001good evening everyone thank you for those of you joining us in person and as always thank you for those folks on zoom i would like to call this regular meeting of the board of education to order the next regular board of education meeting is on tuesday april 26th at 7 30 pm in the board meeting room so it will kick off to the chairperson's report and i would like to i think it's very exciting we've talked about this over the course of the last year it's something dr adley brought to the table um so i think it's very exciting exciting we've heard a lot since my time on the board and especially over the last couple of years about the voice of the students hearing from students making sure students feel like they're participating in
002everything that's going on in the district and we have an incredibly high performing district not just the academics and the curriculum but the theater the music the choir the sports it's the full package i was at the choir and chorus musical this past tuesday and it was just phenomenal as i said the theater and the adams family was just phenomenal too so with that i'd like to welcome the two student uh reps to the board of education so i'd like to welcome olivia punishel and john raskoff uh as our two student representatives uh welcome and congratulations they went through quite an interview process and an application process had to get signatures uh from students had to get signatures from teachers uh went through an interview process not just with the high school staff but with
003the cabinet and the administration and then dr adley and i spent uh tuesday morning with them up at the high school uh talking and going over stuff and when i walked in the room and saw john there he stood next to me the night before singing in choir they lined up through the rows and did a beautiful russian folk song um which was just phenomenal so with that welcome congratulations and i will turn it over to each of you for just a quick update about yourselves so why don't we start with you olivia and just move the move the mic [Applause] my name is olivia punisho i'm a senior at darien high school and additionally i'm a varsity softball captain and i'm fairly involved in dhs clubs and activities and i'm very excited to be
004a part of this important governing body when it comes to education in our town and hi i'm john raskoff i'm a member of the junior class at dhs and i'm involved in theater music the chorus the band all of that and i'm really equally excited as libby is to be a part of this organization thank you well we're excited to have you on board and uh thank you for all that you've done and all that you do on a regular basis at the school as leaders so we're excited to have you here so welcome um with that i'd like to also take a moment um it was a very difficult week last week for the district for our students for our families so i would like to take a moment um and just extend our
005thoughts and our prayers um around matthew mcavoy and his family and his friends um a lot of hard work went into supporting our students and our community uh last week and especially supporting matthew his family and and all his close friends so just a a moment of silence please around that and the service uh will be uh this tomorrow thursday at one o'clock at the naroten presbyterian church and as a community as a family we'll continue to do all that we can do to support the family and support ourselves so thank you um with that i have nothing nothing further to say on that i will move to public comment good evening for participants in person please wait for the chairperson to acknowledge and call you up for participants via zoom please please click the
006raise hand option the facilitator will acknowledge and unmute each participant please state your name and address for the record blog you will have up to three minutes to comment we will start with anyone that's in the audience first um if they want to come up and speak uh please come up to the podium sure please come up to the podium sir thank you hello my name is doug wilson and i live at 43 arrowhead way in darien connecticut i'm also a board member of the blueway booster club for those of you that don't know the blueway booster club was formed in 2006 to support all darien teams the band and the cheer squad since founding in 2006 we've raised over hundred and fifty thousand dollars that have been distributed to all dairy and teams i'm
007here today to support greater flexibility around the hours that darien high school stadium lights can be utilized the current agreement governing the usage of lights is overly restrictive and puts our dairy and high school teams at a competitive disadvantage versus our surrounding communities the current agreement places onerous restrictions on the number of games and matches that each team can conduct under the lights and an outright prohibition against jv and freshman games under illumination furthermore the current agreement prohibits spring youth sports from enjoying illumination events despite the fact that early season practices routinely encounter twilight conditions the rules governing the usage of lights are arbitrary and capricious they don't reflect the technology that was ultimately invested in and they were negotiated bilaterally without adequate review from the darien board of education and did not offer the
008community an opportunity to be heard in public hearing concerns regarding light spillage have proven to be unfounded this has been verified by drone footage in the initial night that the lights were energized now that the five-year standstill period has expired the board of education has the opportunity to apply for a new revised permit and it's time that all of the darien community and not just a small group of property owners have a say in how our facilities are allowed to operate for the benefit of our children our students and our broader community thank you for speaking this evening anyone else in the room thank you good evening i hope you're well my name is chris harwick i'm at 108 inwood road durian connecticut and i'm also the president of the darian junior football league uh
009the dgf operates the youth football program here in darian from grades one through eight and along with nine other towns in fairfield county we make up the fairfield county football league we've had tremendous success the last couple years with our program um we've had over 60 coaches and 450 players participate last year in over 600 practices in games i'm here tonight to request the board of education apply for a revised special permit for the darian high school stadium lights from our understanding the board of education was not included in discussions for the original permit when the lights were issued and installed in and that permit included many restrictions that limited the ability of both our schools and our youth sports organizations to use the lights that were so generously donated by many in our community
010the dgfl relies on the stadium and darien high school to hold practices during the week and games each weekend august through november the current restrictions that require the lights to be turned off at 7 30 pm every weekend night or weekday night rather places significant limitations on our ability to schedule practices for our athletes and our coaches the high school sports typically occupy the stadium until 6 p.m each night after which the dgfl is allocated the next 90 minutes for which further reduces uh by the necessary to set up and take down fields at the end of the day and move supplies around safely before the lights go off while there are instances where athletes are able to gain access to the stadium earlier than six o'clock on some occasions many of our volunteer parent
011coaches commute to new york city and it's extremely difficult for those coaches to arrive before 6 pm as a result we're forced to combine numerous teams on one field at a time to limit the time practice during the latter part of the season when daylight is shortened putting as a disadvantage to our fcfl opponents when the daring athletic foundation with the help of numerous community organizations and volunteers raise the funds necessary to install and purchase the lights at the stadium it went to great lengths and expense to ensure that the lighting technology was the best available the design and installations of the lights were completed in such a way that they generate zero light spillage to surrounding fields and homes this is evident by anyone that has attended one of our weekly practices a night
012game at the stadium or viewed the various drone footage that you can find out there what a fully lit stadium completes darkness just outside the lighting of the envelope in closing i request the board of education consider applying for revised special permit that will allow our community to use the darian high school stadium lights until 9 00 p.m with the hard work you're at you're at time three minutes three minutes thank you uh just finish up really quick with a 15 minute 50 dim period from 9 to 9 15 to allow our team's full two hours of practice this will also allow us to break down the fields in a safe manner and let the coaches and the kids get to their cars in a lighted safe manner thank you thank you [Music] hi there
013good evening i'm jennifer montanero i'm the president of the dairy athletic foundation at 86 maywood road i thought rather than go through the specifics i might take you down memory lane just a little bit there are a lot of new faces here i'm not sure everybody knows the story so it's been 10 years since we found the dairy athletic foundation with nearly nine million dollars raised by very very generous townspeople when we first developed our master plan which was what we called it we received initial input that stadium lights were controversial period end of story so our initial plan excluded stadium lights and was focused mainly on increasing field usability by making some of the fields old weather fields um getting rid of the porta-potties and instead planning a concession stand with bathrooms and we
014planned a multimedia scoreboard so during the first few years we held over 400 public meetings to get input on our master plan and what we learned was really surprising that there was actually widespread support in light for lights at the stadium and the resistance actually came from a very small number of people while we could have proposed a donation of traditional lights we did the due diligence and we offered cutting edge technology at the time it took a lot of site visits to colleges universities throughout the tri-state area led lights cost twice as much as traditional lights but offered so much lower operating costs for the school with minimal light spillage as you've all seen i'm sure in photographs the daf has always said that we're happy to make gifts to the school and to
015the town but we expect that the gifts be utilized and well maintained we were quite disappointed when dr brenner then superintendent entered into a bilateral user agreement with just a few neighbors and did not fully consult the relevant constituencies including the daf we feel the lights have been underutilized since they were installed the guiding principles should be what is good for the community and to honor the original spirit of what our donation set out to be thank you for our time thanks for speaking this evening anyone else in person yes [Music] hi paul michalski 371 middlesex road and i am a party to that agreement as one of the neighbors of the high school and i also want to take you down a little bit of memory lane because i listened to the facilities committee
016meet facilities committee meeting on march 10th and there were a lot of questions in conjecture about what happened actually five years ago so let me do this in the way of questions were the light guidelines drafted by lawyers neighbors or others who didn't understand the school's needs no they were drafted by the darien public school administration after extensive discussions with the athletic director and coaches and they were based upon the guidelines that were recommended by the special stadium lights committee of this board and proposed by the board to the planning and zoning commission in 2008 they were presented to the neighbors as meeting the needs of the athletes accommodating the needs of darien youth sports to continue practicing during daylight savings times and as being reasonable in light of the limitations that were adopted in
017other districts did the board of education usurp the pnz's authority by presenting light guidelines agreed with the neighbors no the role of the pnz when when reviewing a special permit is purely administrative it is not legislative they don't have the authority to say we think you should have more than you've asked for was the standstill agreement unprecedented yes and no no there are others other school districts have entered into standstills with neighbors over whites westport has a 12-year agreement in fact darian entered into a 20-year agreement with a neighbor when this heist the new high school was built the dip where it is unique is that those stancil agreements are called settlement settlement agreements after acrimonious uh fights this was at the neighbor's suggestion a collaborative solution to end the years of distrust tension and
018conflict and do it in a collaborative way was the stancil agreement something only neighbors wanted no it wasn't the superintendent also saw the benefit of a period in which the board of education administration didn't have to deal with constant pushes for more and more in fact in 2008 the superintendent i mean the chairman of the board after pnz rejected lights said we're not going to push more because this has consumed two years of the board's time was the only concern lights on the neighbors no it wasn't the light nuisance as was said these lights are much better than 2008 but really the biggest issue is what comes with lights and that's with games and that's the noise the noise of whistles the pa system the music i sit behind a double pane windows in my
