001we are now recording and we are now live okay sir whenever you're ready thank you good evening everyone thank you for joining us i apologize for the delay some technical difficulties as we've moved from our normal district boardroom to the high school i'm excited to be here um with our superintendent award recipients and their families and we also just finished a quick not a quick but a beautiful retirement um celebration so i would like to call this special meeting of the board of education to order the next regular board of education meeting is on tuesday june 28th at 7 30 pm in the board of education meeting room before i turn it over to dr adley i just just excuse me i did just want to say a big congratulations some folks might have stayed
002but as you were all coming into the room we were celebrating the retirees of 10 of our staff and faculty and admin folks throughout our district um that combined had over 200 years of service to the district there were a couple of folks that were retiring after 30 32 33 and 38 years so i think it speaks volumes to the passion and dedication of these teachers uh these facilitators these admins um and and staff in general to their dedication to the school system and to our students so while some of them may still be here i just like a round of applause for all our retirees to our staff who spoke so eloquently these are big complex schools with lots of people but the staff spoke so eloquently about each of their teammates that is
003retiring and it's just a credit to the family and the community values that are in each of our schools so thank you to the beautiful words to each of those retirees dr adley with that i will turn it over to you we are very excited to be here this evening for the superintendent's award recipients uh good evening and thank you congratulations to the recipients distinguished students here with us this evening and to a special welcome to our parents and family members who are joining just because for our configuration i'm just going to come down to this podium excuse me the superintendent's award is given annually and it's given to students who exhibit the district mission statement of exhibiting the love of learning as problem solvers innovative thinkers and also as compassionate contributors uh to the
004community and greater community and it's with that that we're here this evening to recognize the accomplishments of each of the grade levels at each of the schools and two seniors this evening and they also embody and represent many many other students in our school system but these are the best of the best and we congratulate them this evening and we thank you for sharing and the celebration and if you want to when your son or daughter is coming up you're more than welcome to come up and take a quick photograph so feel free to do that and with that i will lead off with the henley school and carrie snowden is the principal of pinley and he's going to introduce the recipient i would like to ask margaret buchanan ward to join me up here
005at the podium there you go henley school's 2022 superintendent's award is margaret buchanan ward margaret is the third of three ward sisters to earn this honor it is no surprise that she credits her family for teaching her that thoughtfulness and kindness are the most important qualities in a person this lesson has been has very much benefited hindley school where margaret's teachers describe her as respectful compassionate genuine considerate honest brave and loving in addition margaret takes her schoolwork seriously she is dedicated enthusiastic and tenacious she works hard to learn and to contribute to the learning of her peers in comments about margaret receiving this award a theme emerged over and over the adults at the henley community referred to margaret as caring whether she is at home with her family at school with her peers or
006at her church with her community margaret shows how much she cares here are some of their words margaret has always been the first person to jump up and help a friend she is a person who sees the good in people in situations and comes to school each day being the best version of herself she stands out as one of the most compassionate kind and inclusive students i have ever met margaret makes an effort to get to know everyone she talks to even adults she will ask thoughtful questions and wait for a response showing that she actually cares she continuously clears a path for herself and others she rises above pettiness and adversity she is a confident polite and trustworthy person she looks out for and cares for others in a way that not many other
007students can do margaret is always quick to say hello quick to share a smile with all and quick to include others we are very proud to have margaret buchanan ward represent hindley school as this year's superintendent's award recipient good evening i'm paula blakely i'm the principal at home school and it is my pleasure to announce that ava morley has been selected by her peers and the staff at home school for this award during her six years at holmes ava has gained the respect and admiration of our school community and she was selected for this award as she demonstrates a true passion for learning strong critical and creative thinking skills notable integrity and a drive to help others both at school and at home ava regularly demonstrates a true love of learning each and every day
008whatever the content may be ava immerses herself fully not because she's focused on getting a good grade or receiving some type of recognition but because she's curious and wants to deepen her understanding of the world around her as she noted in her essay for staff when i wake up before i go to bed or before dinner you can usually find me reading a book i really enjoy absorbing the information that it contains our staff have noticed that in addition to learning for her own sake ava also loves to share what she learns and often engages her friends in wonderful conversations or debates about a variety of topics and ideas beyond simply acquiring knowledge ava is also a critical thinker and creative problem solver who applies what she knows to make connections explain different phenomena and
009draw conclusions as she absorbs her surroundings she finds inspiration all around her whether through creative writing developing an argument for a debate or building wonderful structures out of found materials ava loves to find ways to apply her knowledge and let her imagination soar ava contributes to the world with integrity and purpose beyond herself she is an empathetic and selfless community member someone who is dependable and concerned for the well-being of others she truly embodies our homeschool promise she's safe respectful responsible kind and positive her strong moral principles guide her to do the right thing ava goes out of her way to take care of others and to make the world a better place to quote her essay once again ava wrote i often spend time with the children in my neighborhood i hang out with
010them so they won't be alone and talk to them when they are having a bad day i help them like a sister would ava truly embodies the idea that kindness curiosity honesty hard work and taking care of others are critical to being a good person it is for these reasons that her peers and the homeschool staff have selected her as this year's recipient of the superintendent's award congratulations to ava her parents lynn and steve and her brothers hunter and jack [Applause] okay congratulations to reed sedlock for being selected as this year's superintendent award recipient from oxford school reed was assuredly selected by his peers our faculty and staff for consistently exhibiting the qualities of creative thinking a true love of learning and most importantly character and kindness reid is thoroughly respected by his classmates and
011teachers he's known to be a great collaborator with his classmates and a consistent help to all reid started his educational experience in kindergarten at oxford oxford and described it as a second home in his remarks to our faculty and staff he took time specifically to name the teachers and staff who helped him achieve push him grow pushed him to grow and feel confident his ability to continue to take risks and learn reed is a truly well-rounded young man he's an excellent student athlete compassionate community member who's participated and led a variety of pro-social environmentally conscious causes read along with his friends and family for organized efforts to stamp out hunger in the community care for animals in need and rally for racial justice just to name a few on a personal note i've had the
012exceptional fortune of being part of the amazing steadlock boys reed charlie tay uh in their educational journey over the years and reed's recognition as award recipient tonight justly caps the sedlock family legacy of excellence oxford congratulations to you the entire school community recognizes just how reed's gifts have been lovingly nurtured by his incredible parents diane and greg who are here this evening they've been a powerful guiding force that has aptly challenged me to grow in his personal abilities within the spirit of service to others thank you for the opportunity to recognize rude this evening he now joins the proud lineage of previous superintendent award recipients and will no doubt continue to offer his gifts to the middle school and beyond congratulations reed tonight i am so happy to have the opportunity to speak about royals
013student council president and superintendent award recipient will moore will is an extraordinary kid in many ways he's incredibly bright hard-working and determined in his schoolwork however while those are all great things just saying those things doesn't really explain why will is so extraordinary when i asked her about him will's fifth grade teacher mrs swift who's here said will is someone his friends and teachers can always count on he is someone who will do the right thing even when no one is watching he's someone who will treat others with respect and dignity while listening to their feelings and concerns without judgment he is someone whose enthusiasm for learning is limitless and these traits are at the core of who will is and why we are so proud of him at royal our student nominees each make
014a video for the staff explaining why they believe they deserve this award after being nominated by their peers instead of talking about his personal qualities which are many will instead chose to speak about what he learned from each of his teachers during his time at royal the values of royal school from mrs keating in first grade the importance of kindness and friendship from miss haines in second grade problem solving and resilience from mrs dragada in third grade the value of community from mrs betty in fourth grade and leadership skills from mrs swift in fifth grade will i can say with confidence that you embody each of these lessons and values that you learned from your teachers at royal school you are truly one of a kind and i could not be more proud than to
015present you as royal superintendent award recipient this year congratulations [Applause] peace good evening members of the board and dr adley um tokenique school is excited to introduce our superintendent's award recipient jacques clarion he is a value member value valuable member of our school community and the embodiment of the district's mission jock is a dedicated student citizen and soccer player he's a lifelong learner who uses the lessons he has learned from the soccer pitch to guide his decisions and actions off the field he has been part of the student council since the third grade where he started a series of student-led staff interviews to help other students learn more about the staff from the building recently jacques was chosen as the captain of our safety squad jacques goes out of his way to befriend students at
016recess who are alone he works hard every day to model expected behaviors in class and makes himself available to help other students when they need it whether that be academically or socially jack the entire tokeny community is so proud of who you have become and we look forward to what the future holds for you congratulations on receiving this award okay good evening i'm tom mcmourin the interim principal at middlesex middle school interim is not a good enough term it has been for me a wonderful six weeks a joyous time to be with you and your students i have the great delight and privilege to introduce you to caroline hendrickson uh who is and and the stories we've heard so far taking the next step from elementary through middle school and exemplifying the qualities that the
017superintendent award seeks carolyn if i might have just one moment in my previous work i was the superintendent in easton reading in region nine and we worked with our middle school leadership teams to define the vision we had of our ideal student and my principals came very excited one day and said we found a concept that we think exemplifies what we're looking for at helen keller middle school in easton it's an african term called ubantu and what it means is i am because we are i prosper because we as a community prosper where i grow we grow all together and for all the work we did on that gee if i had only had you here to be the exemplar of that work this is a fine scholar her teachers say of her she learns
018for the love of learning and the grades come with it uh we know that you and your family that your deep ethical commitment to the well-being of others flows from your first and best teachers your parents and you bring to the school a commitment to see all kids flourish as you do members of the board i'd like to say here is the best of the class of 2026 but i know caroline will say one of the best i am because we are she's a member of our diversity equity and inclusion project and in the six weeks we've overlapped we've met multiple times with her drive being how can i be a better member of this community and i'd say i don't know how you could be a better one we want you to be a
019very public one and mrs dunn we're sending you many fine students and this scholar next to me exemplifies the best of what we have to offer i take great pleasure and pride in being able to say to you here is caroline hendrickson [Applause] time so that i just told someone in the front to say gosh all that and she's a beauty too yeah good evening and may i have tripp lyons and lexi dansker to come forward please should we let ladies go first lexi dansker is an incredibly compassionate outgoing intelligent and mature young woman she is a natural leader both in and out of the classroom and she possesses a keen awareness of the needs of others that is rare among her peers lexi is committed to her school community and gives of herself in
