or should I say them now go ahead okay thank you how frequently are the bathrooms going to be cleaned mr. Walston just we're going to have to have a more rigorous
028routine to doing that in answer that right now probably more often than then then we could anticipate depending on the usage but we'd have to keep a close eye on them have had it deaf and keep them as clean as possible that's all you have to do and then monitor it daily some days are probably more than others you know it depends but it's a high priority for us to make sure that they stay clean and who will enforce that the masks stay on well how old are you 12 will help me out you know I I could see where it's gonna be difficult and we're gonna have to cooperate the adults are gonna have to crawl this is very unusual so you know we don't have a police state this is for medical reasons
029and health reasons I think most students will just follow someone's having some real challenges with it so we'd have some timeout areas so that they could take the mask off yeah we have to be reasonable and I want we don't want to catch the start being put out of school and all that stuff because they won't wear a mask we're looking for cooperation so part of it is that we're going to have to ask parents to help us work with their youngsters tell them how important it is and then when when something happens at school and it will happen that we work with that person so it gets back on reasonably so we work together as a team thanks for saving your heart questions for my boss I appreciate that chat box choose we're getting
030some good conversation in there as well I just couldn't I couldn't get the audio to work and I kept knocking it but I did hear something good questions Alberta please hi hello yeah summer student indeed yes I'm gonna be a senior this upcoming year so I just wanted to ask if like if we will be able to like as you said like we have to wear masks in school so will you guys provide them for us or we will be providing them for our so because at this time is very difficult for everybody to get masks and as if you've seen them like in in Amazon or like some other places they're really really like really expensive so will you guys be able to provide them for us or we have to provide them for
031ourselves well right now we're still talking about it we'll probably have obviously we'll have the some masks of for those that during the data that did that don't have them and then we'll work with families if that we need to purchase some so right now we're working through that okay great thank you very much and we'd like to Kiera McCarthy next hi um I was just wondering again how old the hallways are going to work like do you think it's a possibility that the bell like send one section of the school and the hallways at a time like all 3,000 kids at the hallway at the same time because like very like pushing in the hallways yeah that's a great question the height did you say you're at the high school now yeah I'm gonna
032be a junior well it would have been easier if you were a k5 I couldn't answer that question but I'll try to answer that question 4 K 5 6 8 and 19 but specifically for 912 add in very high school your principal you know school administrators and us we're all trying to think through that the safest way the best way to keep all of you guys safe and and and and that could mean a number of different things from different ways on how you guys are gonna different times on how you're gonna into different days on how you're gonna enter school different times on how you're gonna be released from classrooms and so we're still exploring all of those things and so we don't we don't have anything definitive for you right now at k5
033in 6/8 particularly k5 wanted you know some of the things we talked about in terms of hallway movement is following the normal traffic patterns that we typically would have and and you know keep in keeping us students socially distanced you should know that your teachers are asking the same important questions the administrators are asking the same questions and in the superintendent dr. Pascal has been pushing us to think through a plan to answer that very question you know how are we going to meet or mitigate the risk in our hallways how are we going to mitigate the risk in a hawk and you know going to the cafeteria how we gonna mitigate the risk you know when when classes release and where kids are getting off the buses and coming in the building all congregated
034and we're still trying to figure those things out and again and trying to see if there's any flexibility on how we into school in the fall so we're still thinking through those things and we're still reaching back out to the state to see if there's any flexibility on how we answer okay I just have one more quick question so do you think it's like it's probably gonna be like this um so we're probably gonna just like leave the classroom doors like open at all times and unlocked so we avoid like touching doorknobs and everything and for all that we wanna fresh air is good leaving windows open we don't expect a lot of movement in the hallway so I would hope things like that to work out I think what's going to happen if it
035when we get back we're just gonna have to try some of these things they work best for us we don't have air conditioning as you guys know in all the areas but so we have the windows open it's gonna be healthy doors dancing true so we're gonna have to play that through all of those things as I said before we're all gonna be it's gonna be very unusual very different for all of us it's gonna take some time to figure this out we'll try to do what's right and that's why we enter school today keep these things in mind we do some of this we planned that way as best we can so ensure we'll keep them open again a lot of reasons one is the ventilation okay thank you good question Kara thank you
036and let's hear from Scott G next so i'm also student EHS and like i mean after listening to like a lot of things we were saying like there's clearly many concerns like you know with going back to school and everything so I think distance learnings okay apart whether it's like fully distance learning or some sort of hybrid um so as far as distance learning is going like this year well I guess last year we went into the school we went into distance learning already having like relationships and stuff with our teachers there he knew how to teach us for the most part very late like things were pretty much down pat from the most part it was the end of the year um you know if we go like right into distance learning this year
