Board of Education Meeting - January 25, 2022

001meeting of the board of education to order the board of education public hearing on the 2022-2023 budget will be held on tuesday february 1st at 7 pm in the board meeting room the next regular board of education meeting is on tuesday february 8th at 7 30 p.m in the board meeting room so thank you all of those that are participating in the double header this week um in our meeting last night and this evening thanks for continuing to join us uh participate and provide your thoughts and feedback most appreciated my comments will be more around the process tonight and next week the board will go through the process tonight of looking at each rc it is traditionally called our cut or add night so we will go through each rc and anyone can put up

002anything that they want in terms of those particular rc's so we'll go through that process this evening and you'll hear some of the thought processes from board members on those particular rc's then we will go next week to public comment public hearing and i think it's important before we finish up the process that we continue to hear from the public around the overall budget and then after that we'll go back to work on what's proposed in terms of ads and cuts so that's kind of how things will proceed and then i think the rest of the agenda is kind of normal items on the agenda um with that we will go to public comment and michelle just give me a moment i think we had a lot of people last night but i think it's

003worth a reminder around public comment so again i will say some reminders around public comment um public comment is three minutes per person you cannot speak for three minutes and look to speak again during the first public comment session you can speak at the end of the public comment session for an additional time frame if you're there for the second public comment keep in mind you are addressing the board of education with your public comments nobody else board of ed public comment should not be used to respond to or argue a point made by a person that has made a public comment this is not a debate forum comments about other town committees or organizations should be made to those entities at their public meetings or public comments comments aligned with what has previously been

004said you can acknowledge that with your name and address that you agree with comments that have been said about this evening's topics public comment should focus on the darian board of education agenda and programs and topics specific to the district in education public comment is not a forum for advertising websites or social media sites and that will not be allowed so with that michelle i will turn it over to you we will start with folks in the audience good evening john dunn one second mr duncan could you just hold on just a second and michelle could you just go through your absolutely thank you mr dunn good evening for participants in person please wait for the chairperson to acknowledge and call each participant to the microphone for participants via zoom please click the raised hand

005option the facilitator will acknowledge and mute each participant for all participants please state your name and address clearly for the record log each participant will have up to three minutes to comment thank you mr dunn go ahead jump in the gun john doe 175 raymond street i would like to reiterate my comments from last night and ask the board once again to hear and heed the concerns of nearly a thousand of your constituents who are opposed to funding both the open choice program and dei consultant ken shelton there are so many concerned and frustrated parents and residents in darien right now over the past week now 951 people have signed a petition objecting to funding open choice and dei consultant ken shelton in this budget that's 951 people that's a huge response in such a

006short period of time for a two issue petition the petition simply states we the undersigned darian residents and taxpayers right to state our strong objection to the open choice program that is being considered as part of the current budget process and to the hiring of dei consultant kent shelton from california we urge each of the members of the board of education to reject these expenditures from being included in the budget the link to the petition can be finished i just said there is no conversation about a link to the petition all right excuse me so there is none thank you my apologies while they have put forth many arguments based on emotion have proponents of hartford's open choice program demonstrated the same level of community support i believe the answer still remains a steadfast no

007open choice is the wrong choice for dairy continuing to work with mr sheldon is the wrong choice for darian the board should listen to its constituents their message is clear do not fund these initiatives is the obligation of the board to vote for what our town is clearly indicating as its preference let's shift our focus to getting back to normal for the benefit of our children before even discussing these drastic changes to our schools thank you thank you mr dunn amy zurby nine more house drive schools exist for children this statement is on the board of education page under educational philosophy in bold our children need us show the community that you care about our children please approve the transfer so that the district can hire ken shelton thank you thank you for your comments

008this evening anyone else from the audience thank you good evening diane urban 10 crane wrote thank you to the board for your openness to hear all voices in the community an opportunity for public comment please vote to approve the budget transfer for dei work and the selection of ken shelton as our dei consultant for the next phase in this work in july 2020 the board of ed received a powerful letter from recent graduates detailing the need for a dei lens in darien public schools over 260 community members sign on their call for action in the height of a pandemic without a social media campaign please remember the stories currents current students have greatly shared with us believe that there are many more but when met with an action their voices are weary the students have

009shared that they are losing hope in us adults being left with the feeling that nothing will change sharing their verbal and written thoughts is enough it shouldn't have to be a coordinated campaign their words alone should carry weight but there could be change ken shelton has begun this work with positive feedback from teachers and students he brings a perspective that can help us think critically about where we've been where we are and where we could be shame is never the part of a dei program we can acknowledge the truth of the past reflect and work together so there is understanding mutual respect representation and meaningful change we are not responsible for the wrongs of the past but we are responsible for what we do in the present mr shelton and the administration have assured us

010that his work is a collaboration with the community darian's families the administration and ultimately the board of education holds final authority over exactly what changes best suit the needs of our community to echo what many concerned parents have shared the pandemic has taken a toll on our kids stopping this work and restarting the process with an entirely new consultant would not only be counterproductive but could cause undue strain and possibly break any trust students have in this process and vulnerability with their thoughts and experiences opposition is not just attributed to the administration's selected consultant community members have shared their opposed to dei and public comment anonymous websites and op-eds many finding the concept of equity problematic and often equating any dei effort with critical race theory and even marxism so if not ken shelton any

011candidate who is truly a dei consultant would be seen as flawed simply because examining equity is part of that role will we commit to tonight to diversity equity and inclusion we are a group of also concerned parents committed to lifting the voices of kids who are struggling into building a more conclusive community where all students feel safe to learn and thrive there are gaps in our curriculum and policies so by intentionally empowering our students with both the vision and fluency that reflect the world into which they will graduate that's the only way to ensure we've provided them with a holistic complete and top-notch education and that is what they are telling you they want isn't that what we all want let's move forward thank you thank you for your comments this evening anyone else in

012the audience okay i'm not once we go to zoom i'm not going to come back to the audience because then i'm not going to go back to zoom so we're done with public for right now we'll go to zoom and then there's public comment at the end of the meeting all right good michelle yep crystal hill you are unmuted and recognized crystal can you hear us yeah sorry i can't go ahead thank you again my name is crystal hill and i live at 10 wakeman road um i'm currently the pto co-chair at tokenique however this evening i want to be clear that i am only speaking as a district parent i wanted to address the proposed policy of bring your own devices at the high school i'm a parent of four children in the darien

013school system and my oldest is currently in eighth grade speaking with a number of fellow eighth grade parents today most of them are understandably not aware of this proposed change having listened to mr clan tranberg's presentation in the board discussion yesterday i completely understand the need to change the current policy using ipads issuing ipads to every student and that having hundreds of ipads sitting on shelves unused is not being financially responsible to the taxpayers my concern is with the process for providing these devices to students who need or want to continue to use the school-issued ipas these currently there currently does not seem to be a well-defined plan to communicate this change to parents and make selecting a district device an easy process it seemed as if the plan for opting into using the school

014device would be opt-in by default by simply showing up on the first day of school without a personal device no parent wants to put their child in that position on the first day of high school i feel like the request to parents of eighth graders particularly those of us sending our oldest children to high school is to make a significant decision and investment in technology without even understanding what our child's needs will be many families want time to understand the technology demands of the curriculum and their child's preferences before investing a large sum of money in a personal device i think like myself most parents would opt in with the understanding that if we later purchase our own device the school ipad would be returned for use by another current or incoming student i also

015think as a community we often take for granted that for a significant portion of our population buying another laptop macbook or ipad is a relatively routine purchasing decision but we do have families many of which may not meet the definition of being in need that need to budget for these types of devices months in advance particularly families that may have two or three high school students at any given time i'm concerned that by the time this policy gets communicated to families in the spring it may leave some families in a bind particularly with the increased prices shortages and shipping delays we are currently experiencing so in conclusion i support a change in the current technology policy at the high school but i also fully believe the district has a responsibility to provide a device which

016is vital for high school success to any student that requests one i ask that the administration please undertake the proper planning to understand what the school issue device demand will be and to make the opt-in process easy and as accessible to all families i think that i ask that the board approve the technology budget that allows the district to succeed in making this transition thank you thank you for your comments this evening aaron patterson you are unmuted and recognized you are still muted erin we can't hear you all right gotcha here we go thank you name and address thank you yes my name is erin patterson i identify as she her and i live at 251 naroten avenue i have two children in the darien school system with their permission in disclosing my ten-year-old a