020every endeavor with a smile that lightens up the room lexi is unwavering when she sets a goal for herself she works tenaciously for what she wants to accomplish and fiercely defends what she believes in lexi is a leader who is dedicated to creating a school climate in which all students share a sense of belonging she is president and founder of the perfectly imperfect club which challenges the ideals of perfection that often diminish confidence and self-esteem she is unstoppable force for good and she earns the love and respect of her peers and teachers as a result of this generous spirit lexi is the quintessential quintessential teammate on the track and cross-country teams she is a committed and inquisitive student in the classroom and her heart touches all with whom she comes into contact lexi has been
021recognized for this award by her school community because of who she is and who she is destined to become we are so proud of you lexi and tulane university will surely be a better place because of your contributions [Applause] okay tripp lyons is an extraordinary young person whose resilience intelligence and positive outlook light the way for others nothing stands in trip's way and he does not allow any barrier to limit his experiences he is a steadfast voice when he sees injustice and has an abounding compassion for others he is a fierce and loyal friend and this has earned him rock star status faculty and peers alike admire his strength his tenacity his humor and his innate curiosity he follows his interests with passion and can be found leading model un as president or being recognized
022as best delegate at the yale model congress convention trip has managed our basketball and baseball teams and embodies blue wave super fandom he has been known to express strong opinions about a refs decision and has on occasion turned this principle's attention to change.org sports politics and international relations inspire his imagination and he delights in the analysis debate and connection they provide in his classrooms with teachers and classmates trip is truly beloved at dhs and if i had to describe the most important reason for this admiration it is because he takes such great joy in the happiness of others it is a rare trait trip and it is a gift you give freely you will be missed in the halls and the classrooms on the diamond and on the courts of dhs how fortunate fairfield university
023is to count you among the class of 2026. congratulations we are so proud of you [Applause] so we're at the high school we're going to take advantage of just for one more photograph if i could ask the recipients give your certificate to your mom your dad or your someone beside you and come up and they'll take a class photo and if someone would take a photograph for me i would appreciate it what's up um well thank you thank you all uh congratulations again um a phenomenal group of young folks um makes me excited to see some of the future leaders of the world and those folks that are gonna also volunteer in community service and maybe sit up here on the board of ed one day so congratulations to all of you um we welcome
024you to stay for a board of ed meeting um and i believe there's also still some food and beverages outside so thank you food usually clears a room right i also wish you all a peaceful restful summer with family and friends and thank you for for a great school year thank you all we'll move on to the chairperson's report um i'll be brief um i want to thank john and olivia john is staying which we're excited about for another year but olivia punished thank you so much for your contribution and for being one of the two first student representatives on the board of ed very exciting [Music] [Applause] congratulations i am not not sure of your schedule we do have one more board meeting if you're available would love to see you but i wanted
025to say thank you um you're off to the university of richmond so much luck and success and also congratulate you i had the pleasure of seeing olivia last friday at the ywca uh women and young people of distinction award ceremony and she was one of the winners uh so congratulations on that you represent darian and the and the darien high school community so well congratulations and thank you thank you i wanna you know while people are listening we move into a busy week with stepping up ceremonies and graduation and all kind of activities so thank you for a lot of challenges during the year that we all worked through it's exciting to come to this time of year it's sad but exciting to celebrate retirements it's so exciting to celebrate awards and those recipients of
026the rewards for all the hard work they've done it really shows what a true community school system we have from the elementary schools on up to middlesex and the high school we all should continue to be proud of the staff the teachers the parents and the students for all the hard way hard work they do in the classroom on this theater stage like they did this evening outside from a music and a chorus standpoint in our athletics and all the clubs that support our students we truly do have an incredible group of students uh in our school system and thanks to the parents behind them i love the i love the phrase that someone this evening first and best of our teachers are your parents but then the hard work and dedication and years of
027service that our teachers put in and our administrators to teaching and educating our children so thank you for all of that and i wish everyone a happy restful and and family-filled summer i know uh summer used to be some down time when i was a kid but i think it's gotten busier than ever with summertime but please get some time to enjoy some downtime also i know on the agenda we have a security update i want to thank folks that have reached out to board members to talk about security and their concerns their ideas and their thoughts we welcome those continue to provide those we did go into executive session at a special meeting and did kind of an annual discussion which we always do with the chief of police our schools are safe we
028spend a lot of time and we do a lot of investment in our schools around security it is an ongoing dialogue we work in a great partnership with the police department here in darien and while we can never get into the specifics around security in my eight years on the board it is a continued daily focus the superintendents before dr adelie and board members before the current board that sits here have always focused on security what our needs are what our investments are and our priority is to keep our children and our staff safe on a regular basis we can never get into the specifics of it because of the challenging times and challenging people that are out there sometimes but over the summer we'll continue to work on security to see what the needs
029are what the investment is and then talking to other town officials from our first selectmen to our head of board of finance and our chief of police we are prepared and ready to do whatever we need to do to continue to stay focused on the investment of our on the investment in security for the safety of our schools so we'll hear more uh from dr adelie's report as we go forward so with that michelle um i will turn it over to public comment good evening for participants in person please wait for the chairperson to acknowledge and call each participant to the microphone for participants via zoom please click the raised hand option for all participants please state your name and address for the record log each participant will have up to three minutes to comment
030okay michelle i will do our usual we will turn it over to those folks that are in the audience so if you want to speak please come up to the podium and your name and your address thank you jake dansker 11 hope drive on april 23 police officers knocked at my door at 1 28 am informing me that my triplet brother took his life my best friend who i shared all my childhood memories with we first walked together first talked together first played together even shared a wound together and he was gone in an instant my life that i had worked so hard to create was instantly stripped from me shattered to pieces and replaced with pain pains so severe that i didn't want to wake up each morning it hurts knowing that most of
031the dhs community now must endure what i went through it hurts to know that at a moment's notice these students lives are stripped from them and forever changed it hurts to know that some kids at the school are in so much pain that they turn to the only method they know as a means of escape and it hurts to know that the classes of 2022 2023 and 2024 have all been affected by suicide within the past year i find it interesting that young people die in surrounding towns too but from different circumstances there's gang balance stamford stabbings in fairfield and of course the tragedy that happened to teddy balkan in new canaan but from daryan three high school students have taken their own lives within 13 months two within six weeks deran is a high
032achieving town there's a reason we're constantly ranked as one of the best schools in the state but there's been a culture in darien where students push their limits year after year although this culture is great and causes students to excel in and outside the classroom it clearly has been demonstrated that it causes detrimental effects to the mental health of our students my generation is the first to grow up in this instant gratification society a post or like on social media text my friend or scroll through tiktok sends a dopamine rush to the brain like a drug we are now instantly rewarded from our actions online which if anything has been increased by the cobin 19 pandemic being locked away at home caused both teens to find their gratification and happiness through social media and the
033internet causing students to become addicted to a constant flow of dopamine to the brain excluding the recent tragedies in the town students have been going through a difficult time when depression hits these students that same rush of dopamine doesn't feel the same and students lack the coping mechanisms to deal with it of course there's resources of help at the high school but due to the heavy stigma therapy is seen as the last option especially for young men so instead students turn the only instant fix that they know a social change needs to occur in this town students need to understand that it is okay to not be okay and that it is not cowardly but brave to ask for help and the only way to spark this change is by implementing curriculum directly into the
034schools suicide destroys not only the lives of those who have passed but the lives of everyone surrounding them we need to protect our students and cannot let more kids suffer through the pain that comes from its aftermath thank you jake thank you for speaking this evening patrick jeffers five mayflower road earlier this year our school was still struggling with coven 19. we were in an in and out of online learning and school was tough for a lot of kids a lot of things were going on and personally i was not in a good place i was constantly feeling i was like i wasn't enough and i was overwhelmed with stress and anxiety i always had a little voice in my head telling me you weren't good enough you could never be like this and you're
035alone i was struggling i was in a really dark place i didn't know how to get out of it i didn't know how i had who i would turn to for help i didn't know how i would get help i was too scared to ask for help i didn't know how to do it i didn't want anyone else to see me like this so i put on a brave face but this face grew more and more tiring as the days went by i i did get help i did find a way out of this i escaped this prison i created in my own mind but a lot of students don't have this option there are so many unknown voices unheard voices throughout durian high school that don't know how to escape this don't know how
036to get better how to seek help they don't know that they're not alone in this world a lot of this fresh a lot of this pressure and anxiety is caused by the high achieving standards of dairy in high school and dairy in this town and community throughout academically students are pushed to be the very best there's a high achieving standard during high school where students need to be the very best get all a's get the best grades study hard and are put down if they don't have they aren't the very best following this students most students play sports during high school a lot of these students a lot of these sports run for three hours every single day only taking sunday off these students are immediately pushed after a hard and grueling day at school
037pushed through sports and during high school pushed to be the very best in the field they can't have time to enjoy themselves they're constantly focused and pushed with stress from both sports and academics students like this are suffering alone they don't know how to get rid of they don't know how to get rid of the stress and the sadness that goes through them students during high school need a way to find that need a way to seek help need a way to relieve this stress through sports and these high achieving standards for sports and academics they're put through something that not everyone a lot of people know about but not many people could do anything about they need to know that they're not alone thank you for speaking this evening francesca perfumeo 23 stanton road
038at only eight years old my biggest dream was to go to stanford university i would study extra math on the weekends to qualify for events math and middle school and learned long division at the age of five although small at a young age i was qualified as smart or ahead of my peers because of the academic but the academic pressure and the strive for success only increased exponentially from there my life now revolves around being the best at sports the best at schools having the most impressive extracurriculars i can squeeze out and making sure that my parents teachers school board friends and even myself aren't disappointed by my achievements every day at school has become a competition to do better than the person sitting next to me to prove that i'm smart and ahead just