037or we don't you know see teachers a lot like how is that gonna work is the distance learning gonna be like it was this year were they justice honest work or is it gonna be like some sort of I don't I mean I don't know if has to be zoom but like some sort of something like that like zoom meetings where it's essentially like your normal school day just at home if that makes sense right now the state is putting the platform together to to make it a better system across the state everybody shut the way you did and it has to be enhanced remotely more synchronous work where you're actually doing some things those are all improvements and mapping as best we can yeah now the assignment achieved is an interesting question depending how
038you start doing you know it's just like we have credit recovery it's warm there's no relation sort of the pendulum that is not what we want so we have to work that for it should be a better system in the state I was talking to us about having a different system we need to see what mute their mic while other people are talking and we'd like to hear from many next many are you there with us or your son Minnie you're on mute okay thank you sorry about that okay good afternoon so um this question is from Cyrus who is who's a broad view student next year and the question he just text me the question the question was we're trying to are you trying to limit student interaction beyond the classroom it was one
039of my questions also so along the lines that do you have a plan for teachers to move between classrooms rather than children so that you know to mitigate what's good the way that's been obviously k5 easier that keeps youngsters in a cohort in the school middle high school becomes challenging if students talking about before about all the way but the idea is to minimize the number of folks that come into a class that there's going to have him cut contact with each other the best we can we'd have to work that was into it you know folks on the outside field trips things that nature I'm just gonna have to curtail all yeah try to minimize the movement and those that come in contact with them with the students during the day well okay five
040easier said than six seven eight wasn't even harder at the high school based on the specialized content it's going to be a challenge and one other question was are they going to have the temperature checks done at this point we have to rely on the medical folks to do it guides us on that certainly anything with symptoms and that we would do but as they come through the doors and stuff got something conversation with the medical folks with their advice yeah when you have thousands and thousands and causes but everybody that couldn't send my aunt in to us but if we have suspect the reason to believe that has to happen obviously something and advise parents not dispensed to disclose their do that temperatures so we're gonna work in the Schism we're with our health
041the point menu which is the best way around them thank you okay thank you so I'm going to move on to Solange please Kevin thickens the things going in and out on me okay I'm doing problems again I don't know why people are in the classroom or separatist if you could hear me but we're going to try to do is yeah we're working with some specialists to go through classrooms and try to set him up the state saying as long as we're wearing masks that you know that that'll that'll help us with distancing but we'd like to give away as much distance as possible so we probably will have to move furniture out of rooms where we can to get everybody more room so that there is some space in between so that's something that's
042a goal shorts to work on yes we have to work on take the mask or still wear them we're not sure about the gym classes in specials we're working on that that's that's a good question don't have a good answer right now we're gonna ask education teachers the rest to help us with that and they've got all the specials with art music lessons that may have to be I'd be much different than what we used to and I understand amanda had a question and she had include it in a group chat but honestly there's so many now I couldn't follow it long can we just ask Amanda do you want to ask that question for everyone can you yeah I think so um so my question was should we like be able to go to
043recess because I know I go to the PMBOK and lead you to rage from behind and that's a lot of people and it's dazzling more than 50 show and we're all just finished and look what about Rita yeah Amanda that that that's a great question I'm sorry Sally still there we want folks to go outside so we're gonna figure out how to do recess in area so that it's safe but it won't be the same but we want to go outside when we can so yes we're gonna have some kind of reset it'll be a little bit different but you can Amanda you should also know there was some some points raised earlier that we actually may need to build in mask-like recess for our students and just kind of go outside and just take
044the mask off and just breathe and get a break and so the recess is an absolute yes but we may also have to build in some recess for you guys just to get some air go outside where everyone socially disadvantaged question I think I saw fabulous success fir that we live in the Northeast and it rains a lot in the fall and it's snow then early winter so is there a plan in place for these things to happen within the building as well environment I know spaces issue yeah yeah so I I could be honest with you I have not heard any alternative plans to for recess I'm outside of the building you know certainly there's opportunity to take advantage of bigger spaces like a cafeteria or you know depending on a school that you're
045in or a gym but no we have not talked through you know alternatives to outside recess today but your point is a good one we'll make sure we we think through what that looks like thank you so shuri-chan please hi I'm maybe a sophomore in DHS questions sure go ahead so my first one will be about masks I do understand that we're gonna have to wear them when we're in class and I would think that considering that the school days like Oh like more than five hours I don't know how students will be able to like have it on the whole time like it would be pretty uncomfortable so how are you going to handle that and also sharing materials in classes like gym and science we're gonna have to share materials and sit in
