001[Laughter] of course boom all Joseph Britton your reaches Zaleski yeah Kate caneta here Gladys Cooper yeah Lauren Daly Joseph - Shobha here sorry Lauren I heard you there is Lauren there I'm sorry to do that she is I'm here okay Catherine Ashton here Richard Ginelli here Kathleen molinaro here Albert Russo here Ami's Bellino erica everybody's here Thank You Kate recognitions of our students dr. Sam you want to start with that it's a good way to start yes the kinetic associated Boards of Education recognize students throughout 169 towns each year and for their contribution to the school overall to the service of school and for their leadership and we have students that we are going to recognize tonight and I'd like to start we will go by school we will start with the wood Broadview I
002see that dr. Thomas is here would you like to start please we're really excited because we have two of the most amazing students in our building first we would like to do Jayla latigo Lake Jail is very caring compassionate intelligent young lady she is Curt had continued Bernadette bill grades in every class has this huge thirst for knowledge and she loves to help others Jayla is also part of the Excel program which is a competitive program which I'm just constantly preparing our students not just for high school but for college and also a career plan so Gala is also part of our National Junior Honor Society at Broadview and she uses this path this platform to kind of work with other students and her peers and just work in her community so I would love
003to present you to hopefully the last time you see her at a board meeting data let's Iguala Dale are you on hi yes oh thank you for everything that you said about me it really warms my heart you know it's all true right yeah yeah my mom is outside cuz she's an amadeo's yeah my mom is but she's in a conference right now for her job but I'll show her to you okay our next person is feeling Murphy she's a wonderful young lady too who exhibits a lot of integrity determination compassion especially about her academics she's excels in everything she has maintained exemplary grades and is just demanding all these demanding courses that she takes she just goes forth and she goes with full steam she is has tons of extracurricular activities like dance and
004karate and all that good stuff and she loves to perform and and had served in the community um she is really a leader she is not only a great leader she's very humble and kind and which I think make really great leaders she's involved in our National Junior Honor Society as well as our Student Leadership Program and she's committed to not just our broader community but to the community at all and like I said you'll see her again in front of this board before she graduates from Denver high school Michaela you are yeah I'm right here good how are you graduations thank you okay dr. Sal see you got the DC after all yeah well no this is an honor of mine I see okay terrific let's go too yes ma'am before we move on
005could I just say on behalf of the board to Jayla and Michaela on behalf of the board we certainly want to say congratulations thank you I love those beautiful smile and thank you for sharing your Pierce with us and we are very proud of you thank you well we've got doctors lead at Rogers Park we're always excited to do this one of our favorite times of the year I have to introduce to you tonight we were not able to get a first student on with us tonight but our second student is so our first student in his yon DL Adamas and he's an eighth grade student at Rogers Park he's one of our student ambassadors who helped support us our families and our students during many of our events and throughout the day near he
006is also mentored some of our sixth and seventh grade students and helped support them and their schoolwork and to be really a role model for them he's an active class member of our Latinos in action class and he's one of our students who goes down to South Street or he was going down the South Street and working with first graders in tutoring them and reading math and he's an avid basketball player and baseball player and he's been one of our students of the month many times over the past four years he works very hard at maintaining his for work he's got a great attitude and he contributes his success to his family and friends so while he's not able to be here tonight we're super excited said give him this are our second student is
007Chris Mary Nunez and she is on tightly she can hear me could turn your video somewhere oh honey so Chris Mary leader not only in school but she's also as a member of our Latinos in action class but she's also leader outside of school as she's an active day Mary police Explorer be it's important part of being a leader is that you have to put yourself out there not be afraid to speak your thoughts into Chapter three we know key things for a good leader utilizes her leadership skills to help our bilingual students learn English fine they're going to advocate for their learning missus as you know it's super important after school her involvement in the police explorers provides her with opportunities to assist a police department as well as go on ride-along police officers
008which must be really cool she is absolutely a great role models of riders Park and we are super excited to give her this honor if your parents are there to love to say thank you to them [Music] congratulations Westside middle school dr. LeBlanc oh good evening everyone it's nice to be with you this evening I recognize two students and again very excited to be able to them so I saw purses can Salem I cannae student who enjoys stepping out of his comfort zone and he is certainly a leader in our National Junior Honor Society has helped students out in the rich and it's a volunteer big brother with struggling readers he's an upstander in our school he stands up for everyone he's a positive role model and he recognizes his parents for the positive contributions
009that they make to make him successful at school as well so congratulations Kenny I'm sure your mother would be much happier if I said congratulations Kenneth he's right there I see him I see him face to [Music] and chance go ahead and second I'd like to recognize Maria eduarda Sousa Maria is an active member of national June United Society as well and she's an excels in all her classes and she also shows leadership she's got a humble sense to her she's kind respectful and empathetic and she certainly strives for excellence in whatever she does she has been a 2 years running a top 5 in the state of Connecticut for the Connecticut Science and Engineering Fair that she's goal of becoming a scientist was really exciting I've had the pleasure of working with Maria directly
010on some of her research projects and a lot of fun and and you can see her will and determination and hard work I often have to tell you have to go home it's you've done enough work for one day and she's just really a shining star in our school and just such a positive person and we're really thrilled to be able to award her congratulations Maria thank you very high school Dan Donovan how are you you'll notice have a fancy background like everybody else because when I went to go put mine on it said my computer does not have a quad-core Intel processor allowing me to do that that's what mine says dansad I'm Kevin so you're stuck with the first year of my kids lives behind me that's a picture of everything through wondering
011what it is it's a picture of every month of their first year so with that I have two awesome students here with me you know with damn your high school we have quite a few to choose from but these two really stood out to me when looking at the senior class and I thought they did it there deserved it and I see I'm gonna go ladies first I see Larissa sitting there with her mother and Larissa is a scholar who believes that anything can be accomplished through hard work and persistence she is the president of our Board of Governors at Danvers High School has an impressive 3.9 GPA and shows an incredible worth that ethic and believes that working to reach her goals is her greatest comfort though is helping others her experience with tutoring
