001[Music] [Laughter] [Music] okay gonna do roll call now Joseph bridge Rachel cholesky here get caneta here lab scooper yeah Lauren Daly yeah okay Joseph Silva here Katherine Hodgson Richard Richard Ginelli Katherine is here for Mike sorry here yeah I'm here am i here now now we see you thank you okay thanks sorry okay Richard Gianelli yeah okay uh Kathy Molinaro here al Russo yeah and Amy's ballina yeah all right everybody's here thank you got the sack yes well we're gonna bring in Frank and the Westside excelled at the virtual Connecticut History Day competition I think Frank we're gonna fight you two talk about that a little bit sure no that's okay oh yeah and uh Jennifer blew the system principal is joining us today as well the the global studies Academy at seven eighth grade
002level at Westside middle school have a chance to participate in history day it's project work on in our global size Academy we do it at the school first and then we select our regional finalists and we sent a number of regional finalists and the following students were recognized at the regional and have advanced to the state level so we're really excited to recognize Zachary right for his 8th grader for his projects faced and moving back and then the seventh grade students Dennis all's been for her documentary viewing Barbara Walters they come Dugan Colin Gordon and Xavier going for their exhibit the Chicago freedom movement second place and Emily Lovelace Gibbons Chloe do Jelani and you can candidate this project more unfortunate sleep third place so they're all advancing to the state level competition that competition
003will continue online as the regional did and if we're lucky we'll get some kids to the national competition which is also scheduled to be online later this year so congratulations to these students the project-based learning that they do at our school really gives me an opportunity to shine and they certainly did at the state level I don't know if Dan's on we had a number of high school kids too as well didn't we Frank yeah there are a number of high school students that got involved as well this year I think you know we're creating somewhat of a pipeline kids do things in middle school they want to continue that work in high school and high school offers that opportunity which i think is really fantastic and so congratulations to the high school students I
004don't have a list of those students as well but I know they did very well as well at the at the regional levels yeah ekam dear gun and Colin Gordon Xavier going did get a project one put you to sleep with that was a Westside group Chicago freedom movement school from West Side did that in the high school we had seen you grew up on a documentary to breaking barriers neighbor high school valentina Ramos Amira dov'è Megan Pahadi inhibit purse per se and then we had a first place breaking barriers from the dam direction mall Melissa oh okay we had a first place breaking barriers then very fair high school students lissa him as Allison Becca Spooner Caitlin van Trump and Sarah barter the students at the high school congratulations thank you for coming Frank
005and Jenn appreciate it thank you public participation cake you went to a reader public participation and then after cake we will have the comments from Sammy in their order okay sounds good due to the unique nature of the kovat 19 crisis and the limitations of technology members of the public who are Danbury residents are invited to send brief comments and questions via email in advance to dps underscore public comment underscore BOE at Danbury k12 dot CT us okay the first person for public participation is Kathy snow she did stay before she began item three on the agenda for this evening did not mention the high school students for history day but doctors house took care of that so we are all set she continued on with congratulations to dr. Cronyn on her retirement it is
006well deserved thank you Board of Ed members for all you are doing to help insure our student success I watched the recording of the last meeting and thought it went well considering it was virtual I do however feel the need to make note of something a few members commented about before I do I would also like to say that I also agree that teachers have been working nonstop and they need to have set hours in which they will respond to email so they can log off and be with their families with that having been said the comments I am referring to how to do with young students doing online schoolwork late in the evening and remarks about how parents shouldn't allow this board members need to also remember that the majority of folks are working
007from home well maybe the only time a parent has work with their child one-on-one with schoolwork is after dinner when the parent is done working or one younger siblings have been put to bed or perhaps the student is a natural night owl or the family has only one computer that all siblings share or the family has had to adjust to doing night school so the kids sleep in later in order for the parent to be able to get any of their own work done luckily my two children are in high school but I remember how it was when they were younger and I cannot fathom trying to work from home while they are with me and trying to help them with schoolwork and keep them entertained let's cook all the time nevermind that they can't
008see their friends so please let's support everyone administration teachers students and parents during this difficult time lastly and most important to my family to my family please postpone graduation if at all possible do not cancel it and I hope it isn't done virtually even if done in July or August these kids at least get to see each other even from a distance just have the seniors there are no guests in the stands parents can watch via a live stream use the entire football field and clip the chair so far apart that they can all wear their caps and gowns and walk by mr. Donavan and wave please if you have any input on discussion of how you graduation will be held delay do not cancel my senior employee employs you thank you and the next
009public participation comment and last is from rich Matt singer and Kathy snow and they are representing the Danbury High School PTO we think everyone can agree that the class of 2020 is missing out on a lot of activities that would have been happening in the next few months if it weren't for kovat 19 the PTO is selling yard signs to help celebrate the senior class of 2020 signs are $15 or $20 for one that is personalized with the first name parents can be made by cheque or via venmo - at the HS 2020 sign the order form is available on the PTO page of the Danbury high school website and signs are available in the word congratulations in English Spanish or Porky's just indicate on the form of which language orders are due by May
0101st we hope many Board of Ed members purchased signs as well as share this information it would be great to see them popping up all over Danbury in the coming weeks and they did include a link to the order form which will be in the minutes and that is the last participation thank you very much stand you up Nia I need a motion from ke to accept the consent can I make a motion that the Board of Education approves the items on the consent calendar exhibit 20-40 one through exhibit 20 - 42 as recommended second motion made by a second like Joe to silver and a question concerned emotion seeing none all in favor of the motion could I hear aye all right all right motion so care we don't have an employee represent think
011ask is there an employee representative out there is tonight I know they were invited well I don't see any on the list I guess not there is no Gladys I don't see it we did invite a student can you guys see me I doing yes we can you're welcome how are you guys is everyone good yeah we're good so we had our virtual you're a week from April 6th to the 10th right before spring break over 100 pictures were submitted and it was overall very successful over 16 students one gift cards which will be sent to them the senior class officers have started an Instagram page to showcase where seniors have committed for college prom is not officially postponed yet but we will keep everyone up to date on that nothing's been decided as Danbury
012girls field hockey and soccer teams work together to give truck drivers snack bags which is really cool Chromebooks were distributed to students from mid-march to early April distance learning has been an adjustment to all students but seems to be working itself out all options for graduation are being considered currently we will continue updating you as time moves forward and my beauty officers and I hope that everyone remains safe and healthy you know during this unprecedented time Thank You chief thank you everyone thank you Jake thank you yeah I've got to say I'm okay right III don't mean you may be getting a lot of questions and one thing we've learned from this this pandemic every day is a new adventure and we do meet twice a day our cabinet nine and I'm sorry ten and
013three o'clock we'll make decisions the morning that we change in the afternoon so I just think it's it's it's good for us to update you on what has been going on regarding the connectivity the engagement the computers the distribution of food the training and also there's issues with that issues but conversations left not left out that we just began discussing last time on grading so we have kind of sit back and I think we're going to put it right on the screen so you could follow along Kara and Kara and Gina oil here again updates on what we're doing I think you'd be very proud of the teachers and the administrators and the students the way that coming together but it is it is an effort each and every day to get to get this