046desks probably other students have sat on so how does the Sanitation well those are some great questions and so let let me tackle try to tackle the the first part first can you tell me what you said at the beginning is like a three-part question can you tell me what you X at the beginning all day and so and so we recognize it's it's going to be a challenge for our students and for our staff and so which is which is one of the reasons why earlier on the phone call because we had a similar meeting with teachers this morning and they encouraged us to think through you know mask breaks if you will for our students and staff and finding opportunities for you guys to have built-in breaks throughout the day you know literally
047what you guys can go outside where it's safe everyone's socially distance and we can take off our masks and just kind of and just kind of get a break from the mask itself I think we're gonna have to be intentional about making sure these things have built in as part of our schedule because we understand it's going to be a significant adjustment you know all of us go out now and wear a mask and you know go to the supermarket or maybe even go to the mall now but it's very different to your point to have to wear one all day and so I you know our thoughts particularly coming off of our meeting this morning is that we need to think through and have someone set with intentionality make sure our kids have an
048opportunity to get a break from the mask so we're not exactly sure what that's gonna look like but we're gonna have to come up with a plan because it's probably unreasonable to think everyone's going to be having on for five consecutive hours so it's a great question and your other question can you repeat that again I'm sharing materials in art and science and gym and sitting on desks that probably other students have sat on because we're gonna have to switch between classes and so just so you know I have a very nervous and anxious colleague on the line she's a director of Finance and facilities and operations and everything else and and and and we have talked through a plan where so for example I'll just start with you know subjects like art but to
049your point it also applies to subjects like science will you guys work in groups we work in teams you share materials in CTE classes you know we share materials in there and the expectation is to look to to the to the extent possible we will have individual will need to order and make sure we have individual materials for students and so you know in our k5 classes elementary school classes where you know it's sharing of art materials sharing of you know science materials group work it's going to have to be separate in students contribute a little differently and and and so you know going up to the middle schools if we have our classes where they share materials or group work in our classrooms it's also going to have to be we're gonna have to
050provide students with their own materials I mean we've gone as far as to talk through you know individual packets of materials for our students so that so that we limit or reduce you know they reduce sharing of materials in class we we have not and that's a very good point you know in every case where classes are changing there might be a need you know there's a need to possibly you know wipe down the spaces and and honestly I don't know if we've thought we've taught that part through we you know certainly we had talked about internally you know at the end of the school day every classroom will be disinfected and and that's certainly something that will be able to happen but I think if in absence of being able to wipe down chairs
051you know in between periods we may not be able to get to every single seat but we can encourage every single students and make sure their hands are clean in between classes going in and out of classes so if we have disinfectant materials for you guys to disinfect your hands when leaving or enter in a classroom I think that will certainly help us mitigate the risk I know it's not a great a great response or great answer and that's why this form form is so important to help us think through these things by I appreciate the question thank you so much yeah welcome thank you so our next person is Michael snow hi I'm a student high school and I had a I know we touched on the subject before and I just wanted to
052touch back on it just get a more solid answer sure so will my ets1 right okay well will we be able to participate in extracurricular activities such as like clubs sports tutoring hours and more upcoming school year I'm asking this because especially for high school students this can be a very important part in making them well-rounded students and adding to their college application and in and if the pandemic can become a problem and making this happen we can very well meet in different locations to make it easier or even have the students disinfect just in fact disart disinfect the locations that they meet in if if the problem is that janitors don't have time to clean up those spaces after they meet yeah Michael great question great point about how important it is to be
053a portfolio I think and because we received some initial guidance about extracurricular activities not necessarily for clubs in in particular I think Michael as long as we can demonstrate that we can congregate safely and certainly if we can demonstrate we can congregate safely in a classroom I would like to think we can congregate safely in a club right where typically we may not have as many as many students in the club as it is outside of a classroom so my answer would be yes without without seeing that explicitly in the plan but again if we're back to school fully you know we're gonna be back to school fully if we're back to school with conditions then we'll certainly need to spell those conditions out you know beyond wearing a mask but I anticipate if we're