017fifth grader has already experienced in school from peers the hate and distrust towards those who are different this is not just a race issue in darien this is bigger and needs big ideas and big support to advance our thinking none of us want our children to step into a classroom with fear all of us want our children to feel safe and included our darien community is strong welcoming and capable of inclusivity the engagement of consultant ken shelton is not about forcing an ideology or embedding such ideology and curriculum this engagement is about expanding awareness in our community providing our incredible faculty and staff support and empowerment to navigate this unfamiliar and difficult territory and for all to invoke thoughtful consideration and meaningful dialogue around what diversity equity and inclusion means in darien i'm strongly advocating

018for the transfer of funds to engage ken shelton in the development and implementation of a diversity equity and inclusion platform for the school district so that our entire student population faculty and staff is supported in the most inclusive way possible thank you thank you for your comments this evening carolina magooy you are on i'm sorry i'm screaming crazy you are unmuted and recognized carolina can you hear us i can carolina 2810 said um i've been trying to write his public comment most of today as a result of yesterday's special board meeting especially because of the public comment at the end i was rather shocked to see how the narrative of us versus them played in almost all the comments against open choice another common thread against open choice has been that we need to focus

019on our students the darien taxpayers children i don't see how this effort would take from our kids when my youngest year in rockstreet a family from brazil had just moved here and their kids did not speak english very well the youngest which thoroughly was in kindergarten did not speak any english my daughter having just moved back from brazil in second grade to the us and being a portuguese speaker from our years abroad helped translate for this child when needed fast forward a couple of years and you would have no clue that they did not speak english the kids from open choice can eventually be also be a resort for the excellent language program cps offers our children once they're older i have been in town eight years i do believe that the majority of people

020in town believe in the value of diversity in some way we saw it doing during pride month we saw it during the menorah lighting we saw when many of us walked during the black lives matter process i hope we'll continue seeing more initiatives going forward ten percent of consistency constituents signing a petition do not speak for the majority in town we need to open our hearts and show that we as a town are willing to do better that our reputation is no longer what it has been and that we are working actively to change that that we are indeed listening to our kids and that we do want what is best for all of them and that is to prepare them for the real world where they will work with people from every walk of

021life giving our children exposure from a young age to people like them and not like them is the gift we are giving them and one that we must do with kindness was that not all over town a few months ago lastly i do hope that the transfer for mr shelton services gets approved by the full board the dei initiative must be embraced with open arms by everyone involved we have children suffering in school and being victimized that is unacceptable even one is unacceptable we must move forward we must trust that the administration has found the right candidate for our schools and our children i've heard comments from teachers but i had workshops with him with mr shelton that have said that it has been the most amazing and productive time spent as someone trying to

022set somewhere we spend forty thousand dollars in grass in edgarton and nobody said a word we can do this too with a much better outcome than just pretty grass thank you thank you for speaking this evening tiffany o'connor you are unmuted and recognized tiffany can you hear us we can't hear you there you go thank you tiffany o'connor 48 the warden road in previous public comments this fall i mentioned some of the high school students hurtful experiences with discrimination and bullying the parents had confided in me when i was a pto co-chair for the high school last spring they confided because they feared making things even worse for their children if they shared their experiences publicly sadly this is a very real and substantiated fear which i mentioned because i think we should keep in

023mind that these incidents are more prevalent than we can even know maybe it seemed like a few isolated incidents years ago but we know now that in actuality a few parents were brave enough to speak up about a problem that had been repeatedly swept under the rug now the darion high school students have shared personal experiences with racism and homophobia publicly and we have concrete evidence of threats on bathroom walls social media posts and swastikas found in the high school middle school and elementary schools it's even more absurd to give any value to the ridiculous explanations of isolated incidents i continue to worry about the students the brave students who have shared their experiences and those who do not speak up but also endure hurtful words and behavior and i also think about their parents

024i still remember the director of my daughter's preschool in charlotte north carolina her words 18 years ago to a friend a worried mom that i happen to be standing with she said a mother is only as happy as her saddest child this director was very professional not overly emotional she said it very matter of factly and it seems to hold true at any age so let's update and change the word mother to parent and i'd love for you all to think how you feel when your child is hurting and i don't mean the tears of disappointment that build resilience that's different now imagine your child being a target of cruelty every single day you send them off to school or they go to school just because they are in some way different from darian's norm

025i'm asking you the board to think like these parents to try to put yourself in their shoes but i'm asking you to take action as board members who are charged with the well-being of all of the students in our district some of you have explained that you are in favor of dei but just not of mr shelton but our schools need help now and mr shelton is already working with the students and teachers with very positive feedback and more help is needed to create a respectful and safe environment for all of the students in the schools this is the dei training we need in our schools at this time by supporting the budget transfer for mr shelton you are supporting our students now and helping to prepare them for the real world thank you thank

026you for speaking this evening and reid you are recognized and unmuted hi anne can you hear us yes i can great go ahead thank you man okay um the the speech that i had written duke um answer was a response to last night and you asked not to do that so i am not going to read what i wrote originally but i am going to echo the words of carolina and tiffany um they are saying what i believe and i urge the board to support the dei transfer and i believe very strongly in open choice and i think the behavior that i have seen in the comments section of the board of education shows me and hopefully you that this town needs this more than ever thanks so much and thank you for speaking this

027evening and cave your address please sure 15 libby lane thank you alicia melberg you are unmuted and recognized can you hear me yes we can alicia thank you my name is alicia melbourg 24 christie hill road i have two elementary school students i'm speaking tonight to ask you to unite as a board and reach out to our representatives and urge them to vote against extending governor governor lamont's emergency powers petition our representatives to end school mass mandates set by the governor and reassess our current covenant mitigation strategies based on local data we're a thoughtful and educated community capable of making important and necessary decisions our own decisions what parents like myself and my husband are asking for is nothing radical connecticut is one of only 12 states with mass mandates last summer we caught saw

028coveted rates decline camps were open kids were happy and yet despite their and slow cases we sent our kids to summer school with mass when i reached out to our own state representatives on this matter one response was well i don't have the numbers for darian someone representing us did not know our numbers this alone is reason enough to advocate for making our own decisions if darren is in a similar situation this summer with low coveted cases or none will our children still be masked at school we all acknowledge that our children's mental health has been affected by covert risk mitigations and it's time to do something about this when are we going to start putting our youngest our most vulnerable kids first speaking of the parent of a child with the diagnosed anxiety the

029past two years have been challenging the start of the year we witnessed this anxiety as she approached a playground full of kids after a year of walking into a structured environment having to force a child through a school door is gut wrenching fortunately our team at home school was amazing immediately put together a plan to help her we are grateful to know she is supported in the school she has a team that cares we question if all of these supports would be necessary if we're back to at least a somewhat normal environment would things be different if she could see expressions on her peers faces will our child ever have the confidence to walk into a crowded area alone how can we best help her not forcing her to hide behind a mask would help

030we have been told our children are resilient this resilient has been tested for two years and many have reached a breaking point my husband and i have watched our oldest fall behind academically and emotionally we have heard stories of kids who have headaches due to their glasses fogging up the sneezed in mast the middle schooler who has felt the pressure the high schooler who will look back wishing more could have watched them play in a game students eating lunch alone and separated from their peers if you question any of the negative effects of mitigation strategies i invite you to walk with me and my children to school listen to our story it's time to stop signaling to our children that they are threats that schools are unsafe we know our children better than anyone at

031a minimum let's give ourselves the option to make decisions for them please take the first step and lobby to our representatives to vote against lamont extending history thank you i hope to see two toothless smiles you're at time thank you very much thanks for speaking we have two users with the name claudio i will call claudio's ipad first you are unmuted and recognized claudio can you hear us looks like you're still muted can you hear us great go ahead thank you hi thank you um um i was gonna start my comments tonight uh well i'm sorry first claudia capela 27 wakeman road um i want to just up front say i'm against the open choice program and also against the services of ken shelton um i was going to start my little speech tonight by