019house and i can't think if you're working at home or you have kids who have to study you actually can't concentrate when the games are going on so that is far more intrusive was the limitation of the games to varsity sports and neighbor demand no it wasn't that was the administration prioritizing games to the varsity sports knowing that there needed to be a limit to the number of games and that 12 game limit came from the recommendations this board in 2008 as to the number of games that was reasonable looking at other schools were the lights limited to games involving dhs teams why that again came from the board and in 2008 as well as the administration why aren't there games on saturdays you are almost that time also paul okay um youth youth games
020the again back in 2008 the priority was put on the high school in 2016 the superintendent actually felt that from an educational perspective the school shouldn't be encouraging students to be playing late at night finally 7 30 time six o'clock for years was the time when there were temporary lights because of daylight savings time but in 2008 this board recommended eight o'clock the um neighbors had asked for seven the compromise was 7 30. the music limitations again go back to what this board actually proposed in 2008 and i have to say your time thank you and i actually have just copies for you of what of this just since it was thank you thanks for speaking michelle do we have anyone else um online there are no race hands at this time okay thank you
021all for coming and speaking tonight in public comment um we'll move on to the superintendent's report good evening everyone and certainly um i'm sure you'll forgive me if i also say that the district is heartbroken at the sudden passing of our beloved student matthew mcavoy administration and staff extend their deepest condolences and sympathies to the family i want to thank the the staff for their extraordinary response support and compassion displayed to our students and also from our students as collectively we go through the healing process together this is a very very special place for very very special reasons the community and the relationships that we have together and rallying around any particular cause this is our strength and it's what's what will bind us together and lead us through this particular challenge in time and
022a time where a few words can't comfort i just want to express my appreciation to all the organizations in town the times human resources the towns public officials the clergy and all the other organizations who have reached out and provided direct support for us please know what's comforting to our students to our staff to our school community and indeed to the greater daryan community and along those lines a community conversation on grief and loss that will be hosted by derrian's human human services department uh they have been very working with us very closely over the last few days and that will be this event will be held on friday april 8th by zoom and we'll make that widely known i'll be sent out this evening again welcome to olivia and join us it's great to
023have you here i just want to assure that the district has enrolled three students from ukraine and in the recent days and possibly one more and we extend a warm welcome to those uh students the booster the booster club recently had a very successful fundraiser and uh appreciate all the staff and stuff who you actually are participating that i had one less less shining moment playing basketball i would believe believe it or not i want to congratulate all those who participated if you want to watch us on this on tv don't kid yourself uh congratulations to to the concert uh and those who performed uh last night and to the young composers who are on stage this evening robotics at derriann foundation did a video shoot today uh profile and success of the 13 clubs
024that we have and uh may 13th there will be an intramural uh competition for the clubs in three three five and six through eight uh the district was also featured in an article uh the teachers college reading and writing project that i got today and i will forward that to the board it was for our long-term commitment and innovative practices around allowing teachers and more choice and professional development thank you to a few board members who uh down the stretch here made some accommodations to try and focus on in a date for the retreat currently it looks like the july 13th is the date uh so i'll confirm that and write into it but i'll just share that if anybody's circumstances have changed if you just let me know and yes next week is spring
025recess and i just want to wish our families and everyone in the darian community are peaceful and rejuvenating that break thank you [Music] um we will move on to approve uh student representative reports yes uh how's my name here only because we're announcing unite so uh for future board meetings your names will be on here and this is at the time where you give your updates to the board so uh olivia why don't you go first amazing or about whatever your organization is you've talked about so we thought the best way to do this was just kind of ping back and forth because you know quite a few things happened to dhs um the thing we decided to open with was the musical closed a few weeks ago as uh chairperson chairman i'm not sure
026how i should address yours right permanent chairman chairman's fine as chairman has uh had already briefly mentioned um it was one of the best things that we have done as a freeway club for several years actually and we've been told as such by several different people outside of the ghs community um another important note and dr adley had mentioned some of the community's attempts at valiant attempts at aiding people from ukraine the uh dhs community council just held a very successful bank sale outside of uncle's deli um in support of the struggle in ukraine um uh as dr bradley mentioned actually the uncomposed concert is going on right now um which is a funny thing because i actually was my piece was performed first so we had to kind of make it first because it
027was supposed to be second to last but it would have been right now so thankfully that has moved that i rushed over and changed building also on the theme of the evening um sports this spring sports season just began i think all official sports teams their season started last week and some fcs conference games um are going to be starting this week um there's going to be a quite a few scheduled over spring break if anyone has some time um the spanish department at dhs is going on a trip to spain starting tomorrow bhs at about 10 in the morning the first of the first trip in several years because of the whole coveted situation and we're hoping that we can continue doing that sort of thing in the future um right now it's a
028very exciting time for a lot of our darien seniors as our internship programs um they're becoming finalized right now many many students have finalized their plans in the portal and are very excited to start their internships um in may i believe they start on may 16th um additionally most of our students are capping off their time in the classroom and finishing up capstone papers which are an integral part of our english curriculum and also many students are receiving college acceptances and determining where they're going to spend their next four years so it's an exciting time for the class of 2022. exactly and finally um dr tranberg has been working on the names i'm sorry that's a completely different thing actually uh the dhs student body has been working on um the namesday program which will
029be uh april 26 right after we get back from break and it will be all about um anti-bullying and the thing itself is called names because its names can hurt us and it's all about being more inclusive in the dhs community and trying to make sure that everyone's heard everyone's emotions are acknowledged and everyone feels safe so that's a very important part of this upcoming month that's a beautiful job well done thank you and moving forward dr allen will coordinate my remarks with you so that i don't take any of your knife i'm taking any of their steam great job well done well done and welcome thank you uh we'll move on to approval of minutes um [Music] may have a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting held on march 22 may
030have a motion mr ceni second by mrs ochman all those in favor that is unanimous thank you we will move on to board board committee reports any board committee reports mr maroney yes the facilities committee met as public comment has informed us on march 10th it will also be item 8a today we had we discussed the excuse me the standstill agreement of the lights and we had three goals at the end of the meeting one was to honor the spirit of the agreement two was to revise the special permit to eliminate the standstill and three was to return appropriate decision making authority to the district thank you mr browning david yep mr parent curriculum committee met last wednesday march 30th we had a presentation from christina mauricio who's the world language department chair she shared
031some exciting changes about in that are happening in the world language program and we talked about how the department approaches the development of their curriculum and spoke about how they will be utilizing the new edgy planet tool going forward we learned about the new mandarin curriculum at the middle school and the new ap spanish lit course at dhs ms mauricio shared the stamp scores from middlesex and dhs and our students fared very well so she was very pleased with all of the hard work um of the students and the teachers we had the highest number of students receiving the seal of biliteracy since 2017 so that's exciting she said there's the most number of languages involved in that so that was that's kind of cool um so our thanks to christina for leading the department
032into the future and we wish her well with 58 students in spain starting tomorrow um we also heard a update from dr tramberg and the work of the gifted education steering committee we discussed the elementary math acceleration and we will look forward to hearing some suggestions from them this summer at this table and they suggested that scheduling of the middle school is being actively discussed as is the achievers program at the high school and so there's some good work being done all around so thanks to everybody on that steering committee for that work and our next meeting is thursday the 28th great thank you mrs parent we are fast and furious weekly yes the committee's meeting weekly through the end of june um we have we're hearing we've issued the architect rv which i had
033mentioned last meeting and we're hearing back with questions that that selection process is coming up um after shortly after break um we've issued an rfq for construction manager and um we are we've started on surveys and we're in the process of selecting someone to take a look at traffic so and we're looking at hazmats so yes we are we are running great thank you um oxridge we have not had a meeting recently other than weekly uh construction updates uh continues to be on schedule for uh a move in as soon as school is over and starting demolition in phase two so that's exciting um any other board committee reports we are good um so we'll move on to presentations and discussions we will move on to further discussion on high school stadium lights uh dr
034adley mr manfredonia we have a guest who's zooming in mr joseph williams who is a land attorney from shipman and goodman uh goodwin and we have a presentation here um i appreciate the facilities we kind of went through we're trying to go through a process here so that we have the right input the right feedback we want to be and we are and we will continue to be good neighbors i appreciate the facilities committee having a conversation now that the window has opened to look at the standstill agreement and have a conversation around that [Music] what we want to do is understand from our land use attorney what potential changes can be made from a land use standpoint around noise and lights there's also an operational component of it in terms of how we manage
035our facilities and manage those um sports fields just a high level timeline that we've kind of organized around we're having the board discussion this evening with the land use attorney we will have board discussion around specific topics the administration is proposing some recommendations we will move to honor about the april 26 meeting a public discussion and continued conversation at the board level may 10th we built a calendar to make a board of ed decision of any changes we want to make and start the process of filing a submission to the planning and zoning which would be may 18th sometime in june planning and zoning would have a public hearing and in july we would have any decision uh pertaining to any changes associated with the agreement so a little bit of an overview at a
036high level of kind of how we want the process to go through the key is as dennis said continuing to be a good neighbor uh managing the fields from a district perspective as we've always managed our fields and look to see that we can maximize the use of those fields and the investment that we've made in those fields with that i will turn it over to mr manfredonia and dr adley on some potential [Music] ideas um or changes that they'd like to bring forward uh with respect to the operations of the field so i will turn it over to you thank you and um from the last finance uh committee meeting and also from the last board meeting the administration took away the work to come back with recommendations or thoughts about uh the aspects
037of the agreement um or the act the aspects of the actual uh petition right and from pmz i will say uh mr maroney i did that you'll see in this slide that i collapsed i collapsed those three goals they were just simply from uh the finance committee or sorry the facilities committee but i collapsed those three into essentially two but but one sentence of honor and the spirit of the agreement while maintaining decision-making authority um i think it still captures you'll see that in the slide i will say to members of the public this evening who are here and actually to my board members there's one additional slide that you were not provided because wait for some information and so that's the last slide that is on line right now uh so you can see