012young students to the National English Honor Society taught her the patience is a virtue welcome to our world and displayed how much of an impact she can make in the community her value was found in helping others around her because she is constantly working along with members of our community to form the new portrait of her graduated for Danbury public schools this year alone in the Bo G she organized awesome homecoming dance for us created a lot of exciting activities helped with raise money for organizations like Special Olympics in Jericho they've been very active during this closure with running a virtual spirit week for the school trying to keep spirits up and overall having such a leadership opportunities has taught her that you know with helping hands and a positive mindset any goal can be
013accomplished and both her and her twin sisters from this distance I can't tell which one I'm actually looking at might be her twin sister Lorena are attending UConn in the fall I came here five years old and learning English was like such difficulty for me but um the date-rape public school system really helped me throughout this whole process and I'm so grateful to be a part of it thank you thank you very much it was a pleasure working with you this year in the BOJ our second student is Aiden Byrne he's a scholar athlete at Deborah high school has worked hard and achieve a 4.45 GPA and his position as a cross-country team captain Aiden has taken the challenging mix of honors and AP classes and has ranked 22nd out of 772 students this winter
014he received the FCA exemplary scholar athlete award he is also FC all FCX second team is junior for cross country and a varsity athlete in both indoor and outdoor track while most of his time spent in the classroom outside the classroom he maintains all this academic and athletic prowess while working as a cashier writing you is also honors all of his commitments for the National Honor Society the national business Honor Society and deca in addition he is a member of peer leadership his pair leadership project this year he worked with other seniors to make the school committee a better place a couple of peer leaders and Aiden organized a bunch of gift donations right around Christmas trying to Yale New Haven Hospital which was very successful his goal is to constantly improve himself and the
015lives of others around him and he'll answer this question a minute because I'm not sure I know he's going to Stonehill College but I'm not sure if you're gonna run there are you running there as well Eden yes I'm gonna run on the cross-country and track teams it's doable excellent congratulations thank you so much mom and dad the background there yes thank you alternative Santa John Webb mr. John Webber grace John thanks for having me with the cable boards and with the superintendent Awards what we usually do is we have the teachers who are the guidance teachers of the students who have really built strong relationships with them write the BIOS for them because they get to know the family best and they and they get to know the students best our two Award winners
016aren't able to be here tonight but I want to represent them and read the BIOS that were written by their guidance teachers so the first is Tamara Souza in looking at the criteria for the cable board it was evident that Tamara Souza is one who fits the criteria quite nicely she's been representing ace for at least two years as a stars participant to work in collaboration with other alternative schools in Connecticut she's been the sole a student representative at the Board of Ed meetings for the last two years and through her participation involvement she's seen herself be able to build relationships with the board the superintendent the assistant superintendent and other cabinet members in the Danbury districts tamara has earned the youth of the month award for November 2018 is recognized by the Danbury exchange
017club which then made her eligible to win the youth of the Year award in the spring she's been recognized several times for her achievements within our program for student of the month for making honors for making high honors for winning the ASA spades for hard work the ace of hearts for caring and and she's known for keeping promises and and keeping her commitments and she is she's also someone who has reached out to her peers the whole time she's been an ace to provide support through its here to her peers just the last thing I would say about her that I'm adding to the to the bio is that in the beginning of the year she came to me and she said I feel like you represent the you award students for their accomplishments and
018she said how come the staff never gets any awards and I said well what do you want to do and she said I'm gonna I'm gonna organize a staff of the Month award and anybody who works at ace can earn that award doesn't have to be a teacher and so she started taking votes every month and then at our large guidance when we have the entire building in an assembly she will present the staff of the Month award to staff members so she's somebody who really gives back not just to you know the building but she appreciates the things that she's been given at Ace and in Danbury Public Schools our second Award winner is Amy Omaha Bell Amy is an exceptionally motivated and dedicated student who has often been known to put the needs
019of other people before herself while this is often a respectable quality it can also present downfalls this has happened to Amy in the past as she had found herself struggling in school at Ste Marie high school because she was busy taking care of everyone else leading to her decision to apply and come down to ace since coming to a she's been trying to balance her own needs with the needs of others she's volunteered to help at all the building wide community service events she has been a high honor student this entire year and her academic excellence has pushed her towards putting herself in a position to graduate this June which in the beginning of the year in September she was not on the list to graduate in June but her through her hard work she's
020got herself there so I just want to celebrate those two students and say thank you for having us thank you congratulations to them all right thank you John okay the next the next thing we have under recognition with our new assistant principals and I thought first before I read you a look at shared with you a little bit about the resume I'd let Kim thumbs and talk a little bit about the process and then I'll talk loop about the resume and then both principals will talk a little bit about their selection thank you thank you dr. Sal so as many of you know what we typically operate with assistant principal and principal positions were the two panel interview system and it includes a wide swath of administrators and teachers staff members all of whom contribute
021to this vetting of candidates for the assistant principal position typically we require white writing samples and we have a pretty rigorous questioning policy in these panels and this year was no exception to that rigor it was a little bit different given the kovat crisis we collapsed into a single panel so fewer participants but none more enthusiastic ever than the panel that we had this year that also included our board member mr. D'Silva and some administrators and teachers as well so people who run the gauntlet here in danbury certainly have to go through their motions whether they are new to us or whether they are interims as our two candidates this year were and it was just a nice opportunity I think for each one of them to showcase their achievements from this year and before