054back to school 100% capacity in the fall these actually curricular activities that you're talking about will be employed I do have one more question should I wait no please go ahead - so if we were to implement a hybrid education system I would I'd like to share my opinion on not having the school days be cut short and it's a hybrid system were to be in play set I as a student would prefer that some students would go in for a full day and other students would go in on separate days for also a full day rather than some students going in for the morning some going in for the afternoon because I could see how this can waste time with all the buses and a disinfection that are disinfecting those locations the students have
055been this can also make getting to extracurriculars more difficult and for the students that aren't at the school at the time and can even cut the education Shore we're having to leave from the learning and look having to leave the school to go to a different location - there can be proven as difficult yeah so so these are these are great questions and points that you're raising honestly and I'm learning something new on every town hall forum that we're in I'm learning something new every time and and and not to see I mean as a as an educator former principal's not as if I haven't experienced these things but it's it's reminding me of how important these things are Michael so I appreciate you raising these these issues we will because you know with so
056many things in play and worrying about and thinking through how we're going to make sure the buildings are safe we also need to make sure we have school right and that your school that your school experiences is is honored and innocent as consistent with what how we know schooling and we have to we have to make sure that happens and so you have brought up the point about hey if they're going to if there are options out there these options that I would like and these are the reasons why when there will be a need for us to push out another survey to everyone and when we do push out a survey we will likely have a survey that's going to articulate the different options that are available if because the the governor has access
057to one at this low low level of instances in a community to go back to school at a hundred percent however if we ever if there's ever a place where we are designated as a community at moderate instances of koba 19 in a community on then we would enter school at a reduced at a reduced um at a reduced at reduced levels and it's important for the community to have some feedback to help inform this decision and so although right now we have a thought exchange out there that is eliciting feedback on what you feel like our top priorities should be but we will explicitly have some type of survey once we know exactly what our plan is folks will know exactly what's what's available what's in front of us and then they can make
058some choices and one of those choices definitely needs to be if we're gonna have a reduce model what are the models and what are the options and it will make sure that that's that's in there in some way so you guys can give your feedback so Mike I appreciate you asking the questions the way you have so we'll go to Christopher Borges next [Music] yeah over 19 you're gonna have to learn more can you put your message in the chat box we're not able to totally understand you but I think your question is very concerning to everyone so please put it in the chat box okay so and again there was also a question about orientation it looks yes Eric EDX and and maybe Serena is well incoming actually I'm not sure if Eric access
059question but Sarina executes asked about freshman orientation okay and and you know we we have freshmen orientation in place for a reason because we recognize how important that transition is so we will we will make sure we work with the principal to figure out what the alternative is going to be you know some of the some of some of the things that I've heard so far is not necessarily dimmer you high school but I know Ace was talking about perhaps some type of virtual orientation whether you know the prince will be walking around the school on and provide an orientation for students that way if we can't get students in person for the orientation so I will make sure you know when we connect with Dan that we're helping Dan in the high school through
060this because we again we understand how important that transition is and not you know for our private school students coming into public school and then just for our eighth grade students moving up into the ninth grade it's it's important make sure that they feel comfortable they feel safe going into this new environment so and we have a we have students there like two students on one video maybe we can get like extra credit if we ask them see if they have any questions for us absolutely so we still we still have three people in the chat box and yeah so if we can go to Jennifer grant I was wondering also about the lockdown drills and the fire drills because I know that those are common that we have them like just to make sure
061everything's working and that everybody knows what to doing what's going on but with lockdown drills we all have to sit in the same area so I was wondering how that was gonna work and how it would work to get students outside for fire drills yeah Jennifer that's a great question so that that question was actually talked about with our director of security recently in and we are reaching out to the powers that be to see if those are going if those expectations are going to be relaxed at all in the fall you know so as of right now the plan would be that we would still need to administer those drills but we will be asking a question while those drills be real will the expectations be relaxed in the fall kind of given you
062know given the pet return from the pandemic that that is a great question that is a great question I'll move on to Lauren our cherry but I'd like mr. Walston if you could read Christopher Borges comment in the chat box and and replied attacked verbally I think that's a good question for everyone um so Lauren can we hear from you yes um I'm curious because my daughter is going to 11th grade at DHS and she has a hearing problem so she reads lips I have not gotten her an IEP so I'm a little concerned about how she's gonna function in a classroom when she can't see the teachers lips hi hi Lauren um please please please if you need help you can email me after this calls over or you can just you know just
