Board of Education Meeting - December 13, 2022

001good evening everyone thank you for joining us this evening we've got a full house in-house and we've got it's like 37 folks zooming in with us so thank you all for joining us I would like to call this regular meeting of the Board of Education to order there will be a special Board of Education meeting on Thursday January 5th at 7 pm in the board meeting room the next regular Board of Education meeting is on Saturday January 7th at 8 30 a.m in the board meeting room um uh I apologize we're starting a little late um the board has been here working in executive session since six o'clock so seeing the Full House here um and also a number of people online and I know there is a uh a really neat heartbeat campaign I

002guess out there um I wanted to thank and acknowledge our great teachers and staff so we appreciate that but we're going to have to manage the meeting a little bit around public comment just to kind of um make sure everyone understands you know public comment is really tied to agenda items and this is really a board meeting where we do the work of the board all our work is done in public at the public table so we're going to focus the first 30 minutes of public comment on any peop any person that wants to speak with respect to agenda items special ed and stuff that's on the agenda we'll do that for the first 30 minutes then the board has to get to doing its work in getting the information around stuff that's on the

003agenda and then the second public comment will continue so with that from a Chairman's report standpoint uh thank you all for attending this evening um I also want to do a thank you uh the board and most the administration was at the RTM meeting last night uh thank you for all the support the board has worked with the board of finance and the RTM on the capital appropriation for additional security measures around school security and there was also a conversation at the RTM around the SSO so we'll continue to listen we'll continue to learn we'll continue to work with the RTM and that process will also be looked at again as we go through the budget process so thank you for our partners on the board of Finance in the RTM um I think the

004other uh thing I wanted to touch base on is the ongoing conversation um around material associated with curriculum again thank you for the emails thank you for the phone calls thank you for coming and making public comment I think putting the curriculum committee in place has proven effective over the last couple of weeks we will continue to listen I think it was a very productive curriculum meeting conversation around the process with which we listened to you and we accept any challenges or we accept any um information that you are looking for as parents around curriculum choices I think what came out of that curriculum committee meeting was a discussion around what our policy looks like in terms of reviewing material associated with curriculum so we'll continue to work through that there was a lot of

005good ideas and a lot of good conversation I'm sure Sarah will update us on that around what are the right processes in place that feel that make it feel like everyone is listening to everyone and that we're going through the process working with our incredibly educated Professionals in looking at anything that comes to us that you feel needs to be reviewed from a curriculum curriculum material standpoint so I think that process is working we'll continue to listen we'll continue to learn from it um when we come back in early January we will move quickly into the budget season I know several of our partners have already started sending in some questions um from a budget perspective so we appreciate that we'll move through the normal budget process and then uh just on behalf of the

006board in the administration uh happy holidays to all of you thank you for continuing to participate in our meetings as I said last night we have record participation in our meetings and that's important these are our students these are our schools you are our parents we are parents sitting up here at the board so we'll continue to work together um we'll continue to listen we'll continue to learn and we'll continue to move things forward so it's much appreciated but everyone please have a great um Merry Christmas Happy Hanukkah whatever holiday you're celebrating I hope you do it with family I hope you get some down time and I hope you all stay healthy so thank you with that we will move on to public comment Mr chairman I like to make a motion to amend

007the agenda yes thank you Mr ceni um motion I'd like to make a motion and then the agenda to move action items nine b and nine c to uh right ahead of public comment if we will and that is possible appointment of director of security and the possible appointment director of mental health great do I have a second a second is there appear in any conversation all those in favor of making the amendment to the agenda that is unanimous with all present thank you Mr ceney um bear with me a second Dr dad and Chief rolekowski thank you for being with us this evening and spending some time with us may have a motion to appoint Leon M krolikowski Jr as director of security for the darien Public Schools Mr ceney second by Mr Brown

008all those in favor that is unanimous with all present thank you uh Chief karlikowski congratulations I see you sitting there thank you and welcome to the district um would you like a make a comment of course actually hello darianne from the beginning of your neighbor next door and I'm glad to be here and uh like I said I'm thrilled to serve as Darien's public schools first ever director of security School Safety and Security must be a focused team effort that evolves Embraces best practices and mitigates risk superintendent adley's strong leadership and the Gary and board of education's forward-looking risk mitigation mindset inspire me I'm certain that the darien school district will become a national leader for best practices in School Safety and Security ultimately our collaborative work will make Darien schools safer inviting and student-centered

009and uh one challenge I'll have is where I'm going to stand at the turkey ball but I'll figure that out thank you welcome award Chiefs thank you very much literally they let you out of town this evening so we appreciate that and thank you for spending the time with us um congratulations and welcome may I have a motion to appoint Alicia C dad as director of mental health for the darien Public Schools uh Julie best second by Katie Loveland all those in favor that is sceny uh best Loveland McCammon Deneen and parent any against any abstentions there are worms abstaining and Dave Brown's abstaining thank you congratulations Dr Dad where are you you're sitting there in the audience there thank you and welcome to the district it was a pleasure meeting you earlier please if

010you'd like to say something I just want to extend such gratitude and thanks for the time that you guys have given me uh this evening and all the way up into this point I've thoroughly enjoyed learning about the initiatives that Darian has already taken around student mental health and I'm very much looking forward to coordinating with your leadership staff the town the director of community services I'm really um invigorated by the initiative that you all have taken in terms of meeting our students and our families and our staff mental health need and I'm looking forward to being an active participant and hopefully a leader in the community around this initiative so thank you and happy holidays thank you thank you darling foreign we will move on Michelle's to public comment I know our Union president

011Barry is here would like to speak thank you my wife will be happy you're letting me go first um I want to thank the board for allowing me to speak tonight on behalf of the over 470 teachers in Darien that I represent I'm sure it doesn't come to as a surprise to any of you that the recent National publicity regarding our curriculum has acutely impacted staff morale the misinformation and fear-mongering associated with with this uh public conversation has been damaging to the educational process teachers do not have the ability to publicly defend themselves or correct misinformation and we depend on an Administration to set the record straight for us in the future when these instances occur teachers are hoping these falsehoods will be addressed swiftly and emphatically I'm in agreement that there should be more

012stakeholder voices in the curriculum review process teachers students and parents can provide very valuable insights that should be represented when a resource is questioned I think the amount of parents here tonight will say that many parents probably want to participate in that process um as a social studies teacher I'd like to to remind everyone that this board functions as part of a representative democracy and has established the appropriate channels for community members to participate in the Democratic process in order to provide feedback I cannot for the life of me understand how someone can go on national TV to complain about a board curriculum policy before they have ever attended a board curriculum or board policy subcommittee meeting at best this represents poor judgment uh worse it's exploiting our children's education in order to score political

013points or raise public profiles regardless this Behavior should be called out for what it is and not be tolerated ask yourselves would you want to work in a community that regularly accepts and normalizes these antics every couple of months since I've been the union president there's been some sort of outcry or bashing of Staff in this District followed by an overwhelming outpouring of support from parents I understand the majority of parents love the teachers and the administrators in this district and support the work we do but this cycle needs to stop it's it's not good it is not good for the district teachers are leaving the district it's hollowing out the district and worst of all it's worse it's bad for our children so I'm asking the adults be mature if you have a question

014about a resource ask the teacher how the resource was used there is no such thing as a perfect resource it's about how you use it if you want to you could find a flaw or if you can look for something to complain about in any resource we use so please be an adult do what's best for your children and follow the appropriate channels to address your concerns thank you thank you Barry we will move on to anyone in the audience public comments specific to the agenda this evening hello good evening my name is Megan Watros I live at 155 West Ave and I'm here tonight because there has been a breakdown in trust with this Administration and I'm concerned that my opt-out the Family Life Education will not be honored and I want to be

015clear I'm here tonight advocating for my five and seven-year-old children this conversation has never been anti-teacher it has always been a conversation about the age-appropriateness of gender education for elementary school children my family and I we support the teachers in this community we always have but I have a responsibility to protect my children from inappropriate material so yes I am going to be an adult and I'm going to stand up for my most important thing in my life and those are my two kids so I just want to be clear here I'm concerned that this administration's definition of family life material is going to vastly differ from what parents would consider Family Life Education when it comes with sensitive topics there should be no gray area how can this Administration be trusted when they repeatedly

016denied the theme of the book Julian is a mermaid they should not be permitted to use books that are clearly marked as gender identity with a clear theme of gender identity then claim a different lesson was used that does not make sense and we are talking about seven-year-old children and all I've been saying this whole time is it's not age appropriate if you want to bring these topics up you can wait until a child is a little bit older I think Middle School would be an appropriate age but seven-year-old no it's not appropriate not for my seven-year-old parental consent should be required for all content that is classified under Family Life Education including sexual education and gender you have a policy if something falls under family-like education which includes sexual education and gender you were

017supposed to have parental consent you never had my consent to read this material to my daughter so I'm asking this board to hold this Administration accountable to require transparency in parental consent for any material any material there should be no gray area that would be considered Family Life Education so I've spoken to a number of families who agreed and they want the same and you want to know something you know what I hear I hear that people are free to speak out publicly because of the intimidation the bullying and the twisting of the narrative because everything the gentleman just did before me that is a twisting of the narrative there is no anti-teacher movement here it's not appropriate to yell at the board all right I I understand these are my kids and I'm passionate

018about it I don't understand that be accused that you're not going to yell at the board you can deliver it in a professional tone thank you good evening my name is Catherine botal I live at 11 Parsons walk with my husband James and my three kids and I'm privileged to say all three of them attend Royal Elementary School in our community today I've never given a public comment before I feel very much obliged to do so today and I apologize for not entirely following your rules but I'm going to definitely keep to my time I'm speaking up in support of our curriculum in support of our schools and also in what feels like increasingly a position of being a member of a silent majority I want to say first categorically that I support the inclusion

019of Jessica Love's book Julian is a mermaid as part of our social and emotional learning curriculum it's an innocent Universal story about acceptance and I'll say no more about that here when I asked my son till then to whom the book was read in his class what the book was about he simply said it was about a boy who wished to be a mermaid and his grandmother supporting him in that and that made him happy so why are we here two months of scary Echo chamber critiques and politics that have escalated all the way up to National media and right-wing terrorist organizations a few minority critical voices have dragged our community into the Limelight and have taken the time and Goodwill of many of you of our teachers our school administrators our PTO members and

020leaders to really focus on a view that is not represented by the majority of parents living in Darien today after I spoke up in support of this book the majority of class parents in our class spoke up in support for me we bought our teacher flowers we comforted our administrators we reached out this award has gone beyond our class beyond the grade beyond our school we are all supportive and we are dumbfounded by the nature of this critique and the way it is being expressed in a community that we love and cherish surely teaching acceptance to our young children is more important than drawing critique from the proud voice how can we not agree on that it's time to say thank you and frankly it's time to say enough you have our full support it's