039like i was at five the pressure to succeed at the school was insane and now we are all starting to break every year since middle school there have been periods that i just burn out i'm stretched so thin that it causes me to shatter this year building up tone to break midterms and even though isn't it terms were extremely tough times assignments tests quizzes and projects all thrown at me while balancing playing on in off season sports winter break felt like a reset point but going back to school with the idea that there was only one week until midterms and two months until my next break school collapsed on top of me my days involved hours of practice school and homework there was no time for me to breathe to take a second to focus
040on myself and my mental health i asked my coaches for breaks for my mental health and they responded by reminding me of the near february break and the commitment to my team i asked my teachers for extensions and that only put me farther behind it isn't just stress it is overwhelmingness of everything that slowly brings down your mental my mental health plummeted constantly trying to remind myself of the why and my anxiety was skyrocketing i never knew when i could take a break who i could trust to ask for help or what i could do i felt alone i suffered on my own turning to toxic coping mechanisms rather than taking time to heal the worst part about this experience was that it wasn't the first time and i knew it wouldn't be the last
041dhs has a toxic need to succeed making students feel that an a is worth destroying their mental health students have a hard time asking for help because they are scared scared of their teachers of what their teachers peers or parents made same response and scared that getting help will jeopardize their success in academics or sports teachers and coaches need to be more understanding of the struggles that students face with mental health understanding that a commitment to themselves and their mental health should be more important than a commitment they've made to you students shouldn't have to wait until weekend breaks to feel like they can breathe the community and relationships built especially teachers teachers or coaches and students need to be attended and approved having someone to talk to can be the most effective way of
042helping one's mental health yet the trust between these students and guidance counselors and school psychologists do not exist guidance counselors have become a place about colleges post-secondary planning or your schedule rather than your mental health which is where we need it most these days these guidance counselors and school psychologists are always booked or students are unaware of the services provided by our school awareness and trust are things we need to tie back into the school which can be accomplished through changing curriculums of other classes such as advisory or health no matter how we approach the situation if something doesn't change for the better of our students the problem will not go away thank you for coming up and speaking emma quayle seven chad bush lane in first grade everyone began talking about the idea program
043for the gifted and talented students in second grade i was pulled out for idea testing in third fourth and fifth grade i felt like a failure because i never had the math scores to get in but i was grouped in with all the idea kids for class work in elementary school i felt like i had already failed because i wasn't the best while they went off to do idea projects during class i was alone doing my word study activities designed for a group by myself i read books alone in book groups and check my math homework myself i did group work alone for three years by fifth grade i had already learned to equate my academic performance to my self-worth i didn't get into the highest math course in sixth grade and i resented myself
044darian taught me to believe something was wrong with me since i wasn't the best in sixth grade i began to doubt myself and struggle with depressive thoughts because i wasn't succeeding i was only average i was 13 years old and scared by my own mind i had no idea what was wrong with me or who to turn to anything less than perfection meant i had failed as a student and failed as a daughter in seventh grade my thoughts only got worse no one had any idea that i was struggling to wake up every single morning we had health class but no information on suicidal thoughts thoughts of self-harm healthy coping mechanisms or who to reach out to if you were struggling we had no mental health education in elementary school and surface level education in
045middle school i thought i was alone and broken because no one talked about depression or anxiety and i turned to harmful ways to cope as a junior i have taken only one 300 level class in my three years at dhs i still struggle with depressive thoughts and i still struggle with myself i have pushed myself far beyond where any person should relying on unsustainable and unhealthy methods to meet varian's expectations of success i hyperventilate to the point where i dissociate from myself while doing timed activities because i'm so anxious about the result that i can't focus on the actual assignment i feel pathetic because i can't do what's expected of me in this town most if not all students feel alone and isolated by mental health struggles here we need to provide students with safe
046places to be vulnerable with people they trust such as creating a walk-in mental health space in all our schools where students can talk with an expert whenever they need in groups or one-on-one most if not all students at dhs struggle with motivation anxiety and feeling unworthy when they realize they aren't meeting darian's standard of success we need to limit the amount of ap and honors classes students can take so they don't overwork themselves to the point of mental collapse most if not all students feel unprepared to deal with intrusive thoughts in a healthy way we need to strengthen middle and high school health courses to teach healthy coping mechanisms and how to handle depressive and anxious thoughts and we need to implement elementary school education we need to start young all four of us are
047here speaking to you today as students who are struggling students who are grieving and students who are desperate for change we are asking you to take action and we are asking you to provide more support to students who are suffering in silence thank you emma thank you i want to thank all four of you for coming up and speaking this evening thank you very much good evening john dunn 175 raymond as a member of the district's dei committee i wanted to share a few of my personal observations with the board tonight i've truly enjoyed getting to know so many of the wonderful members who are involved students have been a stellar example of the quality of our schools they are so bright articulate brave and just simply real wonderful kids also chris's husband phenomenal baker
048i think it's important to comment on the overall objectives of our committee after five months five meetings and 15 hours we have produced a two sentence equity statement think about that math for a moment given the mental health issues facing our older students the prolonged effects of coveted learning loss and the concerns over physical safety is this really the best use of time and resources for our students teachers administrators and parents we will be reconvening in the fall as a committee to continue our equity audit however it seems that the vast majority of the committee has no formal training in this area with many lacking backgrounds in education the bulk of material we have been provided has been snapshots of data with no context or background at our last meeting we finally received our first
049set of historical data given these obstacles how are we expected to successfully complete this task and if it took us five months to craft a two-sentence equity statement how long will a full equity ought to take a concern this winter voiced by approximately 1 000 darien community members was that the experience of california-based consultant ken shelton was not aligned with our small new england town after seeing mr sheldon presented multiple meetings he has done nothing in my view to disprove this concern while he frequently provides anecdotes about large urban schools in california and his life in california i have never once heard him specifically reference anything related to darian or what he has learned from engaging with members of our community at best his presentations could be described as generic the indei stands for inclusion
050yet mr sheldon our dei consultant has actually blocked multiple parent members of our dei committee from his social media accounts that he uses to promote his consulting work how is this inclusive and when questioned about this mr shelton became very defensive providing a litany of reasons that varied in honesty i believe our town deserves better and would request that the board urge the administration to no longer waive the bid proposal process for mr sheldon and put the dei consultant hiring to the proper vetting and bidding process thank you very much thank you for speaking stephen michelle we'll move over to zoom there are no erased hands at this time okay well public comment at the end thank you we'll move on to the superintendent's report thank you thank you for the young people who spoke
051to stephen um our students i think have most of our updates because there's been a lot of activities that have been going on and they continue to go on at this particular point um i'll just mention obviously that there's a lot of stepping up the ceremonies moving up ceremonies and we look forward to celebrating the graduation of our students we have had three workshops for elementary middle school and high school parents are around supporting families and students in these challenging times on a number of topics congratulations to both our athletes and our performant art students for their very successful seasons and i'll pick up on a wee comment that was made by mrs best in terms of the our art performers at the halo awards and the sodom awards there's a lot of recommendations but
052i also want to point out that john got a significant recognition of that particular award for artistic director award and so we offer you john our congratulations the henley and royal students the henley and charlie henley and the royal home building committee is underway and we're going to continue to be meeting throughout the summer and mrs mccammon will probably update on that and as we turn the corner here over the weekend and in the next week we'll be doing some of the removing a lot of uh moving on ox ridge is ready to go and um mr lynch has had that organized and ready to uh set up and that we're in good place for that uh pnz application they were considering doing june 28th as a as a meeting time uh for public hearing
053but that we have a board meeting on that particular evening so i'm just waiting to hear back on another date esy is up and running in terms of uh readiness for june 27th and summer school is the same we have 1261 students uh currently enrolled so we seem to be on track there and again i pass on my congratulations and appreciation to olivia for her service thank you dr admin we will move on to the student representatives report um as dr adley said there's a lot going on at the high school right now given that it's our last week we had three darien teams when fc acts and three darien teams win states and we also had at least one team come runner up in states which is pretty good um we had as a
054town a pride celebration at the first congregational church this sunday i thank those members of the audience and those members of the board that chose to attend uh the senior internships concluded today and we'll have a symposium presentation tomorrow to share with our classmates everything that we were able to do over our internship period the fitch academy graduation is this thursday i don't actually remember how many students are graduating from fidget academy but i know that many of them will also be at the graduation this friday with the students on the main campus the senior picnic is also this thursday and our graduation rehearsal and then senior graduation is this friday and that pretty much concludes the senior school year in terms of juniors hello hello good you never know if it's on or not
055um junior prom was two fridays ago now the freshman dance was the day before that there was great turnout for both of those i know in particular the junior problem the food was excellent um i would like to congratulate the theater department at dhs for their um amazing performances across the year but also their recognition at the halo and the sondheim awards um we won six awards at the halos which is the most any school has ever gotten which is a testament to our incredible uh teamworking spirit and the incredible talent of all the people in theater especially and most importantly um we won best chorus for both award shows actually the sondheim's created a new category specifically because of our amazing chorus and i would like to point out that that the best chorus
056award is i believe the most important award because you can win best show with a few amazing lead actors but to win best chorus means that every single person has to be putting in an inordinate amount of work and it has to be incredibly dedicated and has to be consistently dedicated because if one person is not working with a team then the whole ship will go under so i'm very proud of our achievements there um we are currently as a dhs school uh considering um creating a new club called the mental health matters club which uh i've been in live and i have been in contact with some people about that about having it for next year but um we'll we will be reaching out to a few outside organizations to see which can work
057the best and what model we want to take but we hope that it will be up and running for the beginning of next year um to to come back to name's day which happened a few months ago now um uh the name state group is going to meet regularly this year next year rather this upcoming year um then we will make our best efforts to continue to have the names program as a recurring thing so that the left this year was the first of of several and um the name state group's advisor will be mr parton who is the ghs school social worker and now this comes to be rather sad part of my announcement where i have to say that i'm saying goodbye to lovey punishal who has been my amazing colleague over the
058course of these several months i have only gotten to know libby really as a colleague and as a friend over the past few months but she's an amazing person and human being it was wonderful to work with you livy and i wish you all the best great thank you both well done we'll move on to approval of minutes may have a motion to approve the following minutes of the special meeting and regular meeting held on may 24th 2022 the minutes of the special meeting held on june 7 2022. mr moroney second by mrs best all in favor that is unanimous thank you we'll move on to board committee reports mrs mccammon i'm i'm pleased to report that the henley homes and royal building committee received our appropriation from the rtm on monday the 6th that's
