Danbury Board of Education Meeting 4-8-20

001all right we'll do roll call sure Joseph Britain I am here Rachel - Liske Kate Canada here Gladys Cooper yeah Lauren Daly here Jodi Silva Katherine Hodgson not here rich Ginelli yeah Kathy Molinaro here al rusev oh I see him he can speak you're speaking but you you're not coming through al and you're not on mused so there's something going on with your audio there just so you know Amy's foligno yeah thank you okay next on the agenda is uh Kate would you read the part where it's public participation and then when Kate finish that Santa will come up if there's any comments from people that have sent any information Gladys can I just make an announcement on the recognitions subject he came through thought of it we all like their grated stuff we just

002got a notification that the namn was a National Association of music programs across the country 2020 best communities for music education and gandarela thank you 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 b OE at Danbury k12 dot CT us Thank You K sander did we have any comments yes we currently have one comment from doctors Aleta abroad cos Park middle school it has been she stated it has been amazing to see how across grade levels departments and roles the EPS staff members have gone above and beyond to do the right thing for kids I'm extremely proud to be a part of

003the DPS staff and grateful my two children are reaping the benefit as Danbury students teachers and administrators have spent an inordinate amount of time since we got the call to close on March 12th to plan and learn for our distance learning program it's been a 24/7 job for all of us the April Break is much needed and appreciated as in the case in a typical school year the break allows teachers and administrators the chance to breathe and recharge prior to the last eight weeks of the school year considering the extending you ating circumstances we find ourselves in this year this time is needed more now than ever to ensure lasting endurance this new way of teaching learning and leading and that would be one second I'm reloading that would be it for public participation thank

004you need to do it under employee representative time or do you want me to do mine am i speaking now hi everybody yeah good to see everyone I just wanted to touch base and check in with everyone in and kind of let everybody know from the teacher perspective how proud we are of the accomplishments and the growth we've made since March 12th and the collective effort that administration and teachers have how we work together collectively it truly has been a Herculean effort and that is minimizing deeper getting kids connected well administration was focusing on getting technology out to kids the teachers were focused on getting kids connected and making countless phone calls sending probably annoying emails at certain point video tutorials talking parents through getting your children on which wasn't a very easy task especially

005for our elementary kids we were relentless in getting every child connected and I think we've made some really amazing progress and inroads getting that done I want to just give a accolades to Kara casimiro for her effort in putting the GPS document for distance learning together I appreciate as union president the effort and the lengths that she went to include us in some the decision making and sharing of the creation of that document so it could be implemented fairly and making sure that teachers understood what was expected of them so I appreciate that Kara thank you very much and I know all teachers are appreciated appreciative of that as well moving forward just to remember that NEA Danbury you know we are here we have the ability to be that positive conduit for messaging for

006our teachers and to make sure that we're also a positive conduit for problem solving one of the things that we've done is make a question-and-answer Google Doc that the teachers are sending through me that I can then filter to the appropriate administrative Department and also answer some of the questions which takes some of the question answering off of some administrators when these are questions that I can answer on groups that's been a positive thing I wanted to just say that that maintaining that communication moving forward is going to be really important so I hope that we can continue to do that because it's been extremely positive thus far some really important successes to note that have happened and I'm sure the board has seen some of these important and wonderful success stories the parade's that

007teacher at some of the elementary schools we're just heartwarming speaking on a personal level as a resident in the Park Avenue neighborhood when the entire Park Avenue staff behind my house with Dave graphic on his bullhorn shouting out to all the kids and by the way there's not many kids on my street anymore so they were coming by to say hi it was it was a tear-jerking moment to see our staff go into those great lengths to make sure that they were still connecting with their kids however they could teachers volunteering for distribution of meals teachers volunteering for distribution of our packets social account services the teachers have set out to provide food to those in need and that's not just in our own school community there are several sites that teachers have set up

008just to reach out to our community for whatever our community members need and teachers are spearheading a lot of these organizations through social media so that's a really important thing to remember some of the concerns that we're still working out our customs that are happening in all the districts as I hear from local presidents throughout the state concerns about video meetings with our students it still is kind of number one on our worry list hopefully we'll be you know working some of the kinks out you still have teachers have concerns about security and privacy as many of us do concerns about the fact that teachers never shut off anymore so that's something I don't think a lot of the community understands that unlike in the classroom when you give an assignment you know you're there

009to monitor with your students and in the classroom and check in with them with distance learning your kids are coming in and on and looking at assignments and connecting at all different times a day and sometimes late into the evening and then they're submitting responses to you and asking you questions at all given hours of the day and has good teachers it's really hard not to answer a kid when they're asking you a question at 10 o'clock right so you know moving forward coming up with some boundaries in our own lives to make sure our families are taken care of and setting parameters for our students this is going to be part of the the training process of all this that's something that we all have to work through as well and that's important to

010know especially with our elementary community because they seem to need a lot more of that hands-on than our middle school and high school kids who are already used to doing Google classrooms and distance learning at type activities and being a lot more independent would work so it's just something to keep in mind for elementary teachers and then of course some of our challenges of providing services and to our special education students as I'm sure Kelly will attest to those have been provide have been proving to be challenging at times but I think also we've been coming up with positive resolutions making sure all of our kids are reached as best as we can so looking forward just thinking about a couple of key words I keep saying to all of our teachers when we talk

011in our meeting is just making sure that we're continuing to be flexible making sure we're continuing to be accommodating and adaptable as new technology and as new experiences and and learning is happening for us as well and hoping that we can continue that relationship and and that administration respects those things on our end as well as we work forward that trust and communication it is everything and so far it's been great I do want to just speak out too in light of the work hours and the learning curve and all of this newness April break could never come at a better time and I think everyone all teachers are going to need to be able to take a deep breath focus on their families for a bit and also spend some time investing in really

012diving deeper into some of the things that we've learned in the past few weeks and sometimes you can't really do that when you're still learning on the fly so it'll give us some quality time to get better at what we're learning how to do in the weeks to come so it's really an essential thing I know other districts have have made different decisions about April break and I think making sure that we had this April break was one more example of dr. Sal's positive communication with his staff members and showing how working together and listening to the needs of all his staff was very important as as I'm hearing just this week alone our teachers are beginning to report to me and also to administration their own personal losses of family members their own sicknesses

013within their households their own mental health issues and struggles and so we just need to be cognizant of workload and expectations as we move forward thank you very much for giving me a few minutes before we move to the unless you have something else and if I move on no no I do not okay before we move to the I would just like to say I came up with a procedure and I talked it over and I think it would help all of us to move through the process I know we're all learning but I think we also need to sort of stay in line with the procedures so the procedures tonight yes that's going to start tonight you sue when we get ready to ask a question to recognize any board member you will

014put up your hand at the meeting you will state your name you ask your question to the person that you want to ask and while that person is answer that question give them the opportunity to finish answering your answering that question before you inject another question so if anyone else had any question that we have time to make sure that everyone have the opportunity to ask their question so you know I really like to be fair I like to respect people and that's what I've always tried to live by but we want to sort of stay in mind as to how we conduct our meetings and how we go about asking questions so with that if anyone have a question when you get to so then we're going to look at the consent counter I'm

015gonna ask make a motion to accept the consent sure I'll make a motion that the Board of Education approves the item on the consent exhibit calendar about 20-30 nine as recommended back down here second second any questions any concerns any Corrections in the minutes seeing none could we do roll call Joseph Britain I Rachel s key I Kate caneta I Gladys Cooper all right Lauren Daly aye Georgia Silva all right rich Ginelli all right Kathleen Montero hi al Russo nice ballina hi guys have the motionless okay thank you Kate thank you all anytime you have any quarter just stop me so next on the agenda is super magic boy I'm sorry student is it the super names report well we have an action item before the superintendent report the action item is the end of

016this I'm sorry yes okay you wanna make a motion for the action make a motion at the Board of Education in conjunction with Bethel and New Fairfield Public Schools and WS and WCS you apply for the 2020 of all students in reading writing math or science and we use a stem approach for activities and experiences then a question motion and a discussion in a question that you want to ask like Ritalin right is this a new grant that were applying for no no it's been we've had it for a number of years dr. Mead has been working with West Khan and New Fairfield and Bethel so this is a renewal of a grant I don't think she's on it is she is is then dr. meteor in no okay no we've had the the grant

017in the past we bought as information when you only met LIBOR to board meetings ago thank you we've had this plant and it's in our school system and and I'm looking at the agenda and it states is you're using the stem approach so is it on STEM Academy no it's been actually West Khan has been the lead folks on it they've been real well they've been writing the grant and they bring the kids if I call it depends how they write this one but they generally will meet on campus they'll work with with the students on these projects so it's not necessarily just stand there as you see it's with New Fairfield school it's what they call it into cooperative grant it's in our district day and night all in motion so care okay welcome

018everyone good see so we have a number of things on the agenda and we'll take you through all of them we'll start with the distance learning update we have Karen Kelly talk about some of the initiatives and then some of the challenges that Kristie and Aaron did talk about and carry you here we want to thank you just first of all good you want to echo some of Aaron sentiments that it has been a very collaborative process safety with doctors Aleta the amount of effort that the teachers and the administrators coaches supervisors district folks have undertaken in the last couple of weeks have been it's been unbelievable really the level of cooperation has been tremendous and on a daily basis even though there are still challenges you know I two or three times a day

019I'll get an email from a teacher or from a supervisor from another teacher highlighting something wonderful that took place an incredible connection made with the students that they didn't have connected you know the day before and certainly all the different ways that we're reaching out to kids and the ways that they're responding anyone else getting some feedback if everybody would just do a mute that would be helpful okay that's better all right so along those lemmings you know we've had to some of the challenges that we've had to do is basically to recreate all of our systems that we've had in place before but in a virtual environment and so you know in the first week or so we were really sort of bumping into each other building meetings district meetings supervisor meetings constant meetings