014thing through so why don't we start with you okay Kara Kara are you not there here head unmute so can you see my screen yes and everyone can hear me okay okay great I'm just a way to move this over so I can see my entire screen as well okay so dr. Tsao asked me to make sure that we you know give a nice little update on where we are in time the last couple of times that we got together they were just sort of brief snippets of where we were and so we decided to kind of put it into a little bit more of a holistic view for you so that you can kind of see where we were and where we are in terms of our implementation and how things are going I
015know there's a lot of concern around connectivity so that'll be a good of what we talked about today along with celebrating some of the things that we think we're doing really well especially in our conversations with other districts as well as talking about continuing the conversations around our challenges and working to problem-solve some of those and I'm not sure why this is not advancing so give me one sec hmm okay there we go okay so um if you remember if you took a look in the in the distance learning plan you would have recognized that we identify sort of four phases of implementation as we did our kind of our kickoff and our startup to get us where we are at this point and so that was to increase the capacity for our teachers students
016and families to connect that was sort of a number-one priority to increase the teacher administrative capacity to successfully navigate in a digital platform and use distance communication tools and interactive web-based learning programs and then to provide ongoing digital support once we got going communication to teachers parents and students through a support team and to provide additional content and scaffolds for curricular support k5 and then once we get to that point how do we continue our continuous improvement cycle to respond in a timely manner to support all aspects of this work for parents teachers and staff it and everyone involved and I'm having a little bit of an issue with 40 there you go okay so before we can even talk about computers and connectivity and curriculum and assessments and and digital components as you remember
017one of our very first initial concerns was for that of the safety of our students and our staff as well as basic making sure that we're taking care of basic needs the little chart from maslov's hierarchy of need and our very first steps that we took really kind of fell within this the red and orange zones of psychological needs and safety needs dealing with you know organizing how we're gonna get food out to our students and our families making sure that our kids are safe and our staff members are safe and making sure that people are feeling secured so remember there was a tremendous amount of work that was done to me to ensure that we had a system in place to serve our families that there was an amazing amount of negotiations and collaborations
018with union members through through HR and renegotiating contracts and making sure that everyone had a place in a role and that our staff members were feeling secure and that our students and families needs were being met and this is still ongoing work as we move forward oh yeah and then there's toilet paper we felt that that also felts fell somewhere between the orange and the red as well another need okay a little humor okay so within phase one what you're gonna try to break this down a little bit into phases and sort of highlight some key features so I'm gonna invite Geena Jasmine into this conversation for phase one since she played a very critical role in coordinating the the surveying and the the distribution of computers which is still ongoing and so this was
019the phase where we need to increase that connectivity and the way to do that was to get computers and information and to begin that process I'm gonna let Gina take over for a second okay and talk a little bit about some of the things that we should be celebrating sure thank you so Kara actually if you want to click on the portal increase you know please thank you so one of the first things that we worked on was increasing parent communication with the schools and and we felt like parent parent engagement equals student engagement so we started focusing on updating and actually gathering parent emails and encouraging parents to log on to the PowerSchool portal so prior to March 13th which was our first day of shutdown we had less than 30% of the district
020on the on the Parent Portal and and parent email accounts and and a big reason for that is because we had just started planning to roll out the portal for elementary families so we've we've had the portal at the secondary level but we didn't have it at the elementary level with that we sent out letters home the week before we closed with instructions on how to create the account we posted instructional videos in multiple languages and then as parents started to respond we run reports twice a week to determine the numbers that we have so on March 31st 88% of parent emails were complete and accurate and 78% of parent portal accounts were created and then as we moved through the month of April and the last time I ran a report on April 17th
021we're at 92% for parent emails and 85% for the portal and what that means is we can expand the communication that we have with parents not only the robo calls that they receive frequently now they can receive emails as well as everything posted online so yep go ahead thank you and then the second piece of that was our device distribution so we started by creating a request form and posting it at each school's website got out some robo calls to encourage parents to request a device for their child and one of the key factors to the success of this plan is that we tied the picking up your device to the times when you could come and also pick up food and as we look back now we feel like that was a very strategic
022move because it brought people out and it served two of their needs two of the big names that they had and really could none of this could have been done without volunteers we we put out a call and just said we need volunteers and literally within minutes my inbox was full just tell me what to do how can I help they stirred out in the cold they made phone calls they made more phone calls I think most days people have done nothing but make phone calls for us for the past three weeks and in multiple languages so that that also has been a key to the success of 93% of the requests have been fulfilled and we continue this process today we're still reaching to families and getting them devices we now have enough devices
023so that if you have multiple children in your family everybody can have a device so that's an ongoing process I don't see that slowing down and so that that has been a key a key to this whole process as well and then we also did a parent survey yeah do you want me to go out out of the slide sorry oh yeah if you click on parent survey that will bring you to a different place yeah thank you yeah so he did a parent survey last week and the results you can just click through each one Karen oh don't talk about it so first question what level does your child our children attend so you can see that the majority of families that answered have elementary level students one to the next please question two
024how much time is your child spending on school work daily so based on the results it looks like between one and three one to four hours a day as reported by parents next please question three how able is your child to complete assignments independently and again the majority were pretty independently and somewhat so we will use that knowledge you know and pass it on to the teachers as far as where they stand with their assignments next please does every dps student in your household have access to his or her own device to participate in distance learning and you can see by what was reported that the majority of students do you have a device and again as I said we're still reaching out to the families who who don't and we're still hearing from families
025who you know now need a second or third or fourth device or we're filling in that gap do you have internet access in your home the majority of family said yes they do we still had pockets of people who tell us that they don't and we've been working on getting them hotspots in their area so the two percent of people in this survey that said no we have reached out directly to them to get hotspots in their areas you know if I could just add to that um we didn't actually you know translate and communicate a lot of information about free internet access in the area and folks did reach out to that but because of the overwhelming demand all at once that many people did not get appointments to admit until mid to late
026April as well so some of those are still folks that will be coming online in the next couple of days over the next week or so according to some self reports of people who originally reached out to get that free access and then we were curious if the people who answered the survey were took advantage of the meal distribution at the same time as the mobile distribution and these are the results of that okay all right and so another survey Thank You Gina another survey component that we did that was part of a larger more comprehensive report to the teachers kind of indicated you know the question that was asked of the teachers was based on the number of students that you have on your roster how many in increments of by five percent what