038the complete slide deck but the last slide talks through some of the timelines uh and activities and next steps that the board chairman just spoke to so you'll see that come up and we'll address that at the particular time i would like to welcome also uh joe wilson williams attorney joe williams uh from shipment and goodwin who will speak a little bit later and will be available here for for questions uh from the board thank you to mr manfredonium mrs dunn mr lynch uh for their reflection uh it's with that group and myself uh that we sat down and looked uh at the current uh conditions under the agreement and um uh we bring forward just some thought so we'll which will also provide a little bit of perspective and then just general thoughts of
039uh what we we potentially would recommend um and with the timeline and next step so with that uh mr manfredonia thank you uh good evening here you could put it together so i'll lead you through it thank you dr hadley so before i get into the into the meat of the presentation i want to let the board know how wonderful it's been to have the field lights these last five years and what the experience has been at the school especially um you know the energy and excitement around um the school day is is palpable during the school day when there's a when there's a night event so it has been such a joy it's been needed and it's been um it's been it's really been a wonderful experience for the students to be able to
040play games in the lights of the last five years so i'll start by saying that and then i'll get into the uh into the nuts and bolts of the uh of the presentation okay so i thought it's to first start off by just kind of starting off by where we're at right what are the current restrictions that we live under um for the field light so you see the uh the bullets on the left there um as you're all aware the lights are off by 7 30 monday through thursday for practices or games for the high school they're off by 10 o'clock if there's a friday night game that the high school hosts they are still up by 7 30 if there's a practice on friday or friday evenings varsity teams are allowed two night
041games per season not including the playoffs and again that's night games we typically start in the fall at 5 30 to ensure that those lights are off by 7 30 monday to thursday and we'll have a typical 7 o'clock friday game with the lights being off by 10 o'clock the restrictions um do not allow us to host an sc or ciac um game that doesn't involve dhs so many times um fcac and ciac play schools are asked before this evening to serve as a post site we are unable to raise our hand for lack of a better word because we're not able to guarantee that during high school would be performing in those games so that's the restriction that we are currently living under that we cannot host an estioncus cic game that darren high
042school is not involved with um so neutral site games are not uh are not permitted um and like i mentioned the youth uh fall practices um are over by 7 30. uh the lights being turned off the the graph you see there on the right um is a kind of a capsule what we captured the last year of the games that we've uh experienced both the fall and the spring um including playoff games so we're allowed to have playoff games so the teams will have two regular season games plus playoff games if they're being hosted by durian high school um there are um situations where we give teams the option to select the night game that they want to play in the lights sometimes it doesn't work out with the schedule the availability so that's
043why you see girls soccer only have the one friday night game this past fall but they've had two in the past um again it depends on availability it depends on what the coach doing the kids preference as well sometimes teams want to play in the light sometimes they want to play in central too which is more of a kind of a you know of a closer atmosphere there um the next slide um pulls data from from local schools from what their restrictions if any are and so you'll see there um the only schools that are in our area in our league that have restrictions or greenwich and staples um we're just allowed 10 night games per year um fall and spring uh in addition to six practices uh with no restrictions at all um has
044between 15 to 20 fall night games and then in the spring that number drops to less than five we don't see very many night games in the spring um because of you know the daylight that we have the opportunity to take advantage of um staples again has restrictions they're allowed eight total events for the year including fall and spring uh then you see wilted in schools like wilton rachel have no restrictions uh wilton actually has two lit fields they have the access to play games on they have um 21 uh fall events and then 22 in the spring ridgefield same number about 20 25 in the fall and then that number drops to six in the spring but again no restrictions so as dr adley mentioned uh we looked and talked about the guiding principles
045for the for the lights um and and the board goal is of course honoring the spirit and the agreement while maintaining decision-making authority uh with the district which was mentioned earlier the administration principles as we as we scheduled stadium lights um and games of delights um it creating schedules that allow families to attend more regularly with the latest start times obviously it's harder for families uh to always make a four o'clock start it's easier if they can make six or seven o'clock start um where the lights will come into play um we want to continue that but uh our continued opportunities amongst all teams to maximize use of stadium lights uh want to make sure it's fair and equitable for all teams to make sure they can use the lights as much as they like
046possibly can uh while still maintaining a reasonable time um on school nights for dhs student athletes as well as our visiting students um we don't see we don't play too many seven o'clock games during the week and um because of the travel time um on the road so we would expect the same um we would offer the same to uh our our visiting teams that you know not to have an overabundance of seven o'clock games during the week because of the um obviously school next day in the travel bill that's included in that um create opportunities for dhs to be a host site for championship games which our teams may not compete like i mentioned now that is not permissible based on the current restrictions we want to continue to limit the noise coming from
047the stadium during dhs contests as well as support the use of the fields by the youth sports groups in town so it was mentioned earlier that there's some recommendations that we have discussed and are ready to present tonight so some recommendations that the board can consider and discuss that allow teams to be permitted to hold games on the lights until 8 o'clock during the week past the 7 30 time that we currently have now while continuing this 10 o'clock time for fridays that would allow us to start a weekday game at six o'clock which i think is the more reasonable time to start a game sometimes these games you know whereas some games can be an hour and a half in length others are close to two hours and so um we typically will start
048a weekday game no later than 5 30 um to ensure the lights are off by 7 30. um if you if you um expand it by 30 minutes i think it allows us to start games at 6 o'clock during the week which still allows students to get home at a reasonable time um but allows us to um have the light to take more effect and allows working families to be able to get to the games um we would ask that the restrictions be lifted um to be able the opportunity to at least host a uh a ciac or fc playoff game uh you know for example noroc high school has always hosted um soccer semis and finals you know we could we have the opportunity to host a game like that um whether we're in
049the game or not and a lot of times our teams are in those games and it would be nice if our teams are participating in those playoff games to be able to play those games um on site so um but to do so we'd have to we'd have to guarantee that we could host those games whether darien high school team is involved or not um we would ask that uh teams can hold an additional regular season game of the lights yeah until three right now that limit is at two um not including the playoff games um fc or cic playoff games that would include 12 games in the fall and 6 in the spring and the practice times for dhs would still remain unchanged i believe dr adley had mentioned earlier that there is another
050slide so i'm going to click over to that so yeah so this is it i would say thank you chris that um uh the administration as a team try to go back to if it is a full board goal may or may not be a campaign with the facilities committee to honor the spirit of the green at white maintaining decision making to try and thread that needle but that may not be the board board members individual board members as a group may or may not agree with that um our our neighbors who by the way have been extremely cooperative and very helpful through the process certainly sure during my tenure i can only talk about that and i appreciate that actually the discourse but i respect that our own board uh would have opinions on
051this as as others might have on it but it's not an easy job just to thread that needle whenever you have the goal of honoring the spirit of the agreement by maintaining a maker so we've tried to do that where we can so this last slide was only added in uh late lately because i'm trying to get a tank table from pmz um and they have been extremely responsive um i want to respect him in that and thank them for that for helping us with this uh so you can see there that here we are talking about it april 26th would suggest that we have a public discussion not necessarily a public hearing i think public discussion back and forth uh it's collaborative and uh invites people to have a discussion about it as opposed
052to just passing on their comments and the board decision would have to come to the station uh at may 10th so between there the divorce gonna have to have discussions about what this looks like what what you like what you don't like what you think should be in there uh because the attorney would have to sort of uh deliberate and put the proposal together the application uh together and with the deadline that's say deadline but it looks like may 18th if we wanted to have this in place for the fall i'm not saying that that is necessarily a target but i'm i'm proposing one target and if it's if it draws out because of of or we'd like it to draw or by process then that's fine but this gets it completed before the start
053of the year uh so the pnz would do their public hearing on that they noted and then a pnc decision uh in july so that potential next steps uh processes we do have attorney williams who is actually on the zoo call at the moment um joe i don't know if you would like to comment on anything and i'm sure the board would have questions or otherwise but potentially perhaps you could just comment on the process or otherwise for the board sure good evening everybody can you hear me all right perfect um well we we would need to file an application to modify the existing special permit and site plan that was granted by the pnz commission five years ago to allow use of the lights in the pa system etc and as you know that
054permit contains the same conditions that were gone over tonight as was contained in the private agreement not the private agreement but the agreement that was signed with the neighboring property owners so we would apply um to amend some of the terms um to whatever the board decides you want to seek to be amended and it would go through the same kind of process that the application went through five years ago um as it says on the timing slide you file the application it gets assigned for a public hearing usually about a month later and um and then you you know the hearing takes place and we see if the pnz commission is comfortable closing the hearing in one night or if it needs to continue and then the commission makes a decision on it by
055state statute the way the timing is required to work is that the planning and zoning commission has to open the public hearing within 65 days after the application is received and then close the public hearing uh 35 days after the hearing starts and then after the hearing is closed it has 65 days to make its decisions so it can take that amount of time um but the timeline that's laid out is is certainly reasonable if um you know if everything goes well joe i've gotten some some questions um kind of from board members but also from the public in that is there anything you would say that we should think about in terms of guidelines within an agreement like this pertaining to land use around planning and zoning in terms of lights and noise in
056a neighborhood and is there any is there a different way we should be distinguishing the day-to-day operational element the scheduling of the fields the maintenance of the fields operating the fields we have care control and custody of all these buildings you know the fields the lights the concession stand was built by the community basically through an incredible amount of donations through the darien athletic foundation so i think you know one of the goals that's been discussed at the board table is you know as we've always done manage the up manage the day-to-day scheduling and operations of the fields i think our goal has always been all our schools are in neighborhoods and that's the draw to the town as they're truly neighborhood schools including the high school it's dab smack in the middle of town
057um but um i'll pause there is there any guidance you can give us about the specific scheduling and us operating the fields versus you know planning and zonings oversight in terms of noise and lights from a neighborhood and a community standpoint in a residential area well with regard to most of what you're talking about it's not a zoning issue at least i i don't think unless you needed you know as a special permit to operate the fields or to schedule things or do the normal stuff that the board in the administration does in your sound discretion and that you're you know very good at doing so that's that's not really a zoning issue i don't view it that way i don't think it's controlled by zoning we would only be talking about really amendments to