020PLC's data teams so we were able to develop a system to sort of reduce and to stream those need meetings and to provide collaborative spaces for teachers that are predictable and you're not kind of develop sort of a faculty meeting building grade-level meeting a department needing different types of spaces where different things happened so in the building grade level meetings those folks are meeting by grade level teams with their soup with their principal with the PBS staff to talk about a variety of things like attendance connectivity wellness how are kids doing what's going on with the family what are the ways that we're working to connect with with our kids who have not connected yet and how is that going in the meetings during the week that fall with the content area supervisors those are

021along the lines of lesson planning how did how to operate in this new environment how to retool our curriculum to function in this environment which has been a real challenge and learning new technologies and new ways to convey meaning to kids and to get them to interact with that meaning some of the challenges with that have been determining workflow both at the teacher level and at the student level so how much how much do we put out where students can respond back and how much is too much and so we're constantly you know reporting back to one another and drawing some information down on how kids are responding and what seems to be the best plan to move forward so we've been having meetings along those lines and the folks are adjusting as we go

022we are doing all kinds of things finalizing guidance for all sorts of procedures that we normally have what happens when a teacher is out sick what what does sub plan look like in this environment how do we how do we put that into gear or the roles and responsibilities so we're working through a lot of those different challenges and sort of recreating some of these pieces that need to be in place to operate smoothly we have conducted around at least ten superuser workshops those who are super users who were very proficient in Google classroom or the use of Google tools those are the 113 staff members that I mentioned in the last meeting that have volunteered to run live webinars to show their peers the things that they've learned successfully and how to make this

023environment work well with kids they've offered workshops on engagement how the live streams using safety features operationalizing learning templates with students how to build assessments how to provide feedback in these environments so the sessions have been they're all voluntary at this point and we hold them on Tuesdays and they've been over subscribed so so many people want to get into them that we have to kind of say hey maybe next week but here's the here's a recorded version that we'll make available to you so these have been very popular they're only about a half an hour long but they seem to be just the right amount of a dosage of information and then some practical time to work on it so those have been popular and we'll continue to expand expand those based on teacher

024interests and the topics that they're most interested in learning about today I send out a staff survey to sort of check in or nine days in to the distance learning process and so there was questions down there to kind of ascertain how is it going how you feel you're handling this the sort of workflow this work this workload what is it that you need to learn topic wise we also put some questions in there about the percentage of connectivity in their individual classrooms and when kids aren't connected what is it that they are gleaning from why a student isn't connected so we're at the district level we're able to see that a student is either connected or not connected but for those who are not connected sometimes the teachers have a lot more information while

025I talked to grandma and grandma said these these three or four things and this is the reason so we're trying to gather that information to develop additional action plans around how to best attack and and problem-solve when kids aren't connected to making sure that we're doing everything we possibly can to shore that up I know dr. Salik yeah sorry to interrupt Cara I just was wondering if you have a sense of the percentage of students that are engaged at this point with the distance learning sure gina has very specific numbers about those the kind of information I'm collecting that I send out today was sort of when you're not connected you know what is there what's what are what do you know the obstacles reason for the obstacles and so Gina is she is on

026this oh she's here so we also definitely make sure that we touch upon that she has kind of very specific technical numbers I'm trying to gather the softer stuff from the the opposite ease I know dr. Sal would be sending on a robo survey to parents to kind of check in with on the parents side to see how you know how are we doing is your child connected and to gather some more additional information sort of the nine days out are we doing sort of thing and then I guess the biggest you know the biggest challenge for us is still learning how to adjust that the workflow for students and for parents recognizing this is a learning curve for everyone but we have you know and then there's there's some populations that you know we

027consider to be a little bit vulnerable I've checked in with gusto combs and Tammy Swift to make sure that our ESL students how are they connecting how are they being supported how are those services going in those classes and because those tend to be the ESL teacher relationship with the ESL students is very special that tends to be a safe haven for students who are do not have enough language acquisition and they feel you know that that is kind of a home base for them and so Tammy went and checked every single Google classroom check the the connectivity checked who's turning in assignments how many kids were connecting and we were pleasantly surprised there was a nice number of students who are connecting and that that number Hitler had grown already over the course of

028this week it was a class he was showing me maybe twenty or twenty eight twenty two students in there and assignment was posted for the day and fifteen or sixteen kids had already posted their response to the assignment so and that was like mid day so that was it was great to see and of course you know the students who are not connecting in the classrooms are still the ones that are not connecting in all the other classrooms too so they're the same usually the same kid if the student is connecting they're connecting in other classes if they're not connecting it's happening across the board in the same way so we will continue to work on those and do everything we can again it's a relentless pursuit of getting kids connected and bringing everybody on

029board but our teachers are doing a phenomenal job and their skills are growing by the hour we're all forced to kind of to shore up some things that maybe we in this environment that maybe you're working on before but the learning is coming pretty quickly and I'm very proud of the work that everybody's doing so we also do some outreach and maybe Kelly you could talk about that I do too the content that we're pushing through to kids um my understanding from dr. Lebon qey is that uh just this learning day is not the same as a regular classroom day that understood is that being is that guiding what teachers are doing from my own person we were pretty overwhelmed with the amount of work that we had to get through and we just it

030was um we just couldn't get through it all mm-hmm you know schools aren't there like you know discrepancies of you know this school is doing all this work and this school is different and so could you kind of talk about that yeah so in in your particular schools where your children are going to school there is there's definitely some differences so at the elementary level so let me let me back up a look by saying that on the district side what we have done to sort of scaffold sort of the shift at the k5 level with this because we knew a that the students were not using the technology as much as a secondary level and be there for the teachers were also not operating than environment secondary level they were you know regularly using

031laptops on a daily basis a lot of teachers already had Google classroom so it was a much easier shift we were really worried about getting things up and moving and having consistency at the k5 level so we developed a k5 district classroom where our coaches and our supervisors are broken up into grade level bands so we have a math coach in a literacy coach who are in charge of K and one math coach and literacy coach team two or three people in charge of two and three four and five and and then sort of the technical aspects in-between and they are developing lessons and providing a two or three lessons in the course of a weekly format for the week to make available to teachers that are standards based and that are sort of a

032light touch but are still based on the content that kids would normally sort of expect to see this time of year and so teachers teachers do not have to use those but they are recommended to use them that they are sort of kind of safe to use and and a lot of the work has been done with that there's still a lot of work to do on everybody's part but that these kind of core lessons are carved out and so in some cases folks are taking those lessons and adding more onto them and some cases you know they're doing some a little bit different things based on the needs of their kids in schools where there's some departmentalization an AIS is one of them students there have been managing multiple Google classrooms because their moment

033there are multiple teachers involved and so I did have a conversation with Chris and I know he's making some adjustments on streamlining some of that and so basically what happens in schools were there's departmentalization k5 they're basically operating at a middle school or high school schedule right where the teacher they're seeing multiple teachers across the school day but what's different about that is that a middle school or high school operates on an a/b block so on on any given day they're only getting half of what they would normally see but at the k5 they're getting all of that content daily pushed out because they're not on a rotating block schedule so we did have some conversations about that in places where there's departmentalization zon how to mitigate some of that that that's part of the

034workflow issue and make it even across even across middle schools from middle school to middle school it seems there is some difference and don't work load well Westside has always had a little different schedule so the way that they're pushing that out looks a little different than the way Rogers Park and broad u pushes it out so carrot one of the things I think we all need to think about we've always that differences among and between schools you know I think what we've always said was to try to stay in 8020 but I think Rachel's points well-taken the first initial training was to try to advocate to all of us not to try to recreate the normal school day and when you started doing that you ran into some real challenges so I think what

035we're learning is exactly in an iterative way making adjustments and I think one of the things that aboard to know Cara and Gavin we meet with the principals and these adjustments are learned across the district and and made but we're still working on those those items yeah they are challenges yeah shoring up the workflow it's definitely the number one number one challenge and again like in the same school and in the same grade with the same teacher you can get a parent that is upset that that's too much work and then another email from the same teacher that this is not enough they were done in an hour what am I going to do with my child the rest of the day so it is very challenging to to to make this balance for everyone

036and everyone's coming from a little bit of a different place but again you know we're nine days in and we're continuing to work with through professional development and we've only had a couple of grade level meetings with folks on this and so every time we meet you know the conversations come a little bit clearer and and people kind of start to settle down and quite frankly in the first week or two you know I think in the meetings that we've had people are only hearing fifteen percent of what we're saying because there's so much information there's only retaining so much so I think that'll get better it's good it's good feedback for sure and it's something that we're going to continue to streamline and keep our eye on Cara I'm sorry to interrupt but one

037of the things we're struggling with we know there are multiple tools and for the very purpose Cara just mentioned we're trying to use high leverage tools but minimize it so that we could support those platforms so we've even tried to audit some schools not correct using some technology because we wanted more consistency that's just another challenge that we're we're beginning to learn about we're finding things we didn't know we owned and licences like that but it's certainly been a challenge I will say one other thing just it is a general way that I I tend to approach things especially new things I always you know standardization is is wonderful but then then if we don't have someone doing trying something a little bit differently and gathering feedback on that then we will fail it fail

038to be innovative in the way that we improve our practice so if everybody's doing the same thing all the time we'll never see which way is better so sometimes it's okay to have a few places doing things a little bit differently with some guidance so that we can kind of make a better decision down the road as to what really works Gladys I have a question what ever it's my time real quick I first off it's working great on our end as a parent and my kids are at Park Avenue and so far so good my question comes a little bit from what Aaron was saying earlier about trying to figure out when D the working and when people are off and it comes from that in from an anecdote which I recognize the plural

039of anecdote is that data I happen to randomly be having a conversation with my sister last night at about quarter to 10:00 just to say hi and talk to somebody that it's not my way from my kids and she proceeds to say oh look a kid just lobbed in my sister teaches fourth grade yeah a fourth graders should not be logging into their computer at 10 o'clock at night and if they are than the parent really needs to talking to but more importantly or and this was my assumption or that's not my dad doing juniors homework no she wasn't mentioning that complaining and she doesn't care and she was doing Google videos like Google classroom videos right before I called her but how are we how do we address that balance not just for teachers