027percentage of your roster is connected and again this is teacher self recording so you could look if you see the the blue and the turquoise are your highest levels of connectivity along with the the green so you see that thirty nine point three percent of the staff self reported that they had 100 percent of other kids konnected thirty one point two percent of the staff and the turquoise had BP 95 and 99 percent of their class connected and if you keep following along with the green eleven percent said they had between 90 and 94 percent connected so by and large you had about eighty one almost eighty two percent of the teachers reported that they had at least you know 90% of their rosters connected when you start to get down into the the yellow
028and orange zones the numbers drop a little bit and then of course the red and the purple are you know areas where there's not very great connectivity and so what we have done is we have created individual pie graphs for every single school that looks similar to this that is linked to a spreadsheet by by grade level and teacher teacher role so that building principals will be going over this on Thursday with building principals so building principals can have a little bit more of a zoomed in information about the level of connectivity in each classroom because as we mentioned in the last board meeting google classroom itself does not give us super great back-end information about connectivity in terms of the in terms of the submissions and the number of things happening there so which
029is why we put out the survey but I will say though that the the sixty to sixty four percent and some of the some of the smaller places that reported just under fifty percent we do I did track that down and there is less connectivity in some of our ESL bilingual classrooms and in a few of the special ed certain types of special service classrooms where some students may be doing something different and Kelly Cruz can can talk a little bit more about that the connectivity there but in some cases a teacher could be reporting that they have 50 percent connectivity in their classes but they only have two teachers that are in an OT class so two students that are in ot classes some of it can be skewed additionally some of the students
030that show up in the bilingual and ESL classrooms as not connected appear to be in sort of a higher concentration in those classes and then those students are also appear in the teachers classrooms as well so generally if a student does not check in to their ESL classroom or their bilingual class room they're also generally not checking into their their core classroom as well so that the number can be represented in more than one place in this in this view so but the goal is to create many action plans around you know why students aren't connected and to track down who those students are and to kind of create a plan to get them connected there are you know the two highest reported reasons I'll go back out to to getting into some of our
031challenges with this the two highest reported reasons inhibiting connectivity is not necessarily the device although we still know that we need to get those in the hands of students but it's really a language barrier and the lack of understanding how to connect to our platforms so we've given you a laptop but I'm not quite sure what to do with it I don't know how to get to the next level and so there's been a little bit of a disconnect but that's mostly because of a language barrier so we have to work through through some of that but each week by a by large C the number of connectivity is increasing the number of devices keep getting distributed we have more devices coming in and so will will reach a point where we have full saturation
032it's just a matter of making sure that our families are on the other end of those devices and that they're able to function in our environment in it within phase 2 the distance learning the goal is to increase the teacher and administrative capacity to navigate in this new environment and to be able to kind of work with communication tools and web programs that we brought in to supplement and to support and so to do that some of the celebrations around that was that we had to create very clear roles on what teachers and administrators had to do in this environment and we were able to articulate those in our plan we spent some time during the pre-launch really doing some vision building about even though this is a pandemic and a crisis and an emergency
033sort of plan that there still is a larger vision behind distance learning and that if you had that vision in mind then we could actually be building towards more quality and not necessarily view this as just trying to get by sort of a mode I mean our teachers have really taking on this and our administrators and there's a lot of creativity coming out of this time period and people really stepping up to to kind of fulfilling the pieces of that vision for the future which is going to be very exciting we sent a strong message one of the things I think that we did really well and did right from the beginning was about building community in your classrooms before we left for for this distance learning we were spending time working on restorative practice
034building community and classroom connectedness and teacher to teacher and student to teacher relationships and so how you know it was important for us to be able to transfer that over in a digital environment as well so we saw that as a relationships as a priority and a foundation and we continue to send that message and encourage the use of the synchronous time with students to make those connections and to check in there was a lot of redeployment of human resources and grade-level banding we took our coaches reorganize them and they are main supports for k5 in helping to design lessons that are consistent in common I'll talk a little bit about that when we talk about the the k5 Google classroom is they'll spin on that a little bit more we spent a lot of
035time doing classic Google classroom training training with IXL learning a tizzy Raz kids which are programs to support second language learners and we concentrated our conversations around well we can't get everything done between now and June so how are we focusing on the highest leverage standards to work with kids that we maximize the time that we have in this environment and then of course our challenges continue to be sped confidentiality in this environment and delivering mandated services and again Kelly HS will talk a little bit more about some of that a little bit further in and we still struggle with getting our k2 kids to to submit work and making sure that that what we're doing there is as beneficial as it can be and so we're working hard to to reach our kids and
036we're working and exploring new tools with which to do that and I'm also spending time talking to other districts to see how they're handling k2 k2 k2 is more challenging for everybody in the in the general region so it's not just us and then how do we provide support services we have some pairs and tutors and and special staff and how are we making sure that we're using them in the most efficient manner in this in this environment within phase three we decided that we were going to be on providing ongoing digital support communication to teachers parents and students so once we get teachers connected and working how do we continue to support them in this environment and then how do we particularly support our k5 level who was not really quite familiar with Google
037classroom and using some of the digital tools that that were more common at the secondary level and so the celebrations we have around those are the this idea of a superuser teacher group which I I think I talked a little bit about them in the last board meeting I'm so proud of this group this is a 131 teachers who came forward to collaborate to provide professional training to their peers they do this every Tuesday they'll be doing this every Tuesday between now and the end of the year teachers can sign up for those sessions they were part of the distance learning transition team which was again dr. Franklin banca assisted me with that that was amazingly along with a few other administrators again mark arlequin Kristi's Aleta Laura Mead and making sure that were the
038feedback loops from what's happening on the ground is translated into what the team needs in professional development we have every Tuesday have those distance learning workshops we also have a weekly push out common lessons on the k5 Google classroom this is a classroom resource site that's developed by the coaches who have been assigned to grade levels to put together several lessons that get pushed out each week with the teachers the teachers have the option to use them but they're they're highly encouraged and we do that so that it is as consistent across k5 is possible to make sure that we're having conversations about how to adjust in a meaningful and consistent way and to make sure that we're collaborating on with the types of information that goes out to students and what we expect back
039in terms of student work and that has been very successful and the teachers have been very happy that they've had this resource to go to and they've been doing a great job with that we've been putting together parent and teachers tutorials for the programs that were that we're launching and we've made a link on our web page for that and any professional development that we offer in the district we have recording those and they are offered and to be accessed at a later time if teachers can't make some of the sessions so with all of that some of our challenges that remain is that we're still trying to balance the flow of information and the training that we're offering you know in this environment so how much is too much how much is too little