063we can stay on the line we can exchange information but I think it's going to be important for your principal and teachers to be aware of this modification is going to be needed for your child because for us it could be a simple adjustment for the teacher and we could just be asking that teacher to wear a mask where they're where their face is exposed so that so that this is a non-issue for your daughter so you know it's important that you're your principal is aware so they can make sure the modification is is met and make sure your teachers are aware and with that with that slight adjustment there should be a non-issue as a district we've already talked about ordering special masks for those for those staff members and making sure they're available
064in fact we just had a call this morning talking about the populations that might require this whether it's reall community whether it's our special needs community or even students you know requiring a 504 and even if they're not identified if it's ports of our attention we will make the adjustment okay so should I should I try to get her an IEP for this we'd never really needed it she's a pretty decent student but I don't know if I need the writing a piece of paper and writing saying she has this problem or if we can just work without it yeah that's a great question I think it's I think it's best that you have the conversation with your principal and and you're right and then you know perhaps guidance counselor etc and they'll make the
065determination locally cuz not knowing your specific case in most cases you should not need an IEP for this but again I don't want to speak out of turn here you know there are cases where this can be handled with a 504 and in the 504 it's just you know making sure we're all in the same page about the support that your your daughter needs but you might not need a 504 you know it might just be an adjustment that we can make or we might need temporary 504 right because right after this you know these these rules are relaxed we won't have to worry about mask again and your daughter can continue to move on and those adjustments might not be necessary okay perfect thank you so much you're welcome you're welcome good questions so
066I'm going to go to hamaji tralana a sixth-grader that's a great question so you know we've been encouraged to leave doors open we've been encouraged to to leave windows open we've been encouraged to socially distance to the best extent possible and and right now that with within our means anyway that's our best way to try to help address the ventilation concerns so I hope that answers your question you're welcome thank you and mr. Walston would you like to answer Christopher's question or give some feedback about the budget sure oh yes the budget one so Sir Christopher I'm I'm gonna i'm gonna start responding to your question but then i'm gonna ask my colleague who's the true expert here to also give some feedback so if you don't mind I'm going to read the question for
067the group because I'm sure there are a lot of people on this call who are wondering students and parents alike so regarding the school budget due to colvett we know we have you know decreasing budget we don't have as much money as we've hadn't you know typical years and although this might be true I know there might be a need to buy more supplies and increase sanitation and maybe even more buses so how are we going to pay for these things if indeed our budget is decreasing and we have less money where is the money coming from to pay for this stuff and Courtney I can take the easy one to just hand it off to you but maybe you should just take the easy one and I'll just get out the way on this
068one thank you Kevin I don't know if any of them are easy um it's really really great to see all of you and to hear your feedback and I'm so so glad that we're getting the opportunity to speak with you yes you're right Chris it is a very challenged budget that we have given that you know the city isn't collecting the revenues that it would normally have collected and that said there there are additional federal funding that's been made available to Danbury and there might be more we're worse you know scanning the environment for every single possible resource we can we can find I know we have senator Kushner here on the line so I'd encourage folks to reach out to their legislature and encourage you know challenge districts that like Danbury to be treated
069uniquely like they are we have an incredibly vibrant you know urban population which also means that we're pretty crowded and so our needs are great we did get funding about two million dollars from the cares Act it's the elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund to take care of some of the sanitizing things that we'll need but you know as you can as you know as a student that's in the school Chris can I ask if you're if you're here are you high school are you in the middle school ice I think you've chatted possibly because it's hard to grade level crisis oh yeah so um but you know what all the challenges that Kevin's talking about working through we've been we've been modeling out different scenarios and the cost so the resources are going
070to be part of the decision at the foremost is the safety of of you the students the teachers the faculty and all the administrators so within the resources we have we're going to do everything possible and so you know that means sanitizing the classrooms that means distancing you know getting decals where we need to have details to remind people where to stand you know like dr. Sal mentioned you know if NASA masks are mandatory having available additional masks if students aren't able to provide their own yeah it's very expensive it's going to be it's gonna be a big challenge mm-hmm thank you and that's Courtney Love worry she is our director of business and oversees our budget has done a wonderful job on our finances this year being new to the district so Thank You
071Courtney thank you if we got a Robbie hi Grafton this is Robbie I have two kids one is going to Westside 7th grade and one younger one is shale rock my elementary third grade so I was curious about two things one is the bus are we going to have any capacity restrictions in the bus and then the second question is are the kids going to be checked for temperature checks or health checks as a precautionary measure every day or how are we dealing with that kind of you know health checks so I will start with the bus restrictions on there they we have been guided to socially distance where to the greatest extent possible where appropriate but at the same time we've also been asked to open up schools at 100% capacity for up to