040but for kids cuz that kid shouldn't o'clock at night so you know it's definitely a it's a good question you know with our population and our kids and you know some kids may moms get off I'm working third shift second shake this is when I I can get a little help or a little structure you know that's there's a lot of structure right now in some places because of the parents are working and they're really you know relying on kids to just sort of hopefully survive right now working from home so my kids have that that's true right so it's hard to say I think you know on the teacher side you know we I think as an administrative team we're all we're all talking about this week is that this this has been from

041the moment you wake up to them to 10 11 o'clock at night are still zooming and our eyes are burning from I think the computer all day and there's there's always one more email to answer because you can't run down the hall and just you know have a quick conversation with something everything's an appointment so you know I think I think over time it's about creating systems one of the things I mentioned you know first was about creating these spaces and systems that were all that we've become accustomed to operating within and you know teachers you know should be setting office hours and things like that and it's okay if you can't you know you don't have to answer a student back 10 o'clock at night but that's a that's up for the teacher and

042sometimes when you don't answer back at 10 o'clock at night then the student realizes well this is not a good time to be doing this maybe I'll start a little earlier next time you know so it's just a matter I think a matter of time before all these things start to come into clarity for the teachers and the students as well thank you I do I would if we have any anecdotal data our English learners are responding to the distance training yes so so for the students who are connected they are responding and there's in their English language classes so they're ESL classes with their ESL teachers are experiencing more connectivity more responses with their students and they're working on more you know students being able to to access the core classroom a little bit

043more so that keeps coming up how do I reach my second language learners what can we use and so we're looking at some tools to do that now you know we've purchased two programs that we've had we had some in the district but we sort of went k12 with a program called IXL which is standards based practice and numeracy and literacy and there's some science and social studies in there and then another another one called learning A to Z that has a lot of supports for ESL students in there but we have to get up and running with training we really just got people hooked into it and we're having conversations now about how to utilize these tools that we have so that we build in supports for ESL students across but it's definitely al

044one of our biggest challenges is making sure that what we're you know folks are so worried about just trying to get a lesson out that is you know manageable in this environment and then the the differentiation on top of that is very difficult we struggle with that in a normal environment differentiating for second language learners right it's always it's a challenge for the park features and we were working towards pedagogy and growth in that area and then sort of this hit so transferring that idea into a virtual environment is you know something that we continually will be working on from now until I think you know eternity but we're still working in that in that in those directions so our teachers are trying they're doing their best but the kids are far more responsive than

045there is ESL classrooms right now did you want to say something no no I'm okay just a quick piggyback on Joe the syllabus question and I know we don't want to get on into this that this thing I think it's healthy for the student and I also think it's healthy but appear in the teacher to help some type of shut off time and I had to goddaughters that I'm working with men and I truly believe when they get to a certain age like you know I'm from old school when you eat dinner 6:30 you know you can't be dishes you go you do what you have to do and you don't go back in the kitchen unless you can get a piece of fruit so I think children need to understand that you know the

046teachers also have a life they have a family and to be doing that at 10 o'clock at night and we we love them responding back to children and we know that peers you know get off a certain time but there should be a cut-off time there teachers can do what they need to do without responding back to children at 10 11 o'clock at night yeah no I agree I think that some further down the road you know we don't know how much longer we gonna be doing what we're doing right now and how much longer we're gonna be in this situation but I think it's something that we need to really sort and look at further on down the road you know if it gets to that point you know and I try to tell

047my two goddaughters you know you don't wait till 4 o'clock to start doing your homework you'll get up you have your breakfast you do it then because you're not the only two people that if the teacher has to talk or do do the homework so if you don't set boundaries then everybody can do what they sort of want to get but you know again this is just my house so you just go me eating that mix up fruit at 9:00 o'clock good advice we were gonna have Kelly you got some comments along there where are you just a quick update on special education you know kind of piggybacking on everything Kara has said the staff have worked remarkably hard and they should be commended about for going above and beyond continuously for our students with

048special needs to protect their confidentiality as I had shared last week they are receiving individual Google classrooms for any pullout services that they would receive so that does mean that our special ed teachers are managing more pages on traditionally and they have done that pretty seamlessly there are some tricks and tools that they can post similar things are the same activity to multiple students pages which helps but they certainly have done a really really nice job with that a big focus this week was on boarding our parents and tutors and I worked along with Kim to do that and so they have started to work to support our students in special education ESL and beyond we're doing kind of a split model with them where they are supporting teachers and working with kids and they're

049also receiving some really much-needed professional development to improve their skill set and practice one of the things that we've seen as a challenge is balancing kind of workload across some students that participate in general education for example let's say a third grade classroom and then receive supplementary support through special ed for reading and writing and may also receive ESL services making sure that we clearly set what expectations need to be completed among the different certified staff members that are assigning that and I think everyone has started to work really collaboratively we are struggling with the balance of some parents saying please give me more my kids are home all day I want to more work more work more work and others saying whoa slow down so it is really just altering and tweaking and I

050do think the benefit in the special ed department is I have mandated that each person have an by phone or virtual ed Department our students with more significant disabilities that are struggling with the virtual learning that may not be able to have the attention span to sit in front of a computer and so the next phase is looking at how to get some packets and things like that so I do have on some families that we've communicated with that will be receiving mail packets and we'll be sending those home once a week or once every other week depending on the situation just to get a little bit away from the screen time but again those are some exceptions to the rules for students that are having difficulty but overall I think kids have really just

051enjoyed connecting with their teachers being engaged kind of in a more typical routine we are still working on some of the kinks some and we'll continue to do so the other focus is our pupil services staff really I can't commend them enough they have really stepped it up on so many of our families have been impacted by numerous challenges economic challenges food insecurity you name it and they really have done a nice job in connecting us with those families providing them with resources both in the district through Courtney's work with the food services team as well as outside of the district and connected them with resources that they wouldn't otherwise know about they will also be kind of one of the front lines after the classroom teachers of connecting any of our students that are

052having difficulty connecting with technology so one of those is really engaging in individual conversations we've had staff that are walking parents through the internet signup process that are delivering Chromebooks to their home but beyond that and possibly setting up behavioral challenges that students are having you know balance of who's who's connecting them you know if parents are out working during the day those types of things I mean just those kids you know while I'm proud to say that there's few of them but we do still have some kids that we just haven't connected with yet and so their job particularly over the next few days and into the week after spring break will be really one-on-one liaison and continuing to liaison with these families to make sure that all kids are engaged as much as

053they can be so I think those are some of the things that are going really well and some spots that will still be attending to in the coming weeks I'm sorry sorry all right continue I don't question okay Kelly I don't know if your so my my wife is a special ed teacher as well down in the city and they've been using a lot of extensions like browser extensions and stuff like that as tools I don't know if that your team is using those as well things like that our text to read and that kind of stuff yes yes yeah we are using a bunch of that in fact we have two assistive technology specialist exclusive to the special ed department and so that they've been doing daily trainings for the staff on we have

054a program called snap and read which essentially will text will read the text on any screen any worksheet any Google classroom to students to make it accessible um they're working on that and they're also working on some screencastify is no different than general ed teacher their letter letter inter inter laughing but there are certainly certain technologies that are exclusive to special education on the other thing that companies have really been generous on there are some really great programs that are typically very costly that have really just opened up the licenses to us so one of them is teachtown which is primarily focuses on students on the autism spectrum that needs social skills support and work on an online platform to supplement in the classroom but they've tweaked and changed some of their things I'm like

055what unique curriculum which is an another curriculum for more of our significantly disabled students students I have life skills needs have opened up all their resources so every day we're pushing out different trainings and here are some helpful things um I will say that we've pushed so much out that we'll probably circle back over the break wait what did you say we're really like inundating people with everything we can possibly find um but there will be ongoing on over the next couple weeks daily professional development opportunities that are voluntary there's ones that are required but ones that are voluntary particularly to the assistive tech needs in different tool mataji's that will help so the next area that you there's been a lot of conversation around we are calling it service update that would be for

056food and distribution and then Kevin also I know you've been working on United Way with Courtney maybe that's a that's a good section for you guys to talk about so we'll start with you Courtney on the food distribution sure thanks I'm sorry I'm talking from my phone because I have to go on two devices though Happy Passover and happy Easter to everybody it's good to see everyone so before I first I just want to say briefly that rich Albert and his team rich Torres and his team Kathy Oh dad that works with Kelly and her team and Barry Mullingar and who's doing our food services and their team are truly just wonderful as well as all the teachers that have been mentioned that have been volunteering with us as touch points the community with a

057lot of the services so whether it's keeping our buildings safe you know if there's a potential you know alarm that goes off rich is on the phone constantly getting people there to check it out and distributing food in the community you know they're really out there and on the front lines for us keeping everything running and so we're really proud of them for food they have seven sites still we're doing a distribution that's two times per week it's on the website you know we saw a big uptick in our participation today we had about an additional 300 meals that were distributed today the two times allows us to have safety for our staff and for the family so we're doing meal kits breakfast and lunch two days we're distributed on Monday and three days worth

058today that's what we can do safely with the types of food that we have for shelf stability the we also started as Kelly mentioned a mobile distribution to about a hundred families that Kelly's teaming reached out to that we realized we're not able to access our sites for various reasons we partnered with Ed advantage and you know there are a few bumps with it that we're working out but for the most part you know people were really happy I know dr. M need had delivered to one of the families that there were about ten kids you know and the woman was in tears because she was just happy to see someone from the district and it was a welcome you know visit and she delivered a lot of meals to that that individual that's taken

059care of a lot of kids so you know we're gonna look to possibly do three day a week distribution when we open back up which would be Monday Wednesday and Friday so that would enable us to touch people for the weekend so we'd get seven days worth of meals we are unfortunately needed to close next week for a break I know we got a lot of feedback on that it's not ideal we'd love to be able to stay open but when we discussed it at leadership we decided you know per the advice of our district nurse that for the safety of our staff we we need a break we need to pause and and reassess and and restock safety supplies and gifts - time we are operating safely with social distancing we have masks for