040you know we'll get an email from some parents that will say this is amazing this is wonderful thank you so much my students highly engage this is perfect we'll get another email that says this is there's not enough work my child needs more I you know I got to keep them busy for four or five hours help me out and then you'll get some that's it you know this is just way too much work this is overwhelming and you know I'm not I'm not able to assist in my child is struggling so we're you know we get feedback across the board on this and you know in some of the I'd want one person tell me that you know one of the questions was about how many hours does it take to do the homework
041and you think the response was along the lines of well it takes me four hours to get them to do it it only takes them about an hour once they start so you know there's a lot of challenges with the at-home learning and providing structure at home to do that in making that shift so it's kind of across the board with it with those challenges so as we checked in and I'm just thinking I just want to say the board jelly don't go into it so currently but I know there's been a lot of questions and asking you know what is going on how is it going we just think to give you the breadth of this and if it's at a at a level that it's too granular for you I have to apologize
042for that but it's just there is a lot of specificity to this there's a lot of good work to it and that's the venue in terms of how we're trying to present it but leave some time at the end the questions if it's okay to keep going on yes we're good yeah I can go back to any slide that someone wants to take a look at us well I think we just need to move through it okay I'm trying here okay so nine days into the distance-learning shift we wanted to check in with our teachers to see how they were doing and we have a good number of our teachers that are either feel that they're rock in the new environment or that they're very confident and they're learning new tips every day and more
043that are gaining confidence every day and working on organization so we have very few teachers that are that are kind of feeling lost in this environment that those are represented sort of by the purple there and that's about 4.5 percent and we put some measures in place to make sure that we're reaching out to some teachers who may need some additional support and the last phase of distance learning some of the celebrations about timely support and feedback systems we have we had to put in all new virtual systems and structures and replicate those in a digital environment we redesign the health desk for more digital support we have our Wednesday grade-level department meetings we have the boot camp I've Google classroom we established regular office hours across the board and we have consistent district messages
044posted in every Google classroom parents have come to rely on dr. Sal's Friday letter and the updates we drew robocalls social media and lots of surveys to provide information in real time on our work and our progress and again their challenges are adjusting to the staffing needs of rapidly changing staffing needs meeting the commitments with the work/life balance which you know has and quite a bit for many of us as well as teachers and students and then reaching ESL families who are not connected and then I'll turn it over to Kelly for a minute so she can talk a little bit about some of the celebrations and challenges and especially for just a quick update on the special ed we continue to move forward with the one-on-one Google classrooms for every single student receiving special
045education or related services and the purpose behind this is to maintain student confidentiality so each one of those pages is individually created for the student based on their services that are outlined in their IEP we are also moving towards having teachers do more Google hangout meetings so those are virtual meetings on where they can check in with students to see how they're doing socially and emotionally and also on start to model and deliver services we are not providing all services virtually but we're doing a combination of some structured support through Google classroom and then some virtual meetings with students and this is a across special ed in any of the related services so social work psychologists support OTP T's siege um in addition I have to credit the special ed Department um there are stefan
046Utley some challenges to work through on the needs of different students but their outreach to family as an engagement of students um has been tremendous we still have a few challenges some of our students are still having difficulty with the online learning format and so for we're making individualized decisions for kids and for some of our students we have decided to do more of a work packet format um and take some of the learning offline for them if they are struggling with it due to their disability um we are also working out a system in which we may look to provide services with parental consent in smaller groups with special education students but there are a lot of confidentiality pieces that go into those decisions so I'm actively working on that with my team as
047well as district legal counsel we are also trying to resume PPT meetings virtually so we have legally mandated ppts that have been put on hold during the closures and trying to put some structures and support in place to resume those meetings and two of the last things is our extended school year or esy services as you see in the last bullet on the slide oh is our summer school programming and so we have started conversations about what that may look like should we need to do that in a virtual format as well and lastly is the concerns over compensatory education um so what that means is for students that have had gaps or lapses in certain services due to school closures um that we will need to relook and see if any students are owed
048additional service time to help them to make progress towards their goals and objectives in their IEP so that will be ongoing and wraparound into next school year and just bringing that to the board's attention as it will also have fiscal impacts on the amount of time and support that are needed for kids thanks Kelly and our English language learners as well you know this is a special group that we've been pretty consistent and providing support knowing that this was going to be a bit of a challenge and so our society of coaches are doing that providing tutorials for classroom teachers and department heads K + k5 ESL bilingual supervisors are constantly providing workshops tirelessly at developing resources and in classroom lessons for the teachers and working through with them on those pieces and also accessing
049families to provide them tutorials on how to get into the classroom how to access some of the programs that we've brought online and and doing so in in multiple formats and different languages and again working very closely with our families and again the internet the challenges with this group if we do have some issues with the internet and online access it tends to be with these students and so we are concerned about equity and we are working tirelessly to shore that up and sometimes when we do get the students connected with they're having trouble completing the assignments so some of the assignments and the level that they're at are too difficult or they just haven't acquired enough English to grasp some of the things without you know and not being in a classroom with a
050teacher and they're surrounded by other students can be very difficult so you know there is difficulty there and we're still again working through those challenges and then we're also looking to find a way to test and identify new ELLs we still have students that are looking to register in our district that never seems to end and it is an ongoing process so you know how do we prevent a backlog by the time that we open to make sure that we're processing students efficiently and we're testing them and appropriately placing them in the classes that they need to be so we're working on a process to to achieve that now and then very getting close to the end here the grading update as you recall from our last conversation that this state was about to issue
051guidance and they have done so the they issued it about a three page document but the bottom line is that they are encouraging pass/fail options which is not surprising the decisions are still local and flexible they need to be made clear districts whatever they do just need to articulate what they've done so that college colleges can interpret those I attended a seminar a webinar actually with hosted by local CdSe and then local colleges that all talked about the tremendous flexibilities and understanding and that this is not going to hurt students going into college or in the selection process and that there's certainly a wealth of information on transcripts to with which to make decisions by and that different colleges will have some different requirements some are still counting the SAT some are not some are
052waving but that as long as we are clear in how we handled this time period in our articulations to colleges that they will use that as part of their criteria the CBSE crafted many articulations and agreements with the Connecticut universities in interpreting pass/fail so kind of a hold harmless with any pass/fail as well as the n-c-double-a so any of our student-athletes do not have to worry about that I've been and participated in many local regional discussions on what other high schools are doing in terms of grading and many seem to be offering a blended model so students will be still getting grades and working towards those grades and then in the end if they feel that the grade does not reflect their effort because they had a challenge during the time period that they may