022and so we'll turn it over to dr. Saul that's how you who they are we start Westside no school this is Jennifer with this but Jennifer certainly she serves currently as the interim assistant principal at Westside she had worked with us as a language arts specialist for a four year where she did work with social affective development of students both intellectually and socially as I mentioned she was responsible to the building principle for literacy administrator to coordinate the program with them and she during that time demonstrated great knowledge for diagnosis and intervention acceleration of students probably that she worked in in Hartford she was interim principal at her book schools from February 2018 to July at Thurman Milner school she also was the assistant principal curriculum instruction literacy at the Hartford Public Schools from 2013
023and she left and came with us and in that role she as you imagine she was really not what I call just dealing with the student deportment but she worked as an instructional leader which led her I think into the positions that she has now where she's been a great resource to tour district into the principal I'll let dr. Lebon can now talk a little bit about her and then we'll go to the next game congratulations there Jennifer Frank thank you dr. South so it is just wonderful to have Jennifer blue as our official assistant principal now she comes to us with such a wealth of knowledge and I think you know for me personally it's such a great complement to my skill set in terms of our instructional sharing she manages our humanities departments
024while I mentioned stem Department said and that work we do together especially around helping students accelerate their learning she's got such great strengths than that and I think that's a huge value she's made such positive relationships with our students and our parents and she's such a welcome part of the Westside family and I look forward to many years working with her congratulations Jennifer Jennifer get online [Music] here she goes oh nice background where'd you get that where'd you get that background can you hear me won't say anything would you like to say let's say thank you very much for this opportunity I I enjoyed my job so much at Westside it's just a wonderful community and I feel fortunate to be working there so I'm honored and grateful and look forward to the upcoming school
025year about this dark cloud of virus over us but we'll manage we're gonna manage we're trying our best so I thank you very much thank you thank you congratulations okay and next over at Broadview middle school she we have Shelley Rinaldi and Shelley currently serves as the interim assistant principal and she's been responsible for doing evaluation doing collaboration curriculum facilitating the professional development prior to that Shelley did work with us in the era of literacy and ela curriculum she really personally created our intervention program maintained it was giving us a lot of information for making decisions for youngsters so that they were being placed in the right programs get the assistance that they needed and when we had an opportunity to look for someone who could help in terms of the structure of a middle
026school understanding child development and had such a wonderful curriculum background dr. Thomas said hmm what shall I do and I'm gonna let her talk about Shelley right now honestly Shelley is well bombed and every principal looks for someone who can fill the weakness whatever area weakness and her strength and intervention and being able to look at students at different angles is some we're gonna definitely need that broad view and she just has a great disposition nothing seems to faze her every morning it's almost annoying because we meet at 8 o'clock in the morning and she's got a smile on like a tagline one and just smiling and in return I think this has been a great position for her to be filling so we're real excited and not only that we're excited at the middle
027school level because we have two amazing assistant principals that are joining us and I think it's gonna make our team extremely strong show you there thank you show you them Shelli isn't here I'm sorry shall we had a family emergency so she did tell me to let you guys know they should really appreciate it and she thank you very much for the opportunity she is so thrilled to be in a one place in a building and she just wants for me to just reach out and say thank you that's it thank you bubbly participation there is no public participation as well right according to my agenda we're looking at the consent calendar first we looking at the consent counter yeah that's next yeah and then then employee rep okay so okay you want to make
028the motion for the consent calendar yes Thank You Gladys I'll make a motion that the Board of Education approves the items on the consent calendar exhibit 20 - 47 through exhibit 20 - 49 as recommended motion made by Kate could I hear a second Al's got his hand up there animate 2nd emotion any questions concerned emotions seeing that could we do Mancow okay told to do okay so I'll do a just a roll call on that yeah roll call just the Britain who's all Rachel she Leske Kate kinetic I laughs Cooper hi Lauren Daly aye Joseph DaSilva hi Catherine Hodgson i richard Ginelli Kathleen Molinaro Albert Rousseau I Ami's Polina thank you the motion is terrible thank you employed represented you know person Cooper can we let the parents know I met the parents and
029the students know that it's okay for them to leave yes I'm sorry excuse me right okay the students we just want to take this moment to congratulate you all and we appreciate you staying on but you also just wanted to let you know if you left that's also okay but we thank you guys for being part of the meeting and I know we also have some schools student rep so if you guys are hanging around we're looking forward to hearing from you okay cool Oh Thank You mr. Watts good evening everyone I hope everybody is doing well tonight good it's good to see everybody and see all of your happy healthy faces tonight I am wanted to take a minute I'm gonna do this a little bit teacher style so when we write report cards
030we always start off with all the positives that we want to talk about we couch in a little bit of the things that we want to work and get better at and then wrap it up with some positives so I want to start out with some really amazing positives that I want to tell you about our teachers continue to show their commitment to the community through their volunteerism their outreach and their generosity and so with this pandemic going on and a lot of our union sponsored events that were canceled we wanted to take that money that we weren't using on some of our events like our retirement end-of-the-year teacher celebration dinner and we wanted to put it toward a cause that would benefit our students and our families so our members took a vote and
031they voted to donate five thousand dollars to the community which all went to combat food insecurity in our community we donated a thousand dollars to the Connecticut Food Bank we donated a thousand dollars to the Daily Bread Food Pantry a thousand dollars to the new American Dream Foundation to continue the meal program on Saturdays which has been so successful and then we voted to donate two thousand dollars to the Broadview pantry and I just want to give a shout out to this group of teachers that has been doing amazing work at Broadview they were doing amazing work year round making sure the needs of their students were taken care of by setting up a little boutique in the school to provide food items and sanitary products for the students that needed them and hygiene products
032they were doing all this wonderful stuff before this happened and then the pandemic struck and they knew that they had families that really needed some support so they wanted to continue the program but the program has actually taken on all new legs and what they're doing is feeding approximately I think they're up to 35 families now on a weekly basis and it's a really an army of teachers not only from Broadview but from other schools as well that are shopping that are collecting amazon food orders that the community has donated and their dry these packages that they put together to students homes on a weekly basis making sure that students have bread milk eggs and basic essentials for them I I do need to mention that one of our wonderful paraprofessionals that broad the Laura