058the permit that specifically regulates the the use of the fields when the lights are on and there the commission uh pnz commission applies some pretty broad criteria about whether the uh the location and the intensity of the use uh is gonna hinder or discourage appropriate development or uh impair property values of the properties nearby you know basically looking at an overall reasonableness standard suitability appropriateness to the neighborhood so um i don't think it needs to change much in regard to the scheduling and the overall operation it's just a matter of will the uh changes that we may propose to the terms as to how long the lights can be on at night how many games can be lit um do those fall within the standards uh you know fairly broad standards that the pnc commission
059looks at okay thank you i'll open up to board questions mrs ashman so i have a question on process here i i will have a board discussion tonight in terms of a public discussion i guess i'm asking what's before the board the question before the board that i'm aware of is that do we make an application to pnz i'm not entirely sure the public can inform that decision would i want to veer away from to be completely honest as the policy chair is getting into a public discussion on stipulations or how many games or times that's an administrative regulation we didn't do it before i don't think we're in it now the administration can hold that with the public if there's a concern and report back to the board but i just want to make
060sure we make really clear the public dis discussion as i understand it is are we going back to make an application for changes do i say that right i think john did i say that right yes yes okay so so what i don't want to get into a discussion is well i think it should be six games and i think it should be seven and i like we don't do that that's not our job i think the goal is we we will confirm with mr mooney a public discussion of public hearing i think the important thing is um now that we have the opportunity to further discuss that is that we hear from the public on their thoughts around the use of the stadium lights and it's been good from a community standpoint uh they
061it'll be the standard they have three minutes discussion um i'll clarify public discussion versus public hearing i think as a board we've always kind of struggled with wanting to respond to certain things if they're inappropriate or inaccurate so i it's really a placeholder and i'll get some clarity around that but to your point the goal is for the board to have a conversation of any changes that they want to um look at and discuss that would go into that application to amend that uh planning and zoning special permit okay so again from a policy standpoint and this is where what had i have on now this board has never taken a policy vote nor do we have governed any governing rules around those regulations the entity of the aryan board of education entered into a
062contract signed by the superintendent and the neighbors and and we have honored that contract so i just would like to make clear to the public that whatever that ends up looking like we're not going to have a discussion on i think it should be soccer versus um you know uh field hockey versus six o'clock or eight o'clock unless we choose to make a policy and then we that would be the first time the board of education is entering policy into usage so yeah i just want to sort of talk to the difference between the two the public hearing is really just uh one-dimensional in many ways right um you don't have an opportunity public comment that's right public comment um [Music] uh it's one it's one-dimensional and we don't uh actually respond or otherwise and
063that suggests we get into a whole dialogue back and forth but uh it's a little bit more inclusive and we'll leave it more collaborative uh it gives the community whatever constitution should happen to be at least to put on the table some of the some of the bigger issues that they would want the board to consider so that's essentially the only difference that they're i'm not suggesting everything will be a dialogue the board doesn't have to win the full dialogue with with anyone but as long as people have had their say and they've heard what the what the issues to be considered them that that's really the only difference there is really no other difference between the public discussions yes i guess i'm arguing and then i'll let mr go i'm guessing i guess i'm
064pointing out something different the question before the board of education is are we going back and are we re-filing yes yes that's the question before the board of education so as long as the public knows we can enter into a dialogue on that but the rest of it really isn't it's an administration mr sini or mr brown mr senior hand up please thank you um chris i just had a question from the slide in your comments earlier uh you mentioned it says the slide dhs may host fcac and c playoff games that do not involve dhs you mentioned sort of like the excitement that comes around game day when dhs is playing wouldn't those be the games we'd really want to host when dhs makes the playoffs right so so any game that we are
065the higher seating we are hosting a playoff game we are permitted to hold more than likes so i'm just confused with the slide so we would be able to host under the lights so what i'm referring to in the slide is there are for example there are fcx semifinal games held in the sport of field hockey that are predetermined that those games will be held at let's just say again brian mcmahon high school brian mcmahon high school hosts those games whether they're teams involved or not okay right now we darien could not have the opportunity to host those games because we can't guarantee the exiac that if they're in high school's not playing we can't turn the lights on so therefore we're not even we don't give the opportunity to host those so we're looking
066to be a potential host stadium understood okay thank you and then just look at the time limits you have here in the proposals is there any educational or athletic reason why we would limit it say eight o'clock versus eight thirty or nine o'clock i mean it's are these fairly arbitrary based on what we had in the old agreement or are there actual underlying reasons um why we would want to adhere to these times yeah someone used the term earlier thread the needle it's thread needle about what time you want to play a game on a tuesday night you know when the school the next day versus um you know versus four o'clock so you know seven o'clock you know when you're playing a team in danbury on a tuesday that's a late night yeah um
067but you know six o'clock i think is more reasonable so i think against that it's that opportunity to play a little bit later but still so if we so if we take away the question of what past agreements existed if we're just looking at flexibility to do the games and everything we really there's no purpose to these limits per se if we just look at it separate again i think it's just a matter of keeping the the time late enough to play night game and allow parents to come to be able to view but not get kids home too late in the school night i think we're trying to be just reasonable about that let's not have the kids out all night if possible like are late all right go ahead mr brown thank you
068chris i just had one for attorney williams just laid the situation here and the scope of the agreement that was previously in place and looking and i'm just trying to think this through as a board member and someone who's not around for the earlier discussions i see this really as sort of a coming to the nuisance uh issue here and you know it seems reasonable to have lights in a field where you have sports teams seems very reasonable you'd want to use those lights or any facilities to the fullest extent possible to the benefit of students and just thinking here's a board member when i looked at my duties to the students and members of the community both but you know to our athletes why wouldn't i want to have the fullest possible usage of
069all facilities at all times under our control well i'm sure you would and i i don't i don't blame you um but you know we're dealing with an existing uh permit that has certain limits on it so then the question that'll have to go to the commission is should certain of them be lifted entirely and then they need to apply you know the standards under their regulations to each one of those well is this too intense is it appropriate does it harm property values is it unfair to neighbors use of their property um but if the propose if the of the board's preference and the proposal is lift the limit all together then we can present that and you know we just need to persuade the planning and zoning commission that it it meets with
070their standards thank you mr ceni okay um just for the next meeting can we get the planning and zoning commission adopted resolution january 17 2017 document distributed as part of our pack two as a point of fact we were told earlier that it was only a special permit regulation it was an administrative um role of pnz that is a false fact it is not true if you look on that document it says proposed amendments to the darian zoning regulations cozr 10-2016 and there was an amendment legislative action of the commission at the time to section 405 b so the reason i bring this up is that this is going to be important based on what the administration just brought us because there is a limitation in the regulation that oversees a special permit that the
071lights can only be used to accommodate town or school athletic or related activities or town non-profit organizations athletic activities so this board to mrs ochman's question these aren't just policies set by the board these are written into our zoning regulations so we as a board as our role as liaisons with the community are trying to help the administration one untangle ourselves from an agreement to reach the goals that the administration has presented us with um and three hear from the community in the use of light so that's as i see it the the role the board here um so i do want to you know it's very complicated how this was written in it is unprecedented to the detail and the special permit that we're written in so duke to your point i think it's
072very clear let's go back to letting the zoning you know pnz have its say on land use related to what its regulations are so we as a board hearing community input hearing administrative input can go back to the administration and just give them times of use that we would recommend to go to the uh planning zoning commission for amendment um and that would be i think suffice and then when these zoning regs are eliminated then it goes back to the administration managing the policy we have actually field use policies that this is incongruent so that again and i do want to go back to another statement that was made from the public it was bilateral there was no consultation with the commission with the depart planning and zoning department or the town attorney or the
073first election at the time about this agreement it popped up from the board and through the superintendent okay so i just wanted to i'm sorry from the super from the super who was enabled by the board thank you mr speaker that i just want to make that okay just i just want to clarify something in the um and it had been mentioned this evening that one of the biggest uh concerns is actually potentially not the lights because the lights are that are really efficient and do a super job uh from pollution point of view it's the noise and i say this uh very very respectfully to everyone um we couldn't organize this evening that um it's a high school it's really a tough thing to manage and we're trying to manage as best we can
074but uh it is a high school and part of the high school experience is sound and the mechanics of that and i understand that it flows over it's just it's just a hard thing to manage so while it's it's potentially one of the greatest concerns for our community members it's one of the hardest things for us to manage so i'll just leave that at that party just one last point to one question to joe joe as i understand that schools exist as of right or can uh use their facilities as of right like the general operations of a school do not need special permanent approval i think you touched upon that but can you confirm that as well um i'm a little reluctant just to say it as a general matter because there are plenty
075of town and i haven't looked for this um in darien but there are plenty of towns where you do need a permit to conduct an educational use in certain zones would you come back to us with that then when you have the answer sure thank you this is parent i was just gonna before we got into the zoning um if we were to host the fc accuracy that we were not participating in how does the expense of that get handled do we take on that expense to the ticket sales from that event how does that work no so we we take on no expense all our expenses are paid um the league keeps the um the gate receipts but there's no expense to the district okay this is where um you're mike you had mentioned
076that you wanted to limit the noise do you have a plan for that what's the how is that happening that you have in your slide it's a doctor we do our best to limit the noise um it is a high school campus and there are pa announcers and bands and whistles and so we we do our best but those things happen whether the game's at four o'clock or seven o'clock so um we do our best to limit the noise and control the sound system volume but and then also what was um so 5 30 to 6 what is the benefit of that half hour start time just yeah again it just it gives it gives i think an extra half an hour for parents who may be out of town working to get back on