021time to come together as a community that we all love and have chosen to bring our children into disagreeing is okay asking questions is okay you've made more than enough opportunity for us to do that but bringing hate and fear into darianne is not acceptable it should not be tolerated maybe there's a story we could all read that would teach us about that thank you thanks for speaking yes my name is Paula sardony a 15 Tower Drive um I would like to um um to thank the administration for the wonderful job that I've been doing in focus and in the acceptance message that we should and we I'm all for to disrupt children uh but I would like me as a parent as a taxpayer I would like to um ask for more transparency uh

022transparency from the from the uh from the curriculum and the material that we use for our kids and the input when it comes to the handling of political in charge the ideological Topics in other schools there should be more caution in exposing our children at an inappropriate inappropriately young age to ideologies that aren't supported by a clear scientifical scientific and societal consensus consensus this is important to many families in there yet especially since this Administration has failed to earn the benefit of adult on these issues from us parents so I would like to have more transparency I think we have been a lot of surprised a lot of questions that come from my children from stuff that I have not learned useful when I was in school thank you thanks for speaking this evening sorry

023I need one second I'm in week six of health issues I need my adapter check just make sure you move the microphone too I will as close as soon as possible thank you hi I'm now in week six of chronic laryngitis my voice isn't yet strong enough to talk for close to three straight minutes so I'm using this text to talk reader I'm Abigail hornstein of 17 Edmund Street I'd like to talk about three intertwined issues in this town and our surrounding communities and make a suggestion for the board to consider the issues are one mental health two student teacher and staff safety although I do note that this is usually expressed only as student safety and I'm broadening it three living in diverse communities and worlds we typically compartmentalize these issues as being separate

024from one another or we argue that each is a reaction to the others I'd argue that both approaches are wrong these issues are conjoined they reflect students teachers and staff wanting to be safe and respected these three issues share a common genetic link an expectation that we listen to each other with open ears and hearts and build a caring and compassionate community that is what the teenagers beg you to do with Deerfield guys one year ago October that is what numerous others including myself have repeatedly asked for a various board meetings I urge you to listen to what our children are saying student to feel they stick out in any way or other than not respected if we can help them feel accepted and loved then we will have built a community where any child

025of any background can get support from trusted adults and where the trusted adults will know they have the respect and support of the entire Community do we really want to continue having record high faculty and staff turnover year after year if yes go right ahead with curriculum review that demonstrates consistently you may not fully support them using established accepted curriculum calls for transparency are not necessary as the Administration has earned our trust do we really want to have a revolving door of high school students coming here with tears in their eyes every year to say they face discrimination and harassment because of their intrinsic characteristics if yes go right ahead with curriculum review and the tacit endorsement of discriminatory speech and behavior please have the moral spine to tell our community that curriculum review is

026not done in response to every garbled rendition of school activities relayed by Elementary School students rather it is done on a predetermined calendar so that all participants have adequate time to prepare and do a diligent job numerous recent surveys have shown that there are profound divides on numerous personal characteristics between people of what I'll call Our Generation meaning us as the adults in the room and those of the subsequent Generations while the number of people in our age cohort who identify as non-heterosexual non-cisgender is small the number of people in the next age cohort who so identify is profoundly larger until the generational Gap is minimized we are likely to face anguished Christ for help from parents who cannot accept that the world they grew up in is gone please have the morals find to

027recognize that sometimes the quietest voices in the room are quiet only because they belong to smaller groups or groups that are clearly not in political power so the number of queer youth who will out themselves by standing at this Podium With or Without Tears in their eyes will likely always be tiny but their small numbers do not in any way weaken their cries for hell representation and partnership thank you thank you for indulging that that's how I taught for six weeks thank you thanks for using your technology good evening my name is Megan Thornton and I live at 49 Birch Road I'm currently the PTO co-chair at oxridge and a parent of two children with IEPs I spoke at the last meeting to discuss the need for more staff to help our special ed community

028I would like to thank the board for listening to my comments and for all the support we have received from parents staff and administration I would especially like to thank Dr Forshaw for his continued support of the special ed community the need for extra staff for special education is Paramount and should be included within the projected budget for the 2023-2024 school year the budget should also allow for staff to be hired as soon as possible for the following year so that seats are not left vacant at the beginning of the school year as what what was what happened in the beginning of the current school year this left many of our children without a special education teacher and without the assistance of a power professional which are crucial for many of our students to ensure

029a successful experience at school at Oxbridge we have reached out to our special ed parents and requested feedback on their experiences within our special ed Department this year we asked about their positive experiences with the Department as well era and areas of concern our three very dedicated special ed reps want to promote positive change and discuss problems or concerns from parents that may arise the main concern that we have received at Oxbridge from the parents of children who receive Services is the lack of communication regarding missed Services one parent actually said that their child had missed 20 sessions so far parents should be given a service log that details when their child will be seen by whom and for how long this should be just like a daily schedule that homeroom teachers give out in

030the beginning of the school year we know that there are times when Services service providers or student students are absent but we need a more robust and transparent method of tracking missed sessions this will also hold everyone accountable and parents won't feel a sense of mistrust within the special education Administration one option is to Institute a district-wide threshold for missed services that triggers a direct communication between the school and parents or Guardians for instance when a service provider misses three sessions he or she would be required to notify a parent or Guardian regarding the number of missed Services as well as a proposed plan to provide makeup sessions when services are missed sorry um it is crucial that parents and Guardians are part of the discussion process as how to as how compensatory services will

031be delivered to the student this will ensure that sessions are made up in the best way possible for each student missed Services should not roll into summer school but should ensure that each child is caught up in the moment ensuring an optimal outcome for the student to summarize our school Community has expressed a feeling of being excluded from crucial information regarding Service delivery the burden if you're almost at time should not be on parents and Guardians to seek out the information but it should be clear and transparent protocol for tracking service Services thank you thank you thanks for speaking this evening good evening can you hear me yes my name is Autumn Robert and I reside at 7 whaling Road I am the parent of three tokenique elementary students and I serve as a member

032of the special education committee at tokenik I am also terrified of public speaking so bear with me but I find it necessary to stand here this evening in the spirit of the season I would like to express my gratitude to our board to our administrators and to our Educators for their tireless efforts on behalf of our children we appreciate you as you are aware tokenic school has been without one of the two psychologists since September this means that first third and fifth grade students have not been receiving services to give you a sense on average each psychologist has 25 students closer to 30 if you factor in srbi students needing support to date if a student has a 2 times 30 minutes in a six day cycle they have missed at least 19 sessions we

033were surprised to see in the presentation that a part-time psychologist has been contracted to address the vacancy at tokenique we have not been made aware of such a plan our assistant principal has been an amazing communicator and partner with parents she has made a valiant effort to support the students and the families in our community we ask that you please treat this situation with urgency thank you thanks for speaking this evening good evening John Dunn 175 Raymond I'm a proud member of our District's Dei committee but tonight I'm speaking only as a concerned parent one of many on how the wholeheartedly support our teachers and students but I do not support this Administration continuing to use a book some to use a book with some of our youngest students that unequivocally promote gender identity themes

034while telling parents it's not used to teach gender identity it seems like for this Administration even if it walks like a duck talks like a duck acts like a duck and is tagged in a school library as a duck they're telling parents they aren't talking about dogs it's preposterous why does this Administration have so little respect for concerns parents intelligence and basic common sense and this Administration is going to continue to push their gender identity curriculum on seven-year-olds I would ask them to be honest and transparent while doing so doing something so obviously like they are and then attempting to blatantly mislead parents about the motives and rationale behind them accomplishes nothing they are only letting down the community they're supposed to serve if the goal really was acceptance the administration would have accepted the

035feedback that this controversial book was wrong and it was a choice that could have been worked out with parents to find an appropriate replacement that wasn't divisive however they have instead chosen to Double Down despite all the clear evidence before them it must be difficult to create acceptance curriculum when don't practice what you preach in my view after all this it's Crystal Clear the selection of the book was never about acceptance I believe the administration doesn't care about acceptance and said they care about pushing their agenda no matter how much division it creates or how much National media attention it generates for our small town so many of us choose to live in Darien for the Fantastic schools my entire K-12 education was here in Darien public schools and it was never like this once

036again this Administration is letting us all down as we prepare to enter a new year every Dairy and parent and resident should be asking themselves is this really the best our town can do I truly believe the answer is no our children in our community deserve better it's past time for a better choice in this Administration thank you very much thanks for speaking this evening so chairman do you want to go to uh Zoom to adhere to the Happy bullet this gentleman speak to sure I'm Doug achiejin I appreciate the opportunity to speak my default position is that all the parents and members in attendance here want one what they think is best for their children and two for other people's children not just their own to be treated with dignity and respect by their

037peers I also sincerely believe that people who may disagree with me about the age-appropriateness of certain topics some of which even adults in good faith have difficulties satisfactorily navigating are not hostile to my child or trying to corrupt him in some way curricular development and determining when to introduce complex philosophical scientific and social issues require ongoing transparency and Collective reflection because the solutions are inherently imperfect and seldom obvious one way to suppress meaningful and civil dialogue is to frame a nuanced issue in a binary binary way through the lens of something like compassion ideas generated by people deemed to lack compassion are not worthy of being heard weaponizing compassion delegitimizes and discredits people who fundamentally see the matter at hand as a parental discretion issue their immense and unwavering reverence for teachers notwithstanding every patient

038here wants to raise tolerant emotionally intelligent children but no parental or political tribe is uniquely Adept at how to effectively do that while managing other important developmental considerations covet is a great example of a policy discussion that was moralized to the detriment of children for two years children with a collateral damage and their trusted adults cultural War over public health symbols outside of schools parents May read whatever books they want to their children at any age there are many topics that aren't controversial or politically polarizing that I for one would like to discuss with my child before they are introduced in school these include causes championed by both conservatives and progressives I have read Julian as a mermaid it references relevant and sophisticated constructs like identity authenticity and the evolution of social norms that it

039is not explicitly a book about compassion and tolerance speaks to its metaphorical reach the question is what is the appropriate age to initiate these types of abstract discussions and under what circumstances not whether these discussions are worthy of our attention or our children's attention parenting is difficult hence I am generally in no position to tell other parents how to best raise their own children to become caring and considerate people I hope that in the face of uncertainty which seemingly characterizes the situation here other parents will extend that courtesy by supporting an ongoing transparent dialogue about mandatory aspects of the curriculum and by not conflating parental deference in elementary school with lack of compassion or in gratitude for the incredible teachers who serve this community thank you I didn't catch your last name in your address