060the staff we are short on that supply so we're going to restock and that said we're able to get mobile pantry to up work with the mobile pantries they're going to offer food on Monday oh sorry my daughter just came in I'm sorry so local mobile decided we worked at the mobile pantry so that they're gonna have shelf-stable food on Monday and we are there's a partnership that Kevin is going to speak about in just a minute with United Way and a corporate arm of Sodexo that are going to provide additional food supports and we're making all the food pantry information available and coordinating with churches and other community groups that will be providing food for the week next week there is one organization for people that are quarantined that people can reach out to

061and they'll deliver food directly to their homes and so also our buildings are all closed now with the exception of the fluid sites so the custodians are still doing safety checks and they're they're getting mail and they're you know working where we need to for example they get additional Chromebooks until we get all the Chromebooks coordinated in one place but beyond that for this purpose safety of our staff all the school buildings are closed down and so for the food partnership I'm going to have Kevin talk to you about what we're doing with United Way and the other organizations sure show corny thank you so so like many of the things you've heard this evening foods food security is one of another one of our high priorities in the district and so the United Way

062reached out to us last week and offered support to address any food security gaps we may have had in a district United Way I learned later I said you know I mentioned the United Way that we are feeding or distributing a dowsing meals a day for the last three weeks now however we also recognize and acknowledge that there are still families but not reaching and so this week we've been able to confirm we have identified two additional sites for distribution those sites will be in the afternoons currently our seven sites that the district has is from 8 to 11:30 these additional sites will be from 2:45 to 3:15 as of right now we are partnered with I'm sorry I should mention we are partnered with United Way we are partnered with Boehringer Ingelheim food rescue

063USA and Sodexo pom Sodexo working on the Boehringer Ingelheim side of side of the business because Boehringer Ingelheim is not feeding their their their staff they have offered and up its they have offered to feed up to 150 families through Sodexo and have also volunteered to deliver foods to identified locations in town and so there are a couple of locations in town that we don't feel have taken advantage of our seven sites and so there are two sites in town that we have identified that we feel like will help to reach these hard-to-reach families so one of the 10th one of these sites is 23 Eden Drive 23 en Drive starting tomorrow we will be distributing food for 30 minutes with 2:45 to 3 fifteen and then also one Meehan place B which is in

064cross street between Rose Street and Beaver Street we will also be there every day starting I'm sorry of money through Friday starting tomorrow from 2:45 to 3:15 and so food rescue USA they have an organized way of securing volunteers to distribute foods at these sites I can't thank United Way enough for helping to address some of these gaps that we might have food security gaps that we might have in a community and looking forward to kicking this off tomorrow we have worked with the technology department Regina Jazmin is also online doctor and me we've strategically identified families in those Beaver Street area EEP Drive area alarm Gardens area and so we're sending robo calls this evening to invite those families to come out to take advantage of the available foods in addition we've also worked

065with the United Way United Way has a program called Alice and Alice is an acronym standing for asset limited income constrained and employed families and so families who qualify for fundings or support are available for $200 essentially gives food gift certificate it essentially would be a Visa Visa or MasterCard online gift card and so families would be encouraged to register online it's an online portal through the United Way we are beginning to identify families and create a spreadsheet for the United Way we have some some of some of our media families in the district we are looking to connect those families to this opportunity and again I can't think the United Way enough for connecting us to these resources and to our families in this a tee-time that's it dr. sir yes rich sorry just

066a building question for the break I I think I put in any meal are we planning on taking basketball hoops or locking dumpsters or anything to discourage people from going on property question I don't know about locking trash cans that's something we've never been I think oh I'll mention the rich I haven't I don't think we've had an issue but what the week off and people bored we we need to be mindful as I'll mention it to him thank you people will be wrong no usually a way during spring break and they're you know without anything to do you know we just got just got something to dad sent an order from the Commissioner unclarity because they've been questions throughout Connecticut about his executive order on social distancing and local boards he made it very

067plain that although they determined that schools were closed they didn't determine who were which buildings gonna be closed or facilities so one of the things that I'm just thinking as you mention it with social distancing and I haven't had any feedback there's no coaching going on so I know there's no athletics at least in scholastically someone can walk come out with their youngster shoot some Rockets but I'll mention it to Richard the custodians I think Kim is on and Courtney we're closed down right for everything just can I just double checked with you guys yeah the custodians are just doing yeah they're just doing their you know building checks and as we need them they're opening the building if we needed for some specific purpose but there's a night yeah during those buildings actually Carol

068and chicken very rare yeah anything going on with but I'll mention to him thank you thank you thank you mr. Washington got the cell and Kelly and Cameron everyone for need support because those were the concern that I was that I received from several people wondering you know about additional food during the spring break for the because you know every parent now with two parents at home you know now children is eating them out of house and home every two days it's trying to go to the grocery store or you know figure out how to feed that and the older the children get the more they eat so you know when he's doing his homework he was in school either had to go get a sandwich so man he's sitting on the computer he's going

069to get a sandwich he eats and when he finished he gets another sandwich so they're complaining you know I'm going to spend all my money the money that I'm making doing spring break because we can't go anywhere we can't do anything so I you know I just want to thank you for your effort and then we can relay this information to parents and hopefully those that really need it will be able to get out and have a little extra help do on screen point thank you in in the letter we're going to be sending home we're gonna mindful of making some mentioning to that and about some opportunities if there's no more questions there I'll go on to the next three areas I don't know is it ok well I'm looking to the right I

070don't see any hands going I was like yeah let me get the technology Gina let's talk about the 60,000 computers from the partnership and then also you and let's see you and Gina can talk about the other ones that we ordered what's going on with death for the ability to get devices into the homes you want either Gina or or Courtney consarn either one idea Gina go ahead okay I'll start hi everyone so i yeah i'll talk about parent connectivity and our campaign on trying to stay connected with parents our chromebook distribution and i'll touch on the sixty thousand computers grant a state grant and then our big shipment that's coming and then i'll touch a little bit on google classroom so not just sound like a broken record but just reiterating what Kelly and

071terrible said that getting parents engaged over the past nine days has been afee and we've been monitoring that engagement by trying to get parents to sign up for the Parent Portal and getting updated email addresses from them so that we have multiple ways to communicate so at the beginning of this process on March 31st we had about ten thousand six hundred email addresses for our families and as of today we have over eleven thousand so that that's a lot of phone calls that have been made over the past eight days you know parents just didn't all of a sudden decide to sign up we have had teachers and principals and support staff and secretaries calling families helping them through the process helping them get in get online and right now we're at ninety two percent

072of our families have a valid email address in our system so we have started sending our robo calls by email as well so we have three ways to communicate with parents now so we have the website a robo call and email address so that they're sure to receive it one way or another and the same with the Parent Portal The Parent Portal will help families especially the at the cave level or the pre-k five level help their students sign in to their Google classroom and to their email which is something that those kids had never done before until last Monday and we're at 80 84 percent of parents signed on to the Parent Portal again The Parent Portal wasn't open to KFI families until three weeks ago so I think that says a lot about

073how hard everybody in the district has worked to reach families are they of the report cards going out that way - you may want to mention it now oh yeah sure so at the high school and middle school level report cards for the past couple of years have been online there through the Parent Portal and the student portal but with this new world that we live in each elementary school is running a report card and attaching it and sending it via email to each family so that was why it's so important that we have a valid email address for parents and that process is happening right now and that's again secretaries principals support staff everybody working together to get this done on to Chromebook distribution I just put these numbers together today and I didn't

074realize that they were so high so I'm really proud and happy of what we've accomplished so since we started distributing Chromebooks which our first distribution was on march 19th we've had 4,000 67 requests for Chromebooks and that has come through request form on each school website that parents had filled out in some cases it was phone calls or emails to principals some principals reached directly out to their families and as of this afternoon we've delivered 3767 Chromebooks to families so far and we have another 133 on tap to be delivered tomorrow so we have reached 93% of the requests have been fulfilled for these families so that that's a really great accomplishment and just to go along with that we have another 3700 50 Chromebooks coming next week my team will be working to get

075those unpacked in on our network and ready for distribution with a goal of distributing after the spring break and that will be to fill in for families who need multiple devices so our original approach was to have a device in every family so that we know at least there was one way to connect although we knew it wasn't ideal if you have more than two children that's not ideal at all and this additional group of Chromebooks will help us fill in that gap so that's our next big push and we'll start that as soon as spring break is over any questions so far yes yes Gina Gina thanks for the update that sounds like you guys are really working hard and we certainly appreciate it because we know what a big what a big lift

076that is do you have a sense of how many kids still don't have a device either you know the family didn't make a request for a Chromebook or you know they're just somehow getting lost in that in that circle there do we have a sense of like how many kids are actually you know able to have a device at home and login to Google classroom or whatever they're they're using so I don't have a solid number of kids that are you know maybe don't have a device I I just have if they requested I know the principals are in touch with me every day and they'll be like there this request form wasn't filled out but I know this you know I talked to the family on the phone and I know there are a

077couple you know there's a handful of families out there who have like I know there's a family out there they have eight children and we didn't have eight devices to give them so you know we gave them three and we said we promise we'll get back to you like we put you out the list and we promise we'll get back to you as soon as we get the rest so in and in some cases in some schools honestly the parents were like we have the devices so our kids already have devices you know we have more a more up-to-date device than what you're going to give us and so we don't want one so that in a couple schools that was the majority of families yeah Gina and we had some that have been said

078the other day when we had about a hundred for mobile distribution and of that about twenty families when we called that oh I'm okay I have a device so that's just anecdotal but it's of a hundred that that had been on a list to get a distribution when we called they had a device already in their family so I am thinking just you guys know I'm one of the reasons I'm asking is that I know you know with our English language learners in particular you know they may not have family members who are gonna be comfortable enough to contact somebody you know or may not know how to fill out the form or whatever and I just want to make sure you know that segment in particular I think you know that gap in instruction