033Hollis actually really played a huge role in this because she donated the greenhouse Halas farm property in which she owns to make sure that all of the packaging and all of the food items could get sent there and it's sort of as kind of a distribution spot for all the teachers to collect and socially distance put these packages together so these are the kinds of stories that you know kind of warm my heart and show all the things that teachers do and to go above and beyond and show our staff dedication to help our families in need so that's some really good news some more really important good news to share was is that teachers are becoming increasingly proficient with their new technologies they're taking new risks to apply their new learned technologies and your
034strategies to their Google classrooms and they're taking risks to use all these new things like screen sharing and little little tools that we've all learned how to do in this pandemic to make sure that their students are getting the benefit of good quality instruction they're improving their engagement strategies and teachers are now beginning on mass to implement synchronous learning techniques which involve live meetings with their students and this is something many many teachers had been doing already but now it's going to be something that's going to be moving forward going to be part of our weekly routines it's very important and we need to make sure that we're connecting with our students to improve the social-emotional learning process make sure our students feel connected with us connected with their community connected with their schools so
035these live meetings are going to be serving as a really positive step forward in our distance learning plan so that was that was something that I really wanted to make sure that everybody understands the hard work that we've kind of put forward to make all those different phases of our distance learning plan come together and this is kind of the last crucial piece that we're going to be working on for the remainder of the year and holding on to all that new learning in case we need to use it which I'm sure we're going to in the months to come for next year moving forward I want to just talk a little bit about something that Commissioner Cardona said a few days ago when talking about returning back to school in the fall he said
036a return to normalcy will have to be a marathon and not a sprint and he also discussed of how it's not going to look anything like any of us are used to with that in mind I really want to implore and caution the board not to fall pressure to rush to return to school without a thoughtfully put together plan that makes sure that safety is paramount and that safety is the focus of our employees and our students I know that there's going to be a lot of push from outside sources and community members and you know statewide a push to maybe move forward and if we're not quite ready I'm imploring you to make sure that our plan is put together and don't fall victim to that pressure we want to make sure our students
037our staff are not sacrificial lambs just to jumpstart the economy our health and safety is the most important thing and you know we can't have quality learning and quality instruction if we're not healthy so we need to make sure that that is the focus I know we have a team that's put together to study the re-entry and I just want to also make a request while I'm part of that team I want to request that there are other teachers and actually all building stakeholders or district stakeholders employees at work that will have a voice in putting the plan together you have an incredible breadth Lake brain power that's collective and putting that rain power together to work on up we really need to use those resources for our safe return and I think that it's
038very important that you tap into the ideas and the experiences of our staff members I've already had many many emails from people offering suggestions collectively moving forward our state union has a set of guidelines that they're going to be really emphasizing for the going back to school process which includes things that we've already heard in the news and that we've talked about comprehensive testing for our staff members potentially our students as well contact tracing and track tracking of the virus requirements and this is really important a requirement for making sure we have everyone that comes back to school is wearing protective equipment district provided protective equipment is something that we're going to need to discuss moving forward we'll need to make sure that the district protocol for disinfecting and sanitizing is put into place and
039that the district has the funding to continue to do that while we still need to do that it's not something we should be you know falling short and worrying about back ordering of products it's something that we have to be prepared for and that we have to have it in place in order to restart school there are a lot of other items that you know we'll be talking about in the weeks and months to come but I just wanted to kind of put that in the mindset of the board of knowing where we're coming from that you know obviously safety is paramount for all a couple of things I think that our teachers are voicing we need to get better as a district and I don't think anybody would disagree about that is how we're
040reaching out to our families to make sure all of our students are engaged and some of our students who we have not been able to connect with or reach or bring in to the day to day distance learning process on the collegiate level we need to make sure that those contacts are done in an efficient manner my example for this would be currently teachers are making the predominance of all the phone calls to parents and the secondary layer would be guidance counselor's and PBS staff as we move forward we're gonna need to really utilize all of our employees to make sure that they're all reaching out and connecting with students and it's not just the teachers we're also providing instruction also providing you know writing new curriculum and - that's going to be distance learning
041appropriate teachers shouldn't be the only ones doing the heavy lifting with the parent communication so we need to come up with a plan district-wide that that improves upon what we're currently doing I want to just also talk about very briefly I know it's budget season and being that teachers are doing this extreme heavy lifting to make all this work happen I want to make sure the board is going to continue to support them by making sure that they have the resources and financial support to continue to make all of this happen we as a district we know this swirling short-changed here in Danbury and now more than ever we need to increase our educational funding last September ranking 169th we all know was an absolute disgrace but right now that disgrace has turned into an
042emergency and we can't continue we can't afford to fall further behind them we already are we've got to make sure that funding is priority and that you know we're we're shouting to all the people that are going to listen statewide in our in our community that ensures that our students aren't shortchanged and they get all the resources that they need I told you I'm gonna wrap it up with some positivity that was all my my couch things that we need to work on I have to say and I will give a shout-out to dr. Sal I am encouraged by the current communication and the relationship that we have been fostering throughout this this process the dialogue has been super with administration we're having weekly meetings we're talking about things even if we don't agree on