040can you say that I'm sorry you're a Darian resident thank you we're about halfway through our first 30 minutes Michelle is there any PMS on Zoom at this moment we have one hand Miss Alicia Johnson you are unmuted and recognized thank you so much um let me just start my video Miss Johnson can you see me we can hear you Miss Johnson we don't necessarily need the video you're gonna have to speak a little louder into your microphone but please proceed thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to speak um I am very sympathetic to everyone who's spoken tonight I would just act like to add one additional thing to the conversation which I feel like this whole conversation about books and and banning books especially certain kinds of books aren't really a

041conversation coming from a local um a local community concern I feel like we are being subjected to in our town to some sort of more National political conversation about certain kinds of books and banning books and doing schools and it's frustrating as a parent um I would like to if we can redirect the conversation back to our schools away from the you know sort of the right wing Echo chamber about banning books and get back to supporting our teachers and education for all of our students thank you thanks for speaking Ms Johnson can you share your address please 89 Raymond Street thank you anyone else on Zoom yes do you want to do a few zooms sure okay maybe four minutes Miss Melissa Olman you are unmuted and recognized Melissa can you hear us yes

042yes go ahead please thank you thank you um good evening I'm Melissa Dunn and I live at 175 Raymond Street as a tokenique parent an active tokenik PTO volunteer it was very disheartening to hear that the vice chair of the DTC was allegedly Distributing political bumper stickers um with this Mermaid logo within the tokenik school it's done that's that's not appropriate conversation we're not interested in what the DCC did or so it happened but it happened at the school well there was a conversation there was a conversation with that parent so we appreciate that but if you could all right okay we shouldn't be politicizing it's being talked to our seven-year-olds okay thank you are you are you done uh no I mean handing out paraphernalia is inappropriate and fine but let's not I don't

043want it specific to any political party to hand it out at a school specifically a school trip so um you know it's really bad so I I I'm sorry I'm happy that it's been handled but I want to make people aware and we can move on but thank you thanks for speaking this evening thank you anyone else on Zoom Michelle Meg bat you are unmuted and recognized um hi uh my name is Meg batt I live at 2110 Post Road um and I'm actually going to deal with something that's probably going to be uncomfortable for most of you um but it's an elephant in the room so to speak so when I look at the board of ed the makeup of the Board of Ed and the administration every single person on the board and

044all the administration is white now understanding that obvious fact imagine if I a woman of color was having a discussion with you and during our conversation you disagreed with my point of view and proceeded to explain why how would you react if my immediate rebuttal to you was to accuse you of racism you and I both know it's an asinine comment but in this day and age that charge is so easily swung at people especially in these types of scenarios it's such a paralyzing accusation there's no way to respond to it so instead of having a constructed debate on a particular topic I'm now listening to you feel compelled to defend yourself from a baseless accusation so the issue I have tonight is that something along these very lines is happening in our community right

045now a short while ago and she spoke tonight as well a visibly upset parent expressed her concerns about material that was read to her child's second grade class and what has since followed are accusations towards her and other parents who believe the same of being anti-lgbtq and anti-teacher this is just name calling but ultimately it achieves its goal which is to deflect from the initial query so we need to be very clear about something raising concerns over material that's presented in class does not equate to someone being anti-teacher questioning the value of introducing topics that we as a society don't even fully understand yet to a very young audience does not mean you're anti-lgbtq and when no one stands up to illustrate how damaging and unfair these comparisons are when there is no one in

046a leadership capacity to combat this destructive narrative then all we have left are a bunch of name-calling adults trying to compete for Who belongs to the greater marginalized group the responsibility of the administration is first and foremost to the children of this District it's not just to the children of parents who align with you politically but all children all children love their teachers no single party should have a monopoly over teacher appreciation no single party should have authority over curriculum political agendas should have no place at school and I realized it was addressed earlier but having someone come to the school during school hours offering political paraphernal paraphernalia that suggests that only one party supports a school should not be condoned this is within the purview of the administration you are tasked with setting boundaries

047cannot be conducted at school you're right now thank you thanks for speaking thank you anyone else on Zoom Michelle Don McDonald you are unmuted and recognized hi can you hear us yes sorry hi I'm done just make sure you speak into your speaker thank you hi I live at 174 Mansfield Avenue and I'm a mom of um Royal students um and have been for many years and I just want to say that in my time at Royal um I've never had any problems with the teachers and administration they've been very responsive and reasonable if any issue has arisen with my children whether I bring it up or if it comes up at school um and as far as the book you know whether you like the book or not you're entitled to your opinion but

048um don't confuse your opinion of the book with your opinion of the teachers and the administration and people are saying just because you don't like the book doesn't mean that you don't support teachers but it was said a national media that um the principal and the teacher berated you know the mom and screamed at her so that was said and these they feel under attack and you know I just think it's important to say my account in all my years at Royal I've never heard of this and I've never had these experiences and if we don't respect our teachers and thank them we're going to lose them and we're not going to be able to recruit Nuance that's all thanks thanks for speaking this evening we're going to pause there on public comment and move

049back to the agenda we will have public comment at the back of the meeting also we've got a lot to get to especially conversation um and presentation on special ed uh we'll move on from an agenda standpoint to the superintendent's report Dr adley yes good evening everyone and thank you for your candidates both online and in person I'll be brief um as I shared yesterday with the community uh there was an article in the Hartford current uh about school security uh just simply stated one of the Articles the quotes was attributable to someone else other than myself and that retraction uh has been issued thank you to our parents for supporting special education day I was on December 2nd we appreciate your acknowledgment and support of our special education staff and students uh the press

050release regarding our two directors will go out tomorrow we're thrilled to welcome our two directors to darianne and thank you to the board and the members of the community for your support uh thank you for your participation and apparent conferences over the last couple of weeks and uh tomorrow night uh there's the ELP over at Oxford Ridge it's nice to see those over uh to Oxbridge if you haven't had a chance to catch some of the school concerts uh I said I'm a communication another you want a little bit of a holiday cheer uh you'll get them right there um Henley was today the rest of them will be the rest of the week I think the high school tomorrow middle school Thursday and the elementary schools better through Friday thank you to members of

051the board who attended the legislative breakfast for Fairfield County uh the topics that are included fully funding advocacy for fully funding uh special education Katie k-3 reading and also working on to support uh teacher shortages and also support mental health issues since our last update regarding mental health the district I've been working on post prevention and prevention methods this is included for post-vention counseling support for the wellness center prevention strategies such as the 9th grade ADL budget and for mental health SEL screening at KD 8 ruler and the support of the cdsp of bringing the mark Brackett to speak to to our parent presentation on Sal and a lot of the work has been done in higher in interviewing and hiring as we did tonight uh for our director of mental health has been a

052big part of the past month so again thank you for that the super tennis budget will be presented on Thursday January 5th as the board attorney said and Super Saturday immediately thereafter uh there are a couple of meetings that are that are coming up um curriculum just to hear them quickly uh January 12th Communications January 18th Finance on January 19th policy the 20th and Facilities the 26th and I just wish a happy holidays to our our students our staff our families and seasons greetings to everyone thank you thank you Dr adley we'll move on to our student representative reports John and swaha good to see you this evening um good evening so the winter sports season has officially you just pull that microphone closer to you thank you so much um the winter sports season

053has officially begun at DHS and the girls basketball team just won their season opener game against basic Asic and Darien High School had its National Honor Society induction for new members last night which is exciting um a few other announcements trying to keep this short um the DHS library has expanded its Student Activities there are now a whole bunch of chess boards and puzzles and games which are really fun I've seen a lot of people playing chess um importantly we have a the darien school district has a 2022 Congressional Art Award winner Sarah Jackson whose art is actually being displayed I believe in Washington DC um uh separately freshmen should start looking forward to the National Honor society's cocoa and cram activity which will be held on January 5th from 5 50 to 8 30.

054it's a good way to help them prep for midterms I remember when I was a freshman it was great we haven't done it for a few years since because of covid so we're going to be excited to get back to that and finally um get ready because this spring Newsies is going to be playing music cast this weekend and our first read through was today so we're very excited for that and your role in Newsies will be what John I'm playing Davey [Laughter] I knew you'd be part of it incredible talent and uh hats off to everyone in the drama music there's a there's a choir recital holiday choir recital tomorrow night so thank you for that we will move on to approval of minutes may have a motion to approve the minutes of the

055regular meeting held on November 22nd 2022 uh Jill second by Dave Brown all those in favor that is unanimous thank you we will move on to board committee reports Sarah so the curriculum committee met last Thursday December 8th um Dr Ali just shared our next meeting was supposed to be the 12th we had to postpone that so we are working to reschedule um we discussed developing a policy around challenging instructional materials which we just heard a lot about we will talk more about that later tonight um we discussed extensively the k-3 reading program what it is uh how it's evolved over the years and how we as a district are responding to the new state legislation um concerning k-3 literacy um currently the district is in the process of exploring um applying for a waiver

056and exploring that process to so we can continue what we're doing as the administration does feel that what we are doing in destruct is meeting the needs of our students um the last topic was more conversation about the new course proposals of DHS which we will also be talking about later tonight good thank you good work on that committee and thank you for all the parents and all that participate in that and bring ideas and comments to the meetings uh any other board reports Julian the communications committee met last Friday uh December 9th um and we adopted our following committee charge which I will read to the board if I may um the communications subcommittee the purpose of the communications Committee of the darien board of education is to a support the board of Ed's

057function as liaison between the district and the community B promote efficient effective and varied methods of communication among all stakeholders and C work to align all Communications with the boe's roles and responsibilities District strategic plan vision of The Graduate and District board goals and other guiding documents um we had discussion around this for a few meetings and I think we all feel pretty good about where we've landed on that so we're excited to move forward with our charge well defined we had some discussion about a preliminary timeline um that leads us to a sort of comprehensive Communications plan by winter of 2024 with some research some fine-tuning an inventory of communications as some of the pieces that we'll work through to get there stay tuned you will hear from us at some point we will

058be asking input from you all as we do inventory our current Communications um and we decided we have a Communications plan template that we like that we'll work with sorry that's what we will share with you all moving forward and awesome thank you I think Brown that was so weird we see you Michelle it seems we are back on okay thank you it's some folks um need to leave for a moment but we'll keep going uh board committee reports Joe so the hhrbc is thrilled to report that all of the materials for each of the three School Renovations were submitted to the office of osc GNR um what is that on office of school grants construction with school grants construction and School Grants thank you uh in time for the for the uh December first