079for them would be a real problem so I'm just wondering you know if you may not have this information because I understand you're you're handling like the tech side of it if if we have like a sense of how many people how many students you know actually have a device because we're I know we're aiming for that one-to-one ratio so so I was just gonna mention that that's a hard I mean to do and you the constant pain in the butt kind of robocalls I know and another one we going out and that's one of the questions or asking Kate but what we're learning at least what I'm learning in the team is that we can't handle all that so we're beginning now to push down to the building level where even last week I

080kept getting emails with principals finding out to teachers who doesn't have a device and then taking it to their homes even though we kind of discouraged it because of social distancing but that seems about what happened information from teachers to principals and then having the equipment so we're just getting this big shipment that was my other worry we'll start parceling them out and then I think as Kara mentioned looking at auditing what's going on online we ought to have a sense of the participation rate we're talking about the attendance rate which is very high and I think that's one way to try to get their cake you know through through the teacher telling the principal are telling us so we can get computers out there so but I'll let you go ahead Gino I'm sorry

081just a few more points on that so the forms were in three three languages and our ESL staff and some of the volunteers are bilingual and they they were actually reaching directly out to the family and anticipation that they might not be able to fill out a form or have the capacity to do that in some cases with the emails and such you know we'd use the students email address and things like that so I do you know that that's happening as well so on technology you have those I don't know 3400 there at Harvard coming down we'll be checking them in then we had the other thousand that was it a thousand that we received from Kelly yeah correct and those were disbursed primarily at least have met disappointment back to special ed students

082anything else you want to comment on the technology piece so I'll just touch a little bit on Google classroom I I don't have a lot of data on that so Google classroom does have its limits I know it doesn't seem like Google would have limits but I don't think they anticipated that Google classroom was going to be used quite to the level that it's being used now across the world so when you go to run reports in Google classroom they're about a week behind so the most up-to-date information I was from April 4th and the reports are not as clear as you know 7000 students are online it's more about activity and and those are the things that Google cares about so you know honestly I'm still looking for some good apps to give those

083indications I can tell you that in the reports I can run I'm disappearing that you can see a massive increase in the types of files that are added so the types of files that students add for example I'm looking at March 28th and on that day there were roughly 2000 google docs in our domain so stored in our domain on April 3rd there were 12,000 200 and that's just student activity that's not that doesn't count the teachers and what they've they've put into their classrooms so for right now I'm used those things as data points but when I when I can real it cars it out and get it down to a student I'll be happy to let you know that I don't know if there's any questions I can't see any questions ok executive

084orders there's been a ton of them as you guys know and you go on the state website name they've got them all listed there I keep referring to them but one just came in today just mentioned that one on facilities before the big question has been through the governor and I know I'll put this from the partner are we coming back well that's still in the park you know I may hear something by the end of the week the commissioners talking against tomorrow but the other flip side of this coin grading and particularly 9 to 12 it's been a big big issue with colleges universities particular our seniors and GPAs and scholarships so just today we had some guiding practices that came out and this is something apparently the K the Commission with post-secondary at

085have come to some agreements on acceptance of some standards and no standards are based on a pass/fail system that they're asking us all to look at I know we'll be talking about it tomorrow with all the superintendent's and our weekly call we just received it the Commission at 11:00 tomorrow will be talking to us and then we have a meeting next Tuesday intra district basically your policy as a board it's very simple about a maintaining a fair grading policy but we have the full john jenner of grades part of your grading system does have a pass/fail to utilize the system that the Commissioner is advocating would be consistent and as I mentioned it's been accepted by organ universities they're looking at not harming students and looking at first semester grades to March for GPAs and

086then calculating these baths fails into their GPAs and into class ranks so that's coming I just want to let you know that that's been a big thing when I got that today it's kind of telling us something for killing about what might be happening about the rest of the year right so we you know we just can seriously look at this but if it if this does happen it's it'll be its standard base but it is also one that they're hoping 169 towns utilize now that's just for Connecticut ecologist there's not I would did it out of state colleges they were very specific about that so we'll be talking about that the other thing on executive order right now are even though we announced it at the beginning in the air our graduation is the

08712th that is your last day of school this year and the Commissioner because of the executive order 7c dealt with graduation and very explicitly telling us that okay if you're gonna have grit they would like us to have what they call ceremonies but following the governor's Lamont's declaration about social distancing they want you know looking at that postponement virtual congregations and so talking to Dan to try to come up with something you know some kind of a platform where they can be a recognition of the youngsters that can be developed orator and speaking so they're working on something so be prepared we can figure out to get the caps and gowns up everybody you know things like that because you know young Chefs there are many kids they're about 650 so Dan's response so Dan's

088question Dan's living to finish Dan's working on some and I just want to announce though it's in the in the minutes it's June 12 good I'm sorry I'm sorry your question and graduation is there any reason why we couldn't postpone that even into the summer just because it would probably mean a lot to those seniors graduating before me I'd rather walk in August and not walk at all I I don't know that something that was on the conversation but not a recommendation at this point that I know okay that's one of the one of the opportunities okay thanks but I will ask tomorrow because we're all talking about the same thing about what people are doing thank you are we asking students for any of their input what they the kids would come tonight I

089think Kara Kara invited them but I'll pass that along to Deanna just just got this and Dan's has been brainstorming you know if it was up to Dan I think he'd bring somehow get him handed to him you know do that whole thing that you know they get that recognition I told her you don't we haven't made our next meeting the students okay very good thank you but all I'm attracted in okay house think they're the districts but it is June 12 we are going to have something so you know at least you'd be in air-conditioning ok ok the next big thing we all have to deal with I sent you an email that today and I'll let Kim you there won't talk about the recruitment and hiring and the open positions yep before I

090do that let me just update you pretty quickly on what's been happening in human resources because even though our human resources are all virtual right now we still have times marching on in my group so right now what's keeping my team busy are things like some unemployment claims we have some coming in not a lot and the unemployment compensation we're getting lots of people with questions about their benefits life insurance policies the scope of their benefits so our insurance benefits folks are fielding those kinds of questions for our employees and also our team is really reaching out to as Erin Daly alluded to earlier today we've got some folks that have already sadly experienced tragedy and so we're trying to provide as much support to those people as we can just connecting with them making

091sure they're aware of you know what we can do to support them and and really just being there for those folks and that were I would only presume is going to continue to grow so we're trying to stay in touch with folks including folks that might need leaves of absence due to either some kind of illness or kovat related illness and I'm sure many of you have seen that there are some new rules around FMLA time for people who are suffering from kovat related illness so my team is starting to try to really learn a lot about the landscape that's changing so that we can be available to provide support arm till we also have lots of folks that are returning from leaves lots of people that have been out on maternity leaves or other

092kinds of leaves and so our team has been working with Terra kes maro and her team to make sure that our returners have access to all of the training so that they can embed themselves as quickly as possible to get back up to speed on taking back over their classes so it's people are still coming and going it's just we're not seeing their faces we're seeing them on virtually so we're trying to be as supportive as we can with that in addition we are I guess a little unlike everybody else we're starting to think in my department about next year so that means rolling contracts making sure that all of our staff who are currently in salary grids get rolled to the next year we're looking at any remaining reporting that needs to be done

093keeping up with certification for our folks so looking to next year and that's my segue into the hiring and and what happens next so I want to deal first you boys to say I said some to the we received a notice from dr. Cronyn after 54 years she will be retiring I just she did announce it to her staff she wanted to announce it one on one but she obviously couldn't do it but she did put that out you know just let the board know that she started at South Street School in for number of years and then became principal in 93 at Mill Ridge and has been there and she has been us just phenomenal asset she's earned the last four or five years the schools of distinction she has been doing a looping

094program there for years that have just been tremendously beneficial to our kids she'll be missed she'd be saddling this but we she did but that announcement in I just want to make sure all of us they were able to reckon is that the mirrors been to be a tremendous loss to the district and we wish you well go ahead Kim well my my earbuds are talking to me that they need to be charged hold on these I can get them here okay so turning to the hiring then here's what's gonna happen next for our team is we need to try to navigate the path of filling for administrative openings for next year so we have to at the secondary level one assistant principal at Westside middle school and one assistant principal at Broadview both of

095those are currently held by interim candidates both of whom are internal candidates for the position and then we have two elementary spots the one for dr. Cronin's retirement at Miller rich primary and then a second one at King Street primary you'll remember that we have an interim there as well thank you to my trusty assistant with my new headphones hold on one second all right can you still hear me yes okay so here's the the question now as many of you who have been involved in the hiring process with me over the years realize and appreciate that whenever we hire anyone at the principal or assistant principal level at this point they go through a two panel system at just a number of boxes on my screen and and my team is working out how

096would we even make a 2 panel system work logistically and also how would we provide timeout for the vast number of people that participate in those interviews out of their regular work day so we don't have a sub pool anymore we don't have people at the ready to step in to substitute for teachers so what I'd like to get some consensus on from you while tonight is whether you would be amenable to in recognition of the crisis and kind of the the adjustments we all need to make whether we might do a single panel that includes elements of both so you would still have a board member you would still have teachers you'd still have administrators and we do a single panel system rather than the two separate ones I think for your secondary administrators

097that are currently serving in the interim roles that's going to be an easier one than for all new folks at the elementary level but I think it will make it easier for us to be able to navigate the process because it will be a challenge for us to try to run the two panel system so madam chair if we get some consensus or some discussion on how you all feel about that understanding that you know obviously we're going to preserve your role as participants well you know we don't have too many other choices Rachel sure yeah I'm okay with the single panel as long as we return to the way we've been doing it after this whole yeah I yeah it would definitely be a temporary sort of a hold it in abeyance and lighting

098yeah definitely you have could we also have more board members if they're able instead of just the one yeah the problem is that I'm looking at the screen so I want to make sure that we don't have so many that we can't see the candidate and the panelists at the same time so I think you know the people we do have available to us in addition to board members of people we do have available to us are that we don't have to sub out are things like PBS staff coaches you know some of the people that don't necessarily have responsibilities for the classroom all day but you I think we'd certainly try to accommodate as many as we could without making it too unwieldy I think it's it's a really challenging position to be in