072100% percent capacity and so my my short answer is no restrictions the restrictions would be students wear a mask and and that will be the key restriction when when getting on buses and in Robbie I'm not sure if he will own the call earlier but one of ours one of our students had raised a question and you know and and reminded us quite frankly that we need to learn quickly from the from our parents and our students who was going to take advantage of the school buses and who is going to select to drive in to school every day and be picked up from school every day and that will help with the district's plan except for planning the efforts to to figure out how much we can truly social distance on the buses but
073without that certainly information we were really not going to be able to plan for it I think and going back to Christopher's question about a no we know the budget is tight and courtly just-just-just talked about where there is additional funding coming in but that but that funding has already been spoken for in additional buses quite frankly has not been part of the budget and an additional buses and ditional runs would mean we would probably spend all of our monies down without even getting to all the other necessary things to help with schooling and so we're hoping that surveying our community will help mitigate the risk learning from our families who will be driving to school who will be taking the bus and then kind of have in kind of a you know kind of
074a an attendant role on a bus and hopefully we'll be able to reduce the numbers on the bus we don't necessarily want to encourage families because we don't want to be a burden on the families but if they are going to drive their kids to school and they'll remain committed to that that would help us tremendously and then your your other question about we at this time we are not we have not been given the guidance to administer or temperature checks for our students when they enter the building however there will be strong recommendations and guidance for families and staff to self-report and that something will be making available for everyone thank you Kevin I I totally understand that we are all trying to find you know solutions for these problems which we haven't come
075across any time in our lives I do really appreciate all that we are going I mean you guys are taking care and seeing us all but I want to just two things one is our kids like especially the elementary Skip's very too young for them to have masks were all the time you know and it comes with discipline but at the same time Lord of Moyet ring and things like that second thing is the profiling of the students you know in case I don't know how to put this but it will help if someone is sick at warm or anything like that how do we know how do we get kind of you know I don't have answers but at the same time I don't expect answers we have to look something around those scenarios
076right yeah I and I'm glad you asked that last question in particular because as part of our self reporting and no different from the beginning of this pandemic it will be important for us to ask families to ask students to self-report you know have you are you experiencing any of these symptoms or have you been in contact with someone who's had had Kovac 19 and and then you know having mechanisms in place for folks to self-report so that you know we can help mitigate the risk in our schools and in the important thing in and honestly we're going to need everyone's help help in cooperation on this you know whether that's you know establishing expectations of students staff and Families because we're really going to need everyone we're really going to need everyone to to
077all be part of the solution Robbie in cases like this in order to keep our schools in our community safe thank you thanks and appreciate all your hard work yeah Thank You Allie so we have three more people so I'm going to do Scott and then Griffin and Alberta so Scott G you would like to give your feedback yeah it kind of goes off of actually we were just talking about but it has to do with like with the attendance policy uh you know I think I saw that in the chat a little bit ago you know I'm not gonna why I kind of like the previous years it's almost like you were encouraged to come to school if you were sick just with having so few absences um plus you know also just the
078work that you miss in general um so you know as much as you know you can say just stay home is something is there gonna be a change with that because otherwise is you know people that are going to be very encouraged to come to school or to do something like where you're not going to miss because there's so many ramifications for doing so yes so Scott so what number one Scott you have a great voice you might have a future in radio one day and secondly I don't have a great answer for you I can I can share with you that the state guidance they did recommend strongly that we have an attendance policy in place but you and I also know in most folks on this call a high school attendance policy is
079is is strict it does not have much flexibility and and I think and I think what I'm hearing from you you know one the attendance policy encourages our students to be in school every day and and in some cases it encourages it be in school even when you're not feeling well and so I and and and I can't tell you how much I appreciate you raising this point because we will have to develop some type of attendance policy whether that's you know whether that's you know full-time in school or even in a hybrid model with this partial school of partial distance learning or even at a distance learning format we you know we need to come up with some type of attendance policy but if there's any combination where students might be in school by
080all means we want to discourage students from coming in if they're gonna compromise their own safety and the safety of others and it has to be flexibility and being mindful of their own grades because we don't want you to compromise your your own grades when you know choosing choosing a safety of others so Chris we will definitely make a note of that and make sure and make sure that's reflected in our attendance policy if that flexibility is reflected in our attendance policy something's got to that question gosh thank you thank you Anna Griffin yeah to second that the current policy allows you to miss five core classes and with the incubation period of Cova being two weeks people going on vacation and showing any symptoms that just instantly gives them a 65 so I appreciate