05926 million dollars for henley 24 million dollars for homes 27.5 million dollars for royal for a total of 77.5 million dollars we're very grateful to the community and looking forward to um really getting the work done we've also selected our construction manager apong um and so next this week and going into next will be really big weeks now that we can sort of focus on a i argue a phase two of the project great this is parents thank you the curriculum committee met last thursday june 9th our two topics of discussion were ruler and the 6 to 12 science curriculum julie joeller and chris tramberg presented an overview of what ruler is what has been done this year and what we look forward to doing next year just a quick overview for those of you
060who have not been able to watch our reading yet ruler is a evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning developed at the yale center for emotional intelligence ruler stands for recognizing emotions in yourself and in others understanding the causes and the consequences of emotions labeling emotions accurately expressing emotions appropriately and regulating emotions effectively ruler program is a pre-k-12 program that will be applied to students teachers parents and all community members it's been shown evidence has shown the communities where ruler is incorporated has students with that are less anxious and depressed more emotionally developed with fewer attention problems and teachers are more engaged supportive and effective classrooms and schools have more positive climates certainly all good things especially in light of what we hear repeatedly from our students teachers in darien were trained in ruler this
061year and the program will roll out to students in the upcoming school year as well some parent education ruler does not replace anything currently in the district but it is in addition to what is already in place after that christian.com presented on the six 6-12 science curriculum the science department continues to adjust and enhance the curriculum to align to new generation science standards mr docker talked to the department's student-centered pedagogy and the learning progression as students move from through mms and onto dhhs and the science department will shift their units into eduplanet 21 this summer and they will continue to make sure that the scope and sequence of the units and classes are as effective as can be we do not have any more meetings until the next school year thank you any other building
062board committee reports there is a oxford building committee meeting this thursday at 10 um we continue to be on track a lot will be going on once school ends in terms of moving and i believe the date for starting deconstruction or demolition of the old oxford school starts on or about june 27th if anyone has an emotional attachment to go in and say hi or say goodbye i know they're planning all kind of end of year celebrations around that school and i know i see katie loveland here in the audience on the building committee she has uh you know outlined some stuff that we need to do working with the the district the administration and the community as we go into starting a new school in a new elementary school but still on a construction
063site but anyone that's toward the school or been up there it's an exciting process it has been it's hard to imagine over two and a half years ago we were looking at drawings and we'll be moving kids into a school this september so stay tuned for more on that good we will move on to appointment of director of facilities dr adley yes i'm pleased i'm pleased to bring before the board this evening uh mr kevin monret uh kevin um would be the replacement for our facilities director mr michael lynch and uh kevin has done a tremendous job here since joining us and he was interviewed by the board and i'm just pleased to bring him before the board for approval good we have a motion to appoint the director of bear with me just a
064second here he does not may have a motion to approve the director of facilities as outlined by dr adley mrs mccammon's sick and by mr moroney all those in favor that is unanimous thank you kevin welcome thanks for being part of the team over the last year or so and um we look forward to working with you going forward congratulations you want to say anything let's see if you can be macgyver too thank you thank you thanks for staying this evening too appreciate it we'll move on to presentations and discussions uh darian school status dr adley so i believe this will be the final school status and the news is it's good news uh the cases have dramatically uh decreased uh both in the town and in this in the school system we essentially had
065about 10 cases in the last week or so in the school system uh that's that's the big picture that we had a meeting with the connecticut state department of education the department of public health uh they the discussion was to give guidance about the start of the school year the guidance that we got was that they are going to have a summer summit and they would be in contact with us after the summer summit so i don't know what's going to happen in there or what that discussion is going to be i would hope and think that we'd be putting any other constraints on at this particular point um but i can't really tell about that so so the numbers i'll just can i move this michelle are you moving it okay so you can
066see there are 93 the time the last time we presented this just two weeks ago was uh 174 and the 30 was up to 57 so the cases have been dropping and um given where we are nearly after over two and a half years nearly in terms of uh in personal learning i want to recognize our community i want to organize the board's leadership and our teachers for maintaining in-person learning and the quality of education that that we have provided from bus drivers to custodians to teachers to administrators and everybody in between uh they've done a phenomenal job and appreciate all of their efforts great thank you any questions or comments around the status good thank you we will move on to report on high school college acceptances and awards internships profile on high school
067class of 2022 and post high school plans so i'm excited to see this a lot of good information in here i think we're going to have kind of a overview from a powerpoint presentation and there's a lot of data in here and i think it's important that we're not going to go through the data or a lot of it it's good reading information and shows all the hard work that our students put into their education and going on to the next phase of their education but we look forward to the update anything you wanted to add dr everett first of all like can i just uh mr demayo is a chance to get a wee bit of light on the podium oh sure oh sorry you're right there and i think dr adley i need
068to get the clicker from you as well i need the clicker with pleasure so that i hopefully hopefully remember to click oh sorry how well somebody thinks they're funny i'm in the spotlight enough sir waiting for that to load i i didn't tend to say anything about this but i think i'd be remiss if i didn't comment on the unbelievable courage that our students just showed here tonight um i'm often daily inspired by what they have to say um but they were just incredible and i'm so proud of of their courage and the importance of their message and so um just a heartfelt um kudos to our students tonight um i'm going to start because i have a couple of introductory remarks and then hopefully that will come up if that's okay sure okay thank
069you thank you um good evening and thank you for the opportunity to take a few minutes to celebrate our darien high school class of 2022. on behalf of the school counseling department i would once again like to thank this board central services and the dhs administrative team for their ongoing support of the work that we do with kids this class has endured many challenges and experienced many triumphs when they began their high school journeys in august of 2018 none of us could have predicted the obstacles the struggles and the heartache that they would experience during their time in high school but all of the amazing and wonderful moments that we would share along the way their high school experience has been impacted by a global pandemic yet they have persevered to rise above it on
070their way to incredible things they walked one way in our halls they wore masks for almost two years they learned remotely they attended in a hybrid model they worked so hard as a community to make sure that we could remain in school through a historic health crisis they were cooperative they set an example for younger students they brought a positive attitude under the most unbelievable circumstances they have shown great resiliency and they have supported each other in critical ways they have shown leadership and strength in the most difficult circumstances and they have had a lot of fun doing it well i have shared with you the data that we typically present on this evening and the full report would be available to the public through the board of ed materials tonight i'd like to take
071a slightly different approach to this presentation and highlight some of this classes amazingness since these experiences are the most formative as many know darien high school was once again named the number one high school in connecticut while this designation is certainly a reflection of the hard work and talent of our inspiring students the dedication and commitment of our top-notch staff and the support of central services the board and our community i believe we are a top high school for so many reasons beyond what scores and rankings say about us when my daughter now entering her junior year of college impossible to believe began ninth grade one of the school administrators spoke to a group of parents she asked us to close our eyes and to reflect on our own high school experiences i would invite
072you to do the same now after about a minute she said i bet none of you were thinking about what you learned in u.s history no not to my history colleagues you were likely remembering the laughter and the inside jokes the musical productions your sports teams your friends the pep rallies prom your clubs and your activities she was right high school is about so much more than curriculum test scores gpas or college admissions it is about memories experiences that shape us building relationships learning more about who we are and who we want to be finding our voice and developing the skills to be independent and confident adults who will impact our world in a positive way i think we can all agree that at dhs we are highly successful in the classroom when we look
073at every metric our kids are just crushing it however so much of what matters in high school in short happens outside of the classroom every day i have moments of immense pride as i watch our kids and our faculty engaging in all of these other things with such love commitment passion and true blue wave spirit so the class of 2022 is curious several of our asr seniors presented at the junior science and humanities symposium seniors were published in scientific journals completed research and laboratories among some of the best in the field competed in prestigious competitions and presented their research at the highest levels the class of 2022 was creative to highlight a few of the many accolades and john shared some tonight as well we had both silver and gold award winners in the class
074of 2022. a member of the class of 2022 earned a perfect score on their ap 2d art and portfolio design design portfolio one of only approximately 200 students worldwide to do so our students are also showing in a number of highly selective and prestigious art shows locally around the state senior members of theater 308 both on the stage and behind the scenes dazzled us in the adams family and metamorphoses and performed in stunning student productions a few weeks ago our seniors lend their musical talents to seven different school day ensembles and two extracurricular ensembles participate in countless performances at the school local state and national levels they have played and sang at our games and our pit orchestras at our musicals at our special assemblies and at town events 37 students in the class of
0752022 submitted art music or perform performance portfolios or completed an audition as part of their college application process this year the class of 2022 were leaders they have led over 70 clubs and organizations they have started new clubs advocated for change taught us about many important causes championed the rights of others faked danced gamed and gardened they have captained 36 varsity sports they have coached encouraged and cheered for younger students who will soon fill their shoes the class of 2022 is cultured 18 seniors were part of a student group that traveled to spain this spring 88 seniors have been inducted into four world language honor societies and 131 of our seniors have earned the seal of biliteracy in six different languages including spanish french latin mandarin chinese dutch and korean the class of 2022 is
076community minded giving back to the community is of great importance to our students through post 53 service-based clubs and organizations community groups and agencies fundraisers turkey collections books and clothing drives and special events such as our trunk retreat our seniors were constantly engaged in efforts to impact their community and their world the class of 2022 is quick on their feet they recently had an impressive 24th place showing at quiz bowl nationals and excelled at the deca international competition in atlanta this spring they have also rocked several model u.n competitions and the class of 2022 is fun two of my favorites this year really illustrating their joyful and spontaneous spirit was when they brought their books to school in anything but a backpack i think the students who chose the kayak the grill and the microwave
077may still be rethinking those choices but it was really fun all the same they even planned a senior barbecue during the school day complete with stakes and all the trimmings my invitation got lost in the mail but i heard it was an amazing afternoon to close out their senior high school journeys approximately 340 of our seniors have been participating in our senior internship program for almost four weeks here you can see some of the many sites where our students are interning seniors have both a faculty member and a site supervisor they are required to complete 30 hours a week of work at their sites and they write weekly journals that they share about their experiences with their faculty member they will present their experiences at the internship symposium tomorrow [Music] the sites just keep going