032telling you a little bit about my background um i came from another country know as a child i didn't speak english i learned how to speak english in the first grade i was picked on because of that so on and so forth but it's all in the past um i think i've done pretty well for myself then i i thought about you know going into that story and i think i'm going to not go into that because the reason i was going to tell the story was almost trying to try to justify my background so that i can justify my reasonings as well um i'm against the open choice although i believe it is a noble idea i just think right now for darion it's not a practical idea it's just not the right time

033i think we should reserve the seats in the schools that we have for our own students that we know for a fact over the next couple of years are going to grow they have always been growing and with a budget of 110 million dollars i mean that's a lot of money to be spending on ourselves and then to say oh wait we've got so many free seats so i really don't understand how that works uh as far as ken shelton again the concept the di it's very noble i like it but as far as i'm concerned acceptance inclusion being a good person being polite that should all be taught at home it starts at home and it should be taught at home at school i send my kids there to learn science and math because

034i can't teach him that but i can teach him how to be good people i'm not a racist i'm not a sexist i'm not a bigot although some people might call me that just because i say i'm not for open choice or ken shelton but that's ridiculous and anybody who wants to come and have a conversation with me i welcome that there are reasons why i'm against some of these programs and it's very simple the board of ed and the administration teach our kids curriculum i'll make sure that i send good people out into the world that's it thank you very much thank you for speaking this evening james palin you are unmuted and recognized jim can you hear us yes we can hear you thanks hey duke so good morning everyone my name is

035jim palin i live on hickory lane i'm the chair of the darien board of finance i'm a taxpayer and i have three kids in our schools and they have been for their entire school career members of our board have been actively following the board of education's review of the superintendent's budget we've reviewed the budget books watched your meetings online over the past few weeks provided you with questions and reviewed the numerous sets of q a that the admin has compiled thank you that said the board of finance's role as relates to the school's operating budget is different than that of the town's budget and our capital budgets it is not a line item exercise instead our board's responsibility is to review the budget that is put forward by the board of ed and to then

036recommend an aggregate appropriation to the rtn that we believe will allow our schools to provide the services they are required to provide and that our residents have come to expect but at the same time ensuring that those expenditures are prudent as relates to darien's long-term financial health and its overall level of taxation over the past few weeks we have listened to the board of ed the administration the rtm and the public actively discussed the budget those discussions have included everything from ban uniforms to new new initiatives such as open choice new technology and groundskeeping and changes to existing programs such as the one-to-one initiative what we have not heard from the members of the board of ed yet is a discussion about the aggregate level of spending and what they believe is prudent in the

037long term the current budget proposed by the superintendent requests an additional 4.2 million for the operating budget that's four percent more than last year this is on top of a four percent increase to prior year it is materially higher than the long-term guidance of two and a half to three percent growth in our town-wide budgets that i included as part of my prepared remarks at the state of the town in early december in closing i would ask the members of the board of ed to have a discussion and share their views on what they believe is a prudent and sustainable rate of growth in our overall annual education spending with the assumption there's no material change in the enrollment thank you all i look forward to continuing to follow your discussions and receiving your formal

038board of ed recommended budget next month thank you thank you mr palin laura pesky gray you are acknowledged and me unmuted miss gray you are still muted can you hear us laura yes can you hear me thank you yes we can thank you good thank you for allowing me to speak i'm at 131 holmes avenue i think that dei diversity equity and inclusion is critical to our town i am saddened by hearing all of the speakers that have already spoken about children being victimized bullied and feeling unsafe yet ken shelton i don't believe is the answer and the solution to our problems mr tramberg remember do you recall in one of the boe meetings that you said some people see social emotional learning as the foundation and dei is the framework that's built on top

039of it what if that is the way we should look at that and we should look at this picture my point is that choosing love choose love program is those values that that program brings to darien and the communities and all over the country that have engaged in it is a wonderful foundation for our children and i think that's what we need more than ever the three core values nurturing means loving kindness and gratitude number two healing means forgiveness number three love is compassion in action ken has been in our district for over a year and while i've heard many of you say the wonderful results that he's been like the feedback teachers have been giving i don't see things improving in our town swastikas are still being found in bathrooms on buses kids are

040still being hurtful to each other and students are still speaking out and crying for help has the board seen a summary of findings and measurable results from ken what about a video of how he's interacting with our teachers and our students doesn't the administration have to present results to finance to justify this additional expenditure and mr transberg i know that this subject matter is messy but that response is just simply not good enough i'm sure that many of you think i'm a racist similar to what claudio said i really i i am not a racist and i will take a minute to explain who my family my my first cousin is a lesbian and we have an amazing close relationship i have mexican friends and colombian friends i even took my kids to the bronx

041zoo five years ago twins they were about five years old they didn't want to go to the zoo they wanted to go into the playground and play we were the only white family in that playground we actually participated i asked if i could be part of their community easter egg hunt and we happily played and we were thrilled and we were the only people there that were white so just to give you an explanation all right you're at you're at time thank you very much thanks for speaking this evening rosine beccarelli you are unmuted and recognized rosine can you hear us looks like you're on mute i apologize here you go my husband can you hear us yes we can go ahead thank you 29 bailey avenue we just wanted to agree with and echo

042all the comments from the parents ahead of us who beautifully articulated why diversity equity and inclusion work is vital in our town also that it's a very large effort it's a long term effort it's a huge work in progress it takes everyone getting on board and supporting it there's going to be lots of questions along the way everyone understands that or people can understand that we understand that but in general we are supportive with the entire initiative and we're thankful for the efforts the administration is putting forth for them and we're in favor of voting to transfer the funds so that ken shelton can continue his work with the students for the reasons that you've heard from the students and from the other parents and for open choice to move ahead as well and anything

043else that comes up before the board with the ability to vote to move it forward we hope that you will we're strongly for it and we thank you for your efforts great thank you for speaking this evening melinda feng you are unmuted and recognized linda 22 beach drive thank you go ahead the many acts of discrimination and racism that have taken shaken our school community have forced us to take a hard look at an escalating issue here in darian we need to re-examine our diversity equity and inclusion priorities our school administrators have stated they are in need of training and guidance the longer we put off bringing in professional help the greater the risk that we send our children unprepared and into a world that has dire consequences for ignorance and complacency last fall a

044group of brave young women publicly recounted the abuse and discrimination they've quietly endured their words made a lasting impact on me i wonder if they've done the same for you their testimonies were delivered in expectation of igniting real change change that we all hope will take place in this lifetime in darien there's been a false narrative that d e and i work will detract from the educational experience that it will put our district at a disadvantage and take resources away this needn't be a matter of pinning achievement against the eni dr adley has very clearly stated that this work will not have any influence or authority over curriculum our children are waiting to see how we will respond to their plea and if the only response we give them is that the adults are fearful

045of moving forward because of baseless claims then we must reevaluate how we measure perceived risk versus actual irreparable damage once we decide that the unimaginable loss of a young person's dignity is a price worth paying for an imagined ideal of privilege the number of swastikas found on bathroom walls and derogatory slurs scribbled across classrooms cease to matter we'd turn a blind eye to a whole nother generation of young people send them into a downward spiral of questioning their right to be treated with decency just to follow our need to do what we want pursue misguided fear and continue the cycle of enablement from the moment they were born we've promised our kids that if ever they are in distress voice your concerns seek help now is the time that we make good on those oaths

046that we took as leaders and parents and show them that their words did not fall on deaf ears we need to stop letting irrational fears paralyze us into being bystanders of discrimination and racism we need professional de and i help members of the board of ed i beg of you to please move forward in approving the transfer of funds for d and i work to finally begin thank you for speaking this evening claudio capello capella you are unmuted and recognized click hi pam cappella can you guys hear me yes we can go ahead thank you pam capela 27 wakeman road i'm going to try to read fast thank you to the board for the time and energy you put in here we know it's a lot of work and it's appreciated we've lived in darien

047for 18 years i have three children in three different schools we love our town we moved here because of the proximity to new york city and the incredible school systems but lately i'm saddened that what is happening here the issues i oppose are numerous open choice ken shelton byod and why must we voice our concerns over zoom why are we only allowing 14 residents to be in person at a board of ed meeting does anyone ask we have been we have a middle school play coming up this weekend there will be over 140 people sitting in the auditorium to enjoy cinderella but we can't have more than 14 residents president at a board of ed meeting at such a crucial time this just doesn't make sense main reason though for me speaking up tonight is