043how we're going to go about it the dialogue is open the communication is open and I think that's really the best way moving forward continue our collaborative relationship so dr. Sally thank you for your leadership on that level and I hope that we can continue that collaborative relationship I really think it's to all of our benefits to keep that that communication open and in moving forward so hopefully that will continue throughout the summer as we work on all the hard work and the heavy lifting that still needs to be done okay thank you very much for your time and I hope everyone's continues to stay well thank you thank you for all that you do thank you so much miss Cooper next on the agenda we have our students I'm good how are you okay
044so me and Larissa are here from DHS I'm Becca the BOJ treasurer Larissa and I just want to share a few things that are happening digitally at DHS um first off this week or last week was um Teacher Appreciation Week in the National Honor Society and peer leadership classes came together to create an activity where we sent emails to all the students to all the teachers so the students signed up for a teacher and then we would send emails to each teacher which was really successful this week we started ap testing at DHS I personally have taken two tests so far they went really well some people had some issues but um we'll keep the district updated with how that's going I know it's new we've never done this before so and neither has college
045board so hopefully it goes well we started a new schedule this week I'm not sure if any other schools have where we have a days on like a Monday and then we submit everything by that by Wednesday night and this is just to ensure that kids are submitting their work on time making sure that kids are healthy and you know their mental health is coming before you know some other things so I think it's it's working out so far for me and I hope it's working out for all the other kids I'm gonna pass it over to Larissa and she's going to continue so the DHS PTO is also hosting a junior prom picture clinician so left out since they're not gonna be able to participate in Pumped prom this year the BG and the
046senior class officers are also hosting a prom picture submission for the senior class which will highlight their outfits in a fun video the graduation plan is still pending for the class of 2020 as many of you probably know and as it comes to an end the senior class officers have created an Instagram to show some of our graduates future schools and their plans and I think that is all for today thinking thank you so very much for sharing everybody thank you hi everybody I'm here to speak we're age um so I like to thank you all for allowing me to represent the alternative center and Shiah what's going on with her family during this time of distance learning so a staff has created a Google classroom called a strong and an effort to connect out
047students and build community in this class that have created fun activities the video messages to students and resources for supporting each other during this difficult time a staff is recognizing students achievements through the use of flipped grades that allows that to publicly appreciate students and these slip grades can be viewed in the a strong class as well as on the ACE website Danielle Esposito and culture Cola have launched the ACE Renaissance Fair for all world studies and English one students and will run all week the fair involved with the fair in virtual field trips to the Globe Theatre interactive learning activities trigger games and prizes for students the fair was created in an effort to engage students and their guardians in learning together during this time of distance learning lastly as we approach the end
048of the year plans for celebrating our seniors graduates are underway and will be shared out soon when the American be about everything and God above everyone thank you all so much for supporting our ace family and stay safe everybody thank you madam chairman may make a request please yes under presentation I hadn't I was uncertain if we were going to be able to do this and seeing that I have the principles there tonight and there's been questions about graduation and other things commencement moving up ceremonies and I will go on record now we've been waiting for the Commissioner to give us guidelines but I know that the principals Indiana and the rest have been really personally just at their wit's end trying to figure out how to recognize these wonderful youngsters for their accomplishments and
049also for they're moving up ceremony we're graduating and they're with us tonight if it's okay with you I'd like them to talk about what they're thinking about and then I know that this Friday we're supposed to get guidelines about what we can and cannot do we know we can't do large group gatherings but there seems to be some options for small less than ten recognition so if it's okay with you on the presentation I will have them talk about what they're thinking about if it's alright thank you so why don't we start with the DNI no Dan you were you did some survey and talking to some students and parents maybe we could do a book what you've done and sort of the brainchild of what you're thinking Danny you there okay you know we're
050trying to push the envelope every way we can so you know we haven't come out with it plans yet because like you said we were waiting for the guidelines because I think that May 20th deadline of the state may change a couple things that we can do but so patience for everyone that's out there on our senior class because you know we're trying to put stuff together I did have and listen to ideas from first the class officers I had a meeting with I met with the Bo G and Larissa and the group I had a you know zoom with the class of 2020 sent out an invitation anybody that wanted to go I had a principals breakfast and tried to tell them my thinking as well so we trying to communicate our ideas but
051not our plan because we don't know if our plans gonna be successful yet I have been in conversations with Danbury Police Department on what we can do and actually mayor Mark who were very receptive to trying to give the class of 2020 everything that they can they can get because they were so shortchanged on everything they had coming up at the point you know one of the best parts of high school so we are looking at two different kind of major events for our seniors right now one is our cap and gown distribution yearbook gold cords tassels things like that the issue being with like that is the date of which we're gonna get stuff like everything else cap and gowns were not an essential organization to be running so they were shutdown yearbooks were
052shut down and they're doing the best that they can to try to get us this as early as possible plus graduating on June 12th it is in some cases a week and a half to two weeks earlier than we normally do so there's a problem with that with our dates but cap and gown distribution and graduation we're looking for you know cap and gown distribution to be more of a you know car parade type inviting the staff in socially distanced away from each other out on the sidewalk kids you know drive up decorate the front of the building type stuff they can decorate cars things like that drive up put their name up in the window we throw the cap and gown and yearbook or whatever in the back that's kind of our our thing
053going there more of the party type style than graduation graduation we're looking to have an in-person event and you got to kind of follow me on this once an in-person event in which the students will be able to wear those capping gowns walk across the stage in the front of Danbury high school hear their name called have their family present in a designated area trying to take pictures and all that stuff a lot of photographers there as well and all that stuff but put a stage up there decorate it put a tent over it so it looks very similar to what we kind of do now and have them doesn't need times for kids to come obviously breaking it down by the different levels in alphabet we're still working through how long it's going to