077to campus to watch their children play this is parent it's just building off the timing i actually i very much appreciate that you kept the time the six and not pushed it later because in my view these children are student athletes and they're students first and i think having them home at a decent hour to get school work done and proper rest is important so i appreciate that thank you mrs best thank you i would imagine if we are able to keep the lights on later we're kind of creating space we're creating time where time didn't exist before i would love to understand either tonight or or at our next discussion what opportunities that creates for other students for other programs for an intramural something to pop up for an extra freshman team of some
078sort that we didn't have field space for what kinds of things we might be able to do if we can find those pockets excuse me pockets of time i mean you know look we're fortunate in there and we have so many fields on the campus um that we do meet the needs of the of the teams that we have in terms of the space we have whether it's the high school we do use the middle school fields as well um so there could be opportunities though um but i think that the the current or our current facilities is we're fortunate for what we have when we use and you know we have access to this i think mr martinez um chris question on your on hosting the fc accuracy act semi-finals and finals so you
079you mentioned you want you're talking about having 12 fall games so let's say you hosted the girls soccer tournament would that be three games or would it be would you count it as two and would that subtract from the 12 or no so the or would it add to the 12. the 12 is what you see is for regular seasons and in addition now in the playoffs and sometimes we're fortunate to have to host a playoff game we've had some really excited playoff games in that field at night and um but the the to the point of of uh hosting a semifinal game where it's predetermined it wouldn't count towards um those numbers you see in the slot okay mrs ivan so to an earlier point i i think or to mr ceni's point once
080we untangle the land use restrictions because i agree we have to get that out of the pnc what i want is a board and we're starting to see it here right mrs perry i'm gonna pick on you only because you know i can like you think seven's okay someone else might think it's eight okay what i'd like is to take the board out of that let the educators make decisions let parents make the decisions that are right for their children and do it that way i will put my cards on the table i think this agreement is overly restrictive and part of what we then run into is we don't have educators making the decisions you know i would like to be respectful i would hope we could find a way to be respectful without
081a contract i live across the street from a church it starts singing at 7 30 in the morning we're very respectful but that's where my house is right so but they're re they are respectful our relationship is respectful i would hope we could engender the same thing what i saw from 2008 on often is that this board got involved in i think it should be this tall i think there should be you know yellow uniforms i think there should be you know that was non-productive i think we should treat it like every other program at the high school we approved lights now we let the administration do their job if there's a problem that needs to come back to us well let us know and then if we need to get our hands in it
082we can i the land use is pnz we let p and z do their job we do our job noise ordinances wherever they might be at this point at one point there are none i don't know if there are i don't want to speak out of turn that's p and z's being respectful is ours so that's where i'm landing on like i don't want to make policy that the board doesn't need to have its hands into because policy is a really blunt instrument and we're seeing it i mean effectively the contract is policy and we're seeing the effects of a blunt instrument so i'm suggesting in this iteration we do it better thank you mr brown so following that tara i was trying to get to the point earlier that the limiting principle we should
083have is what pnz tells us otherwise we should push to that soon sounds like you're saying the same thing yeah on land use and if the administration has a limitation that it recommends the board we can be aware of it just like they do administratively all day long right i think we're synced up okay good mr moroni i would just like to echo mrs achman in that i think this i think having a public discussion gets messy i i don't understand how we just don't treat ourselves as an applicant and then the discussion happens at planning and zoning and that's where the discussion has it's it's not our discussion we're just submitting an application to the planning and zoning commission so i'm not sure where we end up with the discussion there mr c i
084would just to get public input for those who want to have it say on hey you know we just heard it this evening from a couple uh speakers this time would work for us so just to get input and be able to ask them questions why this time why that why this restriction why that restriction public comment we can't go back and forth and have a discussion another time but that's the reason that duke i think you asked this question and but i want to ask it again of of uh tony williams in terms of do you have sort of a recommendation of what's best in class for a board of education to go to pnz with and is that something you could provide us i think you know certainly we want to respect the
085needs of everyone that we're speaking with but oftentimes there's sort of a a strongly recommended legal channel or way of wording things do you have that that you could provide to us uh do you mean for these specific terms like how many games or what time the lights go off do you mean that kind of yeah i actually i i would agree with all of my colleagues that i would like to separate out the application to to pnz which i would consider a land use discussion from operational decisions which would have to do with the number of games and who's playing them etc so what i'm looking for is what is your recommendation for the most appropriate application from a board of education to a p and z well usually um usually you don't have
086the operation of high school fields you know being restricted by special permit um but as i said before you know we're starting off in the situation where there is a special permit um the you know the zoning regulations as you heard were amended to allow light poles at this height you know in certain circumstances and require that there be a special permit so i i couldn't say to you that there's a best-in-class sort of standard but i would say it's less typical that you have a special permit in place for this kind of thing but that's sort of a moot point i guess is what i'm getting at because you needed to get the permit under the regulations we do have a permit and so to make changes to it you have to apply to
087change it as i said earlier though it doesn't mean you can't ask that certain limitations be removed entirely and you know just become something for the board and the the administration to sort of regulate over time go ahead mrs mccann um chris or attorney williams or allen do we have any information about the the districts that have restrictions granted staples do they have the same kind of technology that we do do we know why they have restrictions in place um i don't know what technology they have i think greenwich lights are a little older than staples though i know staples um having worked in that district is is in a more residential neighborhood like darren high school is um i don't know why greenwich has the restrictions they do i assuming it has something to
088do with the presidential um you know surroundings as well um yeah thank you mr sean i have some input there greenwich is in a lifelong standstill agreement um i was involved in doing early research on lights and we were told not to think about a standstill agreement actually um i don't i do know the lights aren't led there i don't believe they're led it's i know they're the last time i was at staples they're not led there thank you so much am i hearing to kind of recap from the board i think good discussion good feedback from everyone but we want to stay out of kind of the administrative management and operations of the field but want to organize our thoughts around an application to planning and zoning around the special permit and the changes
089that need to be done associated with the special permit and the regs that have changed tied to that does that make sense in terms of direction of the board okay does that make sense um joe yes and can i add one thing to answer the question from board member i think it was ceni you had asked me a moment ago and i was able to look it up um and you're correct because this uh the school is in the r2 zone where public schools are permitted principal use as as of right i think that's what you're asking me thank you okay thank you can i just get clarification from the board because um of what it wants to do at the next regular meeting in terms of this public discussion or not um i'm trying
090to be inclusive i'm trying to thread the needle of honor of the spirit this is an unusual situation uh i'm trying to work with i think with work with the community so that the board hears the community i'd like the board to give me specific recommendations of what it wants to do the board put this on the agenda i'm trying to my best recommendation is to be inclusive have that opportunity but if it doesn't want to do that you need to tell me that or what you would like so i i don't think personally that's not like my favorite way to characterize it this board i think is always inclusive my the question is when the public comes before the board they're expecting the board to have input so if you want us involved in
091the administrative regulations around the field then i would have people come to the board meeting and we'll get involved with it if you think that's an administrative duty which is how i see how programs are run i would direct the public to have a conversation with you but i think we are inviting i think mr maroney and i are worried that we are inviting board discussion on matters that unless you want us to dictate we can legislate we can choose to but they feel operational to me i don't know when the last the best time to start a game is like i could tell you three different kids three different times that i would say is the good time for their last game but it's so it seems subjective to me from a board standpoint
092but i don't think that's because i don't want to be inclusive or i don't want to hear from the public i'm just asking what is my role in that discussion well i think in a component of can be to just to listen because i think the public and a lot of new folks in town are being educated that this agreement is even in place or there's an opportunity now to to look at this agreement um i think people have enjoyed the feel so much in the community activities that have gone up there but to that point it's kind of like does the board want to be really clear as to what we're listening to or what we're educating them on initially and making it very clear as to what we're doing with planning and zoning
093and that their real opportunity will also be at a planning and zoning public hearing i mean i i kind of look at it two ways there i i understand you don't wanna all of a sudden have the public once again looking for the board to make a decision or the board to set the operational or administrative timelines and guidelines when it truly is at an administrative level and pnz my guess is going to say talk to us about land use don't talk to us about game tax so i just my i am concerned that we're clear with the public about it i will oppose it but i am concerned i would say that let's please be crystal clear on what our role is that night if we do it and other board members might feel
094differently i agree i just think it's i think it's important that in what we've done in the past um i think it's important to let the public be heard um but i think what we need to do is tee it up and educate the public as to what they're actually what their opportunity is at this meeting and it's really us just listening and they they need to take it to the next level to planning and zoning once the permit goes to planning and zoning go ahead all i want to hear is the formulation of a permit what times do they want to use i mean and we can very much make it clear mr chairman we're not here to discuss how many games per team and as i call it all the guts of this
095agreement that we want to clean out of the uh out of the way we kind of define our role as to how we're moving forward but as always you know we're we'll hear from the public and hopefully the the the issues are not mutually exclusive that doesn't mean that the administrative can't then make the recommendation or our decision once once they hear from the public just all right so we'll we'll we'll move forward in that timeline but we'll also move forward with working with planning and zoning anything else attorney williams do you have any recommendations for how we cue up that discussion to make it um as optimal as possible before the board of ed that discussion you mean yes no because it i mean it it's not a mandatory thing it's not a public
096hearing you don't have any standard governing it it is i think as dr adley put it you know it's more of a community discussion and and with the chairman put it you know an opportunity to hear from the public and you can have some give and take a little bit if you choose to do it um but it's probably a good idea at least to start with uh maybe dr adley and or uh mr manfredonia just talking about what the experience has been um i think it's important for the public to hear you know that things generally have gone well in regard to the usage of the pa system and the lighting system and not having a lot of conflict or complaints that's my understanding of what has been the case so putting that out
097there and talking about how in my opinion really fairly minor the changes are that we're talking about making to the to the times and things but then to just hear from people about um what needs there are for the changes you heard from some of those folks tonight i think that should be part of it and then offer the opportunity for folks to talk about if they have concerns or other parts of it they want to have changed you know those are the things that if i were doing it i would i would want to draw out so is it more that through the board of ed we make it very clear our role as the board but it is the administration presenting at the board meeting where they're going administratively with changes they want