048about the mask mandate our children are still sitting in masks and socially distanced for seven hours a day while the majority of our town is back to the new normal going to restaurants parties sporting events plays they are not able to take a sip of water at school without being reminded to mask up my third grade daughter sits alone at lunch with only one other boy her friends are all split up at other tables you remember lunch when you were a kid right that is when we all got to take a break from school to chat and laugh a teacher shouted at my middle schooler last week put those masks back up over your noses i have toddlers at home who can't get the vaccine are you trying to kill them this was said to

04911 and 12 year olds my third grader looks forward to jim because the teacher's so nice and lets them have mass breaks so they can breathe she's eight she comes home every day with only her half her half eaten snack when i asked why she why she hasn't eaten the whole thing she tells me because we cannot we only have four kids eating at one time they only have a few minutes but she doesn't want to rush because she doesn't want to choke she's eight as parents and educators how are we allowing this to happen in our town we are all meant to protect our kids first and foremost as board members you are the voice for our kids i believe to date this board has only sent one letter to hartford about ending the

050mass mandate if true this is unacceptable in the beginning of covet i followed every role i am a rule follower but times and information have changed we know masks don't work the science is there we've all seen it covet is now much less dangerous than it was in early 2020 so why are we still demanding these poor kids to be subjected to mass all day long the psychological and social ramifications we all know are going to be far worse than what we can all imagine what is this board doing to address our concerns what is dr adley doing to help our kids how can we try to tackle topics like open choice and hiring a so-called diversity expert who knows nothing about dairy and kids to teach dairy and kids how to be better people

051when we have this currently happening the mask issue needs to be addressed now it's a sensitive topic but we cannot be complacent any longer we need to speak up before governor lamont is granted another extension allowing him to tell us how to treat our kids we cannot govern from fear we need to speak for our children we need to protect the well-being physical mental and emotional state of our kids i will go to any level thank you for speaking this evening jesus said take the wheel somebody in that room please take this wheel thank you abigail hornstein you are unmuted and recognized hi can you hear me yes we can go ahead thank you thanks abigail hornstein 17 edmond street good evening i very much enjoy the explicit presentation of budgetary information in your recent

052board materials that transparency enables me to use applied financial economic tools to evaluate your proposed expenditures economists both theoretical applied have developed tools to identify if the marginal projects facing an organization are actually good these tools can be used to evaluate the proposed contract for ken shelton and open choice the methodology is based on work done by james tobin who was awarded the nobel prize in economics in 1981. specifically we use average and marginal tobin's q which examine the ratios of market to replacement value i've published four peer-reviewed papers including a methodology one on marginal tobin's q and i'm going to use that approach to evaluate these proposed expenditures for the town of darien it's actually hard to do that it's hard to estimate the marginal cue for ken shelton's contract but we can easily

053explore a quick counter factual if we don't hire him what would we do we'd invest more time which comes at a cost when we look at district staff to investigate alternatives if we walk away from mr shelton anyone else would now likely demand a cost premium to cover the increased hassle of dealing with what has now been shown to be a contentious district of course staff might choose to leave too and replacements may be of inferior quality and experience meanwhile more time would elapse and problems would either stabilize at the current unacceptable level or get worse after all if they were going to improve on their own we would not be talking tonight and of course the district will remain vulnerable to charges that students civil rights are not protected due to the adverse climate

054in schools i suspect but cannot prove that the marginal tobin's queue of ken shelton's contract would thus be highly positive and substantially exceed the cutoff value on the other hand the board's materials gave the precise data to estimate the marginal tobin's queue for the open choice program even if you argue that costs were underestimated which seems unlikely given your words high caliber and the taxes should be estimated at the highest marginal tax rate ever paid by any u.s taxpayer in history the estimated marginal tobin's queue would still be in excess of the tax-adjusted threshold in short there is no economic argument against open choice thank you for your time and if you would like hyperlinks so that you can learn more about james tobin average q or marginal cue let me know i'm quite happy

055to resume my practice of emailing all of you thank you for your time good night thank you for speaking this evening natasha rose you are unmuted and recognized hi i'm natasha tomai i live at 6 mclaren road south um i'm here to ask for a couple things but most specifically mass choice um i the data is there everybody is talking about it and i have in a child who is seven years old who has apraxia it is a neurological speech delay it requires her to see people's mouths and to be touched while she's receiving therapy the district has done a great job to try to accommodate this as much as possible but she is not progressing and so now i'm doing i'm trying to be a speech pathologist and do homework with her at home

056and it's actually not just slp it's like a special level of um of training so um that's just how it's affecting her specifically um i'm concerned about you know the learning loss for her you know being behind in in reading um but it's really nonsensical to keep these kids in masks like look at the depth it's just so clear and i think that you know teachers projecting through masks all day is also very difficult for them so i'm asking you to take a really good hard look at that um and see if that's what's the best thing for our district um i also want to ask the question back i heard some inconsistency last night in the language between appropriate and reasonable and i think in a memo it might have said appropriate where i

057think in the legislation it says reasonable so i'd ask the board to take a look at that when we're talking about reimbursements for special ed students that are coming from outside the district i think that i also heard the word litigation at a former board meeting that um you know there wasn't any litigation from granberry so the word reasonable i think is only determined if there is in fact litigation so um you know let's take a look at that and um and lastly on you know ken shelton i haven't seen a smoking gun that ken sheldon's a bad guy or that there's something you know really really wrong with him at all but what i have what i do wonder about is i haven't seen much from him at all other than a 30 minute

058presentation and so the person who's going to be tasked with helping our teachers should be providing a curriculum should be providing something that is what educators do they provide something detailed and they give it to you it gives it it doesn't have enough doesn't give the teachers enough to um people are scared everywhere teachers are scared parents are scared to speak their minds kids are scared okay we need a peacemaker let's make sure i think that with the uh technology stuff i'm concerned about the um i think a lot of this stuff is coming from outside the district this hate you know it's coming from youtube and pranks on youtube and pranks on tick tock and all that other stuff so you are at time thank you very much appreciate you speaking this evening [Music]

059jessica's iphone you are unmuted and recognized jessica can you hear us yep i can hear you can you hear me yeah jessica murphy 22 old farm road um dear members of the border i come here tonight as a concerned mother i'm imploring you to please advocate for us in hartford to drop the statewide mass mandates and send this jurisdiction back to our local communities i also am here to urge you to move to a mass choice program in our darien schools we now know that covid poses very little threat to our children yet here we set 22 months into this pandemic and our children are still being forced to spend most of their day in a mask as the virus gets less dangerous our restrictions on these poor kids tighten what you may not appreciate

060is the emotional trauma this is causing them you may think it's no big deal what does it matter kids are resilient they don't complain but this is where you're wrong i'm here to tell you firsthand that forced mask wearing for the entire school day has to stop our kids are suffering they're suffering in silence mostly because the adults around them are forcing them and shaming them and scaring them into silence they're suffering because they don't feel like they have any other option they're hopeless they're depressed and the joy in their lives at school has ceased to exist my family moved to darian in 2020 because we heard such amazing things about the schools in this community we have four children and every single one of them has been changed because of these maths they've had

061their own struggles from my 12 year old to trying to navigate the tumultuous middle school years in a new school not being able to read anyone's facial expressions was that a welcoming smile from someone that may want to be my friend or was it a scalp let me be the first to tell you being in middle school and only seeing someone's eyes for 22 months is torture he spent the entirety of sixth grade at a lunch table by himself my 11 year old has finally broken as well he's depressed he does not ask to play with friends anymore he comes home he keeps to himself he's afraid to put himself out there and ask a friend to come play because he has not seen their face for so long he can't read their expressions to

062know if they're friends or foes the smallest slightest movement in your face can make a world of difference he's gone from a happy-go-lucky smiley kid to someone who's scared anxious depressed he routinely tells me that he hates his mask at school and often no longer wants to go to school and then my three-year-old can you imagine seeing a three-year-old go to nursery school in a mask it breaks my heart since turning three in december and being forced to wear his mask throughout the school day he suddenly no longer wants to go to school every morning he says mommy i'm scared mommy i'm nervous mommy i don't want to go to die do we think this is a coincidence i don't think so maybe not being able to see people's faces in and having his face