053apply for a pass/fail and so we have made full decision on that yet we're still kind of monitoring how this is going and we are going to you know make final decisions once there's clear guidance from the governor around the May 20th target date certainly if we come back earlier than pass/fail may look different and we may decide on something different so we are leading in the Lindley in the direction of of the grades at the high school with pass/fail options and kind of a hold harmless situation and but again final grant final decisions will be made in the next couple of weeks all of the quarter grades for all the grades are in quarter through four powerful for the high school at the elementary level we're considering the use of narrative reports to kind
054of guide how students you know did in this environment very difficult to assess performance the kids in many areas so we're continuing those conversations as well and I'm sorry to interrupt quick Joe's got his hand up for a question Joe yes sure okay no problem hey hey real quick question about the grades um it's said there's been discussions articulation center with Connecticut colleges it's that only with public institutions or is that all of the colleges in Connecticut so right now it's it's it's all your you know your Connecticut University systems hold your community colleges so you know private schools are still private schools but what I can tell you is that there were some private schools on this call that this webinar that I attended and they were not just the schools in Connecticut I'm
055trying to think of all the ones that are on there it's escaping me at the moment but you know you had we also had New England schools we had you know Saint Anne Salaam you are I was on the line at Brown there was a few and and what they had said was that no one is going to be harmed by this by this pass-fail if there was a pass/fail on a transcript certainly past looks better than fail but no one you harmed by that and now that is taken into consideration as a moment in time on a transcript that is it is viewed as viewed very holistically and that things that are very important still are those recommendations and and then again clearance a guidance from the from the sending school on how they
056handled the grades so that the schools and colleges can interpret what that looks what that means to them in terms of I mean obviously the state of Connecticut only has influence over schools that are within the boundaries of the state of Connecticut yeah urban schools the governor is a certain level of control cuz we sanction them we accredit them and to a certain extent the state of Connecticut can tell them what to do or bad things can happen to them in the future do we know if there's any input are there any private schools not buying in doing office but thinking about the commissioner excuse me was that the the conversation has been with the public universities but they've been communicating with private schools okay I think you're right on target they really cannot mandate
057it as they can with the public sector but what you're saying is the feedback they've given us is that mandate but they can encourage strongly highly highly influenced and just to give you a quick example we had a you know we you know right after the commissioner says the guidance out and had all these articulations you know we had gotten a memo about ECE college credit courts and that they were going to ECE college credit courses and that some arm of Yukons like well no we're still gonna you know make sure that kids are still being issued a grade in that class because you know there could be an issue down the road and so we kind of forwarded that that memo to the commissioner and the submission immediately called UConn and said oh no
058you know you're gonna solve problem solved and the new new guidance came out on the credit so I I think that and you know especially with the potential of revenue loss with all of these colleges anybody who's gonna be would turn away a student for a pass/fail in this environment would be would be very silly so we're definitely that all the all indications that I received from that webinar with with regional colleges was about the complete understanding and compassion for this time period and and what a pass/fail may mean and and how that plays into introduce into a student's overall picture thanks yeah you're welcome ok if you have any questions just someone shout out to me because I can't see with Mike when we finish the next slide and so the next steps is
059you know how do we monitor the Google classrooms now that we've got a high degree of connectivity how do we then make sure that we're that what we're putting out is very consistent and we're calibrated you know when we are in schools and we're able to get in to do reviews and data rounds we're able to see that you know by grade level what it looks like at a grade level what it looks like across a few grade levels and between between our buildings and so how do we how do we now translate that work into in a virtual environment to make sure that we have consistency with the work that we're asking kids to do and how we're responding to that and then they'll be able to support teachers in that through professional development
060choices some of the PD topics that emerged of interest for the teachers or around how to assess students in this environment how to create more interaction engagement and then how to provide effective feedback and so we'll be focusing in those three main areas moving forward you know as you know we're still planning for the unknown during this time period with this whole new shift but at the same time all of our normal operations are still still coming we still have scheduling to do we still have grading to do there's summer school there's budgeting they're staffing hiring all of those so things that are happening concurrently with this this you know kind of enormity that we're dealing with so lots to do there we're considering possibly looping students at the lower elementary next year we have
061a delayed opening in the fall we haven't flushed through that at all but it was just an idea that how do we mitigate the loss of students you know and how do we kind of immediately pick back up right where they were before sort of all this happened and and how do we make sure that we have continuity of instruction and learning happening so we're toying with some ideas there and we're also I'm seeking guidance from other school districts and the state as well how to mitigate the loss for this time period and then as always and foundational is making sure that our students families and staff members are safe and healthy and that scores right back to our base base of the pyramid so you have any questions I'd be happy to take those
062Amy so can you just Kara a great job could you just explain to me what looping students means sure so well you might want to use no bridge as an example yeah that was exactly where I was going so at Mill Ridge the teachers will stay from and maybe Kelly might be able to jump in as well they will stay with so if you're in first grade or if you're in kindergarten I think she does it between grades 1 & 2 yeah I want to you you have the same teacher in 1st grade that you have the same teacher in 2nd grade that you had in 1st grade and so it's a seamless transition so that teacher knows exactly where those kids are they don't have to they don't lose any time and kind of
063reassessing and finding out where they are and in relearning their interests and their likes and their their work habits and their dispositions which you know tends to happen in the fall we said we tend to kind of redo some things and get to know our kids and that's a new group and a new teacher a new dynamics and so when you loop students you eliminate a lot of that and you you really jump right into it and you've already have patterns connections with families and parents and you know things and plans in place back that you would want to continue on and so it's a way to sort of leverage growth and accelerate kids and so it doesn't you know it's great when with the right circumstances and so at each school is gonna be
064a little bit different so the tricky part about looping is that you know it has to be the right fit there's certification issues sometimes the certifications for a teacher are different and for kindergarten than they are in 1st through 5th grade so you know it could look differently and we haven't flushed through all of it but it's certainly a possibility that we're considering depending on where all this school closure goes ok great thank you you're welcome Gladys I had a question if you don't mind I can't see you so I don't know it's Joe written hello hi hi Karen I just I had a question just about the grading policy just a clarifying question so for like a pass/fail model if the district were to go like personally I I'm a big fan of the
065optional pass/fail model but I was just curious for like the the verbage of pass/fail in my experience in a pass/fail class a pass does not affect your GPA but I fail what affect your GPA so that's why I've seen some schools I mean I've seen it more in college just because that's what I've been around but it's been credit or no credit yeah which is sort of like it doesn't affect the GPA whatsoever whether you get the credit or don't get the credit prize that is that kind of what what's the district yeah so so if you had a pass and so we have a credit we have a credit only option now and yeah I remember that yeah at the high school and so so would be it wouldn't really be much more different