098to make yeah we'll just say we're going to be the applicant on the board with pnz too so again we do have a role here but let's let's stay away from there okay all right any other questions or comments okay no sorry we have but i was going to actually pull you in to see if you have a question so if anybody have a question um is there any restriction involving like specific like norton noise ordinances about the time at which certain like decibel levels are put into place at places such as high school so like at eight o'clock to something cut in across town that at all at all town-wide places there must be noise below some threshold i believe it's the decimals but not not time-wise okay so it's i'm sorry it's uh
099there is a there is a time limit when it's considered quiet hours and then noise level needs to go down in a residential area that's a that's a great question it is 10 p.m so you're you're honoring that even with the friday night right now yeah so that's so we're well within the time frame to be able to extend it and i think mr mataroni had proposed half an hour which is certainly within that restriction okay that's correct thank you tom okay what was the time attorney williams missed that do you need anything else no sure very good thank you for the comments and the questions thank you so much so much appreciate it thank you thank you all take care um thank you joe appreciate it um we'll move on to a quick update
100on the status of schools [Music] we check to see if alicia is there i know she was going to discuss it but if she's not i'll do it alicia are you there [Music] oh no alicia's not on she's not on okay all right she has one or not she was but okay all right all right dr adley yes alicia provide us a statement um when you're ready for that in terms of an update that marge and i can share with you uh okay go thank you chris i have it i have [Music] dr adley she was staying on but she did want to share the update covet cases continue to be reported epidemiologists are predicting and expecting an increase in cases over the next month we do not anticipate changes in current levels of mitigation
101and it remains important for those with symptoms of covet even mild symptoms to stay home test and follow current protocols next week we are expecting an increase in travel of families and students and a message went out today offering test kits to any family or staff member who would like a kit or kits any interested families please contact the nurse at their school and arrange for kid pickups thank you so this this um thank you charlie this is this um metric all we're doing is reporting metrics at this particular point yes as alicia just shared we will have available kits for anybody for for traveling should they wish to use those and when they come back uh this is the first time in five reports that uh that dying cases have gone up uh last
102report was at 31 77 102 125. now we're we went from 31 up to 51. and the rate per 100 000 has gone up to 16.8 from 10.2 so this is the first time that we've seen an increase that's uh dr kennefeck also you know everybody does not find that necessarily surprising um [Music] but the reality is we're living to to cope with it and hopefully people can avail themselves of of some of the testing this is an example of sort of how is it slowed down a little bit so it was 27 and you can see what it's more or less the same at this particular bit so our cases have sort of slowed down when you look at the week at 20 at 27 then you've got 23 and three so you're pretty
103much 27 has been consistent uh the monthly reports so the slowdown has slowed down a wee bit for this this is right from the time and then the weekly report so you can see there's just a slight increase and it's expected to continue to some degree but other than that there really is no other report we're up and running we're moving forward and uh we're dealing with the issues as they come up and people are being respectful if there are cases of how to handle those and are doing the appropriate intervention that they have to do questions or comments good thank you dr ali we'll continue to be safe and i hope everyone continues to be safe and tests through the holidays if they're traveling we'll move on to an update on diversity equity and
104inclusion dr christopher tramberg good evening everyone the update's a little bit longer and in part this isn't all new stuff related to dei we're able to return to some events that used to happen in the past that we are doing again so things like author visits are happening and the good thing about author visits it's one of the the learnings from kovitt is it's a lot cheaper to have an author visit when you're not bringing them to campus so we've been able to do more of them and meet and have students meet more authors so that's been great so that's happening at hindley and tokenique's big passport around the world event uh returned and two rave reviews there are some pictures up there and there are many more pictures if you'd like to see them
105the you're going to see throughout references to equity networks that's just an extension of the dei team so all members of the dei team were asked to form a network that's five people that are in their lives that they can have conversations about what's happening at the meetings with and participate in a in a dialogue so a lot of principals are using their faculty meetings as an extension and creating a network that way at the middle school the last report we talked about partnering with the darian public library for a book club that has continued andrew trujiago who's one of our very talented sixth grade english teachers is actually facilitating that the book that they selected is ain't so awful falafel i'm reading it myself right now so that is starting soon and i'm a
106falafel fan i just want to make sure that's on on the record uh the with the high school uh mr shelton was here since the last update and he worked with middle school students and high school students they did a similar activity and john actually captured the the other update that i wanted to share about the training for that with the adl that will be in place for the april training for the freshman class a really exciting event is the blues and beyond uh you might remember the mpa co-sponsored this activity for this group to come in and work with social studies in our music classes on understanding african-american history and music and and the crosswalk between those two disciplines and it ended in this concert and you see the picture of kids standing on
107their feet and they were standing on their feet as if they were at a rock concert it was just tremendous the musicians were great uh colleen thompson our director of music also appeared on stage to my surprise they heard her kind of singing off stage and then they made her backup singer so that was that was a nice bonus uh to that event there's a youtube link if you haven't had a chance to click on it students actually wrote their own blues lyrics and professional musicians set them so you can hear our students lyrics performed by some professional musicians which was a great event as well and there's also our dei team we've had uh two meetings we have three meetings left to go and we are working i think we're on pace for our
108year one deliverables with our equity statement uh trying to complete the equity audit so we can find the places that we really want to focus our work next year and our professional development for staff also continues mr shelton did he worked with smaller groups of staff last time including the middle school team leaders and administrators he did some one-on-one conversations as well so things are moving along uh i would say very nicely and i'll gladly address any questions this is parent thank you there's a couple quick questions um it's that mr shelton met with a group of students at middlesex how were those students chosen this was the same group of students that he met with i think it was in november uh so it's that group there's not been great consistency because students don't
109love missing class so that's been a hard with the model that we have in place that's been hard and that's why the adl piece was a little bit more successful the training was in the evenings so that's just food for thought moving forward but the students uh opted in and it was students who said that they wanted uh to be part of it at the middle school and similarly um it says that mr shelton met with virtually with coaches was that all coaches was that mandatory for all coaches or was knocked in um it was actually intended to be an opt-in but i believe mr manfredonia required all coaches to do it so that was a bonus great thanks thank you mrs best thank you dr tranberg i think i say this every time but
110i'm going to say it one more time i love the links to all of the previous documents it's wonderful to have the live links right there for anyone who wants to refer back and i think it's a great template that we might want to think about for any other topics that we revisit regularly to make it easier for for people to follow along or to catch themselves up if needed um i was just curious i feel like i should probably know this but in the homes update it mentioned that the students used windows mirrors and sliding glass doors could you just explain a little bit with that sure so windows mirrors and windows and mirrors is the more the original term and it started 88 90 i think is when that language started and so
111it's about using literature and when you're talking about windows it's how students look out at the world around them and mirrors is how they reflect and relate to what's happening in the story and more recently uh sliding glass doors is kind of like you think it's how can you walk into the story empathize relate to the character in the situation so it's it's often used in especially uh children's literature when talking about children's literature mrs um what's the process for syncing up what like student needs so how are we identifying if we're doing all this dei work is it actually hitting our our students needs um because what i would hate to do is say oh we hit our goals and the students be like you haven't hit anything i was concerned about so can
112you just tell us how we're doing that sync to make sure the work that we're focused on it might go past student need but are we at least kind of meeting those immediate concerns so hopefully we're starting to meet the immediate by working with students in all of the different settings that we are so whether it's the adl or whether it's these groups with mr shelton but what is to come with the the data that we're looking at we're looking at four different areas that's part of how you look at equity data and coming up with specific questions related to each of those topics and that's where we would set up met metrics for lack of a better word so we can see if we're making the progress that we want to make so right
113now we are trying to meet the needs the immediate needs through everything we're doing the and right now it feels a bit like a potpourri but we're funneling so we started wide and we're narrowing in on where we really want to focus and just super quickly if um mr shelton met with coaches once i imagine you know he's meeting with our teachers and students multiple times are there plans to revisit that like a one and done doesn't really seem deie to me it doesn't so we have him here three more times so we're going to try to get him repeated visits with the same group as the most effective thing to do so that's how we're designing the rest of of the year for sure great mrs mccammon i'd like to know how we're engaging
114our students with disabilities those who are particularly disabled and probably wouldn't have extra time to volunteer or even know that that was an option but who do inherently struggle with difference both any explicit work with that population so i would say explicit not yet the way that because of the challenges we're facing of of time uh and students not necessarily wanting to miss class in order to engage in the work which i understand uh we now that we have things up and running and we're going to have more specific goals we'll have a chance to reassess and identify well where are areas of focus and do we in fact have representation of those students in the groups that we're actually trying to make a difference for so we can get to authentic experiences to do
115that um so even if they're not in the group the next opportunity would be being part of networks and then after that with when you do uh when you actually identify what the goals are and you're trying to get to the root cause doing the root cause analysis if you're was i think it was september it was yes it was september 10th i did the root cause analysis picture that's working with the students so if we see that there is uh something we're focusing on with students with learning differences and we see there's 30 students in that population that aren't meeting a target it becomes the goal of us to talk to 30 students and get to their story so the important part of this work is representation and you want to represent the people
116that are being affected and not in a performative way i do know that there were students of receiving support services who were in the initial group at the high school level yeah and definitely at the middle school as well i'm sorry kevin i think shirley was going to add i just like to hear from her thank you i just wanted to add to in addition the students that are in the di groups really speak as ambassadors on behalf of other students so i've been in groups with two different students and they really do bring up what they bring to working with other students and how students they work with have been friends with going through years and years of school with how they represent them in our conversations so although they may not be students