063covered all day has shattered his confidence and taken the fun out of school and then there's my seven-year-old she's a joy to be around a true spark but even her spark has dimmed over the last two years she was a confident leader who didn't care what others thought before kovid now she's also nervous nervous not to have her mask on if everyone else around her is wearing it she's afraid of giving in trouble she's she wants to be just like everyone else are these the lessons we want to teach our children your time is up thank you claudia you are unmuted and recognized claudia can you hear us yes can you hear me yes go ahead thank you okay thank you uh claudia ebert one sherry lane darian um thank you for the opportunity to

064speak here uh i'd like to speak against the mask mandate in our schools i have four children one in third grade one in second grade one in first grade and a preschooler my older three attend oxford elementary given the covet statistics by now this is a virus that we're going to have to learn to live with the cdc says cloth masks are useless the world health organization is against masking our youngest learners over half of the rest of the country has already moved on kids in many other states for over a year now have been able to attend school without a mask in connecticut we're living in a groundhog day nightmare where masks have become a form of control a source of division and an underhanded way to maintain federal funding my kids have all

065told me that our school has not provided mass breaks to them this year my nine-year-old daughters told me it's so bad when she has to run for pe but it feels like her face is burning or the mask covers her and she can't breathe where is the compassion for our children where is the empathy what adult in a position of leadership allows for this child abuse our children are spending seven hours a day in a mask and are expected to learn concentrate exercise and socialize with half of their face covered for two years there's an atmosphere of anxiety and hyper vigilance throughout our elementary schools where our children are supposed to feel comfortable and safe instead of focusing on which students are learning the material teachers and administrators are focused on which kids are wearing

066their masks improperly stop hurting our children under the guise of safety and end this absurdity allow parents to choose what is best for their child i ask that our board of education reach out to hartford now demand local control on masking before lamont's emergency powers vote takes place on february 9th thank you thank you for speaking this evening kate pace you are recognized and unmuted kate can you hear us i can hear you can you hear me yes go ahead thank you hi kate pace 11 scout trail i'm joining to say i'm strongly in favor of the transfer of funds to engage ken shelton in the dei work in the district and also supportive of moving forward with open choice thank you thank you for speaking this evening user bill's iphone you are recognized and

067unmuted can you hear us now we can sorry you know me i'm not that good at this go ahead thank you bill leonard's one side one way road um i'm against hiring ken shelton i'm against the open choice program we've laid out why the cost and the implementation are either onerous or impossible for our town at this time but a personal example speaking of what other parents have spoken to tonight i lived in norwalk for 12 years before moving to darien recently so under the open choice program system i'd be considered to bring diversity to darien since 2000 2006 but now that i've moved two miles i don't i don't think that makes any sense this program is poorly thought out and even morally poorly budgeted but separately four grammar schools are using trailers and

068we have excess capacity i'm told my nine-year-old eats lunch in a hallway my 11 year old eats lunch in a gymnasium my six-year-old eats at a table for two for lunch when his table partner is there when his table partner's out of school he eats alone think of your six-year-old eating lunch alone during the only time of the day he's allowed to take his mask off and then explain to me again how you're putting our children first children coming home crying and traumatized are not the sign of a properly functioning board of education think of this the iphone i'm talking you on right now has face recognition technology built by the smartest people in the world it opens when i look at it with a hat sunglasses it doesn't open when i wear a mask

069but our babies never see a face from 8 am to 3 pm we have many issues with our schooling environment and adding a dei consultant or more children from other towns doesn't solve them bringing on proposals for di consultants or open choice demonstrates the board may have lost the threat i asked the board to reassess what our priorities are right now i'd also like to echo claudio's comments earlier it's a job of parents to raise good children it's the school's job to teach math science reading and writing bullying and bigoted behavior is disgusting and should be met with harsh discipline if these actions continue parents need to address it directly rather than outsource it to ken shelton or anyone else in the administration thank you for speaking this evening i missed your last name sorry

070planitch ellie and ich jeff montero you are unmuted and recognized can you hear us jeff uh yes can you hear me all right yes we can go ahead thank you okay okay i'm at 19 wailing road uh thanks for taking the time this evening given the emotional and developmental burdens we all recognize that masks place on our children and the fact that it poses little risk to their health i'd like to ask that our superintendent and board help us chart a path to where our children are no longer forced to wear masks in school you can hear the frustration from parents on this call and in our town and across our state governor lamont and the legislature in hartford are not best positioned to make this decision on behalf of our kids will our local

071leaders please start to advocate on behalf of our children our calls and emails to hartford are not are nothing without your support please i encourage you to reach out to our legislature and department heads in hartford to make sure they are aware that the parents students and teachers have had enough of these ineffective ineffective protocols also in speaking with parents in other towns we understand the governor's mandates have room for interpretation given our understanding of covet has evolved can we reevaluate our mitigation strategies and try to make things normal for our kids in the meantime our children are depending on you to do what's right here thank you thank you for speaking this evening user joanna's ipad you are unmuted and recognized joanna can you hear us can you hear me yes go ahead please

072thank you hi joanna zatani hollow tree ridge road much to my disappointment lamont is asking for an extension of his executive order which includes masking in school we're almost two years into this pandemic and have learned a lot about covid it's not going anywhere and we need to learn to live with it cloth masks provide little prevention and transmission children's health is minimally affected by this virus the psychological and developmental effects of wearing masks are troubling adults are able to attend sporting events social events plays and restaurants without masking why is it that anyone would think it is okay to still mask children at school i'm asking for you to stand up to lamont against extending the executive order by requesting local control if lamont's order is to pass there are changes we can make

073in our schools to lessen the burden of our kids stop separating kids at lunch get rid of social distancing stop opening windows in front in frigid temperatures and end any other ridiculous measures the schools have implemented thank you for speaking this evening carolyn burns you are unmuted and recognized can you hear me yes we can go ahead thank you um good evening my name is carolyn burns i live at fort st nicholas road and i just want to thank the board for opening the floor because obviously we all have a lot to say um and i have a four-year-old son at royal elementary school in elp and he has been in a mask for half of his life half of his life it's it's hard to think but you really have to let that sink

074in it's crazy um and he has speech and language obstacles that have proven hard to overcome with these restrictive masks and cloths over their faces and just like most other parents joining tonight i'm worried that if we don't put an end to these school mandates it will forever change the way that these kids speak think socialize and live and while i've been writing our legislat our legislators and governor every single day i really urge you to speak out on behalf on a local school level and encourage them to end these mandates are you an advocate are you compliant i think we have a right to know make it our choice on how to best protect our families um because of these masks and these school mandates my son and so many other children quite literally

075do not have a voice well we are their voice now and we demand to be heard thank you thank you for speaking this evening jessica nichols you are unmuted and recognized hi yes um i am jessica nichols from 18 stoney brook road i have two children in preschool one who will be entering kindergarten next year um i didn't plan to speak tonight but i feel compelled to do so um we moved to darien from new york city three years ago and i remember visiting this town and i appreciated that it was a beautiful town and it would likely be a nice place for our children to grow up um i that said we've always had many friends very close friends from all backgrounds my husband recently went to grad school in new haven and our

076group of close friends we we all called each other you know the united nations and we also have immediate family from various countries whose skin tone is different than ours and i'm not showing my video but i'm white um we have noted friend after friend who has visited us has made comments about feeling like the only one who looks like them in our town many friends who could very much afford to live in berrien but would never do so our best friends who wanted to move out of the city his wife is vietnamese his wife said to us that she would never feel comfortable moving to darien because she would worry that her children would feel like the only ones here i think this this decision to hire ken shelton is very much symbolic it's

077symbolic in the fact that you know it's now been publicized throughout town that we're considering working with an inclusion a diversity and inclusion um specialist and to then say that we are not going to go forward with that to me send the wrong message clearly it's time for our town to step up and start moving in the right direction on this topic and to show that we have open arms to people who don't look like us so i that's my opinion and i really wanted to share that tonight i also would like to note that i also agree with what many people have been saying regarding the masks and having them removed from our children i personally do not mind wearing the mask and i wear my mask to protect others um but at the