081that you don't know what it looks like right now and we may not for a while but I have a question about what if there's any current discussion about a hybrid distance learning plan is it are we thinking about staggering at all and having some people go on some days and some people go on other days yeah great Griffin that's a great question so one you should know everyone should know we're actually required to have some type of hybrid model available in propose to the state and so that requirement alone suggests that we have to be think beginning to think through this so so that's one and so but we're also and given some of the concerns and challenges that we talked about when we first got on this call where one of the students
082was talking about her experience walking the halls of Danbury High School and she didn't understand how she could possibly be socially distance given how crowded our hallways are and frankly our middle schools have you know our middle school students have a similar experience at their buildings because they're also overcrowded we we are will be looking to see if there are any options to going back to school 100% and and see if any in the end see if there's any flexibility and a hundred percent return to school if they're not then again we'll have to do the best we can to make sure everyone is safe but if there are then we will be exploring all of those all of those options Griffin including the ones you know some of the ones that you just mentioned
083okay thank you great Alberta I do hear from you okay so we were just talking about my question so I had the same question as griffons I was I'm just gonna like explain it in a different way so like are you guys considering going back to school like in a period in one day like having one wave of student coming the morning and then one wave coming in the afternoon or like are you planning on going like one wave of students in Monday and the other way from Tuesday so what is your plane oh yeah yeah so that was Alberta we just talked right yes yeah okay so Albert I'm not trying to be funny when I when I say this one we don't know and - we need your help to help inform that
084decision and so one of one one of our students earlier had asked a similar question and I think it's going to be important for us to think through a couple of options and I think you just mentioned a few good ones but propose a couple of different options for our community you know for you and your other students and parents that give some feedback on so that we can land on land on some options that that makes the most sense for our community and I just wanted to thank all of you teachers and supervisors and everything you're really doing a great job like trying to help us learn in our future thank you very much thank you thank you Kiera McCarthy hi so I was wondering if it was a possibility to like so maybe
085like it'd be a little different depending on the amount of students were out in the building but so split like the population of the school in half and have half of the students attend on Monday and Tuesday and then either have Wednesday off or have virtual school on Wednesday and like deep-clean the building and then have the second set of students in on Thursday and Friday Courtney did you just have a conversation with Kiera like so Cara we were just talking about that very plan a couple of hours ago like in between meetings so I really do think it's going to be important for us to explicitly detail provide some options for you other students you know moms dads families for us to consider because we want to make sure that we're landing on something
086again that makes the most sense for our community because we know we have folks to who have to go to work we also know we have you know families with with younger children they have to go to work but at the same time we also need to meet the needs of you know our older students and you know Griffin to raise the point talk about hey I'm going into my senior year and extracurricular activities and my portfolio is really important to me and you know we have to be mindful of all those things when we when we finally land on a model for Danbury and so that's why it's really going to be so important for us to you know get this feedback in this survey but that that was a great question and thank
087you for raising okay and also so for like when we were normally in school - oh my goodness that was like forever ago yeah um to be able to attend like your teams for any extracurricular activity you would have to be in school so say it was a day like if we had a hybrid program and if it was a day when you like had distance learning from home like if you checked in as president would you still be allowed to go to your sports if like for a lot of sports absolutely cure the challenge for us is and this may have been your next question is for our students and families that may need transportation because we don't have an answer to that right now and so if if we were in these are
088some of the implications of being in any kind of hybrid model if if we're gonna continue with you know full full extracurricular activities and you know hypothetically we have students you know going back to some of the models that Griffin was proposing we have students in for certain days of the week you know that may not necessarily neatly aligned with extracurricular activities and so the expectation is we would still have the extracurricular activities but the students that they're not in school that day or if they left for half a day early you know getting them back could be a challenge if we're going to provide that transportation so we it's it's probably helpful going to need from the community on this and again it's another it's another thing that we have to consider when when
089when landing on a hybrid model of any kind okay thank you thank you so we have two in the chat box I'm going to combine because they're very similar so the first one is if you go on vacation out of state what does quarantine look like before you go back to school and the second part of that from another person is what would happen if someone is sick at home and you don't know that you're coming down with it or that you're a super spreader how would that be dealt with in the school buildings yeah and can we take the last one first sure and I think it's going to be important for us to have some kind of self reporting protocol for our community you know I was I was on a call earlier