054take the parking and all that we're pretty good with on the routes and things and talking to the police and everything for traffic on how we can do that the problem is there are seven hundred eighty seven hundred seventy two students slated to graduate this year if each student takes approximately two minutes up on stage or anything like that you're looking at like 25 hours of graduation ceremony so it's something that I don't know if I could stand there for 24 hours I give it my best shot but you know it's it's a long time so what we're gonna do is break it down over three days times you know starting at nine o'clock in the morning going to four o'clock in the afternoon and get kids anyone who wants to they certainly don't have
055to and hand them their diploma and get them all their stuff picture opportunity and stuff like that so they can have that moment of actually walking across the stage you know normally I would invite and they're more than welcome any board member that wants but I certainly understand that they're not going to be there the whole time you know but I would be there to you know hand the Diploma to kids as socially distance you know take some pictures and things like that so we are really working hard at what we can do there's a million ideas out there the problem is a lot of million ideas you know don't fit Danbury high school you know if I had two hundred seniors there's a lot more I could do you know we would we push
056the envelope for almost an in-person one you know we were looking at and how can we do this in groups and the problem becomes you know the numbers were allowed to have in the current regulations and orders from the from the governor and things like that so we're working for it I do have to give a shout out to our PTO members especially Kathy snow and Richard Messinger who went on this awesome you know yard sign thing which we've had for years but this year really took off and there's they've sold you know somewhere around 350 yard signs many of which were donated by the community that we can go out and having that pickup supposedly on the 16th the same thing kids drive up roll down the back window we throw it in there
057and things like that you know we were looking to see if we could get every single one to every kid but it doesn't seem like I'm gonna be able to do that just on the timing parts of it but I do have to give a shout-out to them so those are kind of our plans the reason I haven't put them out there or haven't put anything out there it is when you release something to you know 772 families sometimes it gets twisted and sometimes it gets in if we have to retract anything from that because we're not allowed to do it for whatever reason then it becomes a problem so we're waiting to get this solid go-ahead that we can do this and then we'll move home so we're gonna talk about the rest but
058the board can empathize with you guys I think very easy to do it online but they enjoyed to personalize it and has been really thinking through how we could do that so I appreciate that Dan I just I just got an email I just sent to you supposedly we're gonna get these guidelines on Friday so we'll see yeah I read that you know they do seem late yeah you know the one thing in the meetings that the students the kids really didn't want is a virtual they didn't want the something like that they they really wanted the in-person part cap and gown wearing you know stuff like that so that's kind of what we're we're trying to build towards it's just very difficult when we're building these you know and it's changing and everything so
059let's go to the let's go to if you don't mind we'll go to John now whoever and then we'll go to the middle schools yeah I could be pretty quick and really echo a lot of what the inset in terms of putting a plan together but not releasing it until we have the guidelines partly because it becomes difficult to retract and also I don't want to I don't want to get kids hopes up for a certain type of event and then have to pull it back from them what we're looking at dan mentioned you know if you had fewer graduates you might have more flexibility to be able to work something like this and put something like this together we we obviously have a much smaller number of graduates than Dan does so I'm looking
060at a hybrid of an in-person event that is outdoors using social distancing and following all of the the state guidelines and directives as well as recording the speeches that guidance teachers give about the kids as well as the speeches that the kids write for the guidance teachers but I don't want to put anything out there yet I want to have a cooked up definite plan but I don't want to put it out there until I know that we can safely execute it and that it falls within the the state guidelines the other thing that we also did was a you know I also don't want to ruin some surprises for kids because I was trying to have some surprises but the the the flag idea is something that we already ordered and we're waiting on
061the delivery for those the flags all have some personalized aspects to them with regards to the students in the school that's it let's go to the middle school I guess you sound like I can represent the group I don't know if all the men here I told might speak on your behalf so the the middle schools um you know like John like Dan are very interested and and in trying to pull off something that's meaningful a meaningful exercise for the sort of movement of ceremony for eighth grade to ninth grades the three principals feel comfortable they can do something really meaningful and worthwhile in a virtual environment and platform and they are excited to announce that they would like to have that on June 11th and I have some times that we would like to
062release soon but we probably should wait until after Friday when there is more guidance coming out from this day okay so let me just go back to Dean for a second in because you had mentioned the last day the last day of school which has been typically our graduation date you said they'd be if it would be permissible you would do this in thirds as well would it end on that date is that what you're thinking just so the board gets an idea yeah we're planning I mean I gotta go back and look at the exact times but it june 10th 11th and end on the 12th you know there's 200 I believe it was 240 graduates day one 300 and something day two and a lower number for anybody who missed their time we
063can play a little catch-up at the end couldn't make it during the other times you know we could get 700 people we might get 300 I'm not sure which way it's gonna go okay I just wanted them to get it it sounds like a 1 think there's a Friday thing that's all yeah it's gonna be a marathon okay I don't run marathons well we both should okay so thank you for doing I appreciate I don't know if anybody has any questions because there might be a good time okay they both so we have some middle school principals here too Edie still here Katherine are you here so yes thank you so my question would be is if Dan's planning a three-day and somebody has a high schooler and a middle schooler and the middle schools
064are gonna do it on the 11th I thought I heard that wouldn't be conducive for the parents right to be in two places at once I'm still recording mines during the day Monell being the forest there's are at night there are five all right yeah okay I just want to make sure that they weren't overlapping because of I had that at one point yeah we had to compensate we had the conversation with the high school to make sure perfect thank you any other questions thank you thank you action item action item a okay action item a education specifications for Ellsworth Street School Annex I'll make a motion that the Board of Education approved the education specifications for the Ellsworth Street School annex as recommended by the sites and facilities committee in accordance with 20 -
06550 seconds motion made by Kate segment by Catherine are there any questions concerning in motion I just wanted you know I do have Glen Hagel here and then Tony on a roll in case there are any questions yeah I've got a question mrs. Cooper yes okay dr. salgo or whomever the what is the security in terms of entering the building if somebody wants to see someone on the second floor is there a difference between is there a separation so they cannot go to the classrooms on the first floor oh I think about Glenn would you talk and speak to that or Kelly either one Glenn we're killing Glenn are you there yeah so there is Southie Oakland is geared mr. Jenelle is in there there are indeed he's here Gleneagle my gosh it's Antonia I