099as a candidate again you know we'll have a couple of internals that we know well but for the people that come from outside I think it's a real heavy lift to do this kind of a process if so so Jo has to stand up just so you know I'm sorry Jojo Silva has to stand up just so you know what you say Joao de Silva has his hand up just say you're J I yeah I am we're GLaDOS I have no problem I mean I haven't participated in the process before what under the circumstances any modification we do make sense now to make things easier under the current circumstances one question though are you talking about doing different panels for each of the positions or is it one panel for all of them right so

100I think what we've done in the past that has worked on when we've had multiple particularly the elementary level we've had multiple elementary schools at the same time we used to run one administrator panel and then two teacher panels one for each school so I think we'd probably look at a hybrid model like that you know we could do more than one session I just prefer not to because it's going to be real hard to get people spelled out and it's important to have the same group for all the candidates so it's kind of a work in progress but I think probably we'd have a blended panel should you make the process right when we're interviewing we're interviewing people for not necessarily a particular position in a particular school but for a particular position for

101the principal job yeah I guess let me let me explain it this way just to recap how it works so let's say an in a non kovat world we would have Mildred King Street so we would have one administrator panel so kind of and then each school would have a panel of teachers and those candidates if they were interested in both jobs those candidates would move through the teacher centric panel here what we have to do and we'll have to look at numbers and who we can get what we might have to do is do a teacher panel that's made up of teachers from both schools or coaches that touch both schools and administrators that's what I'm thinking again I'm kind of it's kind of a work in progress with with my team to kind

102of figure out what the the bandwidth is on how much we can support and then just because we think you talking about you I do see though a separate secondary one and then a separate elementary one so there would be at least two different levels for secondary and then elementary and if you're interested in serving normally would you just get your name to Gladys and glass and get them over the Kim thank you very much and then the the last piece of hiring that we're going to start to look at now is teacher hiring believe it or not and so that's one of the things that's gonna be on our horizon some of the places where we typically go like the minority recruiting fair obviously the fair is not happening but the rest is looking

103at a virtual fair and so there's lots of schools and places that we used to connect with that are now looking at alternative ways to get their kids and their graduates in front of us so we're gonna continue to kind of walk through those systems and see what we can and cannot participate in easily and and we'll see where we are kind of as things unfold I think we made a decision about a week ago that we would give the administrators some time to get their feet under them with the distance learning thing and then after the break we'll start to kind of slowly talk with them about what the best way is to try to look at candidates for their available positions in the fall I know there's a couple I believe the high

104school did a pilot with a chemistry teacher that we need right away so we'll see how the virtual process works with that it's definitely going to be different but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's not going to be as good or better so what we're looking for the silver lining in those for the board is Kim pointed out they just the background checks and things like that where you we have to come up with different systems so you know it does change it's made a change in so part of that will wait from some more guidance from the state on that on things like fingerprinting which aren't happening right now so we'll wait for some guidance I think it's not it has not been right at the top of the list and I think as

105we now start to get our feet under us those things will start to rise to the top of the level of larger group decisions probably at the state level and then yep okay I see your hand no no him sorry I need to go back to something else Kim I just want yeah thank you okay does anybody else have any questions about that part and I'll kind of keep you informed as we go along so that you understand and know what's going on in case you have questions or suggestions about you know something else we might do to tweak the process and oh okay I have a question so that Kate answer's no it's okay I'm sorry I just wanted to make sure you knew I have a question that's related stuff we discussed before

106I apologize but there wasn't a good opportunity and I thought you were kind of wrapping it up so I just apologize didn't want to do up there you need to know that want to participate and when you want to start this so yeah it's me you know right so I think what is realistic is probably towards the end of April is when we'll really get you know we'll get this moving right now we're in the process of closing down the pings doing some screening the middle school ones will go first those will be the easier of the two I think so we'll do the middle school ones first and then we'll follow up with the elementary ones so if I could have names in the next week or so and if you have a preference

107for one level or the other something like that just you know denote it and we'll do our best to kind of divvy people up and get as many people involved as want to be okay okay and thank you you're welcome I just have one more thing to add is that much like human resources and hiring and rolling over goes on so 2 goes litigation um and so the court system is also trying to figure out how they're going to navigate this prolonged closure and so I had spoken with you previously about the lawsuit that's pending with our transgender students and that continues to go along and there have been phone conferences and there have been conferences with the judge by phone and virtually so we're all trying to navigate this uncertain world similarly the Commission

108on Human Rights those organizations are all up and running virtually and they're trying to do as much as they can that way so just rest assured as Jo will tell you the legal system continues to plod on and so that's also been going on as well emphasis on plod right right and I think that's all I have for now dr. Sal you'd mentioned earlier that the attendance online was was pretty high do you have any any specifics on that you know it's it's it's well I could tell you I think I heard this morning 94% but we need to validate that in terms of how it's taken but we're just moving through all of that right now of Cara she is she was been working on a system carry you they're not ones but Cara

109Kazmir oh I am here so the thing about the attendance attendance has slowly been increasing over the last week or so so that we were happy about that but you know there's still questions about how attendance is taken in general hmm and so what happens in our school is that it defaults to present and so unless unless someone is you know we know for sure someone is marked absent then they they remain present so we're still working through some of that although you know folks have reported very good connectivity at the teacher level and they the attendance looks good right now we have you know we were we're a little worried I think with one or two elementary schools in the beginning and then as they got their systems up and running the attendance shut

110up and ace I think we're a little concerned about ace attendance with that attendance that sort of falls in line with the attendance in normally no but again that just increased as well this week so you know we're still getting you know trying to verify things that work that we're seeing right now and that's part of the you know just building this building new systems thanks guys yeah I think that's the best we can do but we're we're kind of refining it as best we can and I had one other question and this is related to the the governor's executive orders and we talked about this at the special meeting as far as the the seven-hour order that came down saying that we you know we're have to we're advisor encouraged to continue paying you

111know folks who are serving in in the school community who maybe are not being utilized right now do you know I had heard from somebody had asked if we are continuing to pay the bus drivers if that is like a decided thing so right now what the governor's order addressed was it and what we talked about the last time we all met that was that there is room for us to have amended conversations with the bus companies about our contract with them the duration of it how much we pay and what the components of it are and so that's the next conversation that needs to happen with us the bus company folks the employees are not our employees so we're not you know we're not involved in any decision-making about what happens with them but

112the governor's order was pretty clear that the goal was to keep those people employed so we we are on the brink of having the next level of conversation with the bus company about amending that agreement with them okay in terms of like the goal is to make sure that when we that we are spending public funds on services right that we're spending public money on right and that we're what we're doing is we're talking about continuity of services so if we get back this year or next year that they're available to help us and that the goal and it's specific in the guidance and so in the order itself that what we should be looking at are things like labor costs insurance costs and not things like unused fuel that would be cost avoidance items

113so that's the conversation that needs to go on with sta and then that will answer your question about have they been able to keep those bus drivers employed so that's like an evolving thing as we speak yep okay we are paying we did pay up through March 5th March 13th so up through our closure date and then knowing we have been billed by Ed Advantage which is one of our special ed out of district transportation entities it's a very reasonable bill and so and also they're there working with us to provide the distribution of meals and Chromebooks so so that's one that we've we've forth through the negotiations with sta being our biggest one they haven't negotiated with anybody in the state of Connecticut yet so their corporate office is putting together a proposal that

114are legal canvas looking at and then looking at as well okay so I don't know if this is appropriate now but it's for dr. Tsao you mentioned that you're going to have a meeting tomorrow with the other superintendents is there something on the agenda that's going to address us opening because eventually we're going to have to open I'm assuming I'm assuming so is there a task force for us to participate in or are is there any talk about forming some kind of task force that would help us to open especially at the high school where people are going to be so involved with with the overcrowding issues that we have at the middle schools at the high schools and I don't know Joe britons should be in on this too because I think it has

115to do with the facilities and I just don't know if you want to start a task I no if we can do it internally because of course we're going to need all kinds of ideas and help to start us going and you're so involved with the day-to-day and getting that all started and is it appropriate to have another task force Joe did write me today about him do we need a Facilities Committee I don't know what we really talked about at this point we'll make some discussion we'll talk about it in a minute with a referendum the next item but the meeting last week with dr. Cordova Cordova was to ask about when we could get some idea of what we're doing this year about opening tomorrow's meeting at nine o'clock is but our area

116superintendents and would you talk about this we have the same questions Kathy at 11 o'clock we had with the Commissioner and whether or not he's going to let us know what the governor is thinking tomorrow we had the governor was on tonight and he said that he would give us an answer next week okay so next week but that's one side of it we have signed a contract with Grandal we are opening Grandal that's going to be a little bit of a problem with the being closed because the contractors can't go on on the premises we also signed our extension which Sacred Heart so those things have been done and then we'll talk about the referendum but your next question I find it a good question I'm concerned about when we do open there are

117a lot of things we have to do and Kevin had a we went to a workshop I think was either this morning or yesterday know things that we need to think about if we do open and that's what we're looking we're going to be looking at it's our work whether or not a facilities over and beyond that is I mean a committee I don't know what how that would be helpful at this this right now I'm reading a paper I'm sure all of you are reading it they're talking about next fall about cancelling a football season at the NC double-a level so you know the governor Murphy from Jersey had hinted last night in his interview he was concerned about the fall and I hear Cuomo talking about the tri-state area where they've been doing

118things in unison between our state Connecticut and New York and Jersey so I'm sensing although I can't tell you for sure that it's we're now we're planning even summer school to be online if that tells you what we're thinking so that's the best I can tell you he is I think we we need to wait and see in terms of we open the other side it's equation what are we going to do with the space I think Kara mentioned the trip to down south that's what we want to still do those things and have that in may impact graduation requirements that's ongoing I think we're just gonna have to wait and see at this point I I just I think we need a decision for up from the governor and then that's going to move