059deadline which is thrilling um so we should be on base to hopefully receive some reimbursement um the SC GNR has been here for a walk through there's been ongoing conversations with with the department and so we are in close contact UM additionally we are finishing our design development phase and so we will be back to the board in early January with the next stage of design for your approval so stay tuned thank you Jill and thanks to Chris too your co-chair there and uh thank you to the board of Finance the RTM and the subcommittees of the RTM um they really worked their schedules uh for us to meet that deadline of December 1st which is an important deadline so thanks to all our partners working together with us on that any other board uh

060committee discussions good we'll move on to presentations and discussions we have an update and discussion and possible action on Connecticut green bank's proposal for the installation of solar panels at oxridge uh Mr monrat and miss Emily Basham senior manager Connecticut Green Bank Kevin good evening how are you I'm well good evening thank you for having me in your packet this evening is the memo which highlights the agreement to enter into a power purchase agreement with the green Bank this dates back to a year and a half ago which we entered in this agreement and due to the construction and redesign of HHR we have the need to pause on solar for those three schools but with oxrage phase one complete we can actually move ahead and sign that agreement now so the memo has the

061highlights and talking points and Emily's available uh virtually should you have any green Bank questions this evening great thank you I'll open up to board questions Mr so one of the questions that came up at a board of Finance meeting was signing a long-term contract and I gather that has been remedied now with the board of selectment approval is that is that correct yes they have you have lots of permission to to sign that yes okay thank you I think I know I've been part of some conversations along with our attorneys that Kevin and Dr adley worked with Town Hall on that and then so we've worked with Connecticut green bank with respect to the capital projects and the construction and the changes associated with the roofs on HHR it's kind of played out they've

062been very accommodating they have uh supply chain issues themselves so from a timing perspective I think this has worked out a little bit um oxridge is on schedule in terms of the main academic building so it's a good place to start and move that forward and I just asked Kevin and Dr adley you could just keep us updated as we go along if anything changes with Connecticut green bank but they've been good partners to work with through this process okay just one more follow-up Kevin will we get some learnings by implementing Oxbridge before the other buildings best practices installation uh no house all that good stuff yes absolutely thank okay yeah it's interesting it's a good question John I participated in an HHR committee meeting and um a little in the weeds but good questions

063but they even discussed what are the costs associated with readying those buildings for solar and are they actual line items and just to get a handle as to what the costs are and they're they're nominal I mean they are part of the specs but it's more or less routing specific electrical outlets and lines to the roofs correct I mean very very similar to how we designed oxridge where the the building committee oversaw the ability to connect the solar panels at a later date yeah good thank you Dave sure any other questions Jill thanks um just the project construction is listed as August and September of 2023 and I Know It notes in here that there's the intent to work with the students and staff but could you just talk for a minute about that timeline

064please so Emily could speak better to the uh timeline as far as supply chain but the intent is to do the project over the summer and then hopefully have it wrapped up before the students return um in September so Emily could you elaborate on the this coming summer timeline with respect to that will still continue to be a construction site in terms of the genesia cafeteria music and uh Plan B but um just if you could give us an update yeah if you could hear me all right this is Emily um the construction schedule or the project schedule is provided is really an estimate um at this point so we'll know a much more specific and accurate schedule once we sign agreements and submit the projects for permitting and then we can provide a much

065more accurate schedule the goal is to start and if not complete construction before school I think we're all aligned on um that being the most efficient way for us to do the installation but we'll certainly be in touch as the calendar gets updated and work in coordination with the facilities and Kevin and the school staff to make sure that we're um you know on time on schedule and working around the the daily schedule right so I would ask Kevin you just keep us keep us in the loop best any changes from a supply standpoint and we'll obviously work closely with OMG and the builders as they are continuing phase two of construction that is something that with the of course it's ideal that would happen before students get into the building but if they do

066do you have to work on a weekend do you or can it be done concurrently what's the so this type of work is typical to be done during school hours it's it's fairly noise noiseless to some extent and you know we can work around the daily operations and glute would be a key component of that as well thank you okay any other board questions or comments may I have a um may have a motion on Connecticut green bank's proposal for the installation of solar panels at the Oxford school did you read the resolution so Mr chairman Mr chairman the resolution that's before you there's there's uh uh four blanks and that uh would would read the superintendent of schools the contract has been reviewed by Matt ronelli and stuff we have seen it at the

067board before so all that's done this has simply given me the permission to enter into that agreement and sign on behalf of the Board of Education so the motion would be to give Dr athlete yeah permission to have a reward that you can wave or isn't the motion this yes yes are we in agreement to waive the reading of the motion everyone has read this it's been in the board packet sort of a motion to accept the draft resolution for approval of the Board of Education and darianne to install solar panels at Oxford school and give that authority to the superintendent Jill second by Dave all those in favor thank you all right thank you Kevin thank you Emily for your happy holidays thank you thank Emily thank you good night Emily thank you we

068will move on to the annual special education update Mrs Shirley Klein thank you Shirley I know you've got your uh Stellar team here so um we appreciate that think about good evening members of the board Dr adley students families and colleagues the 2021-22 and the current 2022-23 school years have been extraordinarily challenging for General and special education programs the pandemic redesigned the focus and instruction in educational new use Nationwide and across the world shortages and Staffing for certified staff paraprofessionals and related service providers prompted our current special education teachers our psychologists our occupational therapists our physical therapists to provide SDI and related services for students who were not on their case modes special education teachers and related service providers in grades K through 12 utilize their prep periods and their lunch periods to provide SDI

069and related services for students pending the hiring of certified and non-certified staff their commitment to supporting students during these challenging times certainly has been humbling and I know you joined me in thanking them for their indefatical efforts and their extraordinary successes this evening's presentation on special education student services will provide an update on ELP and special education in grades K through 12 plus joining us this evening is Miss Laura straighten program director for ELP Miss Kristin O'Reilly program director for elementary and Dr Scott McCarthy program director for secondary special education and student services programs Department structured we just provided a slide to show you our structures in the elementary ELP Elementary School and our Secondary School several of our members are here this evening when you think of a program and for those members um

070and they're here tonight many of you know our continuous services but just as an overall outline understand that special education services supplemental services and specialized Services all of our students participate in general education the purpose of special education programs is to provide access to the general education curriculum and we do this by the provision of supplemental services and specialized services and the Continuum goes from the least restrictive to the most supportive and when you look at our continuous Services you'll see our least restrictive is when students spend the majority of their days in their general education classrooms and they can receive speech and language therapy as a related service when you look at general education with supplemental services in our ELP program it represents three different tiers of supports in our K-12 it represents the

071majority of time spent in the general education classroom with supplemental services this year we initiated our grade five co-taught Ela classes and also in our grades 6 through 12 we continue with our cotor classes in English language arts and math as we go on to higher level of supports we look at our special education teacher in supplemental services and we'll later speak to our K-12 programs our 6 through 12 direct reading instruction and our and our aim and core programs in our secondary levels of Support Services and lastly as you look at students on how to support students accessing curriculum we have our very specialized programs and those are modified classes that again allow students to access the general education curriculum in grades six through eight we have our ALC programs and in grades 9

072through 12 we have our comprehensive classes on the tier level of ELP we have our 16 hour program our 20-hour program and our 22.5 hour program again the PPT recommends the level of services that are appropriate based on the goals and objectives developed by the PPT and that determines the level of services students need our ELP program is an integrated program and on Friday for students needing an additional level of service they receive service directly from a special education teacher and related service providers also please note that on our related service and accommodations students can receive not only speech and language therapy as a related service counseling otpt and parent training but we also have a teacher the hearing impaired and teacher of the visually impaired as well when you look at our elementary school

073programs you also have the opportunity for the same level of service looking at the majority of time spent in your general education program code talk classes in English language arts and our supplemental services and direct reading programs as well just to note also that um that the essential piece is that IEPs are reviewed annually if not interim and it's determined of what level of service students need based on their goals and objectives and their current levels of performance our specialized programs in elementary school and this year they are housed at Oxbridge and there's still one class at hinley or really the opportunity for students who need a higher level of support to access the curriculum and they may spend um time with a special education teacher receiving their content area courses English language arts Math

074Science Social Studies or they may spend time in the general education classroom receiving Ela math science or social studies based on their PPT recommendations also opportunities for socialization and generalization in middle school we have the same opportunity of services we do have co-taught in English language arts and Mathematics in grades six through eight we also have direct reading and specialized resource rooms and our specialized programs on the Middle School level are our aim program as well as our ALC program the aim program really are our students who are spending the majority of their day in their general education classes and they come for their resource or their Learning Center time in the aim program there's also staff with a special education teacher as well as a paraprofessional so students can check in during the day

075for social emotional support as needed there's a place they can go to and an opportunity if they need some time to regulate or to compose or to work together at supporting themselves with support they can go into the aim program as well the alc really focuses on again access students in the University program they spend time in the mainstream classes as well for different subject areas depending on their IEP and they also have the opportunity to really work on life skills and Vocational skills to think of post-secondaries and moving toward those goals a DHS and looking at a continuous Services if you've looked at our programs we have the same level of programs from related services to co-taught English language arts and our Learning Centers we also have a core program which aligns with our

076aim program where students can check in for their Learning Centers or other times during the day it's also supported by group counseling and our comprehensive classes are taught by special education teachers in the four content areas program highlights so in our program highlights and we'll see a Ela um in the program we continue to work with Dr Margie Gillis and literacy Howe we've had a chance to share with you early on that we're looking at early markers and opportunities for how students are acquiring literacy skills we looking at building teachers toolboxes and working with our youngest Learners at acquiring phonology morphology and understanding of language we're continuing with our programs of Everyday Math our social emotional year two of ruler um using feeling words um continuing with the Michelle Garcia winner and many of our

077social engagement programs to really Foster reciprocal language and we also recognize that the intensity of support for ELP has been remarkable post covid because many of our students and our earliest Learners did not have an opportunity for socialization and engagement at that early age so many of them are coming in right now and are first learning some of the social skills that they may have acquired in a more authentic way developmentally prior to covid we continue to train our staff our power professionals our speech and language Pathologists our occupational therapists and PTs on communication devices for many of our Young Learners who are still using our augmentive technology or PEC systems to really communicate we continue to make sure that our staff is trained on the most current assistive technology as well as some more

078um well more not aged but more um classical Hecks and different systems that are not technology but are things that students can carry with them their images their pictures their picture word cards so they can use those as well in our elementary schools again we continue with our literacy program we continue our staff training on Wilson reading programs and looking also at the science of reading and working alongside Chris and Julie and making sure that our students are receiving the proper level of phonology and morphology in the acquisition of language we're working on mathematics in this tiered level of instructions using touch math for some of our Learners who really need a very explicit form of mathematics and some of our specialized programs and also working on do the math and Bridge of the gap