078it's pretty amazing the partnership we have with so many in the community here are some of our favorite quotes from students and mentors and as you can see this program is meaningful and impactful for both students and sites so what is next for this amazing group of young adults nearly 94 will be pursuing higher education next year in addition 10 students will be taking gap years including focus on travel and service and a few others will be heading to work and or career training school finally these are the intended majors of our class we are confident that whether they are pursuing an academic endeavor taking a gap year or heading to work this class is sure to make an impact on the world congratulations to the class of 2022 we are grateful to have been
079a part of your journey and we can't wait to see what you will do next we love you we are so proud of you we will miss you come visit i'm happy to take any board questions great thank you for that opening up to board questions or comments there's a lot of good data in here it will be up on the website for people to look at but i think the hard work is evident in the data and thank you for that presentation agreed thank you great thank you very much yes dr emily you know i just want to recognize um the light just went down on you there you go i just want to recognize megan uh for her steadfast leadership for extending a caring and helping hand to the kids for your department
080work it has been both compassionate needed exhausting and everything in between i ju i just don't have enough words to express my appreciation and actually forge appreciation the community's appreciation uh for being there and it's completely evident how much everybody in this high school cares about our students and in fact across the district and that doesn't happen without your leadership megan i very much appreciate that thank you thank you dr adley thank you dr adley we will move on to a update on school security yes mr chairman i'm pleased to share publicly uh some comments about uh school security and an update uh comments that i'm able uh to share certainly the tragic events that rob elementary school in uvalde texas and other events that have been profiled in the media understandably heightens concern around
081the topic of school security uh as the board chair has mentioned we appreciate the members of our public community who have reached out with inquiries and suggestions regarding the district's safety plans i wish to reassure the community that our schools are safe places and the safety of the children and staff is always a top priority of the board of education and administration improvements in schools safety practices protocols personnel and infrastructure have been made over a period of many years and are reviewed by the board of education on an annual basis the chair recently just mentioned that the it was it was reviewed most recently our practices and protocols with the police chief and executive session uh last tuesday june 7th for reassurance examples of some of the safety practices and protocols in place include annually
082updated school security and school emergency plans school security and safety committees emergency lockdown systems panic buttons campus monitors and school resource officers visitor monitoring monthly emergency crisis drills with police presence staff training secured entrances and interior and exterior cameras school safety and security is also supported through the incredible work and close partnership with the darien police department we maintain a presence in the schools and work closely with the district and school administrators on our plans and our drills during this time of national and local discourse on school security the district has and will continue to review more necessary re revise and pre its practices and protocols a security audit that was scheduled i think it was for march 14th or so just after just a day or two when we left for the pandemic i
083will be scheduled again for the fall because it needs to take place also with uh people in the actual buildings um thank you to the members of our community uh for your participation your contribution to the important dialogue and for your advocacy for school uh safety and student safety thank you thank you dr alan any questions or comments from the board good thank you dr ellen we'll continue to hear more on that we'll move on to a mental health and wellness update um dr adley and dr mccarthy i'm just given the comments we've heard from our young people is even more pertinent that we continue to keep this topic alive and on the on the table um and thus the board has asked for regular updates and dr mccarthy i appreciate your leadership and actually
084mrs dunn's right behind you and all of our principals leaderships through these difficult times dr mccarthy thank you for your particular guidance um as you've coordinated our responses and assisted our administration at the high school as with that that i turn it over to you too for you to provide an update to the board the board does have a memorandum uh as part of your packet but dr mccarthy's will hit the highlights sure thank you dr mccarthy mr jeff do you have a spotlight we can use again spotlight for miss dr mccarthy there we go just what you have the red light just what you need to get a tan from us um so uh good evening board of education members and members of the cabinet community members who are here tonight i'm here actually
085tonight to report on our current efforts to support students staff and the community as one representative of a larger group as i proudly shared administrators who are here with me tonight our mental health staff various community agencies and state agencies who have helped supporting us through advisement and actually being on the ground as well the first thing i want to talk about tonight is is how we've supported our students so beginning on saturday may 21st our crisis to mobilize here at darien high school to facilitate communications to families and the community to request the support of our mental health crisis intervention services and mobile price intervention services uh you may know them as 2-1-1 and to develop plans for the scheduled school the school schedule in response to the community needs our efforts included provided
086crisis crisis counseling from darien high school mental health staff from the mental health crisis intervention services and mobile crisis intervention services and from family centers in addition the town of darien human services department offered crisis counseling and family support in coordination with the town of new canadian human services department the connecticut state department of education provided consultation to us immediately to plan out how monday and tuesday would operate for school we planned a delayed opening of school on monday to allow for our response teams to work with groups of teachers to prepare them for how to facilitate their classes through the day and allow them an opportunity to ask questions of us and then um and learn language that they can use to address uh their students dr mccarthy could you just see if you
087can adjust that mike a little bit uh sure this is better a little taller than our previous speakers right thank you uh the administration worked with staff to adjust student assessments and final exams in the hopes to reduce stress during this time during the day on monday may 23 and on tuesday may 24th small groups of students were invited by grade to meet with their school counselors and other support staff in eight locations around the building the postvention guidance from mental health experts continues to emphasize that an immediate wake that is the first four months of a death by suicide cluster the school and community should focus efforts on developing awareness of the signs of mental health concerns while providing both counseling support and information about where counseling supports can be accessed we have continued
088to work closely on emphasizing that effort we've also recognized that the cumulative effect of responding to multiple losses and trauma is very difficult for staff all staff have been provided resources and access to counseling support through the dhs mental health support teams the town of darien and the employee assistance program staff who themselves are responsible for providing crisis counseling here in the buildings to students and staff have been provided immediate no-cost counseling support off-site with our community partners over the past three weeks the darian high school crisis crisis team has partnered with community resources towards addressing both the immediate needs of students staff and families and considering the long-term needs of our entire community we continue to be grateful for the many individuals and organizations who have committed their time expertise and resources to the
089dhs community our community partners have included the town of darien human resources our human services department local agencies like child guidance center of southern connecticut family centers kids in crisis sasco river center child and family guidance center the town of new canaan human services department and silver hill hospital we have also worked closely with state agencies including the connecticut's department state department of education the connecticut department of mental health and addiction and the department of children families we've worked together with our community partners and agencies to provide a number of presentations to provide psycho education to our families and the community we presented on recognizing the signs of mental health struggles in our children and supporting bereavement and grief we presented on mental health sorry i'm supporting elementary students and families through challenging times we've
090supported presented a similar presentation to our middle school families and then most recently yesterday a presentation was co-sponsored with the town human services department titled after a suicide what every parent should know in addition a new mental health resource repository has been developed on the district website and each of these presentations is available for parents who are unable to view them again while guidance from mental health professionals continues to promote addressing the immediate needs of students before any significant long-term planning is undertaken the district has begun partnering with our community state global stakeholders towards the development of a mental health task force multiple meetings have been held with multiple community members and stakeholders toward that end the first meeting a district postvention planning meeting was held on may 26 2022 the purpose of this meeting
091which was chaired by the district was to engage agency partners in the development of post-mentioned plans that extend beyond the immediate support models in place and to seek guidance and support from experienced mental health experts on the district's postvention planning attendees include representatives and agency leads from a number of different local and state agencies along with our darien high school crisis team members and darien central services administration members from dcf demis the connecticut state department have education child guidance of southern connecticut family centers behavioral health child and families guidance center child and family guidance center middlesex our elementary school elementary school administration and our darien high school administration and crisis team members participated in that meeting a second meeting a mental health task force planning meeting was teared back chaired by the town of darien
092human services department on june 1st 2022 the purpose of this meeting was to broaden the scope of the work being done by the district and its partners to the entire town of darien community as we continue to focus on supporting the immediate needs of our students and our community these plenary meetings serve important functions of uniting our community response efforts ensuring consistency in our communications and understanding of postvention and sharing resources and expertise the district will therefore continue to work with the town of darian and our respective community partners toward the development and implementation of a mental health task force to address the ongoing and evolving needs of a community that has suffered from the cumulative impact of unthinkable loss this year immediately following the end of the school year the administration will be meeting
093again with the leads of those state agencies and local agencies who work alongside the connecticut state department of education during crisis postvention this timeline was recommended by those agencies to allow immediate efforts to again focus on supporting our students and community last the needs of our community continue to evolve students community and staff and put like the input from the four brave students who spoke tonight continue to shine light where we may not where we may not know there is darkness and we continue to encourage your communication in any format so we can reflect and address those concerns happy to accept any questions thank you dr mccarthy i'll open up to board questions or comments this is mr sean thank you for the presentation um a few one of the things we learned in in
094the first update uh from you and your team uh was the the syntax of this or the the right order focus on the immediate needs but then uh you know work on the implementation of foundational programs it sounds like after the school year and you'll be immediately looking at the foundational programs what's the timeline over the summer in which the board might you might present some of the foundational programs to the board in in time for implementation either later summer or uh as the school year begins yeah so it's it's complicated the the guidance we've gotten has been that sort of four-month timeline um we're in a unique space because we're heading into summer so our timeline might look a little different in that during the summer our efforts might be leaning more on local