078same time my five-year-old and and two and a half year old i you know it's been two years now that they're wearing their masks and i think that the time is up for the especially the young children to be wearing masks at school thank you thanks for speaking this evening connor godfrey you are unmuted and recognized go ahead connor can you hear us can you guys hear me right yes we can go ahead thank you connor godfrey one red mill lane um i'll be fairly brief i just want to say i completely agree with uh with the capellas with the leonishes with the monteros and many others who have spoken tonight as i'm sure most people are aware i am against open choice for the reasons that have already been discussed i'm against the continued

079consultancy of ken shelton for the reasons that have already been discussed and no that doesn't make me a racist that accusation is both intellectually lazy and dishonest those of you that profess to support dei unless of course it's diversity of thought or inclusion of anyone that may disagree with you are hypocrites but i want to speak about the mass mandate and in that regard i would simply submit that this is the first time in history we have sacrificed the mental well-being of our youngest generation for the perceived safety and fears of our older generation we should be ashamed of ourselves the rest of us go to dinners gather in groups hang with our friends go to sporting events why is it that we can do all those things in relative normalcy yet our children are

080masked in school all day long it's disgraceful our children's freedoms don't end where the misguided fear of others begins and we should all do better thank you for speaking this evening willie bruno you are unmuted and recognized mr bruno we can't hear you can you hear us yes can you guys hear me we can hear you thank you go ahead please uh will bruno 81 lyndon ave um thank you guys for your time uh i am a dps special ed paraprofessional and a darien parent um i've seen firsthand the negative effects masking has on our students social emotional and general learning skills they cannot read our facial expressions and learn social cues they cannot effectively hear us and follow directions and none of this is their fault not only is this negatively affecting our students

081but as educators it's troubling to watch our kids suffer and exhausting to have to constantly repeat ourselves and reinforce policies many of us do not support there have been countless studies on the effectiveness of masks conduct by conducted by highly reliable peer-reviewed sources for example anal's of internal medicine national institute of health's national library of medicine and the center for infectious disease research and policy just to name a few these studies all conclude that masks are ineffective at stopping the spread of covet 19. darien public schools has written one letter to our state government for more more local control of masking one letter why are we refusing to fight for our kids the fact that my 17 month old daughter knows the word mask and attempts to put one on her face breaks my heart

082this is a skill i pray she will never need to develop thank you thanks for speaking this evening kathleen thompson you are unmuted and recognized hi good evening um i just wanted to um reiterate some of the sentiments tonight um i would like to ask the board to please advocate for daring children to become unmasked um i think what was said tonight uh you know uh connecticut is one of seven states uh that have masking of children under five years of age um connecticut is only one of 12 states in the u.s still with mass mandates and you know governor lamont using our children as pawns to get federal funding is just not okay and i ask all of you to please reach out on behalf of our kids to ask them to ask the

083governor to not resume on his um emergency powers thank you chris can we have your address please sure 53 good wise river road thank you krista karns you are michelle i'll just pause here for a second since we've gone beyond an hour in public comment which we're happy to do because we want to hear and listen i would reiterate that there is a recurring theme here masks and some of the things that are on discussion and i appreciate that we also have staff here that have to travel home and we've got an agenda ahead of us we want to continue to listen but if you have an opportunity to agree with what's been said around masks and and the other topics we appreciate you shortening that and agreeing with it um but we're also happy

084to listen i just wanted to give that reminder out thank you krista go ahead if you can hear me hi hi uh krista karns fitch avenue um i would like to reiterate my support for ken shelton dei i think uh teaching academics requires teaching a full breadth of history and how would we teach our girls about you know women's rights and suffrages without looking at another person's perspective how would we teach civil rights movement from the 60s without looking at it and we need to bring it current um i do not uh feel that if we embrace this that or don't embrace this that anybody is being racist necessarily um and and to to to put that on people for just disagreeing with you seems disingenuous and quite frankly sort of immature um i would

085also say for the mask cohort here um darien is receiving 6.4 million dollars from the american rescue plan act they're having a meeting tonight it can be dedicated towards mental health and education related funding so you maybe want to make your um your interests there known and there may be there's ways to help mitigate this situation as we move forward but for the board um godspeed and i you know hope you make the decision to include diversity equity inclusion in our curriculum thank you thanks for speaking this evening elizabeth wilder you are unmuted and recognized elizabeth can you hear us i think you're on mute elizabeth hello yes we can hear you go ahead thank you hi um i'm at 21 ridge view avenue and i just wanted to voice my support for the dei

086program i think it's absolutely critical in this town in particular having lived here since and having been raised in greenwich i absolutely see the need for it and also being the parent of two latinx children and i also wanted to voice my support for the transfer of funds for ken shelton thanks so much thank you thanks for speaking this evening armelle jacobs you are unmuted and recognized hi can you hear me yes we can go ahead thank you i'm armelle jacobs12 fitch um i want to echo the comments of diane aaron catherine rosheen belinda tiffany abigail carolina kate jessica and elizabeth i am in support of the transfer to ken to continue ken shelton's work and any further dei efforts that come before you guys including open choice i want to say that westport has

087been enrolled in open choice for something like 30 years or something like that i want to also say that greenwich has a diversity advisory committee that has been active for decades darien is is lagging behind we are behind our peers we are behind the world uh on these issues you know jessica said she had a um an acquaintance who said oh no i don't want to move there because like you know it's i don't want my kid to feel ostracized um everybody has a story like that but what has been suggested to me also is the converse which is that there are people who move to darien because it is somehow uniquely resistant to some of these inclusive measures i just i find it to be such an ugly thought and the optimist in me

088is like no but then you know meeting after meeting i hear some of these voices and some of these stories and what people are advocating against and i i wonder so my message now is for you know i think i think this is the way the world we're going to get there i hope that this board does the right thing and i'll speak that i'll manifest that so assuming when you guys do this i want to just say a quick word to the parents who will have children coming in don't be discouraged you know a petition of 900 in a town of 20 000 don't be discouraged by some of what you're hearing here there are so many of us that would welcome your children that would want to have your children in a classroom

089with ours so you know don't be too discouraged we're we're gonna work on ways of making our kindness more visible so we can do what jessica said and and send a message that we're ready to stop lagging behind thanks thank you thanks for speaking this evening aparna sagal you are unmuted and recognized hi can you hear me yes we can go ahead thank you thank you thank you i'm aparna seigel and i'm dialing in from seven phillips lane i'm in favor of transfer of funds to ken shelton and in support of dei and the open choice program thank you thank you thanks for speaking there are no more race hands at this time okay thank you michelle thank you all um that has spoken participated and we will have public comment at the end of

090the meeting so much appreciated thank you um we will move on uh to the superintendent's report dr adley yes i certainly can make this brief uh good luck to our high schoolers uh today and today they were and tomorrow the last day of exams thursday is makeup and the third quarter starts on friday marilyn friend the special education [Music] was meeting with our elementary ap today and with our principals continuing the feasibility uh study for co-teaching at the elementary school that is scheduled for a board presentation to receive that report uh in may royal uh fifth grader uh will moore will actually release an original song called free it's on spotify pandora and amazon music so congratulations to well i look forward to listening to that uh the homeschool kids care club uh participated in

091sharing well over a thousand books uh with students at a fellow school in bridgeport so we thank them for for reaching out to uh our neighbors middlesex as you heard this evening actually a little bit there is a middlesex cinderella which is thursday and friday and then there's two shows on saturday if you get an opportunity to participate and we'll go support the arts we will be extending some of the spectator capacity and we'll talk about that momentarily the curriculum committee meets on thursday morning thank you to the board members for representing our board with our legislators tomorrow we have a number of board members who are who are traveling with us so thank you for that and just reminded the public hearing on the budget is in february first next year thank you sir

092thank you dr hanley uh we'll move to approval of minutes may have a motion to approve the following minutes of the regular meeting held on january 11 2022 minutes of the special meeting held on january 18 2022 and minutes of the special meeting held on january 24th 2022. may have a motion mr moroney that is seconded by mr brown all those in favor that is unanimous thank you um we'll move on to any board committee reports mr ceni uh the finance committee met i'm looking up the date i think it was friday january 21st um there's a number of transfer requests from the administration that i'll wait till we go through richard's presentation to address um but there was one item that we wanted to cover and which we covered at our retreat which was