079or a language of communication we continue to train our psych our speech language Pathologists to make sure again their current in specific training such as prompt oral motor and augmentative and alternative communication as well we continue really emphasizing the social emotional behavioral learning and making sure that our staff is really trained on the areas of executive functioning of PMT a responsive classroom in DBT to understand how students learn and are they ready to learn uh where again we're excited about DLC program at Oxbridge for our three classes and related Services we also have a state-of-the-art ptot room there that has really fostered expanding our practices within motor both fine and gross and we are excited to report out on our co-teaching implantation for this year in our 90-minute blocks in our co-teaching we've been able

080to start the year by making sure that our elementary school teachers had peer coaching with our Middle School and High School teachers prior to the beginning of the school year we've managed our ongoing team building between our general special education teachers by using PLC Time by using technology by using Google Docs and are there opportunities to communicate well we have really discovered is that in coaching in real time in addition to teachers working together we've been able to use um Christine Christina O'Reilly has been able to really work with the APS in the elementary schools as well as the teachers in modeling best practices in co-teaching and really looking at opportunities to really work together both at those PLC times and also electronically to ensure that we're using the best practices in instructional methodologies and

081strategies year two of assistant principles so for you ear two in our system principles all we have found is this Connecticut says has taken up a great deal of their time and we were hoping that we'd have opportunities um prior to Canadian states to really have more time to do so many other things that they are really talented and would like to spend the majority of the time doing we recognize as we become more proficient in Connecticut said we'll free up more time for our assistant principles that said they've been able to support the implementation of co-teaching in the general education classrooms with Hands-On observations with going and modeling demonstrating best practices they are the expert trainers the Connecticut saids they continue providing ongoing support and working with um all of the special education teachers

082related service providers in their buildings they also added to maintain the role you would ask when we first switched from SAS facilities to APS would we make sure that they were monitoring IEP development compliance and finalization they have done that successfully and then Sun some and continue to be responsible for Fidelity and implementation with Connecticut state guidelines they also have been able to facilitate ongoing professional development for both General and special education teachers they're beginning their support for esy planning and the development of groupings they also have worked um diligently with parent organizations throughout the year thus far and working on a parent coffee series for not only introducing topics like SEL and instruction but as well as Connecticut sets we know that we will continue to have new opportunities for their roles in supporting

083SDI instruction for both General and special education teachers in the classroom and as far as our secondary program highlights we continue in the same areas we spoke of what we are excited about is our community outings we've been able to post pandemic reintroduce our community outings our vocational programming and really work with our students in our specialized programs to be able to go into the community and work on many of their goals and objectives and their generalization skills as you can see in the um District data we've become pretty flat we went from 876 students last year to 882 students this year to keep in mind that that's an October 1 number it doesn't become official until the spring of this year but at this time we realized that our classification rate has stayed pretty

084much flat this year our data collection on educational classifications also has changed um it's gone of slightly an Autism from I believe 6.2 to 6.5 and the other areas Stills seem to have um the similar levels within the areas of the other classifications Staffing challenges so although we know we recognize all the extraordinary efforts of our teachers related service providers we still have challenges they haven't disappeared and we're still addressing them our staffing shortage and our school psychologists how are being remedied and um as was mentioned earlier actually in tokenik and ELP we still have two psychologists just to give you an idea Statewide there are 38 openings in the state for school psychologists just within um our area there are seven seven postings in Fairfield County alone uh and in those seven postings one

085district has three openings we're not stopping at interviews we're not stopping looking and we use our resources for both olos and for both Apple track we know that we've tried to Remedy by hiring we have two contracted service providers that come in we have one that's coming to ELP two days a week Danielle and we have one of our retired psychologists coming back and helping out both at uh tokenique and we also are helping out at Middlesex as well we will continue to be diligent at looking for psychologists but we will use all our creative ways to really support them as well we've asked families to understand that we may ask to excuse some psychologists from PPT meetings after their initial five or ten minutes so they can go back and serve as students we

086might be asking some of our parents to recognize that we really want our children to get serviced with counseling so we might ask them to come in and do evaluations after the school day and not during the school day to free up time so we've looked for all creative ways to try to support our school psychologists but please know that we know it is a challenge and we will continue to meet that challenge and find creative ways to make sure that all our children are serviced it also is true that when we can't meet their needs we do have to we do log all our Miss sessions those logs do have to be implemented and we do use those times to make up sessions as soon as we have Personnel to do that we're being

087as creative as we can we're being as diligent as we can and we're hoping that we will be able to fill those positions even knowing the extraordinary vacancies in the state um and we'll keep you updated on that as well we've looked at caseloads in the mean for the caseloads this again is an October one count based on our student count as you can see the trend in special education teachers um elementary schools those are mean of the number of caseloads uh it is 12 12 and as you get to the high school it increases speech Alliance pathologists now you'll see that also we're fairly similar in that we do have um in during High School we're appreciative that we have another additional speech language pathologist which has really brought that number down if you

088recall previously we were up to almost 40 students so we're very appreciative of that our school psychologist is fairly stable as well realize how much of their time is in ppts and evaluations in addition to direct service our social workers who work in our core program and our aim program also work with children with IEPs and 504s and our occupational therapist as you can see decrease as students go through up to secondary PT stays relatively low on that level so back to Connecticut said just by the introduction we're doing incredibly well continued continuing what the state is saying of how we're doing our staff is is in is is conscientious diligent and doing everything they can knowing that the time to complete an IEP has gone from probably maybe 45 minutes to two hours uh

089we recognize that we're trying to be creative in terms of allowing time to do that as well they have ongoing training both electronically and from our support Central offices supporting them as well as with peer coaching we found that teachers can learn better in groups than by doing it with one-to-one tutorials so they've been working and assisting each other we'll continue with ongoing support we will continue and work with the state and we are confident that once we learn this system and hopefully by the end of this year if not sooner we'll be able to manage this much more efficiently and um with confidence we're looking at continuing our parent coffee series for fall and winter we're looking at many of our district-based parent presentations which will continue as you know we do articulation meetings

090for our parents as they go from grades five to six and eight to nine and we'll also continue to update parents on where we are um in our Connecticut said process uh positive note parents have shared with us they're on the parent portal and using it successfully and we are confident that once we know and are proficient in it it really will be an improved IEP for students and Families and looking ahead and when we have a chance to speak at the budget in the next few weeks we'll know that our specialized programs are of great importance to us in terms of reviewing our instructional strategies looking at the developmental needs of all of our students in our specialized programs DLC ALC and Excel and we're looking at um at instructional strategies opportunities as well

091as our staffing needs we are really proud to say that our programs are robust we have 21 students currently in our DLC programs and we have 12 students in our Excel program and seven students in our Middle School ALC so we know that we really want to look at our planning and instructional design for them PD will continue alongside Chris and Julie for our reading curriculum in K through three looking at the science of reading we'll continue with our professional development and connected sides we'll also look at some new multi-disciplinary evaluation assessment tools to make sure that we are current in our evaluation and assessment process and we'll also put an emphasis on life course planning and transition for our 18 to 22 year old students as they go through their post-secondary experiences and in

0922324 ELP will probably move all nine classrooms to oxrage and we're looking forward to esy beginning in Oxford Ridge this summer um in their new location pair of coffees will be posted on our website and so please look for them also from varying from specialized reading instruction that just took place at Middle School those are posted on our website as well to many of our DBT distress tolerance coffees and our academic office as well professional development continues for staff training also know that our school psychologists and special education teachers will be working on new assessments we'll be working on Connecticut said we do want to focus also there with concerns about um our robust program for our professional development for our paraprofessionals please know that they actually just continued social emotional learning with Dr Chris

093Bogart this season we at our November planned opportunities they participate annually in training for OT for PT for reading and for mathematics programs they participate in our development for her ruler as well this year they're also participating in responsive classroom anything we ask our teachers to learn and I'll provide us to work with our students who receive support by IEPs are required for our paraprofessionals to have those skill sets as well so they are trained in the same applications the same strategies the same methodology or teachers are trained it because we're asking them to help implement it and do the same training uh we had extremely positive feedback on Dr Bogart's presentation to them last month our glossary of our acronyms there was only one added this year which is the Connecticut's special education Connecticut

094saids the others you're familiar with they have not changed they are Statewide and they are nationwide and thank you for your time and we're here to answer any questions you may have and our program directors are here as well thank you thank you Shirley I appreciate the update and the detailed information so I will open up support questions John it's weird I like the old way Mr ceney um thank you I guess two questions and are somewhat related um today we got a communication from cdsb special education subcommittee and you talked about some of the challenges but you know you started your presentation by saying extraordinary challenging year and we understand that with the um the turnover but maybe you could talk about the communications which is email largely talks about the challenges and and

095the disruptions based on the you know just the challenging year and how you're communicating that with parents one and then two when you go through the caseloads K through 12 how does this compare pre-covered and I realize there's a number of numbers on the grid but if you can just talk generally surely uh firstly on the uh the the questions related to how we've informed parents well actually it was actually CDP at cdsp really um helped us in terms of some of the questions which were they let us know families didn't want to wait until we had those positions filled they really wanted to know onset um we actually started with middle school and made sure and that was really pretty early on beginning of October I believe that said that when someone leaves once

096we have and margin forms us that there is a formal resignation we inform the family at the middle school it's the chairperson who does it at the high school it's the chairperson who does it and on the elementary school level it may vary it's one of the administrators who will do it it may be the special education AP it may be the other AP or it may be the Principal but they're notified a notice goes out also and I do encourage anyone and who really has someone of a child's not being seen or not receiving that to follow the chain of communication I believe that's true and what I heard in that was people may not be responding quickly enough well we have a commitment to respond within 24 hours even if to say I

097don't have an answer I'll get back to you tomorrow if that's not happening please let us know meaning our program directors let either Laura or Kristen or Scott or myself know that that's not happening because that's what not what our commitment is so we now um knowing that parents didn't want to wait to see who's filled we made sure and we agreed by the way we agree that that was on on us and that we started right away to let our families know if there was a vacancy when they were leaving that we were searching and looking for someone and as soon as someone was found we sent out another notification one went out from the high school this week one went after the middle school last week so those notifications go out promptly so

098I do want to share that we did respond to that we appreciate the feedback and we made sure that there was no delay in that there's not really we don't see it up there have we've added positions you know we've had a position in the high school last year um for both what we did for speech we did for psychologists and for a special education teacher um there'll be more conversation when we meet on Saturday in January also of what's needed so we did add that as well uh I think that's pretty much where where our status was um sometimes when students move from the um Middle School to high school there may be a shift in Personnel also uh so we saw that also we went to 18 teachers from 17 teachers in the