117that learn differences necessarily in our groups their peers and their friends for many many years are representing their lens and their point of view and it's come up on on several occasions so that's really important to to embrace also okay if i could just thank you if i could just add to it a lot of times these are the kids who need very individualized instruction and so i hope that we'll keep that in mind that they need additional handholding to access the materials it has to be often cyclical um but it is something that's profoundly important i think to them and to to you know their community so i think i know i understand i hear you i'm just gonna reiterate and i i appreciate that and just because there might be a lack of
118student representation it doesn't mean there's lack of that concern in that perspective and that lens so on the dei committee alone you have mrs klein dr mccarthy you have parents that are there with that lens and i think even though when you look at the group it doesn't look like oh my goodness this is a racially diverse group of people it is a diverse group of perspectives as the group is coming to learn with based on who's in the room and what they bring okay but may i had one more and may i add one more thing to that um i think also the outcomes as dr tramberg was saying that we're going to bring to the board of let's say the four targeted areas we're really looking at as outcomes um just with all
119our teaching and learning that will be differentiated and presented in different modalities so everyone gets what we're learning and i think that was your question to your point you'll we'll make sure that that is the purpose of what we're doing so it'll be translated into many different um access points for all our learners thank you so i'm curious about in these small groups of students that you're meeting with or that mr shelton is meeting with about how many because you said trying to meet with the same groups about how many have you met with are we talking five kids are we talking at the middle school it is was about three dozen i think it's about 36 to 40. it was a little smaller the second time at the high school because the schedule was
120such a concern instead of meeting with them for the extent of a full day which was the original design he repeated the offering one day for am classes and the next day for pm so he caught two groups from the first one but they met for less time and so there were smaller groups so he might have had a dozen on the first day and maybe eight on the second day thank you mrs mccann um looking at the networks what is the model you're employing there is it sort of like teach the train the trainer kind of model what what is the what are you doing with the networks beyond just creating connections so the the purpose of the networks where we are now is that everyone's practicing having conversations part of the work that's
121so challenging is how do we have difficult conversations that we're not used to having so the they're given a prompt or an activity to do and so we practice it together uh with their table groups and then they have to duplicate that activity and try to engage in the conversation then they come back and talk about it as the group goes on that the task becomes more challenging but right now it's just that the general practice because it does feel artificial for some people you don't typically go to people that you know and say here let's have the shared experience together and talk about it i mean we do but we don't do it in a structured way that way so we're practicing that now and the network is just as like social network analysis
122is a big focus in research right now so if every person on the team talks to five people and each of those people talks to five people that's how we can open up communication in the community thank you really good question mr chairman if i may just i don't know if olivia or john uh the question or comment or not that's okay thank you you don't have to certainly don't have to keep looking over but just raise your hand like everyone else olivia um the only thing i would want to say is as a high schooler myself i know you spoke about how missing classes and high school scheduling is particularly difficult but another concern that i've heard with students in terms of diversity and equity and inclusion is that um only the students who
123are being exposed to programs like working with ken shelton are only the students who are opting in to take time out of their day and do so and one of the major problems in dhs is that this education isn't widespread and so the majority of our student body is not receiving the same information when it comes to diversity education and often times the students who spend the least amount of time educating themselves are the ones who receive the least amount of education so i think um i realize it's difficult because taking time out of high school a day like personally i'm in the middle of ap tests if i was told i had to miss an entire day of class i would have a little bit of a freak out so it can be extremely
124difficult but um i think trying to make education more widespread as a general rule instead of focusing on specific small groups of students who volunteer their time could be important thank you any other board questions or comments all right thank you chris [Music] um we had an item further discussion on fy 23 budget that had to do with the outcome of last night's meeting if there was anything further we needed to discuss so last night's board of finance meeting our budget was approved at 110 million 607 thousand 16. 3.7 four percent increase an increase year-over-year of uh three million nine hundred and eighty-two thousand eight hundred and seventeen dollars our capital budget was approved uh for two million eight hundred and one thousand four hundred and seventy seven dollars um there might be a sixty
125two thousand dollar change to that as we have an item around um working with the board of finance to move forward a purchase of a suburban um that would be the most impactful uh dollars and cents and transportation wise if we could move that along in the current supply chain issues so i just wanted to take time to thank the administration um the cabinet all the teachers and all the leadership in the local schools for all the hard work on organizing and putting together a budget um thank you to the board for all the hard work the board does going through the budget process thanks to the partnership with the board of finance and working with the board of finance a lot of answering of questions back and forth i know rtm f b is
126meeting this evening i spoke to jack earlier um and i believe rt rtm education also met this week so thank you to them also for their partnerships and working with us i think as always there are lessons learned through this process and there are probably more efficient ways to do it in terms of people's time and energy and answering questions and organizing information but i think we moved through and proposed a really fiscally sound budget that really provides the education in a high performing district that we've all come to know and i think on the capital side we continue to maintain our buildings and as everyone knows we have several building projects ongoing so i'll pause there um dr adley anything you want to add no i want to thank the members of the community
127the board for uh their guidance and counseling input and for board finance for their support also and thank you to cdsp and cpac and all the organizations and parent organization and pto that come out and speak and support the budget process thank you very much board comments or questions we move on to the the rtm process great um we'll move on to discussion and potential action aboard a finance appropriation request to purchase the suburban vehicle included in the fiscal 23 capital budget request mr chairman i'm not sure unless i missed it i don't think we uh uh made a motion to to amend this because there's no action on it as it's currently described there's no action that's my oversight uh but i would suggest that uh if we make a motion to change it
128please can we make a motion to amend um section 8 e to discussion and possible action on board of finance appropriation request to purchase the suburban vehicle included in the fiscal 23 capital year budget mrs ackman second by mrs mccann and all those in favor any discussion around that yes just a quick question i do we have any idea of getting the suburban two months earlier whatever this might do what kind of savings that that gives us i don't think it's necessarily a savings it's a hope that given how long it's taken to get vehicles in general that if we are able to order a vehicle two months earlier we'll actually get it in time for the start of school um if we don't get in the start of the school school year we'll probably
129if it was similar to this year where we didn't get until thanksgiving um it cost us probably about twenty thousand dollars thanks thank you i have a motion to request a special appropriation from the board of finance in the amount of sixty two thousand dollars to fund the pre-purchase of the chevy suburban for out-of-district transportation reducing the board of ed capital budget from two million eight hundred twenty one thousand four hundred and seventy seven dollars to two million seven hundred fifty nine thousand four hundred and seventy seven dollars mrs achman second by mrs best all those in favor that is unanimous with john and john out and dave brown not here right this second thank you all we'll go on to uh eight f first reading and discussion on proposed revisions to board of education
130policy serie 2000 administration 2100 goals of administrative body 2210 duties of the superintendent 2220 recruitment and appointment of the superintendent of schools 2230 superintendents contract 2240 superintendent of schools opportunities for development 2250 superintendent of schools evaluation 2260 unavailability of the superintendent 2310 administrative team 2410 dissemination and implementation of policies and administrative regulations 2420 uniform treatment of recruiters 2610 annual report of the school district i will turn it over to mrs ackman and messiah um so this is part of our policy and we took um we took this particular series first to kind of test out our process because it's pretty straightforward um and we're finding um we're finding better ways to do the process we think for the next group but um i will not read the memo but i will go down quickly there
131are a few areas all of these are up for board discussion if you'd like and it is a first read but there are a few i'd like to point out so 2100 goals of the administrative body the committee suggests um taking the advice of our attorneys and repealing as it's not necessary and it doesn't articulate a goal um duties of the superintendent which is 2210 we suggest to repeal because it basically is a job description um and it is governed by both state statute and the contract we signed with the superintendent we could always attach what we currently have as a job description if anyone's worried about losing anything but i've gone through the contract and there are no um particular issues so we um recommended repeal um as per the attorney suggestion 2200 recruitment
132of the super this was also a policy that we were repealing there's no actual policy it is one of the board's legal duties so having a policy is a little superfluous um [Music] 2230 the superintendent's contract that was also um recommended to repeal it is governed by statute and everyone should be aware by repealing these we're not getting rid of anything what we're doing is conforming to state statute and so what we are creating is a situation is where we don't have a policy that is not in line with state statute and then we are not following a policy some of these were 2008 and people weren't even looking at them and we were running our district differently anyway because we were running it by updated statute so these repeals were not taking away anything
133from the board so just keep that in mind as we go through 2240 superintendent opportunities for development the committee discussed this we found it more appropriate as part of contract negotiations than an actual policy saying that you had to offer this to a superintendent um candidate that that really is part of your contract negotiations for what you will offer in terms of professional development uh 2250 this is one where the board in with the committee is looking for board input superintendents of schools are required for an annual boards of education are required to evaluate their superintendents yearly our board um has put into policy that it requires a written evaluation that has come up throughout the years as a subject of debate not all districts require a written evaluation our committee didn't take a position
134but noted that given that this conversation had come up at the board that we that might be an area we decide do we want to say it's written do we think that we just want to say we have an evaluation process that's really an area for board discussion and the committee would like the board to decide and instruct it on how to move forward um 2260 unavailability of the superintendent you'll see that there are revisions and the committee would support those revisions the administration team and the hiring of 20-10 the board committee recommends that the board retain the right to hire um admin administrators 24 10 dissemination and implementation of policies and admin um regulations that is a repeal keep me honest because i don't have it in front of me right it's a repeal
135thanks so much um and 24 20 that's another way where we um we are suggesting the board read closely and that we move ahead with the revisions as suggested by our attorney the most interesting policy we discussed in my opinion was this 2610 annual report of the school district um so we asked our attorney to what it meant she didn't know we asked surrounding towns how they implemented and what it meant they said they didn't and i didn't know um so the recommendation was one to go find out more we did that committee we even asked more people there's still no clarity on what this is what this seems to be is a very unclear state statute that we wrote a policy around so we are in compliance with the statute we have our annual