066than that and so it's kind of like you if here's where you were before this happened things just sort of freeze right it's like a it doesn't help or hinder you the fail though we would have to we'd have to assign probably a number to that you know 60 64 something like that that indicates that there was a fail but you know that if student was if a student was failing because of a because of we have other options as well so if there was something that was that was an issue because of health because of this crisis because of the stress of job loss anything along those lines certainly we have other options we've in completes there's health codes things like that that don't necessarily equate to a fail on a report card and
067so I fail would be very almost difficult to get in this environment if that makes sense understood yeah but that's just kind of what I was wondering just because it's almost like I'm sure if you're getting a fail in a pass/fail class you you may have earned it but you know I was just looking at the few kids who are truly having issues at home and you know just one kid is enough for me to to not have it you know and not have a pass/fail but have it like a credit no credit and that's why I was just curious yeah yeah and it's tricky and that's why you know work you know the way I'm place I'm leaning towards is that it's kind of a you know you continue with the grades but there
068is this option and it would be it would really be an individual assessment and I would leave that to the experts at the high school to pursue though the kids and know the family situations and know you know if it was you know you know how best to provide judgment on something like that okay absolutely thank you so much but you gotta know we're still having conversations just outline the guidance let you know what most districts are doing and kind of where we're at but not necessarily I've made the final decision okay cool thank you so Kara my question is there is a committee within this day that's looking at what how school is gonna look when we look at opening in September or whenever we if in my report we're going to talk more
069about that guys and we have a actually Kevin we have a report but the answer your question it's yes well we need an expansion okay Thank You Carol you're welcome anyone else implications and you're gonna you know doing a lot of work for the district on Tuesday actually on Tuesday dan Barrett is selected to give a state presentation jointed to two on the initiatives and things that are being done so thank Cara and her book for a leadership in getting us to this point great job I know it was kind of long but I said to her no but I did say look you know it let's go deeper down and only do only because I just think the board should know in case parents ask what is going on house how are things being
070conducted because you hear things but I can tell you we've been diligent and we change a lot what we try to keep some consistency I think the question for next fall Gladys futures brought that up is is monumental we're deeply concerned about gaps and we're gonna I think we have a responsibility to all of our kids to do to do justice to their learning needs and we need to come up with a helpful model for themselves thank you what in the one action items okay yep we're at action items action name a healthy food certification lick emotion that pursuant to CGS section 10 - 20 215 F the Board of Education or governing authority certifies that all food items offered for sale to students in the schools under his jurisdiction and not exempted from and
071that the Connecticut nutrition standards published by the Connecticut State Department of Education will comply with the Connecticut nutrition standards during the period of July 1st 2020 through June 30th 2021 this certification shall include all food offered for sale to students separately from reimbursable meals at all times and from all sources including but not limited to school stores vending machines school cafeterias culinary programs and any fundraising activities on school premises sponsored by the school or non school organizations in groups the motion has been made back a second second by Joe are they in a question concerning this motion Katherine Kathy okay Katherine sorry no my misunderstanding no I was waving my hand sorry motion so might do that with just one motion under age be sufficient and we just eliminate the next two motions yeah we
072could supply to its directly but you have to approve separately okay I'll call it be for them to beat motion meanie Gladys did you say yes yes the Board of Education the Board of Education or governing authority will allow the sale to students of food items that do not meet the Connecticut nutrition standards provided that the following conditions are met one the sale is in connection with an event occurring after the end of the regular school day or on the weekend too the sale is at the location of the event and three the food items are not sold from a vending machine or school store an event is an occurrence that involves more than just a regularly scheduled practice meeting or extracurricular activity for example soccer games school plays and interest collects Interscholastic debates are
073events but soccer practices play rehearsals and debate team meetings are not the regular school day is the period from midnight before 2:30 minutes after the end of the official school day location means where the event is being held and must be the same place as the food sales have been made by Captain Catholic Kathy could I hear a second second second new bat cake are there any question concerning this motion they're not all in favor the motion could I hear a motion so care why would you the next motion is she here burn burn bill you're still on mute Lauren okay I can't cuz I didn't happen my now okay mention exemption for beverages the Board of Education or governing authority will allow the sale sale to students of beverages not listed in Section 10
074- 221 Q of the Connecticut General Statutes provided that the following conditions are met 1 the sale is in connection with an event occurring after the end of the regular school day on the weekend to the sales of the location of the event 3 the beverages are not sold from a vending machine or schools store an event is an occurrence that involves more than just a regularly scheduled practice meeting or extracurricular activity the school day is the period from midnight before to 30 minutes after the end of the official school day location means where the event is being held it must be the same place as the beverage sales the March operating results analysis motion that the board of education accept the March 20 2008 a results analysis general fund and grants in accordance with
07520 - 44 second it's show I'm sorry to you guys sure I'm just a brief update on where we are we met with rich with a on Friday sack of your finances the big picture for the operating budget is that we have about a two hundred and twenty eight thousand dollar surplus at this point in time in the budget but that's offset by a gap that we have or that we have with the school lunch program that results in about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar negative negative and the net is about negative 521 521 thousand I'll explain that so basically every month that we're operating the food service program we're operating it in the red we're required to do it and it's the right thing to do we're feeding about two thousand families a
076day we now have an operation they're running on Monday Wednesday and Friday so we're feeding families but every day in the week because they're getting multiple milk it's Monday through Saturday but in accordance with the executive order seven are we do not lay off any of those staff members they all continue to get paid their full salary and those that are coming to work for us we're also getting paid in the voluntary basis to be there so as a result look that we're still running our full payroll in the food program the school lunch program but we're only giving out two thousand deals a day where it's normally it's over twenty thousand our revenue that we generate for the the school lunch program is a revenue supporting program so that means that every month that
077we're operating it it's operating in the red to the tune of about two hundred fifty to three thousand dollars and there's not much we can do to change that we have we'll get into music executive session then some negotiations with Sodexo that will alleviate some of the Sodexo fee that we're seeing so that there's no no profit and the fee is adjusted to reflect this condition that all of that said so we're going to have to look up for that deficit but we do have funding that doctors I wanted me to speak with you about it was in the attached report from that but peers actually emergency money that's part of the cares Act so we anticipate the district from that cares act funding will receive about 2.2 million dollars based on our assumption from
078speaking with Kathy Dempsey from the state the state CFO about how they want the funding will be allocated they submitted the application the state for the to this bed funding on April 14 and it's anticipated that Connecticut will get about a hundred and eleven million of which Danbury will be allocated 2.2 million that funding is flexible in that it can support any activities that are authorized by the I da da and the ESEA in for any Cova drilling activities or Perkins grant but really effective these what that and we'll have one year a little over a year to spend it we can spend it through September of 2021 one of the pieces that it will be offsetting is that we anticipate the food services gap that we have now so going back to the operating
079of it we had a net positive about 125,000 and that consists if we go through the individual line items I can just briefly highlight the things that have changed since our last board report as a result of the coded epidemic the main drivers in what's changed in our budget because if you'll recall the last time we spoke we had a pretty much flat budget we were closing with a minor minor surplus of you know forty thousand dollars really that's a negligible amount now we're showing a sling and that the main drivers are subs we're not panicked paying our daily subs so we have a savings there our buses we're going to talk to an executive session about where we are with that bus transportation negotiation there are savings and our buses they're not driving executive