099High School this year so you'll see that as well 80. um thank you uh Shirley thank you so much to you and your team um just make sure that microphone's sorry thank you um thank you all to the team I know that you guys are under a heavy workload um this year and um and the new IEP is is certainly not helping anything so we certainly appreciate you being here um I have a number of questions but to follow up on John's Point um I I appreciate um you taking ownership of the miscommunication that happened before and taking steps to remedy it in terms of when we do have resignations um I I think it's great to see that you understand that the parent Community can be understanding when there are challenges but that they

100do want to feel that they're part of the conversation so I applaud you for making that change um however my interpretation of what John's question actually was and if it wasn't then my actual question is more to the point of what I read in the email we received today from cesp and then again we heard in public comment tonight and that is that parents are not being kept abreast of missed services in a timely manner or or maybe feelings almost not even at all um you know hearing that your child has missed 20 services for the first time um seems like a breakdown in communication and I um I I would Echo the question that was asked tonight about what is an appropriate threshold you know recognizing that we have challenges but is it three

101is it five and and how do we have that conversation so that we we have children who are are keeping abreast of foundational skills and are not coming up with these big gaps and then these bundling of services in the summer which you know might just not even be possible for some families so so that I think is the question first um what is the communication regarding those service logs regarding threshold for missed services so there's not a number although it's usually between three and five if there were a number but there's not enough because there may be a child to receive speech every day you know if they five times um every parent should be informed and we are in agreement we will Chris and I will follow up on the um and I

102don't know if they've spoken with a school um and Luke we will follow on both Oxford and tokenique our understanding is when there is a series of missed sessions there is communication directly with the parent again I don't know who the parent is but I ask them to call us directly uh there's there is if someone's missing 19 sessions and that's because we don't have a provider then there would be a conversation between the administrator and that family of sometimes we use an outside provider sometimes we use a contractor provider that the family uses so I can't speak to that one that that particular family I would ask them to call me directly and I'll be glad to speak with them there are but and there are opportunities which we've done several times because we

103don't have a psychologist of using outside providers also I would really encourage though I don't know if they've spoken to Christian or spoken to me but if they haven't had responses promptly on the school level please let them know that they need to call us directly I appreciate that and I think that the chain of communication is is definitely repeated often my concern actually is that it's not an individual cases and that it that it might be a larger more systemic one because unfortunately I have heard this from other parents as well in the past even in years past that they find out that their student is missing 15 20 services at the end of the school year and they have to make them up in the summer so you know to the to the

104public comment point if if there is not a number of a thresholds I I would suggest that maybe we consider having one and and you know part of the reason for this that's APS at the elementary school was to ensure compliance so that seems like a really good use of time um just mentioning the tokenique I'm curious as to why we have parents saying that that their children are not receiving Services um and that they're surprised to see in the material that there are contracted services is it is it only some students are receiving Psychological Services and some are not so the contract is for the contracted services that we just started it just began a week ago so I don't know when what the timeline is but the person who's coming in to help

105out at tokenique Marion actually just started last week so they may have missed x amount of sessions and they're really um they've been asked to really make sure that Nicole is seeing all the students and that we're using the contracted person for evaluations that's been communicated to those parents I will confirm that thank you Jill have a statement and then a question um I think part of the missing piece that I'm hearing is um that not only do parents probably want to understand that kids have missed their students excuse me have missed sessions but they may need help understanding what is the process to make sure that those are made up and that might be a little bit of the missing link from what I'm hearing um I don't know not involved but but I

106would ask that as we communicate we are not only say so and so is not in but here would be your process we are in agreement um please please don't feel just here we're equally upset at Miss sessions yes okay please know that every speech therapist every psychologist every OT are equally as upset sure they truly are because this is this is um not only upset but they're concerned if they're not able to see their children so we share the same concerns and we also share the same understanding I can't say if the number is three or five but we share the same understanding that every parent should be informed if their child is not seen and every parent should work with whoever is informing them to say here is the plan for the makeups

107yes and if the plan unfortunately is we don't have so much to provide those Services right now right we work together to find out however we probably could manage this and we're probably going to have to on an ongoing basis because with a constricted pipeline you know coming out of schools and and with early retirements this is probably not something that's coming and going so thank you for for understanding I may add one more thing we know that esy waiting to have it at esy is not our choice I mean it's not like up program you can't postpone six months of services right so we share that same frustration which is we reach out to everyone as you said there's 38 people to everyone we know I've told everyone I know in Westchester yes we

108call everyone to say can we have some hours we know that's not best practice and having not having a continuity for services we're equally as upset yeah please know what we can do better at as and we do here if parents aren't informed at how many sessions are missed and what are makeup opportunities are then that is our responsibility and we will move forward at rectifying that okay I actually wanted to switch Keys a little bit and talk about bringing your own device and whether or not I know many of our kids with needs many of them receive devices through the schools others were bringing their own device I wanted to know if the change in the model impacted our um impacted the department in any way no no we're seamless and very positive it

109was seamless amazing I mean we we also maintain different devices sure so no one's some children need two but two devices some students have to use a Chromebook during the day and need an iPad so um they all have their devices Lori has been Vigilant on making sure that all the devices are taken care of okay thank you thank you Julie I'm gonna go backwards a little bit but a difference Ben um I appreciate the the Candor and the discussion around how hard it is to fill some of these positions um and and how widespread that trouble is I guess what I'm wondering is are there ways we're so incredibly lucky that we have these indefatigable I love that word um professionals who are willing to be creative we need to get you a new

110microphone be creative and and work with you all on making things work as as best you can um but that's not sustainable either obviously and we're potentially creating our next departure so to speak um as as people burn out are there any other creative ways we can use resources to support those individuals who are now being overextended are there any other ways to bring in support staff anything else that can take things off their plates so that we don't over stretch those who are so stretched right now I wish I had an answer to that the match I I wish I had answered that I think that what we can do is one recognize all of our our colleagues recognize the the extraordinary work they are doing I think trying to ask families to help

111us understand that if we excuse a psychologist if they're comfortable if it's if that's not imperative to the meeting that we have them report out or ask questions and answer questions and then go back to their opportunities the same with speech therapists and OTs and you know I haven't even broached the subject and Marge is very helpful with this we also have maternity leaves you know we have we have other things that happen at the same time also so when you're asking that question we're thinking maternities we're thinking other things that happen medical leaves many things that happen I don't know you know if I don't know that there's a way to reconcile all of it because because of the Staffing challenges now I think if we can look at our practices as I said

112families have been really Cooperative they're doing evaluations after school that really takes time and gives it back to the school day that's the next word we um we asked Dr Kurtz from Fitch who went over and did evaluations for Laura over at uh um already LP and did that we asked people um one of our Dr Williams from Henley went over and did some high school you know we're finding ways to ask people to share responsibilities and and help out however I don't know other ways to do that other than in concert with families of helping us after school do that um don't want to postpone it to esy we agree I'm doing that but you know looking at opportunities of not services but maybe some evaluations looking at a later time you know seeing

113if we can do postpone that or look at that uh our goal is to get services to students and our goal to your point Katie and to your point Jill is really to make sure that we have a mechanism to make sure parents are informed and we're working better at doing that Sarah thank you um a couple questions I know so you were saying that we are um some of the services are being covered by outside providers whether it's family's own psychologist or whatever is there an additional cost for that and what it what is that cost versus you know if the positions were filled would it be there's an initial cost and yet our positions aren't filled so there's other dollars in the budget that they're not using for what would have been our

114certified staff being there okay um and also although I know it's a different budget lines it's just so you know I know that I don't think I don't know yeah okay um thank you specifically thinking about aim and quote the core program at DHS are you seeing post-covered an additional need for that social and emotional piece or have those numbers risen or are they about are they static the enrollment I'll turn that over to Scuttle so I think the enrollment is is this is similar but it's gone up I mean the enrollment has gone up on the set on at the high school level I believe significantly so or not you usually depends um it's stable Cara a couple questions are we looking to recruit new psychologists like right out of school school psychologist or

115do they not have the qualifications you're looking for so some of right out of school are very good very interesting you know and some we have know that we have interviewed several psychologists that we have not offered a position to because they're not the right match or the right skills but we have been very fortunate getting some psychologists right out of school that are really talented oh okay great um second question not really a question um and not necessarily for now because you probably don't have all the information but in another meeting I would love to know more about the planning and the life course planning and transition and what that really looks like and some more details around and all that be delighted and ditto yes it was a good it's a great question

116there was a great meeting last year that I attended that was very well organized up at the high school and I think an overview of that meeting and then whatever other questions the board thinks please get them over to Shirley because it's a good it's a good question it's a good topic thank you Katie thank you um so and along with that um for the transition planning Beyond DHS um and I understand that I understand the differences but I also would appreciate annual updates on srbi 504 and fetch um and I did I did just want to comment partly to couch some of my follow-up questions um I noticed that on our agenda um it says that we're having an annual special education update but the slide deck actually says that it's a program overview

117and um I wonder if maybe some of these questions can be answered and and going more into an annual update versus a program overview it's wonderful to to be reminded of the Continuum of services but I think a lot of those things are on the website too um and I would love to see some data on outcomes for students that are in the special education Community I would like to see caseloads that are by ours um or even just high and low I think would paint a much better picture a mean is difficult um there what if there's a teacher who has one student right that's driving down a mean significantly um so it would be interesting to know especially as we talk about um the pressures the Staffing shortors that we're under what are

118our teachers really dealing with um classifications Beyond things like Health impairment learning disability IQ how many of our kids have reading and writing goals I think that's a specially topical right now as we're talking about has an entire State looking at what our reading curriculum is um I'd love to see that information what are our numbers of out placements what are referral rates who are they coming from what are our staff certifications um so some of these questions um lead to be specific um you know following up on the questions from my colleagues regarding consultants and overtime how many staff are working overtime right now and and what is that cost I I understand um that it that it comes into different lines and that teachers might be instead of what at a one FTE

119they might be at a 1.2 but our budget is complex and it's hard to find those numbers um so it would be nice to have to have that up front so that we can really get a sense of of where our program is at at what our staff are facing and and and what our students are getting um professional development for general education teachers would be a wonderful thing to hear about how how are students Beyond just you know their sessions with with SATs how are the general education student teachers making sure that students can access their information and identify um I think it's important to note that and I know that you understand this but but partly for the public that are listening and and for our duty as board members to to make

120sure that we are being accountable I think it's important to note that meeting the obligation is by putting coverage in a classroom is not necessarily the same thing as meeting student needs and fulfilling IEPs with consistency and Fidelity and what I'm hearing from parents is not that they don't understand that we're in a challenging time and not that they're not willing to work with the district but that they feel that they don't have the information they need um and when you don't have information about your own child trust or roads so I would like to see us look at that more specifically um and and work on recognizing the difference between coverage and and services um I would will now get to a question um thank you for indulging that um I would like to