093the special education reserve account we discussed that at length i know a number of you were either here in person or watching meetings i'm not going to go in great detail unless you have questions it was something we discussed at the retreat it's a special reserve account controlled and basically was formed i believe by the board of finance it hasn't been used in over a decade the board of finance has requested to us uh if we have a view uh related to the special reserve account and uh i believe our committee's recommendation of the board is it's really not not our account after uh the retreat i think we were supposed to send some email communication and that might not have happened but i would just recommend to the board that we have dr adley

094on our behalf send an email like uh emailed to the board of finance and basically outline the fact that it's their account they can do what they want to with it thank you mr scene um we can have further discussion on that when we go to finances um mrs dochman yes uh the policy committee met and we will go through the policies reviewed this evening i would just like to flag or scheduled for a meeting february 9th i anticipate that meeting to change just given a review we need from attorneys and the fact that it is directly after our budget night so it may not if marge and i can sync everyone up but at this moment it looks like we may need to change that date and i'll get that out to the policy

095committee members we have a first read of policies tonight and we will do that later in the agenda thank you any other committee reports good we will move on to darien public schools uh update dr adley well i'm glad to report that we're on a good good trend um our cases have reduced and are dropping i would like to i don't know if emily is on but emily merritt is currently acting as our copic uh clients uh compliance officer and she will be fulfilling that role for a period of about six weeks emily is the nurse over the home school emily are you on just you may just say hello to the board in your new capacity i don't know if you are but there she is hi emily you're on mute thank you emily

096uh hi how are you good thank you for stepping into the role and for all that you've been doing as part of the healthcare team thank you absolutely so we'll just touch upon a couple of aspects a day this is the state of the state so to speak and this is this gives you the case a summary of the cases i think currently today we had nine cases eight of them adam were vaccinated but those numbers as you can see here continue to drop significantly these are from the time so they're consistent and then and sort of did i turn that away so just a couple of matters uh regarding uh kovid uh elp uh we will be at the end of this week reinstate in the five days uh there was a wee bit

097of an outbreak so to speak uh but uh i think we were able to uh reinstate those those five days quarantine for the start of next week the testing so we the test and we we sent out a survey for if you want to be tested a pcr test uh the company would come the agnostic company would come and you could be part of that uh so that it was open to it was open to all students whether you're vaccinated or unvaccinated so parents have signed up accordingly we'll be doing it also at the middle school in the high school i think it's february 2nd is the start date of the high school as so parents are have taken advantage of that test kits and mass we have probably delivered nearly 6 000 of test

098kits and six thousand of mass so it seems that we got a request a day for more did we want more i'm not so sure that we will be putting in our requests for more because at this point we seem to have plenty and certainly over at the town hall there's not a i don't think there's a right for um vaccinations or other clinics so at this point i think we we're we're well we're well stuck regarding the spectator we discussed this with our the medical team today we're going to move have you met if you remember we went back to two basically two parents and we're going to to go reverse a little bit up to at least 50 capacity so that will allow more obviously participants and spectators and community members at different

099events lunches i think we'll we'll take a look at the end of the week lunches just at the spa the space in the social distance if you remember we went back we increased the space across the district primarily across the district not necessarily at the high school but um across the rest of the district uh first for six feet uh maybe something that if if the pattern plays out and continues in this this way that could be something that we could consider and have a discussion with our medical advisors on but uh the the basic essence of the picture is a good picture as you're experiencing yourselves probably your high schools and so on it seems nice that everybody's either had it or well maybe had it i don't know but but it's a good

100sign so for that we're certainly grateful hopeful okay okay thank you dr adley um with respect to the update in covet i'll open up for board questions mr moroney if if and when the governor's executive order expires next early next month how soon would we be able to go mask free in schools well i think we've been pretty adept at changing courses along the way so as soon as uh a pattern changes or a executive order changes or permission changes we we would we could make a change pretty quickly i would there would be some guidance probably will come with that i saw i would assume he was well i won't make the assumption but perhaps we have to if it's a medical team is it a local decision or is it just we don't

101have to do it depends what he says but i think we've been we would react pretty pretty quickly to changing circumstances depending on what they are so before we continue because maybe there's some information you can so in your your weekly calls or sometimes those weekly calls aren't weekly any updates from those weekly calls from what superintendents are pushing or um advocating for up at the state level uh there's there's i think what the superintendent is just generally speaking more appreciation for the time was there's the contact tracing to to have some relief from that those those things actually happened i think the the weekly ones that i'm on the state department of education and the department of public health are pretty much on the same trajectory as they've always been and being very very

102conservative to be honest thank you dr adley mrs achman so i originally i originally raised my hand for a different question but i heard a lot tonight that we should talk to governor lamont or you know as mr mooney was saying what about governor vermont i understand we're under executive order but our mandate to put masks on comes from sde correct so even if governor lamont releases his executive order and sde says our kids need to be masked we have to be mass so it just i wonder if we just make sure if anyone wants to advocate or if voices need to be heard we make sure it's heard in the right place sde currently controls our masks correct yes department of public health yes thank you so just for just just because sometimes you

103get into acronym craziness so that's the state department of education yeah just so everyone's clear on that no no no problem so but to the point of the mass mandate may go away from an executive order standpoint but the state department of education could provide guidance around masks correct it could but it'll probably i could see it taking the lead from the department of public health okay so my other question and it was more local was that we heard a lot tonight about kids eating lunch alone do we have kids eating lunch by themselves so i i would actually have to to look into your individual cases there because kids kids eat kindergarten kids eat within six feet of each other right um that may be to all intents and purpose but being perceived to

104be alone i'm unaware that we're actually eating alone per se so it is concerning to hear that so i guess the reason why i ask and i understand it's administrative but i guess i would ask maybe the administration look into that i do think as young kids eating by themselves i can understand that it feels isolating maybe we could check and make sure that the kids have peers that they're having some downtime yeah we definitely we definitely did uh go back to six feet uh space and we definitely did that and that certainly for our younger younger children made all intents and purposes be alone but i understand the question is okay mr brown thanks duke a couple things one um following up on dennis's point i know we don't know what's going to happen

105with governor governor lamont i would imagine it would trickle down to some degree through you know state department of health based on what he decides i guess what i'm just wondering is if they decide to extend the mandate um i don't think this should be an agenda item or how we should proceed but could we reach out to council and maybe get brief what would happen if we refused and what would the legal ramifications be on that and again maybe that should be an executive session or an agenda item but i'd be curious to explore the contours of that um second item i'd like to bring up is we did do one letter previously and um i had mentioned this a couple few weeks ago we put it off because we had till february uh

106like to propose maybe we should draft another letter from this board that would be the second item and i throw for discussion then i like to make a motion i can do that now or do it later i i have a line item here once we get this update to see if there's a motion to amend the agenda and go to that conversation okay so we'll finish with that we'll finish with this conversation and then move to that but thank you mr brown mr senior alan we've heard some also comments about uneven mitigation uh efforts uh within the schools or from elementary to elementary school you know you have do you work with the administrators to find the best practices for you know that age level so that we have common standards there that's the

107first question and your efforts at the state level and amongst your peers has been pretty remarkable through this with the state uh screen and stay and you know you have a great way of um influencing and hearing what's out there is there is there a best practices discussion among school districts in these non-pharmaceutical pharmaceutical mitigation factors and operating schools um that you're part of also so i think i i'd recognize the parents of uh the concern about the um maybe perceived like where are we with all these mitigation strategies because and actually trying to be reactive to some of the new metrics it seems that we're just changing and changing um so i think some of it will come from that honestly the the mitigation strategies are talked about every single tuesday every single time

108that the week they have to have that meeting about the mitigation strategies the flexibilities that they extend we are we are taking advantage of um so we do do that but a lot of the mitigation strategies still come as recommendations through addendums five six three five three four five six um seven acts as well so they're still in place and the state department of education are still requiring some of those so where there's flexibility you can be rest assured that the district is actually where it makes sense to do so uh utilize and take advantage of those flexibilities thank you mr ceni mrs worm um i have a question but first i just wanted to uh back to miss dockman's i don't think it's that kids are necessarily set to eat alone from the feedback