119us into the grading that we just talked about before of what we're going to do and then then we have some school then we have the fall to think about what are we doing we open I mean if you just think about what currently just said if people over 60 are going to be for hibbons and come back to work you know that could be 30 percent of your teaching staff that's right you throw in a medical conditions could be another 10% and then that could be over half of your bus drivers and half of mine so so I can't teach them I don't know I can feed him I won't ever and I can't get him to school at this point so I'm and you know anybody with a little bit of fortune-telling can

120tell you I don't it's gonna be a little difficult this year so where do we go next year there's been an opportunity in this miss learning and the questions been asked well if we do things differently how much space that we do need you know can we economize somewhat at the secondary level particularly what classes online I don't I think this is something that we need to learn and look at so at this point there are a lot more questions than answers you just say it dr. suck can I just add one thing to that is I think if we know we've learned nothing from this whole process is that it's all about the planning it's all about the pandemic planning and you know we have I think as a team really learned particularly early

121on when Lisa Morrisey pulled us all together and said it's time for you to dust off your plan so I think that one of the things we keep looking at is how do we continue to modify our plans for whatever you situation we might face whether it's you know like I said maybe it's measles one day and maybe it's covert one day and I think that's the piece that you know if we can continue the planning the way we've been doing and make sure that we've built it so that we can plug in the parameters I think we'll be in really much better shape and so that's part of what we're all working toward I think yeah I see this name was like a kaleidoscope all this coming together I think if it comes together

122could be a good thing and there's some opportunities so I don't know what that a committee like that with the helpful Kathy I just know we need some kind of plan because we are going to open eventually and I think with the new testing that will be coming out we'll be finding out who has who has it who who doesn't and I don't know we just need some some sort of road map to help us open oh I agree with that and I think Fairfield County is probably not going to be able to open as early as may be where I am now in Stonington where we only have 11 cases I think they're going to be hard-pressed to open up a part of the state educationally and not the other part I just from

123it from a lot of so a lot of just just from the grading system that come for just competition in escalation that's right you know you're gonna have half the state participate the other half not participate it's good ahead you'll really see a war right but the answer because we need to plan about if we open this year that's one of our questions what are we doing and then what do we do this summer and then what do we do this fall the fall and that's the plan in fact you know the the thing that that Kevin attended had a kind of a worksheet for us to work toward so that's something we'll be talking about I mean you know having it all come together you've heard it first here we talked about next year

124about maybe even looping our kids so they stay with the same teachers I mean which is brainstorming how do we best serve our youngsters and not lose them and I think you're right on target about that so we're just thinking this term that Kathy I think Kathy I think you'll be reassured to know that the training that South was referring to it encouraged our district to look at ways to reconstitute how that how our school community looks when we go back so we talked about doing really exactly what you just said and that's coming up with some type of roadmap for for implementation plan post-incident right so we just had this big Hogan incident anticipating we will be back in the fall and then coming up with a plan a contingency plan on what happens

125yeah yeah that's why I try to you know come up with and you've heard the term tabletop scenarios and as a district we we we we identify a number of different tabletop scenarios and talk about how to district will respond to any event of and so we have a we have a significant plan in place now for emergencies that we've been encouraged to revisit in addition to coming up with an additional plan specifically for re-entering our schools you know and how we're going to educate them how we're going to free up more space in our respective schools and and you know and try to continue to encourage social distancing and so we have a lot to consider to your point and it's where we're mindful of all of those things in there and the training

126yesterday was was was eye-opening for all of us good thank you okay okay claryce could I ask a question please yes this goes back to solve something you just answered in terms of Kathy's question um because if and kimmel appreciate this if the courts are any indication of Connecticut's thinking I don't vision any scenario by which we're coming back this year because the courts which are still open are closing more and more things more and more facilities every single day we're but you just said something about summer school so we're ins we're already planning on summer school online if necessary yeah we can't wait we were just kind of so on what that might look like and how we get off for the extension for parents that want extension those that need remediation and support

127so we're looking at the gamete dish this summer yeah you have the great opportunity so we can get more computers then I write it along back right so we we have a lot of a lot of things that can really can leverage with this look at this as an opportunity so yes in terms of that summer school program is there any way to expand that to voluntary things for kids to do I don't know what where where cost comes in because that don't mean summer school but they may want us something to do or there may be interested in something I'm just wondering what we can offer we looked at we're looking our normal some school my dream has always been to have school where some school where kids come for electives that didn't have

128to come to some school it hasn't gone anywhere but we're thinking about we have what we call mandatory summer school and today we're talking about that there are youngsters that have some gaps parents would like to see them more engaged and offer it as an elective it has to be a paid summer school you know could it be like summer camp learning but it would and we talked about different venues in fact care one of her questions with Kara Kara went agenda yeah Gary had a question about one of the questions that we put on the survey today was if we did but knowing that we don't know what summer school will look like given our current situation whether it would be a traditional summer school in person or would we try to do this

129in a distance you know you really have to retool everything that we ever did with summer school the same way that we're doing now so we asked staff if they would be interested in teaching in summer school only if it was a traditional forum or if it was in a distance or didn't matter they would still want to teach and so part of our issue every years making sure that we have enough staff to actually want to teach summer school that's always a big issue so you know we can invite hundreds and hundreds of kids that qualify for summer school and even more for enrichment but if you don't have the staff to the better service right we have to have the appropriate ratio to to move it forward so it really is dependent upon

130available staff and so we'll see how where folks are with their comfort level with this and maybe by by the you know by late early summer people have gained enough confidence and what they're doing now to continue that through the summer but I think time will be a little bit of a teller on that one but we did I'll know my survey results probably the next day or so good news about summer school - is it that really for us is turnkey it's all our own people we literally just go in and sign them all up to it to work so you know we don't have to go outside we'd never go outside to hire teachers for summer school so for us we can really easily you know pivot and get that done quickly dr.

131sells done enough yeah yeah the next big part here you've got to be wondering as I am we tried to get on the town meeting last night I couldn't get on both Courtney did get on so we have here the next part I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the budget issues and there's been some questions about what our savings and there are a lot of things going on and the referendum so Courtney let me just let the board know at this point Kim if I'm correct the course was still evolving I don't think we need an executive session tonight is that true okay because we don't know anything we're still working on okay so go ahead Courtney thanks dr. Sal so I'm just gonna work from the state to the federal

132to the city and I'll try to be brief because I know I know it's late but I just wanted to highlight a few things that I thought the board would would like to know and I'll get to the council meeting in just a minute so Kathy Dempsey the CFO of the state ed department let us know that there's no indication that there'll be any changes to the FY 2021 budget that will evolve that could change but currently that's the way the state is seeing it the balance of our current year state grant funds will continue to be paid through the remainder of the fiscal year so we're not anticipating any reductions in the current year to state grant funding and that's all set your entitlement and calculated grants are not going to be prorated to

133reflect the shortened or modified school year it's going to be based on our you know previous amount for the entitlement grants with the exception in the case of excess cost you know depend on our actual expenditures finally at the end of the year we'll see a reduced possibly expenditure filing it'll you know we're still getting that information in but for example transportation will be less we may see an adjustment to our grant amount which will be reconciled in April 20-21 payments so that'll be on our radar and the state ed department is working with OPM at the state to extend the timeline for a few for some of our grants so for example for Alliance it the legislative language is in place that means that if we weren't to expend it this year there would

134be an adjustment so that we would have the opportunity to expend those funds and then in the following fiscal year and also the priorities school district grants so there'll be more guidance on that and I'll be letting you know as it becomes more clear but broadly speaking they're looking at the potential and they're talking about expanding those the ability for those funds so that's good news on the state side on the federal side you're familiar with the federal cares Act it's about 13.8 billion dollars that are going to flow through the state education agent 'ti to the Le A's to us about 90% of the funding will come to the districts it's looking like that'll be an entitlement grant so it's not something that will apply for it'll be something they'll be based on a

135formula but there'll be further guidance on that as well and there's there's an additional fund called the governor's and now that can be used for all the things that are we've been doing associated with the immersion in response so you know from edges that we made related to technology you know Kara mentioned I Excel and R as kids so the learning platforms that we've purchased you know glove sanitize there's all the thing purchases that we've had to make there's also a governor's emergency case considering using that towards offsets for our food service program because it is a revenue based program we're still paying the staff there but you know we're getting less reimbursement for the food that were distributing so some offsets may come from the state to supplement us they're pretty there guidance will

136be available on that as it becomes more clear but that's a possibility and likely these federal funds will be able to be expended over FY 20 + FY 2021 so as we go into our planning process as guidance becomes more clear this will help us to you know determine how we're planning for a budget for next year so a pause there and see are there any questions about the state or the federal okay so the city steps on this and I was able I missed the first 20 minutes of the City Council meeting but I was able to get in through a call-in number that I found on the mir social web i don't know one of his social media accounts because the video wasn't working for me either i know i saw a couple

137of there people that were trying to call in a me and rich but i don't know if you were successful basically the the budget piece that applied to us the there's an executive order that allows effective or 7i that says that do not we don't need to hold votes required by charter and don't need to have the in-person adoption requirements but the municipality still has to draft a budget and publish it and have an opportunity for public comment so the city budget director said that they would be publishing probably the third or fourth week of April we the Board of Ed still have to meet all of our mandated requirements as associated with adopting the budget the only exception is that there's not going to be a formal public comment period they likely will just

138get emails from the public and it won't be voted on either by City Council the city finance director also mentioned there's revenue shortfall this year possibly about 2.5 million and then he also mentioned about the property tax revenue there's an exposure or risk there potentially but not likely but I'll explain it on the we have the ability to delay property tax payments so by 90 days normally you have a 30 day grace period that grace periods extended to July 1 you don't have to people won't have to pay the penalty so it's essentially like an interest rate loan that's deferring the cash they'll still have to pay a penalty if they pay after July 1 in a normal pre COBIT world that penalty could be up to 18% for the whole year that piece currently