121ask about ELP specifically and the dyslexia screening that was implemented and any plans to roll that out to the elementary and and what our current support of students who have been identified as dyslexic is well the first the first um the second part of that question is um uh just to go back to one of your questions Katie was a question but in your statement uh please know this also that all of the um professional development that's done instructional materials and in literacy and Mathematics special education teachers participate alongside general education teachers so all the plan that goes on that's not exclusive to General Ed to go back to our Point initially which is special education is a service our students are general education students in the general education programs they get supplemental and specialized

122so they participate in all the training for all of our instructional materials uh for PD the first part on ELP is we haven't implemented a screener um and Laura can speak to that Laura is still working with Margie Gillis and literacy how um but there isn't a physical screener if you wanted to add to that Laura so in assessing children we look at indicators of early reading which is um you know the sounds and there are some early assessments that may lead you can't identify a three or a four-year-old with dyslexia you can look at characteristics that maybe we need to work on so we're not identifying majority memory for who have not been in kindergarten yet with dyslexia we're just looking at use the good word indicators of or characteristics of early learning and

123so a lot of the work we've been doing is around sounds and sound development and using the ear to listen and change and play with words and and that has been mostly the focus on that but we do have some children that are four and a half going into kindergarten and families are worried about maybe they have a family history but we're just looking at early indicators and pulling out those kinds if we are not using um a marketed early screener at this point in time thanks thank you any other board questions or comments if I can just clarify on that sure go ahead so so my question was actually um on on what plans there might be to roll it out at the elementary school um level I I understand that three and four-year-olds

124are at a very different reading level but our elementary school students are five six seven eight all the way up to 12. um and those students are reading so so that was my question actually was not about how are you supporting dyslexic ELP students or identifying them but what are our plans to to screen and try to look for dyslexia in our elementary school and then when someone in elementary school is identified as being dyslexic how do we specifically support them from a reading and writing curriculum perhaps the best way to respond to that is all of our reading programs there's not a dyslexic screener that we're using but in general education the classrooms whether it's Foundation or hegarty they're looking for sound symbol and phonology morphology so the instructional materials that they're using are

125identifying how students are responding to those areas of literacy when students don't respond to it efficiently or demonstrate skills that are supposed to happen at different benchmarks they are offered srbi and srbi works on specific areas of that phonology with students and they have the different tiered levels in srbi when their kids are not responsive to srbi then a formal evaluation is done and we use the instruments and the evaluations we use to determine if children are dyslexia or have dyslexic behaviors we use standardized instruments such as the c-top such as a lesions such as a woodcock reading Mastery to look at reading skills and development so the tier would be to a question Katie looking at our materials and and scientifically research methodologies we use in General Ed looking at our srbi and then

126looking at referral for evaluation but there is not a universal screener that we're using thank you Mrs Klein Joe I wanted to talk about the elementary school the two newish initiatives um the co-teaching and the assistant principals and for each I'd like to know well particularly for the co-teaching are we staying with literacy what what was kind of the plan there and then for the assistant principles or for both programs sort of what have been the challenges lessons learns opportunities just a little bit of a I could this is very factual I'd like to note some other color around it please uh for the color rounded for we are studying with Literacy for grade five and we're not going to bring it in grade four we looked at our cohort of students so we will

127be moving um our incoming fifth grade as we're going to stay with our program in in literacy in grade five for our APS as as we shared earlier this has been a lot of attention on Connecticut sets we're hoping to free up some time because the notion was when we looked for our assistant principles to really do SDI instruction classrooms for both General and special education teachers and they're looking forward to doing that so we're hoping we'll return to time so they can access that and have that opportunity okay as coaches so next year I would love to hear about some of the SDI that we actually do accomplish okay I hope we came thank you any other board questions or comments Dr Radley yeah well it's sort of State in the office of being

128uh communicated by Charlie and uh a team here tonight but particularly uh everybody on the grind they've just they've been doing phenomenal work on as hard as we possibly can uh I I command them on the shift and the chains to new saves that's been another burden um but but uh I know it's it's sort of shallow in some ways but we really appreciate all of your efforts for the staff and I know the board has expressed as I mentioned vacuum so surely in March I would ask Marge is there anything you know there's the the openings across kind of the marketplace is there anything that you need or that we can help you with to recruit recruit these folks to the district no no you've given us give me a great recruiting budget just

129to answer the psychologist questions we've been in contact with all of the Preparatory institutions in the surrounding areas they're just not graduating anyone so we'll keep it up and there'll be job fairs in the spring okay I would ask that um you know as you do keep us informed and then I you know I would ask as we go into the budget season uh let's be creative but let's focus on like ask what you feel you need and I would you know I would honestly you know when it comes to these services and special ed and delivering these service to your to our children you know let's think about capacity and let's think about um having the capacity to expand too I mean I I it's tough to say but we'll we'll figure it out

130we're a well-funded district but how do we get ahead of the game um in terms of hiring all right it's it's great we talk about case loads and all that type of stuff um we're not the professionals but you know I'd rather you know have the tough budget conversations and talk about dollars and cents and be ahead of the game um so that we have the folks in place to deliver the services then constantly playing catch-up and I know it's an incredible challenge with the marketplace and and just the folks that are out there and available to come to the district and you do an incredible job of screening and bringing the right people to the district but you know whatever we can do to get ahead of the game I'd rather you come to

131us and say these are the people we need to hire we'll figure out the dollars and cents behind the scenes one of the best recruiting tools that we have is the stability of the school district there are districts where people live in fear every year that their job's going to be cut we tell them that that doesn't happen here so I appreciate that no I appreciate that comment but thank you good joke in an offline conversation surely you were talking about what you think is really Effective Teacher Appreciation would you be willing to share that here that if we have parents or anybody who wants to say thank you to staff members what was your recommendation a handwritten note a handwritten note an old-fashioned a handwritten note is probably something that teachers really appreciate um

132if not it can be electronic also but there's something about a handwritten note that really knows that you took the time you sat down and you just said thank you I know this is a difficult time we'll take electronic emails also but if you could do the handwritten notes that works I'm gonna just show both sides of the story because the handwritten note is really nice but an email with a copy to the HR Director it goes in their personnel file so that means good to know people feel thanks for expanding upon last week thank you and if not we'll Zero thanks for the question Jill thank you great um we'll move on to further discussion and possible actually propose new courses for the Darien High School another 2023-2024 school year uh Dr tranberg and

133Mrs Dunn and Rich rudel will get a new microphone for Shirley before the next meeting we did have a discussion at curriculum committee last week and address thank you uh thank you team for sticking around this evening and participating much appreciated sorry we did have a discussion on curriculum committee last week there have been no other questions since our last okay great you guys have school tomorrow so by by all means yeah you're shroud um you guys dictate your own schedule we so appreciate you being here but understand the long days that you have um so any further discussion on the proposed courses for the Darien High School all right um may have a motion to approve the proposed new courses for the Darien High School for the 2023-2024 school year as presented uh Terror

134worm second by Julie all those in favor and is unanimous with John out making a visit all right thank you um we'll move on to any uh conversation about Personnel Marge any updates uh nope we managed to find a science teacher which is pretty amazing and we're able to promote one of our longtime part-time custodians to a full-time position oh great oh good thank you for that update good um we will move on to action items we will move on to a motion to request a policy committee to review and develop a policy regarding challenging instructional materials I know uh Sarah parent you gave us a quick update on this from the curriculum committee and Dr adley uh if you'd like to expand upon that thanks so I mean I think we all know over

135the past few years we've experienced instances where there were materials used in our classrooms that were questioned by parents or members our community and um and up until now and they've been they've been dealt with on a case-by-case basis and we've um you know told those community members to go up the chain and communication and which some have um but I think that the lack of current formal process has led to some communication issues and a lack of understanding on both sides of both Administration and teachers as well as the people making the challenges of what to expect in that process so um I think something coming out of this most recent uh instance where we could we're still receiving emotional public comment on on all sides um having a more formalized efficient streamlined process

136delineated within our policies um would be very helpful and I think the curriculum committee agrees that this is the right way to do this so we can discuss any now further if you would like but the recommendation of the curriculum committee is to move it over to policy to start crafting And discussing this idea great thank you it was a good conversation at the curriculum committee I know uh a policy was forwarded to me by another District which I forwarded to the administration I know there was conversation about what that policy looks like and who's involved in it so and I know Dr tranberg was part of that conversation also so appreciate the conversation around that I think it's it's a good outcome of the curriculum committee and a good outcome of listening to folks

137uh parents uh in feedback so Dr adley anything you want to add no I think it's a I think it's a good idea it's always better to have the policy as opposed to uh being reactive to a lack of lack of procedures and so on and I'll clarify but in all likelihood apology to come out that will allow any individual to uh review the material or ask for review challenge material but but that remains to be determined by the policy committee and I think another point that we talked about um that we thought a lot of people have talked about is the amount of time and resources that have been recently devoted to this topic so if there were a more formalized process but hopefully the drain on the resources and the amount of time

138will be significantly decreased good point thank you sir all right we have a motion to request a policy committee review and develop a policy regarding challenging instructional materials sure sorry Dave yes um I do appreciate what we have in front of us right now and I totally agree with everything Sarah and Dr adley just said the only point I would raise right now before we take a vote is I think the scoping is fine and this is work that we definitely need to do and I'm glad that we're going to kick this down a policy to do the work I do think however we should perhaps look a little broader scope and if we're going to do a deep dive into this and what the policies are in this particular issue we should probably start

139doing the work uh across just policies in general and I would rather not have a two-step process and I'm not saying that we forced all coming to a resolution putting a policy forward but I think this needs to be a broader work and since this board will challenge or excuse me charge the policy committee with the work they're going to do I think broader scope is appropriate to move forward I'm not sure I understand what rotter scope is so I think we really need to look at what the policies are that are followed by the administration's curriculum committee across the board and that's based in the conversation we had in the curriculum committee um with you know Dr tramberg explaining that we have professionals and they know how to do this work and so they

140just do it by nature of their training I think that leaves a little bit of a gap for us for a board from Administration or from the overview perspective be able to see what they're doing because we have nothing to Benchmark against we just have this professional standard which I don't at all question their capabilities are training I do from a governance perspective wonder how we're actually going to be able to track that Gap so I think we do need to look at if there aren't policies and it's you know wide open based on training experience I think we do need to have some formalized guidelines in place for our governance purposes and so while I think while we start working on this specific request we also need to start looking at the scope of