080order seven are that Kim will brief you on shortly you know says in layman's terms that we're going to keep people to the expense that it will allow us to continue our services upon reopening so in that vein and to that and we are still pouring all of the transportation contract for the drivers and some minor pieces are the fixed cost that they need to pay and they would go out of business if they weren't able to completely able to continue to support but there's savings in the transportation because of that so there are some parts that were we're a community profit margin and the indirect overhead and for the days that the drivers were not on table so there's leavings their fuel and electricity propane we are self pay on our propane we have
081some savings on propane electricity the the lights aren't on in the building's we have savings but that's offset by the cost of the things that we had to invest so you can see it in the detail report and we'll be having conversations in the Finance Committee about this but technology we bought thrown bucks for one to one that Gina and Cara have been talking about previously in this in this in there demonstrate in their presentation and also we bought specific technology for the special ed students that's a technology equipment that's reflected in this budget distance learning in the good work that care has been doing with all the principles that she spoke about we have some software investments that we need in order to enable that there were some expanding upon things we were doing
082and some where new things that were able to you know have synchronous and asynchronous learning in my right and and also you know I don't want to misspeak but it seems like it really really brought us to a whole another level was what we're able to do with our students remotely so technology distance learning a small increase in legal fees and professional development associated with working remotely and one of our big savings has been in benefits so it's not fully reflected in this budget yet because it's still a little bit unpredictable so I didn't fully take down the encumbrances but we saw savings about a million dollars this last month in in our in our health insurance drawers because people are home and they're not going to the doctor's the reason I haven't taken that
083down yet is because it's uncertain what will happen in the upcoming months if people are going to get sick and those will be expensive we're self-insured so here in this report you see about six hundred thousand dollar difference from what we showed in the last report so there's a savings of about or a difference of in the in the positive of about six hundred thousand dollars in the health insurance so what does that mean for us that means that we're going to have to continue to refine three big categories number one is what's going to happen with our grants the new grant that the feds are we're going to be recipients oh one thing I apologize I didn't mention that in the the federal funding then your money then emergency rivers is something there's there's
084actually two components that what I was talking about before is the elementary and secondary emergency relief fund that's the one that's 111 million of which we think will get about 2.2 million it's it's allocated a type of entitlement basis it's about 83 percent of our location is what we expect for our eligible expenses the second piece is the government governor's emergency act fund the state of Connecticut claimed about twenty eight million dollars for that statewide and broadly speaking it's going to the most significantly impacted area if there's a lot of leeway for how the governor can use that money and that cell might have more specificity from this call today but what we know what I know today is it's pretty broad and we're not sure yet how the governor will use it but that's
085another funding source that we'll have potentially available to us possible and the third one is the FEMA funding so we're working with the city to submit FEMA claims related to you know like gloves and materials and things like that that we purchased to keep our staff safe and students safe while we were doing the sanitizing of the buildings as we continue to do so so the big picture is for this year what our strategy is to be is as peasant as possible so that we put ourselves in the best position as we can to weather the storm that we have next year I don't want say storm I'm sorry to be in a good fiscal place next year and doing that like I said we'll be refining our look at the benefits piece will be
086making further adjustments to fuel and utilities like for example we might pre-purchase some propane now because it's so cheap depending with the board finance committee approves and in that that and we also had a grant report that is attached that just briefly I wanted to say you know it shows that we have about eighty two point six percent spent year did the of all the grant funding so our total grant budget is thirty two million and our encumbrances and expenditures projected to eighty three percent and normally would close the year around 93 to 94 percent because some of those grants can roll this year we know that will get higher than eighty two but it won't be at ninety three percent because we have the ability to roll the Alliance money so we do look
087like we're going to have some Alliance funding to roll towards being able to spend next year when we build our budget we're gonna have to think about not just twenty one but also fiscal twenty two because the things that we're talking about at least right now are just sort of one-time monies that'll be available to us but that's what I wanted to let you know about the budget and about where we are now one last thing in talking with the city we don't have a number yet from the city the mayor still working through the budget overall you know he's talking to people at the state he's looking at every eventualities and possibility with it with revenues and you know everybody knows the situation we're in we're just we're not in the good situation fiscally
088right now as a country as a state and in the city of Danbury so we'll have to be very very prudent very careful when we plan for our budget next year and we look forward to working with the board to do that has been for us so thank you so very much thank you know there was a second you gave Dan a question concerned emotion is not on all those in favor could our eye all right motion so careful thank you again coordinate Thank You Gladys yes thank you today we did have a online median so we do write with the Commissioner let me start with a few things tomorrow we will be getting the memo about 111 million dollars 15 percent of that money is going to be set aside for governmental use from
089Hartford the rest of it will be distributed throughout the state of Connecticut we've been arguing for categorical money simply that means that it comes to reppin to the Board of Ed and that's been achieved because the money is being distributed as as Courtney just told you 2001 so we that's going to be a real godsend for us in terms of handing our deficit and moving towards next year so about two point one if until they put it in my bank account [Laughter] we did talk about that we talked about the statement was made municipalities are looking at boards effete saying with the school year being shortened with all the money you're saving what are you going to give us back well guys we're going the other way Danbury is paying all of our expenses we
090really have one way venue for our money that's going out the revenue in cafeteria is not happening we have some savings as Courtney talked about but all of that I believe unless we get the funding is going to be subsumed into the cost what the board needs to be mindful of and I think the government government was wise of doing this they've said to the board we don't have to expend that money as July 1st we have up to a year to expend it which is saying to us that we can move into next year with those funds to help us carry us over not knowing what we're going to get for an allocation from the city so I am concerned about the allocation but I'm hopeful that that money that we do receive if
091we're careful and utilize it corrected we'll be able to utilize it next year and that's a good thing and he affirmed that today I also graduation that's a big issue across the state and it's not any different with your hearing over the TV with governor's about what's happening in Atlanta versus what's happening in Georgia for a Windham County for example I think head I want to say total cases four or five hundred and the question is you know should they be held to the same standard regarding attendance and things of that nature you look at our part of the world down here we're at a different standard but what the commissioner said is that anything you do play it it needs to be in conjunction with your health department and they'll be getting some clarity
092to us about suggestions we all want to have something for our youngsters but it's going to as you all would want us to be it has to be under safety someone had mentioned this because if you're watching the Air Force Academy they had a graduation this weekend and the watch though was they march six feet apart in unison that nine hundred graduates but there were no spectators you know I'm just thinking and I want what was mentioned today on the call was that you know it might be a little difficult for for districts that have the kind of control with the general public when you have a graduation asking people not to come in and the Commissioner was just asking districts to be mindful of all those things that could create a problem for us