066can answer yeah we Richard we have gone through an extensive process of dealing with security on this annex building on there is there is a checkpoint that will basically allow everybody to come into the building and access the second floor as well as if we want them get him into Ellsworth school themselves the Security office a major checkpoint and nobody can get in and out so if somebody wants to visit somebody in a second floor they would come in through the Security office State what the reason is for the visit and then a staff member from the Board of Education to come down and secure those individuals and bring them up if they needed to and there's an elevator right yes there's an elevator yep so basically what I'm concerned about is is somebody coming
067in and having the ability to to wander so they they may want to go to the second floor but they're off and wander somewhere in the first floor I mean you're pretty pretty comfortable that that wouldn't happen or trying to prevent that yeah Richard absolutely will not happen if you see some of the preliminary drawings that we've put together there's a basically a holding block for anybody that comes into that school where they can't get any further than the security office and a security office personnel has in a very secure state there's no way they can access the rest of the building as it's designed right now okay thank you unfortunately I can only read financial statements and they can't read blueprints so I had to ask the question I'm sorry but thank you very
068much no problem action item B okay we're gonna take a vote first rate okay Joe Britain yes Rachel s key I key caneta yes Gladys crew hi Lauren daily i jus de silva i catherine ashton i rich Gemelli i cathy Molinaro i al Russo I amy's ballina yes that's most you're so fast thank you I should item B Rachel would you do to our motion for action item B please sure thank you I make a motion at the board of education except for first reading policy six one four point eight emergencies and preparedness as accepted by the policy committee exhibit 20-15 on motion been made by Rachel Circuit second Joe yeah are they in a question place on motion any question concerning policy I've got a question Gladys all these motions that were voting for
069on the policies are just for the first reading was that correct that's correct this is the first routine the final reason would be done at our next board meeting okay that if I have questions can I write the questions to the committee rather than waste the time the full board and let the committee evaluate them I don't see why not you know just in the interest of saving time there you know just general questions and if there's any issues they could just respond or just to bring it up at the next meeting tonight to go through each and once so rich so Richard that's what that's the way where it might be even the general public without that if they have a question they could send it to my office and then I would share
070it with the policy committee and I didn't get answers in advance so yes it's appropriate is what I'm saying okay so I could directed to are directed to the chair to the superintendent and to the policy committee are we are we having a policy committee meeting before the next board meeting no we don't have one scheduled so this would come up for a second reading book at the next board meeting yes and there's I believe that it needs to be it needs to come up three times for the board before it can be accepted it was my understanding so sorry a second reading and a third reading now if if we came back the second time and there are a lot of questions right we would just try to the board with ask us to
071modify it and then we'd bring it back again there's no rush that's usually what happens if there's any sometimes there isn't any and it's acceptable it depends on but I can go another time yes so does it keep back I'm sorry to interrupt Gladys I just want to clarify because I this is a procedural thing I need to understand and I'm wondering if anybody else is having the same question when the policy goes through the first reading and gets the approval by the board and then it goes back to the policy committee for another review or is it where does it go if you want me to try to answer I'll try me no because if you don't it for the first reading and I'll say action item on the very first action item Hey
072there was no write me I don't seem to be no questions or anything so to me that's acceptable so the next time you do it for the second meeting its completed unless you know I don't hear any one have any question for action item amen so to me that's done so when we bring it back to the second reading we vote on it in his final unless I'm missing something I think you're right um mrs. Cooper I'm just looking at the policies now are the bylaws and your bylaws three to is the one that addresses policy adoption and it does look like there's a first reading there can be any amendments or revisions placed on the board meeting agenda then there is policies will be adopted amended after the second reading of the policy and
073there can be discussion about changes then it doesn't say anything about them having to be consecutive meetings though so I think you probably could have your meeting your next meeting without including it and if you want to have time for the policy committee to meet or you can discuss the amendments at the next meeting when you're reviewing it for the second time it looks like as far as making amendments at the second meeting if there's any amendments to be made well may I say say something so that so so richard has a couple of things he wants to question about it so send in his letter or his email and then and then we the next time like I mean what's the purpose of first waiting second meeting third reading if we're not changes or
074like you said lettuce cup that you know it seems mine and we won't be going back to that one what the the policy required the pilot year board by law requires two readings okay it's pretty standard I mean you're getting it out to first of all you had a subcommittee to board brainstorm go through it and put what they ran together and they hammered out these it comes to the whole board you read it tonight if someone want to make some comments tonight certainly would be thoughtful but it has to go up to that for a hearing to the general public it goes out to them and generally if there's some feedback for changes we'd come back to the second meeting and we report on that and sometimes and I I do remember once or
075twice where we get had to go back for more conversation but pretty much the second time the whole board as a whole would either accept modified make amendments to the policy and then if then if they adopted it then we would create guidelines administrative Lea to into and to implement meant it so it can go back there is no rush is what I'm saying as King says it's been to air out okay a question miss Cooper I'm happy to schedule another meeting yeah that's necessary for the policy committee okay miss if I had a question I think Kevin just solved that self by question if rich has questions that should go to the committee maybe just the solution is the kids the committee is gonna be meeting not before our next meeting but before the
076meeting after that maybe we just don't put it on for our next meeting we put what looks just an idea especially there's no rush no rush yes I was going to suggest that for the next policy any way that it be placed on holds and the media let's have time for the policy committee to meet and discuss the next policy that we're voting on okay but we can do that both of them together yes it does but so if I vote YES tonight that's devoted to have it read publicly that's all sure Joe Britain I great till Joe Liske hi never yes Gladys Cooper I learned daily hi Joe DaSilva all right Catherine Ashton I wish Nellie I Cathy Molinaro you're on mute Cathy sorry I see thank you al Russo hi Ami's Polina yes