141how this process is handled by the Admin curriculum committee in general they make sure they're doing and following the work based on the delegation we give them which is test Us by Statute can I suggest that tonight's job is to send this particular aspect of the policy to you but as you're going through policy I would imagine policy committee is going to touch on Sample policies that are more expansive in terms of what happens with curriculum that the expectation would be that it's likely that you will end up looking at other components of it as a part of your natural work I think but but explicitly the board wants this policy developed without question I hear what you're saying I don't disagree however if we certainly in other policies do we just stop work as

142though that may be forbidden like it should look that far you know how do you control it that's why I think having a broader scope to operate in it but I think it's a bit I I don't disagree with what you're saying Dave I just think we need to separate what I think we need to do based on current feedback in the process we just went through around material instructional material I think it would be good for the policy group to take that up but I think I hear what you're saying and having participated in the the curriculum committee I think that's my view it's almost a project to look at the policies around curriculum and if that is a focus we want the policy committee to take on then I think we have that

143we have that conversation but I do and I do think that's a that's a big broad project and I think we have to balance with the resources of the administration to do that work and it almost becomes a project and we would have to understand a timeline so I'll pause there and I'll go over to Julie real quick thank you um I was just going to add I agree I think I I think what's in front of us is to to send the specific specific item to the policy committee but once the policy committee convenes and starts doing their work it's very possible that the policy committee will want to come back to the board and say in doing our work we believe that we should expand the scope of what we're working on and

144and and do it that way um but until we've started to discuss it at a policy level I don't I don't think we're in the right space to redefine the scope of what kind of policy we're creating anything to add John which he said she said you know that's exactly what it was so so let me I think they're gonna find stuff and then just come back and say this is right we kind of found this and we want to dig a Little Deeper I guess my question today's point would be does this start more at the curriculum committee meeting or does it start at the policy I sort of talked about it on Thursday so we when we looked at other policies from other districts there are some that have this process embedded in

145their 6610 the curriculum resources there are some that have a separate there are some that have it as an administrative regulations so it's it's it's kind of a chicken or an egg like it's a curriculum discussion it's also a policy discussion I think in my opinion we keep the motion as it is go forward to policy start talking about it and and see what happens if you want in the same anyway pardon aren't the members one of the same maybe at some point we'll have a very special limited folks that could participate in the subcommittees so does that make sense today for right now well no again I just think we'll do a little bit of a round around but that seems to be the consensus we have here okay I appreciate it it's a

146good point Dave the big table thank you so uh all those in favor of the motion to request the policy committee to remove and develop policy regarding China we have a motion we do we did we had questions so all in favor wait we didn't have a motion because I have done a second date which is not true so if somebody made somebody make a motion please so Julie will make a motion to request policy committee review and develop a policy regarding challenging instruction materials second by Jill all those in favor great thank you we move that forward and I think Dave brought a good topic to the table that I think should have further conversation at the policy of the curriculum committee meeting and kind of Define Act all right good thank you all

147we will move back um Michelle I see we still have people on Zoom we'll start out back with public comment with folks in the audience thank you very much for continuing to bear with us the long important agenda but we'll go to public comment Michelle do you want to kick that off absolutely good evening you'll have up to three minutes to comment please state your name and address for the record um my name is rosheen beccarelli I'm from 29 Bailey Avenue um and as we're talking about the policies and procedures that I we agree with we're glad that you're doing it takes a long time and while that's going on in situations like we've had the human beings the teachers the human beings that are sort of at the center of these things we can

148empathize with how jarring and terrifying and just exhausting it is so my husband was here he had to leave but we were here tonight to um give our sincerest thanks to our teachers and our principals and staff and we hope that they hear it a lot from us as you said surely we we write the handwritten notes we tell them as much as we can but it's also important to have an opportunity to say it here at the Board of Education as a public reminder that they are our greatest resource in sustaining our outstanding school system so we just wanted to say to our teachers we know that every family has their own journey through their school years and we have continually been so grateful for health everyone at our school we're at Royal has

149made us feel on ours we also know that our school is a very very special place the Deep expertise humanity conscientiousness and energy that emanates from each of you day in and day out has solidified a level of trust and confidence that has become a gift to us as parents from our teacher who welcomed us into school with our first Little Nugget through everyone we have worked with there since you have made it feel like a partnership between our family and all of you and we've absolutely seen the benefit that has yielded for our kids you've always welcomed our Insight questions and suggestions as we humbly keep learning how much we don't even know and you have seemingly never run out of options ideas stamina Grace or humor thank God and you have never let

150us down so we just want you to know we are always here for you too thank you to everyone at our school for wanting the same outcomes for our kids as we do thank you for honoring the trust we've placed in you thank you for trusting us as well it does take a village and you have all been a massive part of ours we see you we're so thankful for you and we wish you all a warm and wonderful holiday season with your families thank you thanks for speaking this evening sure anyone else in person everybody and thanks my name is Michael Cantwell I'm at six East Trail I have two kids in Darien schools one at tokenique and one at MMS both girls um this is our third year I've had the opportunity to

151meet a pretty good handful of teachers and uh staff and three of our principals and uh to a person they've all been warm and welcoming and wonderful and have really gone out of their way to make us feel part of schools in the community um the the level of respect in the community for one another and the level of discourse that's here is I think better than I see in other places I've got some experience in other places that I could uh share with anyone offline um I just wanted to share very quickly in light of what we just spoke about what's going on with the curriculum committee that's very encouraging news but I did want to just say I feel like there's a level of misunderstanding that people don't really understand why a parent

152or how a parent could get upset and I just want to try to articulate one one thing just to help people to understand that people aren't crazy for reacting with a lot of energy when something happens in school um I'm pretty sensitive to gender stereotypes I have two kids two girls and anything that would limit their vision of what they might do in the future is upsetting to me my daughter used to play football with the boys if someone said to my daughter when she was six or seven you might be a boy trapped in a girl's body I would react very badly to that and I don't think I'm the only parent who would have a strong reaction to that statement I'm not saying that happened I'm saying it happens sometimes in a conversation

153about a sensitive topic when parents know nothing about what's going on in school and are broadsided and some a kid comes home and says boys can be girls and girls can be boys and the kid is six or seven years old it's very upsetting okay personally like I said my experience with school has been wonderful I have nothing but gratitude and especially for the people who are who volunteer their time to be here and do this hard work deep gratitude again I just wanted to try to help everyone understand it this is not crazy people overreacting to a Mermaid book okay if a boy dresses as a mermaid that doesn't mean he should be a girl when he grows up I hope that's not a controversial statement right when parents don't get all the information

154and they hear things like this it gets them worked up you're right you're at time thanks very much thank you for speaking I know it's late um I'll be great um Armel Jacobs 12 pitch thank you for the opportunity to speak um I know it's late um the Darian heartbeat initiative is a simple initiative providing a way for parents and students to show their gratitude for anyone who is employed by the district um just a very basic template of a heart was disseminated by a few parents just on our own private networks with the hope that people would spread it as far and as wide as it could go and it's for anyone who just wants a simple way to show gratitude um we hope to we've got we got a lot of them and

155they're beautiful and then so amazing and handwritten um and we really hope to display them in the schools so the teachers and the staff can see it themselves it has no it has no political affiliation um if you have a great heart you can make a grateful heart and share it with our community this year that's really all there is to it and I think if you're looking at something like this and you're feeling defensive or accused of being crazy or anti-teacher you're really speaking to your own feelings I mean it's it's it's a certain Carly Simon song comes to mind okay like you know this you probably think this song is about you it's it's not about you okay this is a song for teachers it is a song for uh administrators and staff

156and lunch ladies and security dudes and security ladies it's really just a song of gratitude um so if you have a grateful heart and you want to make a grateful heart I'm sure you can just ask um maybe the PTO rep or a room mom and uh I'm sure someone can rustle one up so thank you very much I'm grateful for uh the time that all of you put in uh making our district a safe happy place for kids thanks thank you thanks for speaking this evening anyone else in person we'll switch over to zoom Michelle if anyone in Zoom would like to participate in public comment please use the raised hand option I'll give them a little bit of time oh miss Carolina magooie you are unmuted and recognized hi everyone uh just two

157seconds to say the same thing very appreciative of everyone's effort everyone's work from our custodians to every other Administration all our teachers our helpers our volunteers all of you sitting there until uh 1010 and now you know I know you're going to Executive sessions so who knows until when so happy holidays thank you so much for your work Trisha Cooney you are unmuted and recognized oh you're still muted Miss Cooney oh there you are hi um go ahead okay thanks um Trisha bresnahan 11 glenvale Avenue and um I'm speaking for CPAC tonight and um I wanted to say that we're also hearing from parents who are um having um their kids are missing some services and that their case managers seem to have more students than usual this year and while maybe um they're there

158we feel like maybe the caseloads are a little bit too large especially at the high school for the kids to get meaningful instruction and case management and um regarding the professional development we'd love to hear more about the co-taught professional development we know that the um for cotton and inclusion we know that the the district's expert is sort of at a commission now more hope she's feeling better and maybe until then there could be another expert brought in to um also help with the a peer co-teaching that that would be a nice addition until we can get the expert back on that and um for Margie Gillis with literacy how um it would be great if she could also work in the elementary school um like um Katie was saying earlier her I think her

159experts we think her expertise would be great for that um that also the kids in elementary school and we everyone knows how wonderful she is so that's a known and it would be great to use her even more with the budget coming up could add her and um the other the things where we were also wondering about the same that other people were on oh no one other the project progress monitoring what's going on with that is that just due to the new IEPs or is there more training involved teachers getting more training and progress monitoring and for the 18 to 21 year olds the life course planning we'd like to uh hear more about that thanks so much thanks for speaking this evening Lynn andrin you are unmuted and recognized hi good evening this

160is Lynn Andrew 13 Parsons walk um thank you to the board and the administration for all your efforts and for the opportunity to speak um given the current constraints and the DHS Excel program due to that increased number of students using the room the larger case loads and consequently extra demands placed on the case managers teachers and support staff we strongly encourage the members of the Board of Education and our Administration to monitor assess and adjust where necessary the current current caseloads the setting and the instructional models being used within the program to ensure that the staff is supported adequately and services are being rendered in accordance with the student IEPs and just on a note with regards to the topic of communication I know it's been said that communication truly does make things run

161smoothly communication makes people feel supported safe and confident and has the potential to even Spur new ideas and build upon best practices so thank you have a good evening I know it's late thanks for speaking this evening there are no more raised hands at this time okay good thank you um I have a motion to adjourn to Executive session yes there's Terror worms may have a motion to adjourn to Executive session discuss the mid-year performance of the superintendent of schools pursuant to Connecticut General statutes one two hundred six a terror worm second by Julie all those in favor not Mr brown unanimous