136goals we receive quarterly updates of them we have a state of the town but we are recommending we repeal this policy because it's unclear what the enforcement is it's un we're not following the policy as written even though we are meeting the spirit of the policy and so the idea is right now to remain with state statute gather further information if you repeal the policy we're not losing anything because we still have the state statute which is guidance but considering there is no clarity on how to enact that this is one of those policies where people can read and say are you doing this and why are you doing this and the answer is no one has clarity so having a policy is not recommended by our attorneys and i think that we we do
137need to go by a state statute and then clean this up we could bring this policy back at some point but we should bring it back in a completed form should we so choose um so hopefully everyone went through this memo because i imagine there are some questions it is a first read so we can field some of those questions tonight if more come up you can email me but we are looking to take action on the series at the next meeting so we can move ahead um to our next batch which will be uh students thank you mr zachman board questions or comments uh first to read of these policies mrs mccamin i'd like some clarification on 2310 and i think it's something the board should discuss you know i your the stipulation was
138what we're sort of looking at and that's the administrative team what we're sort of looking at is lining up with state statute what this does is it indicates that we appoint any administrative personnel that we determined to be necessary which is a little different from what we talk about when we talk about um the board of education hiring and firing the superintendent and the superintendent then hiring the rest of our staff so i'd like to understand what we mean by a point what we mean by administrative personnel where does that begin and end um and to understand if how this relates to the state statute more specifically so i can give you some feedback mrs cyan can and then if there's more questions you can so what this board of education has done is delegate
139the ability so boards of education are actually in charge of hiring everyone you can then delegate we have delegated hiring teaching positions to the superintendent and the administration we have retained the right to hire administrators so vice principals anyone who falls in that union currently we see sometimes it comes up with supers do you need to see this particular administrator sometimes one-off delegation but the feeling of the committee was that it was important that we see um principals vice principals and administrators things like department chairs we have sat in on those meetings the board interviews and the board then in public um hires and we we have experienced that and i think we'd continue we could choose to delegate further um oversight on my personal opinion would be that we should retain that right that's
140kind of our leadership and we've talked about how they kind of inspire and are our learners for the rest of the administration um mrs scion anything for you nothing else i think i'm not fighting retaining it or not i just want to have the discussion i think one of the things i would point out is we do interview the administrators but we don't actually participate in the interview process we're merely a final gate and i think that's a bit different from the board actually genuinely engaging in an interview so i think i would just like to understand i would like us to really understand what power we believe we do and don't have uh under this policy is it just that we're a final gate and we're fine with that and again um just to
141clarify i think administrative is just a broad term so i don't know whether we want to be more specific or not i offer it for discussion the only thing i would add is i would say we are not a final gate um we have turned away candidates and we have required multiple candidates be brought to us so um well but we could at any point and it has come up in discussions um but it is always a board vote um but the board members should know when they are engaging in those interviews and they're doing their vote they can reject the candidate they can require another candidate be brought forward so i just um not not being argumentative but i would say we are not a gate and we all need to know that responsibility
142when we engage in that process because you can vote no you can vote guess and if enough people don't know the candidate will not be hired so i think it's very important when the employee comes before us they see it as an interview and board members should see it as such as well so jill is your is your head around um do we need to define the administrators more does it need to be specific to the union or just levels vice presidents i mean the vice principals have my banking hat on vice principals department chairs and then i guess my the only thing that pops into my head is a pointing whereas we also interview do we need to do we should we define that i don't know i in some ways i like it
143more broad because it gives us the flexibility to then delegate to the superintendent um like if an interim principal or assistant principal is needed you know for three months i don't know if i want to be part of that interview process you know and hold that process up so so if you appoint yes arguably the understanding is that you've gone through some process to be able to raise your hand and make a decision so i would i think a point is broad now we could then still choose to delegate we could take a vote as a board and say i'm delegating in this instance and the board has also done that a few years back when we were hiring multiple interim um interim principals we chose to delegate that authority right to the super at
144the time marge any insight from other districts or no this is mostly what districts in the dirk do is they do a final interview on the administrative staff which is the not only the daa and i don't want to make it broad but you interviewed me and shirley and chris and richard were not so i would say senior administrative positions and anyone in the daa listed i think makes it overly restrictive in the policy because then if we appoint a new position you have to go and amend the pounds okay that's a good point so do you have suggested or maybe you could suggest language you know cabinet and dea member daa members i think that that's a discussion that maybe you should have with dr adley because i i don't know you know i
145don't did you for example the director of instructional technology informational technology i just don't know because you hired those people before i got here yeah so i don't look i don't find that the the process particularly arduous or otherwise my understanding is the central uh uh cabinet and basically anybody who has an administrative degree and so on for certification so that's why i look at that and um it would only become particularly urgent and just talk for myself okay um it would only become particularly urges for me if if we constantly get into constantly like getting into well this is not working out or go get somebody else because then the process is for something wrong with my selection of people and our selection coming through it i don't find it arduous in that regard
146if we uh whatever the feedback is from the board is is appropriate and uh it doesn't if i needed to speed it up a bit i would always come and ask that you can do that or you cannot do that um i find it helpful and it's it's not and it's not in the way at the minute for me right um for the one of a better term but just so so one of the indicators that it's working is that it isn't correct particularly arduous right and we haven't seen it however there have been instances where the board felt strongly there was not a fit um but i will tell you i can think of one or maybe two instances in that in six years maybe duke can think of more or less but um
147and i think that's indicative of most of the time the board trusts their super and mrs scion runs a very rigorous um interview process and we sometimes annually or or biannually would just get an update on what that process was but i think the fact that it's not arduous and i haven't heard from three superintendents other than maybe hiring them that was arduous that it is arduous means that it's working means that generally we have faith in our process we have faith in our interviews and mrs mccammon maybe that's why sometimes it feels more like a final gate but i will tell you in those hard instances where we've had to say no it's very difficult um and it's difficult for that reason but the board felt strongly or got information late in the process
148and was unable to make a different decision good job well i think when we've said no it was because we had queued up and we had a choice and then so we said yes or no to one or the other i don't know that we have traditionally so i i like i i don't know yes this court has rejected yes um but i just i just want to make sure the board is clear on what this policy does and doesn't give us and that we're comfortable with it well and i think too like in in my tenure and i think it was most over the last year year and a half with the new assistant principals with replacing the middlesex principle tokenique i mean i thought the process worked i mean my confidence is in
149in alan and marge identifying the process and the rigor with which these folks go through before they come up to us at the board level um and look i think we had a ton of people that we met with based on all the hiring we did over the last year year and a half and i i mean i think it works so we can continue continue the dialogue if there's anything you want to change there anything else questions comments all right we'll have time for further discussion if there's anything else anyone wants to add from a language standpoint yeah it is only a first rate good thank you thank you for all the work on that um we will move on to g action on non-renewal of certified staff working under one-year contracts long-term substitutes
150and permanent building substitutes miss scion and we don't have any action on that tonight okay all right that will come back to us so we had resignations they didn't come in time to remove the item from the agenda but we have no non-reading understood okay thank you so we'll move on to action items personal items appointments resignations or retirements so again despite a bus driver shortage rich minister manages to find replacements and that's our appointment tonight so you have a motion to approve the personnel item as detailed in the personal action report dated april 6 2022. mrs best second by mrs achman all those in favor that is unanimous thank you um we will move back michelle to public comment there was a person that tried you didn't see them so so do we have
151anyone in the audience for public comment please come up to the podium we'll take the audience first thank you hi again omahalski 371 middlesex rogue just a couple of things i'd ask you to consider as you think about these lights after 10 years of stalemate and no lights it was actually the neighbors of the high school who came forward and suggested a collaborative approach and it was really unprecedented i think you couldn't find another school district in which lights went through planning and zoning with absolutely no opposition the spirit of the agreement if i had to see it is the golden rule it was really about do unto others as you would have them do unto you how do we work that out the guidelines came after extensive review by the board of education and
152the administration they were originally created in 2008 by a committee of this board that spent months after many public hearings and they came up with those guidelines in 2016 what the administration the board did was tweak those and refine them the idea that this was by was just bilateral between the neighbors and dr brenner is frankly fake news the the board of education was not excluded from the process the process followed just like tonight dr brenner came before the board he made a presentation of the administration's proposal for guidelines there was public time for public comment after that he sat down with the neighbors to try to work it out in an agreement in a way that the neighbors would not oppose it in the planning and zoning commission the idea the special the special
153permit was not because of the neighbor agreement temporary lights at the high school operated under a special permit for years before these flights happened as you think about the relevance of other districts i would just ask you to look at only greenwich and westport actually relevant in any way all of the other light examples the the schools are nowhere near homes so they're actually not really relevant to thinking about this um going back to the golden rule you know in november of last year dr adelie when you first raised this topic said that he had talked to the the athletic director and that the current guidelines were working for the school with the possible exception of having a tuesday night game um you know increasing usage just because you can to me is not in
154the spirit of the golden rule a 50 increase in the number of games feels more like lights leap than just the lights creep that neighbors had been worrying about um and light nuisance is not whether a drone sees spillage into neighborhoods the light issue is looking out and seeing a landing strip of light out behind your backyard and then please finally remember it's not really about the lights it's about everything that comes with games the noise the traffic trash it's games are really where the issue comes up thanks very much thank you for speaking anyone else in the audience do we have anyone online michelle there are no race hands at this time all right let's do a double check [Music] all right thank you all um thank you all for the conversation thank you
155for coming in person and online i wish everyone a safe um break um thank you olivia and john for joining i'm us i'm heading there i'm fine motion to adjourn julie best second by dennis moroney all those in favor aye good night