077more so care okay okay action item C sure I'll make a motion that the Board of Education except for first reading policy two one three one point one appointment of designee for superintendent as accepted by the policy committee exhibit 20 - 52 motion made by Kate - a second time and Joe set about your brick any question and discussion seeing that we'll do a roll call vote again Joe Britain's I really listening hi Kate Kim ribbon yes Gladys Cooper yes Lauren Daly yes Joe de Silva yes I Catherine Ashton hi rich Ginelli Cathy Molinaro hi al Russo yes Amy's ballina okay most your so cared Rachel would you do I item D please I move that the Board of Education except for first readings Board of Education bylaw nine three two one time place and
078notice of meetings as accepted by the policy committee exhibit 20-50 three motion made by racial secular Akata Josephson i any questions concerning this motion seeing Rachel so this is the one that I'd like the policy committee to discuss further I was wondering if Kim had a chance to review it and did she have any advice to offer us regarding electronic meeting yeah I did Kevin do you want to Kevin and I he sent it to me to review and I did give him some thoughts how do you want to share those you're me to do it again okay so this is the one about going electronic in the crisis my overarching thinking about it is I do share the opinion of cabe cabe that I think that it should be with some reluctance that you
079go to a completely virtual meeting setting for people who cannot come to the meeting and the reason why I say that is I think partly just because typically in my experience boards are eager to have active participants so people come to the meetings who are elected Board of Ed officials and if there is a way to do what we're doing now outside of the crisis the concern always historically had been that people were just calling for the meeting so that's the first thing cabe I think in an effort to recognize that put in an alternate policy which talked about if there was some reason why you could go to the board chair and ask for a specific exception that you know is the kind of thing you would use if somebody was in ill health
080and they couldn't come to the meeting so I guess my feedback for you is the first one gives me some discomfort the alternative isn't awful and that it may be useful to you but you know if you did find yourself in that situation you also could leave the attendance policy the way it is and vote in an exception for an emergency circumstance you could do that so it's really kind of a conversation for you folks about you know how do you feel about clear not you want people physically coming to the meetings or whether you want this alternative this what we're doing right now is a slightly different situation because there's a governor's order that changes basically changes for you changes the rules of engagement here so it's really not so troubling to me to
081use this as an emergency policy because of the colloid crisis but you know it's a good it's a topic that you all revisit from time to time and it really is for you all to figure out what your comfort level is on the policy itself the content on them is fine it's really just a choice for you all to make I had a question about I think probably for Kim in terms of the second half of that policy the you know permissive whatever um I saw a line in there about not using electronic not doing executive session and electronic I'll get a little bit of a concern about that language because we've already done that I'm just a little obvious Lee it's different because this is an emergency and this is all of us in
082Southwark open I'm just worried about having a policy that states were not supposed to do something we've already done yeah no I think that's a fair point Jo um I guess I'm a little less concerned about it because we're operating under the of order suspending the FOIA but it's a fair point completely yeah are we saying that we're only allowed to do the electronics because of the current situation of the pandemic once it's resolved then we are no longer eligible to do electronic meetings um now could we change based on a board policy right so I think that probably all that the cabe policy currently addresses is the attendance of elected board members at the meeting it presumes that the meetings going on Institute in a location and that people may need to call in
083the current que policy doesn't contemplate a virtual meeting and I think my answer to it honestly dick would be I'm not sure that you can create a policy that is less restrictive than the FOIA rule you know the FOIA rule is you hold a meeting and and you do your business at the meeting so I'm not sure you really could change it by board policy but I would anticipate but in light of the fact that it will have been many months that all of the boards are functioning this way that you may see some changes to what you can and cannot do because what a lot of boards are saying is look you know you had at one point you had something like 55 people on this meeting so you're getting more people attending so
084I think there's gonna be a hybrid solution but the answer to your original questions I'm not really comfortable that you could legislate yourself to something that's different from what FOIA is already telling you you know because it does have merit from a practical point of view you know you mentioned earlier for under let's say extenuating circumstances one being in the case when I personally was in the hospital had a miss a meeting so that would be a situation we've had instances when we had board members who be cost of their jobs travelled a lot and couldn't attend many meetings and they were we allowed the virtual meetings that would allow them to have the attendance and they wouldn't have the stigma of not attending the meetings or not fulfilling the role as a board thing
085the other thing is is going forward in terms of what we've learned and using right now you know we can have meetings during snowstorms so you know I'm really not I'm sort of confused in terms of you know what we're going to be allowed to do and not allowed to do yeah I think I think of it this way dick is for right now what this policy is contemplating is a change to your way of doing business when the meeting is ongoing in the boardroom so FOIA requires you to hold a meeting to state the place to do all of those things and these alternate policies are talking about if as you said if you Richard you can't make a meeting you can't just decide to call in without the board having a policy to
086accommodate that so that's why you're entertaining the idea my only point is I don't think that Connecticut sunshine laws have caught up now to this technology but I do think that with all of us using it so intensely that we could expect to see some tweaking that this kind of a meeting could be allowable if that's what you wanted to do it just seems strange not to take advantage of the current situation and in the progress we're doing is to just use it more effectively and efficiently so mr. dinelli foot and I for clarification the current first reading of this policy gives all the board authorizes the board chair to allow other members who participate electronically so this this provides for that opportunity but I think I'm also hearing that the policy committee would like
087to discuss further and I can certainly understand that given the conversations around this policy with the last board but but this right now currently in its first reading with the board is authorizing the board chair to allow individual board members to participate electronically all right so so with given the scenarios you just share if the board approves it there would be a space where that could be well yeah thank you appreciate it are they have the questions concern just skiing on roll call cakes sorry Joe Britain I Rachel Telesca yes Kate King Evan yes Gladys Cooper yes Lauren Daly yeah Joe DaSilva Catherine Ashton hi Richard dinelli bye Cathy huan'er