095agencies to help the actual supporting of students as our staff aren't necessarily going to be present and that's why i think we can we can sort of immediately start working on that long-term planning um and we we've already uh set up meetings with our our leads at those agencies for the week after graduation so in terms of reporting back out on on the results of those um i i think periodically through the summer we would be happy to this is awkward um so it would be remiss not to have some at least initial thoughts on some of what we heard in public comment tonight because i do think um as we celebrate so much that our students have done it it really is an immense amount of bravery to get up and admit that you
096know there's areas i'm not succeeding in and i'm not feeling well and i want to be seen and i want to be heard so you know first i'd like to to acknowledge i think you know i'll speak for myself as a board member but how profound those statements are and how much we respect those students who got up publicly and said what i think many students are feeling and awful often can't find the words to voice so a big thank you there um what i do think is um i want to make sure that people and the public understand that at least in my understanding in my time being on the board that mental health is more than just a mental health program um dei factors into mental health if you understand including people and
097equity and differences in people that can help people feel brave to talk and say i'm feeling different today and it's okay so i applaud our efforts i i hope those continue i think we should find the best best ways for those to continue but i think that's helpful and the only piece of this that that i want to make sure um and i don't really have a roadmap for this so dr mccarthy and dr adley that's for you is that [Music] we can ask our teachers to make adjustments and we can ask our schools to make adjustments but from what i'm hearing is there are pressure points in other areas and pressure messages for coming coming from other areas and whether that's at home or on a field or in a classroom that there is
098some significant work working together to maybe help give an older generation that didn't have the words to say this and doesn't know the words of how to deal with mental health language and vocabulary so that is really a partnering with town and community groups um i think we can do all the work that we can and should in the schools but if it's not a constant message i just know it it doesn't hit unless kids feel it everywhere they go you can face a hurdle if you feel like you have a lot of support areas it can't just be one support area or one teacher so i'm rambling a little bit because i'm trying to find the right words to say that this has to be an effort our kids we heard from our kids
099in the fall we're hearing from our kids now i don't know what else they can do except really ask us to believe them and so you know i'm prepared to believe them i'm sure my other board members are and as you go about this i just ask that all eyes are on this thank you and i would just add to that that the um uh public health intervention mental health intervention from a system-wide perspective has frameworks that exist and programmatic research-based interventions that exist but each of those things has to be applied to the system and to the town in a culturally responsive and contextually responsive way which is why it is necessary to have a representative task force from different stakeholders be able to look at what is out there that people are using
100both from prevention and responsive frameworks and then apply them to what do we have and conduct that type of needs assessment work and so that's a lot of work but it does require us to not just purchase a program it's actually working as a task force together to think about how do we apply that to darien specifically thank you i apologize in advance this comment is a little bit lengthy but since this is my last meeting i want to take kind of my final opportunity to give the student input on this matter um we've heard a lot about counseling being offered to students and i urge the board to consider the fact that we've had guidance counselors and school counselors in place for a really really long time and yet this mental health crisis is
101still going through and that's because students don't feel like school counselors and guidance counselors are there to support them in mental health matters they're there if they have a problem with the teacher or if they want to know what college is right for them but if they are having a really off day and feel like there's no one there to support them our school counselors as much effort as i'm sure they put in are not a place of comfort for our students because they feel that it's just an extension of the school itself so my suggestion would be to implement some non-school affiliated counseling in the building where students can feel like they have somewhere to go for counseling that has nothing to do with their academics we had students here today speaking about their
102pressure to take ap classes and suggesting that limits be placed on honors and ap classes now i'm not saying that we need a hard limit that caps all students at taking a specific number of classes if they want to take a large number of classes but we should really consider how much pressure we are putting on kids to overload their plates to their maximum ability just to reach a specific goal we also had students talk about academics in combination with sports and how much of how much pressure we put on students to be the best on the field and off the field my junior year of high school i would have three hour softball practices and i would come home go straight upstairs and sit on the floor doing homework to the point where my
103parents would have to bring me dinner while i worked because i had that much to do decreasing homework loads giving clarification leaving clarification to coaches telling them how much pressure they can put on their their players and how long practices can run all of these are steps that can be taken to reduce the pressure put on our students now i do commend the finals plan and the way that the board and the committee for dealing with student mental health approached reducing academic tension at the end of the school year and for finals but we are about to enter summer and we are about to enter a new school year now i'm assuming that the optional course load is not going to continue into the next school year so i ask you to consider that this
104period of reduced academic pressure is temporary how are you going to continue to implement a reduction of academic pressure in our next school year and we've heard some about presentations being given to parents and students and presentations are great they're informative they give people information that they need to consider what's going on with their child but it's not enough to put these this information into practice parents and students can hear lecture after lecture and not internalize information we need to send an overall message to students and parents and faculty members that there's going to be an overall change in the way that we approach mental health in this town otherwise the information that we're giving them about how to spot mental signs of mental health problems in their students it's not going to be internalized
105and it's not going to be put into practice because no one else is going to be doing it olivia let's in the interest of time let's hear from john also i was just going to say um actually looking at this little cheat sheet she has there's a few things that i had also wanted to comment on um one thing in particular um she mentioned ap classes and as soon as she did that i had this i was reminded of something from a while ago i believe in fourth or fifth grade i was exposed to the issue of limiting ap classes and i was already planning how i would go about like like in fourth grade i mean i had no idea what it even meant but i was planning how i was going to like
106take different classes and like what the course would mean so um i do think that there is some uh some good and at least because i know limiting it is not always going to be recepted very well because people will always want to take a lot of classes and saying no isn't always the thing that will get you the most support but if there's a way that we can reduce the stigma especially because i know that there are some people who also who want to take an ep class but can't take it because it doesn't fit in their schedule like um without having any sort of things said or some statement made like if uh in a student's mind the college that they're applying to will see not having taken that ap regardless of the
107reason as kind of a a failure to to meet some standard i'm not saying that's the case at all but that's kind of where the students mindset is right now is that if they didn't do it there's something that they should have been doing that maybe that's the reason it didn't get accepted and so i think that's kind of the larger conversation that needs to take place and oh you deleted it no thank you all right thank you john we'll move over here this is worm uh yes thank you for the sorry sorry i forgot about the mic okay so i have a few things to say uh one i agree with mrs ochman um we do need a culture shift absolutely have to look you know we need everybody in town to get on
108board with this so i appreciate i appreciate that um two you know i realize that we're still in crisis mode and we're going to be here for quite a few months um but as i've been asking and as students have been asking about supports going on at the school um such as teen talk or outside counseling program which is part of kids in crisis i still would like to see an update on what is currently going on at the school previous to crisis mode what is the percentage of time our psychologists and our counselors are spending with students whether it be 504s ieps testing what have you how much what percentage are they spending with regular ed students what percentage of time are they actually counseling what is the social worker's job and where do
109they fit in what does a day in the life look like for the psychologist for the school counselor how much college counseling is going on we have heard time and time again that these students need someone to be able to walk in and talk to that is not a guidance counselor that is not that's going to have the time to listen to them kids in crisis there's other programs out there team talk through kids in crisis where they are in the school but they are not part of the school system so the students feel more comfortable new canaan has them westport has them all of our surrounding towns have them um so i would like to see what's currently going on and what we're going to look at forward sure thank you mrs parent i
110have a couple more practical questions not that everything isn't practical but just specific questions and i completely agree about the culture shift of the town this is not just a district problem this is this is a town wide situation and it's not it's not linear it's not going to be like okay we're doing this for post lynch and then we're going to do this and it's there's no real clear pathway so we all have to get on board in every part of who we are in this town to do this um just a couple specific questions is there any um has there been any talk about how if there's a group of children or some students that you may think need an extra touch in um a check-in in the summer is is there a
111way to do that whether it's through esy or somebody reaching out to them through email i just i worry i just worry that there's we're just letting these kids out of this building and out of out of mms and there are not as many eyes on them as they usually would be and they just worry of people falling through so is there a way to touch some of those kids um and i'm just curious how many members of the staff have availed themselves of the resources that have been brought to them not specific number but just in general sure um so the first question uh that was one of the immediate tasks of the of the crisis team that weekend was identifying specific students groups families who may who we may need to target specifically
112outside of our typical processes of the small groups that are happening on monday and tuesday so um ms manuelson and her team were on that immediately those lists were created that weekend and that work will continue to the summer for those students and families who require that that support if they haven't been connected with an outside resource already so certainly we have mental health providers available over the summer child guidance and family centers have already let us know that they're availing themselves of of any supports the district needs through the summer uh related to crisis or grave counseling so that that piece uh is definitely underway in terms of the staff support that's a little challenging eap would be a confidential support structure there are times where staff members may avail themselves of supports that
113already exist outside of school and then contact their own providers we do know for the um that the the uh crisis counseling that we set up here in the building was accessed by staff members and that the separate counseling supports we we set up for our own clinicians who are managing a lot of the trauma through nights and weekends of of their of their peers and of the students that that a significant number of those staff members have um have reached out and set up appointments for that crisis counseling which is which is good to hear yeah thank you mrs best thank you um thanks for the update and a lot of great points and questions from everyone i just wanted to emphasize we heard it from at least one of our speakers tonight the
114importance of focusing on our youngest students and families um we can't it's never too soon for us to start addressing sort of these climate things expectations and levels get set at a very early age in this town so as we move past postvention and start working on things longer term um i think our climate shift is going to have to start young thank you mrs just just real quick i think i have to put a little bit of a different spin on some of what we're talking about and respectfully libby i think that um i would say i think there are kids who feel very comfortable go to our counselors and i think our counselors make an immense amount of time for them i think what you i don't want to put words in your