093so things are on hold Dean is talking to students and for their input and we'll be giving you some information about those options and you heard Kathy snow today graduation right now someone help me it I think it's June 12 yeah it's luck June 12 so we will have a graduation and there will be a recognition of our youngsters but as asked Dan is working with some students so we'll get some feedback from them we also talked about the cares act and that was mentioned but tomorrow have that money what I don't want you to feel as though we'll be getting some meta funds I think what's going to happen the Urban's that are getting as much money as we are through title 1 probably will not see the other part of that money which
094I think will be distributed to other districts that are not title one eligible so I don't suspect they will be getting too much I noticed that the mayor is hiring us are for for this cohort 19 money and maybe someone can find some other grants that we'll be able to bring something into the district but other than this federal 1/2 million plus I don't see it's getting much more money for that I want to thank miss Daley for Texas Roadhouse you know last week we elected to take a little break but we were pretty aggressive in putting out information to the public about where they could get food and Texas Roadhouse stood out a great job with that Emmanuel with her group I have also the I think is United Way is it that's doing
095doing some more activities United Way involving honey or her and beau we're doing that and I think Kevin could mention that I didn't want to Kevin talk a little bit about the biggest challenge we're gonna have if you look at our pandemic point there's no reentry and giving lunch tour but what we're doing with that looking for sure sure and dr. sarah also wanted to add for gradual elevation I'll be reaching out to Adult Ed in the middle school who principals as well to talk about their graduation exercises and now we can have an update for the board community at our next meeting just interpret quick Joe's got his hand up very question judges over sir dr. sell real real quick you mentioned graduation hill obviously everybody wants to do something we can carry out
096and maybe past July 1 is there a way we can even if we bring people back for a graduation ceremony to postpone it later in June I'm obviously there because at some point over the summer over time you can't cross but is there a way to do it and hold a ceremony even if it's in July if you become safer for students and family you're I'm you he's still muted I mean I'm you now you that the Commissioner spoke about that there are some districts that are thinking about doing recognizing kids next December there are some that are postponing it to July one of the things challenges I think Dan is worried about and you know we have 205 we have faculty that come to it as well and a lot of logistics so the
097possibility is yes and if we divorce you to do that to have that done if we think that's a possibility but as I say there's some districts that are looking at July and actually some were looking at December when kids return from colleges and other places so I think that's on the target as Jake talked about the kids are talking about all of that and we'll kind of get their sense of what they think excellent did you have a question you meted rich sorry he's on me no no I didn't know just resting my head it was heavy okay good so Kevin would you talk about the re-entry please sure sure so a couple of weeks ago the district was invited to participate in a webinar that encouraged districts around the country to reconvene its
098security and safety committee to develop an annex to the district safety plan and really and frankly I think many of the districts like myself were surprised that this was the initial guidance from the webinar but what they went on to talk about was the reconstitution of schools pulse ovid of 19 so one of the first things that we will be doing in our initial meeting first me formal meeting will be next week so at the conclusion on this presentation I'll be asking the board chair if we could have a board liaison for this committee so the the district will be Greek reconvene in a group like I said next week some of the in the purpose of the convening is one to review the safety plan as written right and it will be a quick
099overview but there's typically an NX to plan and one of the annexes to this plan will be around safety and security post kovat and so some of the items and just to give the floor to the community and an idea of what the team will be looking at some of the items a team will need to consider and we kind of broke this up into four phases is one is to identify the key community members and stakeholders and you need to be on a team and so an our safety plan right now the chief of police that fired the fire chief or EMS representative and then of course the appropriate members within the districts or person head of facilities a person had a security etc and then of course the appropriate brought cabinet members and
100so moving on from there we would be looking to develop goals for the Committee on those goals what would would focus on and in this case a threat and hazards and those hazards are or the cove in 19 and in this pandemic if you will we will clearly define the roles of the members on a team and frankly we have to anticipate another wave of Kovach 19 and then what did the district's response will be in the event of another wave of Kobe 19 so we are seeing at least right now some phase 2 of this work is address key prevention strategies in a plan and and talk about how and talk about how if we had to close schools again or if there was any modified closing of schools one school closed down a
101couple of schools closed down all schools closed down have a plan in place for some type of academic engagement you heard dr. Sal and our last board meeting talked about you know potentially a modified school schedule of learning model and so those are all of the things that have to be considerations for this team in addition to that we'll need to review our process for planning school events and what social social distancing looks like in school events will certainly need to have materials to promote daily practice of preventative actions across the district we'll need to talk about how we're going to get supplies and staffs hands so that our school how our classrooms could be disinfected on a daily basis and and we will also encourage them plan for considerable on staff absences and students
102absences and make sure we have a plan in place to support staff and students in the event of those cases similar to what we did at prior to us closing the Health Department work with our HR department in the district tracking student and staff absenteeism to try to identify any trends and the data this if we can continue to learn anything we need to be better prepared and plan for that when we come back of course we have to continue to promote social distancing throughout the district and I think as a district we also need to look at our district calendar and school calendars across the school community to talk about you know what our typical school calendar activity looks like and perhaps firing some opportunities to reduce some of that school activity again so
103that we're not running a back in 4f7 school as normal you know we have to consider these things before we go back so these are all part of the considerations for the team phase four we are anticipating you know when there is an announcement about coming back to school we'll have some type of press release or you know consistent press release going out to students and staff talking about the return to school and kind of what the conditions are again the team will need to talk about what those conditions look like just for the border for the community you know certainly that's it miss Cooper thank you please thank cousin thank you I did John's going to be the is how do we communicate with the public with this and try to get information out
104the public without scaring them but the possibility is there that the school day could look differently for long and we anticipated Kim has something up they do with the interview process Kim you wanted that we find ourselves in so next week we're gonna start with the two middle school assistant principal vacancies by interviewing a small group of internal applicants which will include the two interims as well as some other internal applicants and the panel is a little bit limited by the number of boxes we can fit on the screen but next week we're gonna have joe de silva with us as the board represent where we will be looking at both internal and external applicants at least at this point and both of those processes will then inform what's going to be really a lot
105harder for us which is doing teacher Apple platforms that we can use to do a broader array of a little bit more intelligible dr. Sal just to remind that we will need a portly did you need from the boy so I believe one will be sufficient I believe we had about eight or nine people on a committee okay anyone want to think June 2nd is the referendum date at this point yes and the board has that the specs into the city so they could say about policy committee meeting next Wednesday at 5:30 to 6:30 okay seeing nothing else we need to go into executive session am I correct that this session and remember we're going to be leaving this meeting and going into executive session I need a motion to go into executive session so
106moved say hi Jo all in favor