139with the way the states written it hasn't changed it's still 18% if you file after July 1 it's just deferring when you can pay that could change and if that changes that could be a risk of exposure for us so if the state were to change that and lower the actual percentage penalty of property tax revenue that that individuals pay it could be up to about a twenty five million dollar exposure for the city which would impact their budget we don't think that's likely right now with the scenario as it is now it looks like it's just a cash deferral so we just want to be mindful of that and we'll be watching that see so importantly can I just tell the board I think I just remember that money did pass through that we

140were going to have a have allocated did not the money pass through like two million yes yeah that's in our budget this I just want the board to hear that okay yeah we received that funding we were receive that 1.27 five million and so and that's a good segue because for this year's budget kind of let's talk about exposure versus offsets and where we are broadly speaking and we're going to have a finance meeting coming up and we can go into more detail but Kasbah and caps which is two of the connecticut professional organizations one for the business officers and one for policy did a study and with forty seven districts reporting it's estimated that a full school closure might result in very minor school savings if any so with all those districts reporting and

141it's we're seeing that also so our biggest cost is personnel there's we did not lay off for the most part any staff following the executive order you know for continuity the language that they use around the state is like continuing the ecosystem of the school so in community equal for your school like let's start back up again we need to have everybody available so our biggest cost is personnel that's still on our books and distance so the outside additional costing in distance learning so to go to the one-to-one you know we purchased Chromebooks we also purchased additional platforms learning platforms so i excel and raise kids the software you know our school nutrition feeding program is running a deficit because we're not being reimbursed the same from the feds unless those additional grant funds come

142through but that still uncertain and then the cost of sanitizing the buildings and all the materials we needed to purchase custo a little over time and we have some offsets which are some savings that we had in the budget that offset those costs which are subs coach stipends over time requires in the transportation budget that kate brought up earlier as we negotiate it's going to be not a hundred percent it's it's gonna be something less than a hundred percent so there'll be some savings there we also have lost revenues associated potentially with the excess cost grant potential Medicaid pre-k tuitions and then some building use revenues that are down so as a result net-net we're not seeing a huge amount of savings and so I guess what we would ask is what does that mean

143for planning that means you know as we get further guidance from the state and feds and as we negotiate that transportation contract we'll have a better picture and that will be made clear to the board as we move along and doctor cells also asked us to start looking at our proposed budget and anticipating when the city comes out with the actual budget of reduction so we're doing some prioritization planning that will help us to look at next year anything on the referendum so the city told us that it's being postponed likely until June 2nd and we'll have more information but it's it's not going to happen on the date that April date that was initially intended 10th where it was supposed to happen they don't have a new day I think it's likely to be

144June 2nd one of those something sooner rather than later about that I have a question glad yes Courtney I'm just thinking about the money we have this year because obviously we're spending a whole bunch of money dealing with the pandemic we weren't planning on spending the we had some money I think in this year's budget from the school impact fees from the Carbide property the matrix or whatever it's called today um you haven't received that money yet correct so it's it's it's a little bit interesting in that it's in our allocation so we were appropriated the funds but whether or not the revenue comes to the city or to us I don't know how it's supposed to be received okay um but we have the appropriation for it we have we gotten the appropriation that

145increased our overall budget by about 350 K okay so the city included that we don't care how they fund it okay yeah okay the other question for Courtney yeah I do Gladys I don't have that little finger that shows the raise your hand thank you um Courtney in dr. Sal what I had talked to Courtney earlier and in lieu of perhaps thinking of a finance meeting next next week during a break considering the fact that a lot of the day cutting off hassle is not there and you know I know it's an inconvenient but I also think a preliminary finance meeting to get some groundwork laid some out-of-the-box thinking down might be an opportune time to it when you not under the gun having a you know a hundred different things to do during the

146course of the day and if this would two gears thinking about this thing here you can have any and the objection to something like that no I I don't I'm working next week my only caution to to myself has been I don't want to bid against myself and I have no idea what I'm being proposed with in terms of a budget and to start that what I said rich to everyone is and the high school particularly because of their inquiries in FTEs and grass where's your requirements and in special ed with Kelly because the additional and bilingual is to look at those budget and to prioritize discord you said what they may need now with that said I am NOT we have not taken what some districts around with have already done they're laying off

147people we have not done we have not in the past we are we're waiting for at least I'm waiting for what I'm gonna be even talking about in terms of a number what I do know a rich is that the money that we were expected to get from our alliance money UCS is going to be allocated to us I did write Ryan to do to affirm that and he has at this point the only thing the unknown is the big enchilada it's what are we go and from the from the municipality so if we have a meeting next week I have no problem to meeting I just want to be careful about what's the signal what signals reporting out there because I don't know what's all involved they could be employing things that we had

148a look at right now we're looking at savings and benefits we're looking at carryover funds so having a meeting is okay I just want to be careful about you know what what pathway we're going that's all I'm not looking for any number kind but it's you know they did it's a guessing game and it's it's futile it's more of an exercise in collectively the minds coming together and and see what's on everybody's mind what the concerns are in a general sort of environment where you focused on one thing and not 18 different things so if there are any suggestions as to look at this you know such as generally speak and look at the end of your statements this year look at scenarios for next year why they have just mentioned them in generalities so

149that at least if you're thinking about it those people that are engaged in this committee have a feel that the voice has been heard and you know we make the contribution that that's basically you know the the well I'm sorry if we have a meeting next week I know I'm gonna be around and Kevin's gone Kim's gonna be gone a few days but Cortney myself and you and whoever's around we could probably mean some of them are taking some time but I'm around for it we could set some so you're gonna want to work with Cortney with something we could post yeah I'm here so we can we can set a time rich all right so what I'll do with the fact I'll leave it at your discretion as to what you feel is the

150best time and date you know in your agenda and send it out to the different you know members and just see if they're available and maybe even to expedite things earlier or faster if they have any questions so now you know with we're not caught off you're not caught off guard at the meeting later forward questions to to to you myself and you could review them prior to the meeting and yeah I don't have a question specifically about the budget just at some point I just had a question for dr. Sal say it's certainly yeah sorry to circle back I just wanted we just started getting peppered with questions dr. Sal and I didn't want to bury it with another one but this just goes back to the the executive order about the grading policies

151and I was just just a clarifying question just to make sure I understand it correctly so right now the governor hasn't said anything about a mandatory pass/fail or a change to grading systems across the state and as of right now is it it's still up to the districts to make a decision on any changes to the grading policy specifically at like the high school levels so I'm looking at it just came in what it said Joe is it was just a determination of grading policies and approaches continues to be at the discretion of the local or regional boards of that okay and then it goes on to say what the governor did to his executive order he empowered the commissioner to make modifications that would be in graduation requirements if a youngster can get the

152coursework technical reasons that we could de Bourgh it has the right with me the waiver and so does administered and then he's suggesting the Commissioner now not not not the governor looking at a grading system that all of a consider as a state okay that's all that's all we're at right now and then he offered for example and as quickly pass/fail grades they offered what they called best failing complete pass with distinction and then standard pass/fail so yeah like for the grease that we would consider and that's that and that's his determination not that's a governor the governor that's okay thank you next up any other questions who's talking about the information briefly on the all of you according on so this is something in for those that are new that as I knew we

153vote on every year we're asking for the border to add it to the agenda for adoption at the next meeting and what it is is any items that are served for sale through the cafeteria the healthy food it's called the HC and just look up make sure I get the name right HFC the healthy food certification if you vote to adopt the healthy food certification it gets us an additional reimbursement of about ten cents for every like snack or item that sold and a results in about a hundred and ten thousand dollars for the district annually and what it does is it says that we have to follow certain products that are considered healthy for snacks for kids so Connecticut's a little a little bit strict with it it lowers the salts sugars you know

154in facts and some of the snacks and it gives us a list of items that are acceptable we have to follow those items vary from Sodexo has met with the student board and they have no pushback they have no problem they've accepted it every year but I wanted to be available to answer any questions in advance so that we'd hopefully be able to get on the agenda for for next board meeting we're required to have it voted on by April 30th by state statute in order to make the application we've approved every year when they started we thought it was kind of silly to bring it back every year but like statute we have - it just permits us one we can run our cafeteria for our kids because they have to abide by it

155but it also permits us to gain about as Courtney said in next 100 just times I'm your 10 grand so we can bring it back okay made a statement we have to have just voted on by April 13th and they support me this April the 22nd no I think it's ended a month wasn't it April I'm sorry 30 if I didn't see it yeah April 30 okay thank you yeah and it's like baked Lay's instead of regular potato chips you know it's just modifying to be healthier healthier foods my last question is do you have anything that you can share with the boys so we can at least view this information and then by can't I'm gonna get ready to vote on we won't have a whole lot of questions yes and was that never

156touched that Jeb is Kara on here Carrie did that document get attached to the agenda I guess it didn't that parently I can't I know it did not no it did not but I can forward that to the board thank you yeah thank you then I'll help make the agenda move along a little bit quicker we have to read the information and we have questions we can ask number one thank you okay is there anything else any board members have anything they want to I do okay Rachel um we're gonna set a policy meeting for April 29th at 5:30 committee members were sent an agenda and it's not continuing business as usual but looking at some new policies and some current policies impacted by the virus situation okay thank you Thank You chairperson report I

157don't have anything I'll be very brief I just want to thank everyone for this is a new how can I say this is a new I guess new world thank you doctor it's a new world and we all be coming together and really trying to understand that more and trying to do our best and this too shall pass but I just want to thank everyone for being cooperative if you can't be here on time and you have to leave you know a little bit early before we sign off I really appreciate that and I really appreciate just notice that just letting me know if you don't want to let me know that care or know that you're not going to be able to participate on time and you have to be a certain time and

158I just want to thank everyone for just really special care for supporting me Geena trying to get me to adjust from one computer to the other computers or something else and and I thank you all well if there's no other questions or comments about anything I will entertain a motion that we adjourn this meeting at eight 2023 I need a motion second I made a motion by Kate second by Jill all in favor say aye don't forget to sign it off leave the meeting have a good weekend and enjoy your Easter weekend