115mouth but maybe what we're saying is there are kids who need other outlets we're saying some kids feel really comfortable with our sro and some kids feel comfortable with their coaches so maybe the charge might be you know are there other outlets to mrs worms that would help and or what's the case load of our psychologists social workers and guidance counselors because there are kids who are in crisis that really need lots of attention and i would say in six years on the board and 15 years in the district i think our counselors step up and do that but they either might need more time to help deal with the current load or kids might need additional resources so i just i've been continually impressed with um our guidance department and all that they have
116juggled from how many applications do i do to i need to sit in your office and do my work um so respectfully i just want to put a little bit of a different spin than i think our counselors are there and maybe we need to look at um what what aid we can give them given the caseloads they're currently carrying thank you mrs zachman i'll just echo that i mean i think in my almost eight plus years on the board i mean the investment we've made and resources in the school and i think kids you know i know from listening and hearing you know a lot of times go to who they're comfortable with and that could be an sro it could be a guidance counselor could be a teacher it could be an assistant
117principal and i think we have to continue to make sure what are the additional resources we need it's not a one size fits all by any means and that's what i think the value of what we've invested in the additional psychologists the sro that's up there but what additional resources we may need and does it have a clinic type feel so that it has some disconnect from the school or the day to day that they feel you know they're disconnecting have that conversation i wrote down i hear such great things about the chill zone i don't know do we need a safe zone you know and where does that need to be so um the one thing i would say is i'd love to understand and i hope you know you've got the support of
118the board in terms of resources you've got the support of the community joe and myself attended the task force meeting uh we'll be at the next meeting it was a worthwhile meeting the right people were there the right conversation was had the right people are guiding us in terms of what we should be doing now and over the summer and into the new school year but you know you all have day jobs and in those day jobs have proven so critical in terms of your knowledge and your skill set to helping your students but what else do we need and i just ask you to continue to think from a resource standpoint what else you need what do you need over the summer to get the work done i do agree with some of the
119comments here the opening of school cannot look the same as it has looked in the past you know what it it's you say the summer is here great it's a short time frame at the end of the day like what work the board is committed whatever meetings we need to have but what do you need to help get that work done i what comes to my mind is there's work to be done on the handbook there's work to be done on commitment meetings there's work to be done to the points here of time spent on homework time spent at sports i brought to dr adley's attention a week or so ago i got a couple of phone calls on practices being held on memorial day i'm sorry there should be no practices for sports on
120memorial day it's just disrespectful and as is all the practice and all the time and energy that's put into it there's a point in time where there just needs to be a down day and a family day so it's stuff like that that we really need to think about and we really need to make sure that we've got all those components and that we're looking at this holistically is there stuff that needs to be done in the handbook but you know to me those first couple of days of school meet and greet again it should be there should be a fun component there should be a curiosity but there should be how are we educating them about what we're going to do over the course of the year and how we're going to be there
121to help them and maybe the theme is it's okay not to be okay someone brought up to me we need more placards do we need something on the student id that says something like it's okay not to be okay like be a friend be curious be a leader like we should think about stuff like that mrs parent i just i think another thing that we need to think about and i'm curious how this is going to change going forward is so much of what we what we're hearing from our students is that there's there's a lack of connection whether that's connection to peers whether it's connection to staff whether it's connection to the greater community and how do we help develop connection as a community um and i think it's you may be surrounded by
122a hundred people but you still can be lonely and you still can feel isolated and you still can feel alone so how do we empower people to look for connection when they do not feel connected how do you seek that as well and i i know that this there's no any three sentence answer that you can give me but i think that's a huge part of it is having everybody feel connected together and knowing that everybody has each other's backs will help i think too dr um mccarthy and the administration i i think the one key ingredient here and hearing from those students is how do we make sure we have the parents in this conversation you know and what does that look like what do they need as parents um but i think that's
123a key ingredient here that has to be part of the conversation continuously you know how how how do we make sure the parents feel they're part of this that we're giving them any resources that they may need also mrs mccammon um i have a lot of thoughts but i want to honor the fact that we are in a postvention period and the focus does need to be the wraparound so i'll start there in the in the meantime i'd like to say thank you for the use of frameworks thank you for the cross community cooperation i think that's critical we know that this is a community-wide issue and it cannot be done by the schools alone and we must do this together so thank you for for being out and in front of talking with with
124town staff with local agencies and with folks who have expertise in this area um because this is you know not something that schools as i understand that this is not something your first thing guidance counselors necessarily for example are prepared for this is something we have to learn to respond to as a district and we have prioritized it we'll continue to do so i do think the work going forward is of strategic importance i'd like to see this work outlined in a holistic way um when the time is right um so thank you thank you mrs mckinnon olivia um i just wanted to say two more things before i conclude i think mrs hochman put it wonderfully that our the resources that we do currently offer are being utilized and when they're utilized they respond
125well but it is a fairly popular statement that some students don't feel like there are people in the school that they can talk to so my recommendation is just that we use everything that we can to make sure that every student feels like they have a resource present to them and i apologize for my comments tonight sound harsh it's just as a student myself for a few more days i do have a strong response when i see my peers in crisis the one thing that i really really urge the board to do moving forward is integrate your student input students have been coming to the board of ed all year telling you what they feel that we need more of more dei more mental health support less academic pressure whatever it is and they've been
126pleading with you with administration with everyone to just listen to us and give us what we feel we need and putting john and i on this board was an amazing first step into integrating student voices but a continuation needs needs to go on we need more student committees whatever we need specific to mental health specific to diversity whatever it is we can do to make sure that students who feel like there's something missing from their experience in the high school in the middle school in elementary school that it there's someone listening that might be able to provide it for them and while i think it's great that we're the number one high school in the state i would much rather attend the high school ranked much lower and not have students coming before the board
127talking about their struggles with self-harm and suicide and losing their classmates thank you olivia john and if i may um first i think uh i'm in an incredible position actually so that i can take part in many of those things uh i i mentioned one in my application to this position actually that i would love to do some of those things so starting next year i do hope to create some a series of different student communities that i can meet with directly because i think it will only strengthen the student voice on the board because uh having a person on the board to be able to speak directly it's it carries a a certain level of weight that i think is important um i wanted to just briefly talk about um extra extracurriculars because i
128know for some people um it's been kind of mentioned that extracurriculars have not experienced the same level of decrease in stress and i think that's something that needs to be taken uh into serious account because for the for the people who value those and for the people whom extracurriculars form a large part of their lives um they have the same level of stress as school does and even though all of the kind of all the finals were decreased in stress and you know if they turn into experiences um those same kind of decreases were not made in i think sports for example i mean we still had fcx and cx and practices were still going on during memorial day for example and uh the theater awards still happened and we still have people going you
129know all weekend to these workshops so i'm wondering uh in the future if we if we plan to decrease stress in school what are we planning to do to decrease the same level of stress across the board and all extracurricular events and activities thank you john any other board questions or comments dr adley yes thank you thank you thank you thank you and thank you for everyone's comments that they are much appreciated and helpful i just want to share that um you recognize as parent just mentioned it that this is a very complex what works for one student will not necessarily work for another student uh we're also taking the things that you're talking about know that they are on their discussion what does school start like what what how do we enter the kids
130these are all things that we will take under professional advice in terms of the clinicians i'm not a clinician none of us around here welcome most of us are not connected right um and uh we need the advice of inclinations to give us uh those inputs onto those decisions that we're making and we're gonna continue to take uh take that console i'll also just share with you again the end of this memorandum that talks about we're actually reviewing changes our addictions and administrative personnel are our staff instructors training and staff development and system-wide mental health support needs so just reassuring you that it can't be done overnight but those things are the things that um we are doing and that we'll bring back to the board for for comment and hopefully support on or otherwise
131uh but know that we the things that are mentioned at this table tonight are all on this groups of people's minds and uh discussions are unfolding our regard knows everybody has been given suggestions and i i really appreciate the suggestions not necessarily here at the table but from parents and everyone else and uh those those are appreciated uh some of them are hard to process sometimes just collectively um but know we're hearing people's voices and we're taking those things under consideration and under advisement uh from the professional groups of people that we're working with so um we will bring back recommendations regarding these three three areas to the board thank you dr adam and the boat questions coming thank you thank you to follow up on dr adley thank you for all the conversation around
132that this will be a regular conversation at board meetings we will move on to discussion of proposed dates and times for high school professional learning communities for 2022-2023 school year dr adley yeah this is this is conscious this is consciously uh separated from item 8 which is the 23 24 calendar because this is for the 22 23 calendar so these days uh are 10 days which is what we had this particular year and these are two hour delayed arrivals and have been very helpful for the neas accreditation the pre-visit which will be in october it was rescheduled given what we were dealing with at the schools and it will also continue to be helpful and once that pre-visit takes place there's work to be done thereafter so i'm asking consideration to continue with the 10
133to our delays it allows the staff additional time to do work on the strategic plan the vision of the graduate curriculum work but also in preparation for the the accreditation visit and i'll also say allows the kids a wee bit more rest which is not a bad thing at this particular point the two-hour delay also allows for a bus run that that follows the elementary uh run that gets the kids into actually in the school so thank you dr ellie any questions or comments on this mrs mccammon we got one question dr edley about looking at the middle of the week i know parents are accustomed to a friday um but looking at the middle of the week also for sleep reasons um do you have any comment on that yeah i think just at
134this time that there's a con there's the idea that there's uh additional i think that the request was it may be more beneficial for rest for students in the middle of the week i think that still has to be resolved per se because uh freddie has been working at the moment i think separating it the community is used to freddie at this point i think this needs if it's going to be looked at under a late start time arrival or some other big topic then i think i think it will be all looked at together one one go okay thank you we'll move on to update on district strategic plan dr adley and dr tranberg good evening everyone um this is a rather long memo so i will pick some highlights uh this is the
135the culminating uh report for the year of our year one goals uh i'm incredibly proud of the work that we accomplished for our year one and i'll start with 1a a big goal in that area was defining our teaching and learning principles we had a collaborative action team that formed this year and together that group surveyed the staff we held focus groups we did a book study and one of the exciting approaches that we took which is was rather innovative one of our focus group group questions and you can think about what your answer is right now was who was your favorite teacher or who is the best teacher you ever had and right away everyone that participated is just in a second it just popped into their head and then we talked about the