090this morning with teachers and and they had acts they said hey you know Kevin we we we need to know what the expectations are the expectations of our our family's expectations of our students and not and when I say expectations I mean what is the expectation of my wearing a mask all day what's the expectation around you know providing masks for a student and so you know no different here we need to talk about you know kind of general expectations for all of us and and I'm sorry that what was that the second first a second question so the second one was if you go on vacation out of state thank you quarantine yeah are we doing contact tracing okay and so it's it's important for us as part of that self reporting that that
091we bring this to to someone's attention right and that's why again that's why it's so important for us to have the protocols in place of self reporting and so it's gonna be important that you know Courtney and I you know she just went to a country that was on high alert and she's just coming back into the country and I just came off of a cruise I I need to report that to HR Courtney needs to report her trip to HR and so in our schools though it will be necessary for our families and our students to report you know perhaps to the school nurse or to their to their administrator and then we will have kind of further guidance from there and so I'm glad you guys are raising these questions because it's going
092to be next for us to make sure it's incorporated in the plan and frankly I don't even think there was a space in there for right now from the guidance from the state but we're gonna have to make sure we have something available and then second part and I don't I don't know maybe I had didn't have my second cup of coffee the first part of that question was I think you hit you know what if there was someone at home that had it but along with that self reporting and will we will the district be using contact tracing okay and in contact tracing is is something that district will definitely be doing there's an expectation in our we will be working with the local health department and our school nurses have all been trained
093on on contact tracing in fact every nurse my understanding is was contact tracing last year and in collaboration with the local health department and so moving forward in the fall the expectation is we'll be continuing with that effort all right so that brings us to the end of questions which I think have been wonderful I certainly have a few asterisks more than I had this morning from our other first earlier meetings and so I'm gonna turn it over to Kevin I don't see that dr. Sal is still on here but Courtney or Cara Kazmir oh who is our director of instruction and curriculum and Kevin any last comments and we'll close out for today sure Thank You Anne so so one I want to thank everyone for making themselves available for this town-hall meeting this
094afternoon we were unsure what kind of presence we would have and happy to see that we had up to 60 plus people earlier the set and earlier in this course who was it was really great to see so many faces and so so many folks involved as you know we are taking this very seriously I I hope you I hope part of you take away is the district is taking this seriously we we know that we will not have a plan and whatever plane that's presented to the public we also know everyone's not going to be happy and it's not gonna reach and meet everyone's needs however any plan that we put together the spirit of that plan will be to ensure everyone's safety in our schools in first and foremost that's going to be
095our students that's going to be our staff and that's going to be our greater community because we understand and recognize the implications it has on a Danbury community to help inform the plan however we need feedback from you and if there was if it was if it was if it wasn't obvious earlier it was certainly obvious in this call at least for me that we need feedback from students and families to help determine what those options are you know as mentioned earlier the district is required to have landed on a hybrid model in the event of increased cases in the city and so and then if there's any flexibility on you know original back-to-school model we're also going to need feedback from you so you will hear from us again soon by July 24th we
096have to have an official plan submitted to the state we're hoping to have something publicly presented a couple of days prior to that I believe the superintendent is going to be requesting that we have a board meeting and so this means in the next two two-and-a-half weeks we will have probably a couple more surveys shared with the school community to get their last minute feedback to further to further update the plan before its year you know finally with the public I'm sorry I can't thank you enough for your participation today I can't thank the students enough you know folks anytime we have these meetings but any time the students are involved we get a different level of participation in questions and answers and so I can't thank you enough and and thank you for putting
097this together for us this afternoon appreciate it Courtney any comments no I'm just I'm just really looking forward to a return to school and knowing what capacity that's going to be and seeing everyone again in the fall so between now and then I'm sure there'll be more opportunity for us to get feedback from you all and just know that we're working really really hard to ensure that you're all safe and I wanted to thank Kevin for his leadership and dr. Salim everyone on the call today for taking the time to be here with us so thank you very much I hope you have a really wonderful summer from now until when we talk again yeah and and I just want to say thank you to Julie for joining us Amy Rachel Gladys Kate I believe
098also so Kathy's name in here I know you guys have been in and out of meetings all day with us maybe we can't thank you enough for your support in this effort thank you for your leadership and everyone that's helping make this happen so thank you and thank you all have a good rest of the afternoon but bye you