136why behind that and that was a big driver and how we formed that we answered two questions teachers teach best when and students learn best when and that is the path we took and we're really proud of where that is and um access to the draft of that is linked for your perusal we're also getting ready to launch our eduplanet 21 curriculum warehousing that will offer some consistency and a template that we can share so we will have thousands and thousands of pages to to upload over the next few years but we're very much looking forward to that work under 1c i'll point out as we're piloting co-teaching next year in fifth grade for literacy uh kristen o'reilly led some wonderful job embedded professional development with the help of teachers who are successfully co-teaching at
137the middle school in high school and it was just a wonderful day i got to see some of some of that in action so they learned about the different structures and then they spent time observing co-teaching and having an opportunity to work with those teachers and that was great to see in goal area two uh we have the sel committee uh that is formed and and thank you uh mrs parent for sharing the overview of ruler uh the the one thing just in connection to our last conversation one of the most important things we can do as adults is model the behaviors that we're expecting in children and labeling and talking about our own emotions is very challenging so whenever we can do that and model that for children um it's very important and one
138of the i'll say easiest and accessible ways to open the doors and start those conversations as challenging as it can be for us under goal 2b the dei team had four meetings since this last update and yes 15 hours is what we had together very proud of what was accomplished in 15 hours uh yes it's a two sentence statement but when you have 60 different people who think very differently and feel differently um coming up with two sentences that people mostly agree with is a success story in my book we also have our focus questions to continue with our equity audit uh next year so i'm i'm proud of that work and looking forward to that committee uh continuing the good work that they're doing john touched on the adl so i will not reach
139that but as you may have noticed when you came in the gsa here and at the middle school has decorated the school with flags for pride month shout out to the students that did that because i felt seen and represented and i've never been in high school and felt that way before so i'm very proud of you um that you made me feel welcome in the place that i work so big shout out there uh 3a the district values the vision of the graduate work is well underway you'll see a lot more of that next year because it will be embedded in the work that's happening with niask and also to show the connection to the teaching and learning and curriculum all of those competencies of the vision of the graduate are embedded in eduplan
140at 21 so from k to 12 we can identify the areas of curriculum that are preparing students to achieve those competencies by the time of graduation under b i know this sounds little but it's huge because it takes a lot of time just creating some electronic systems to uh process the workflow of getting materials done and that was a goal that was that was baked in the plan so we are excited about that i will skip ahead to another thing in goal area 4 that messiah and i are excited about we are looking at a teacher leadership academy next year for aspiring teachers who would like to potentially be school leaders one day so we're developing that and also a new onboarding program for administrators so we're providing guided supports for them throughout the year
141as we welcome new administrators into the organization a couple of updates that are on the website that are helpful to know this is under 5a we have the mental health resources that are on the website and we also have a landing page for our transition to byod to support that communication i will skip over goal area six miss mccammon touched on my highlight relating to the building projects i'll just add a little qualitative i had an opportunity to be in that meeting it's just so exciting to see all of the wonderful things that are coming for our buildings and in the years ahead so uh just so much to be proud of and i'm i'm excited to see see what's coming there uh a shout out to the robotics group i know we were in
142year one of our grant and we had our own hosted intramural competition with our three eight teams and our high school team came and and judged that competition so that was great to see and many young children very very happy about robots for sure so i'm glad to entertain any questions thank you dr tranberg there's a lot of detail here but i like the recap on the page so i'll open up real quick to any board questions or comments mrs mccammon i queued it up in the last conversation but i think the work of mental health i use the word strategic on purpose this is our most important work that we're prioritizing in the district and it's pretty com pretty comprehensive look so i hope that you know we'll identify it not only in a
143holistic way but in a in a strategic way what our work looks like um and you know i think i think a lot of it dovetails very directly with the work we're doing and i'd like love to see it highlighted yes and in that spirit we did apply for the next um not sure if it's officially a pilot of the sel screener for the state and so we're waiting to hear number one if we're accepted and number two if we are accepted is that the best path forward for us so more to come on that thank you thank you all right thank you dr hamburg we'll move on yep um chris giving the comments we heard tonight on the dei committee can you maybe just give us an update on what what's next and when
144that equity audit and how you're implementing that committee's work and to board work and calls so the in the equity audit there are different groups related to student achievement program participation professional capacity and climate and each of those groups developed a focus question so we looked at data for the past i'll say heavy heavily in the past three meetings to develop that question next year is about doing a deeper dive to try to figure out what's the root cause of that and then they'll actually make recommendations for consideration um to the administration to the board and then we'll see if those are viable and take those steps and then it becomes an iterative process so we take some actions we see if there's progress so that's the equity audit piece the other piece that's really
145important is members of the team are building their own capacity to have difficult conversations we've only had five meetings so we just started putting our toe in the water with the topic of bias and when you say bias itself that causes some challenges but it took us three meetings for us to even feel like we had enough readiness in the room to have that conversation so yes it is slow it's intentionally that way so we can bring people along and accept that there is divergent thinking and that's okay but what do we agree upon and that's the success of all of our students and no matter who is in the room what conversation we're having that is clear and the other thing is we have permission to disagree we can these conversations get uncomfortable and
146when they do that's okay sometimes we have to take time to have a conversation we didn't plan to have and that's okay too and so we've experienced some of that and will continue to moving forward i anticipate but i think we are making progress that's on pace with what i've experienced and seen before so the equity audit you're envisioning by year end we will have recommended clear recommendations i would say at the midpoint next year as long as we can get started again right away in september it's the same group of people right next year um the right now everyone received a feedback uh feedback form to let me know what worked for them what didn't work so i can reassess some of the structures there um and members have the opportunity to say no
147thank you i'm done and if there's space there we're going to re we're going to fill those spaces uh we're a bit underrepresented with teachers so we would like to get more teachers and we're definitely underrepresented with racial diversity so that's a goal too as we move forward thank you dr cranberg good we'll move on to first reading and discussion on proposed revisions to board of education policies series 5000 students 5225 drug and alcohol use by students 52 30 illegal substances and tobacco policy for student athletes and students participating in extracurricular activities 5255 search and seizure 5265 confidentiality and access to education records 5325 student privacy 5270 pledge of allegiance and flag displays 5235 conduct on school buses 5225 management plan and guidelines for students with food allergies and or glycogen storage disease 5340 physical
148examinations and screenings 5320 health services and requirements 5330 health records this is a first reading and discussion i will turn it over to mrs ochman and miss scion sorry this is a first reading so um we're well happy to take board questions but the policy committee met most of these are either legal updates um or just making sure that our current practices which already conform with state law match the state statute there was one question around um the glycol policy and students with diabetes the language in it read a certain way to to seem to imply that children with diabetes had other learning disabilities rather than recognizing that um needing insulin school is is a recognized need that we're able to assist so there will be language edits there and they are in there so
149that reads more clearly we just wanted to be very clear that we were talking about the fact which we already do some school districts have had a problem with that but it's not seen the need to receive insulin for diabetes is not seen as an assisted service within schools we do so the language was unclear and we will we will clean that up um for the board's review it's in there the edit is in there so i think mrs best you have the question um but please read it that's the one area where we went back and forth and we really asked the lawyers to just make the language a little tighter and read more clearly just as a side note when we announce that the meeting in order to stay on track with our
150policy audit we will try to meet over the summer um policy committee may do that by zoom we're we're all entitled to do it but we're trying to keep this process um underway and um we've we've done a lot of great work so thank you to the committee um i mean we've done we've done more work getting through some of these policies than we've been able to ever before so i appreciate the committee and all their work and this is a first read we'll bring it back to the board next um meeting thank you mrs zachman any board questions or comments thank you we will move on further discussion and action on the 2023-2020 school calendar dr adley just just as presented mr chairman having any kickback on it so questions or comments on the
1512023-2024 proposed calendar may have been a motion to approve the 2023-2024 school calendar as presented this is best second by mr moroney all those in favor thank you that is unanimous we have a 2023-2024 school calendar we'll move on to action items personnel items appointments resignations and retirements miss scion so that um hiring is beginning a little earlier this year than usual um other districts are seeking out some of our people who are moving to other districts but um we've so far been able to hire we're running into and i'm looking at mrs klein right now because as we go deeper into the pool of candidates it's getting a little more challenging but our process remains rigorous we're not willing to settle in june and we feel confident that we'll be fully staffed okay thank
152you questions or comments may have a motion to approve the par as presented mrs zachman seconded by mr ceni all in favor thank you move that forward michelle we'll move over to public comment quickly are you ready for it for participants in person please wait for the chair to acknowledge you for participants via zoom please raise your hand all participants please state your address and you will have up to three minutes to comment will we start with in person yes right here thank you hello julie punishable 23 fitch avenue i just wanted to when i was listening to you speak about the task force and stakeholders i noticed i didn't hear any mention of students or parents that are a part of the stakeholders i feel like when we feel these brave students come up
153and speak and when libby and john speak there can sometimes be a disconnect in what the clinicians are saying and the programs and the experts are saying and what the students are receiving and i think they're a very important voice and i just wanted to reiterate that they are being included in this formal process yeah thank you for saying that i will respond quickly to that in that it is not officially a task force it's a group of community members meeting out of that will come a potential task force and that will be formed by the guidance of the professionals that are involved in that so but thank you for those points anyone else in person michelle will go to zoom miss carolina magui you are unmuted and recognized carolina can you hear us yes
154can you hear me yes yes go ahead thank you i just wanted to say um i implore you all uh my video is on but i have no light sorry i'm in the dark um [Music] implore you all to listen to our kids that have come to talk to you and and explain what they're feeling their life in the high school is for the full year since we've begun this year kids have come and spoken to you and told you how they feel so i implore you to please please please listen to our kids that's it thank you thank you thank you anyone else michelle there are no more raised hands at this time great thank you thank you all um i have a motion to adjourn to executive session for the purpose of discussion
155of non-affiliated employee salaries pursuant to connecticut general statute one two hundred six a mrs mccammon all those in favor second second mrs achman all those in favor that is unanimous thank you we will move into executive session we're going to go to the uh quarters room straight right through there