109i've gotten is that it's two kids at a table and then if somebody's sick or out the other kid unfortunately ends up by himself so that's that's where the eating alone comes in wasn't set up that way i would say um but my question about the 50 capacity is that split up between families or is it a first-come first-served situation um i know there's you know well i think that your hand came coming up like that could be uh the parents will be able to to participate um there will be a sign up for students uh so that that has worked out through the athletic departments will help be sent out of the nature of i think it's like 75 students in certain locations type thing okay any other questions or comments from the board

110um so with that um before we move off this the topic of the update and masks mr brown would you like to make a motion so um i guess i'm not i'd like to make a motion to amend the agenda to discuss uh to discuss sending a letter up to hartford i would like to make that motion okay and i have another after it but we can take him in sequence if that works okay let's do that one first do i have a second mr ceni all in favor of amending the agenda to have that discussion that is unanimous thank you i forwarded to the board earlier the letter that we sent out on august 12th which basically um summarized our thoughts on um getting back to more local control and our goal was to

111return to school on august 30th with conditions as close to normal as possible that letter was sent by myself and dr adley ii governor lamont deirdre gifford acting commissioner connecticut department of health mr charlie miss charlene tucker acting commissioner connecticut state department of education and dr matt carter epidemiologist at the connecticut department of public health we also copied our state representative blumenthal our senator duff our senator miller and our state rep would um we're all copied on that so a little more background on this um mr brown reached out to me and threw connections with speaking to some uh fellow board members in new canaan i reached out to the new canaan chair we have not connected yet they are going through the thought process of sending out a letter and one of the comments

112was if we had any interest in potentially sending out a joint letter um so that is something that was brought up i have not heard back from her yet but have a call into her so but i think more importantly based on feedback we've heard this evening just aboard conversation and i think time is of the essence in terms of updating this letter um there was someone brought up the fact should it go to lamont uh versus should it go to the state department of education or the connecticut department of health of course copying the governor but i'll open it up to board thoughts around this letter and then we'll um if the consensus is to move forward with a letter we'll figure out how to get the letter updated or amended and out circulated

113to the board so that we can get it up there as quick as possible so i'll open it up to comments this is parent i'm not opposed to sending a letter um to the appropriate powers that be um i before sending it i would like to have a discussion with our medical team just to get their input on it okay i don't know if we're prepared to do that tonight i don't i doubt they are but um what would you be looking for in terms of input from that this is the right decision that they're comfortable if this comes down to our full local decisions they're comfortable making that decision dr ali anything you want to add to that uh no other other than just that was the same sort of situation the last communication

114so i think that at that level they would be if they were granted that permission i think they would i'm speaking for them and i shouldn't be but that's that's the same conversation that we have the previous letter we said that references them and i just wanted right right so we would go down that same path i don't know if we need a board conversation versus just an update to the board that we reached out to our health professionals further board comments questions anything with mr brown i would just say change states and let's get it up as quick as possible is that i mean go ahead mr c to your point there are some mitigating factors because i think we referenced a guy i forgot what that that document was called and that document

115has been changed right no longer exists so make sure you yeah connecticut department of public health town level covert response and and you know you have the right addressing because i mean i don't care lamont governor lamont is like that executive order is really driving a lot of the decision making it's pretty clear that so uh so if there's been any changes to these departments since some of these folks are acting we'll make sure we have all the correct people on here and all our representatives and senators um as is the last time dr adley and i worked on this so we'll work on any updates and circulate it back out to the board and then get it up there as quick as possible mrs best um you had mentioned the idea of possibly partnering

116with new canaan on such a thing that's something i'd like to discuss further i don't i don't really know much about where their where they have been or where they are what their guidance has been in their town or their caseloads or anything else i'm also not sure what it buys us necessarily to write the letter with them versus our own letter so it was just an it was just a suggestion totally i don't mean to say it's a bad one i i don't know what we get or what we give either way personally i'd rather continue just doing it on our own and also a little bit of time is of the essence but i think i would confirm that then that they're sending a letter up also and i think again power and

117the voices and the number of letters that get up there mrs achman i i believe they're in discussions they don't have content for a letter like we do and therefore they have meetings next week and i don't know what our timeline is but i would i would advocate that if we're saying that we want to make the decision based on our own factors then the letter really needs to come from us because we would be making that differently whatever our health professionals and their health professionals decide so a joint letter seems um by i love our new canon counterparts and i'm happy to work with them that seems unwise for what we're asking what i would need clarity on and it was much clearer when we originally sent this letter in august because the mitigation

118strategies were very fixed we've been given a lot more choice now screen and stay 10 days five days as a choice i would need to know what we're asking for masks like which mitigation strategies are choice admittedly i've lost some track like i understand sports is a choice but we've gone into kind of regional agreements with ciac and stuff like that so if if the board could also clarify what is mandated and what do we currently have choice in that would be helpful to me i understand masks is a mandate at this point but when we have mass squaring and other mandates should be evaluated throughout the year with local health officials in response i'd like to know are we saying we want to choose that there's no quarantine are we saying we we still

119like the choice of five to ten and we're very comfortable with our five you know i just i need to know more of what we're asking because there's actually much more choice now than when we originally sent this in august what do you suggest i'm just saying maybe dr adley could put together a grid like this is currently under our control this is not i mean we can go through but i think in general if the public is expecting us to advocate for certain things we should be honest about what we're advocating for or what we even can advocate for um the screen and say is the perfect one you don't have to do screens day our district has chosen to you don't have to do a five-day quarantine you can still be at a

12010-day quarantine we chose not to so as we're asking for control i'd like to know what we currently have control over and what we're asking for control over [Music] i'm just trying to read through here because it really ends with i think the goal here was on the mask mandate but it really requests that we delegate greater autonomy to the town working with our health professionals on implementation of mitigation strategies um but you'd like just to find more what we're what our migration strategies are relative to what the guidelines are i'd like to know what we're advocating for mr brown yeah i'd argue it's not in our interest to have an overly prescriptive document things are going to change formulas are going to change guidance is going to change i think the import we're really

121talking about is this should be a local control local decision and i don't think we have to get into specifics to do that so i think this really is a policy high level um please let us decide what's best for us letter and i don't think we should be getting into details i think that's kind of productive so go ahead so are we suggesting in the letter that we might want to say as a board of education we'll decide whether kids quarantine or do not quarantine read that last line dude because i think it was pretty telling what we asked last time uh respectfully request that you delegate greater autonomy to the district administration and health professionals at the local level on the implementation of mitigation strategies including whether or not students need to wear

122masks so i think to some degree i think what we all agreed to the last time is we wanted to make sure we were very clear that we were working hand-in-hand with our health professionals and looking at the right mitigation strategies so and and i think the clear guidance that we're getting from the public is around the mass component of it but i think everyone has to understand then what are the potential quarantining options where that goes but but that language covers that you would use with the so i say with mr uh brown i i agree let's say from the details and keep it broad so let me be clear i'm not asking for details in the letter i'm asking for as a board to know what we're asking for i i agree that

123the letter should be broad what are we asking for permission to do as a board can you read the line again dude no i heard the line jump i mean i get it but so you just you want to understand what decisions we might be looking at making when the time might come yeah is that what you're asking for but we don't know those because they change yeah i mean i guess depending on the guidance the decisions could be around quarantining and around masking i'm not even quarantined you don't have to mention i mean again i'm not saying to read the line to be a wise guy it's covered in that we it's a broad category plus mass do you this is actually i guess are we asking for total decision making around all proven

124mitigation practices and quarantining but i think again with our local health professionals yeah i think are we going to leave that line let's say the darian board of education respectfully requests that you delegate greater autonomy to district administration and health professionals at the local level on implementation and mitigation strategies which to some degree they have and we've been making those decisions about quarantines and and attendance at sports and then the ultimate goal including whether or not students need to wear masks so is there anything else you want to clarify about i'll try one more time and then i guess i'll just look at the language we asked for greater autonomy right we were given greater autonomy right what i'm trying to say outside of masks and i and i hear that com the concern 100

125but we were given greater autonomy what more are we asking for or are we just asking for the removal of masks are we asking now to make all decisions because we asked for greater autonomy we got it exclusive of masks how far are we asking to go i just want to know because so that we know what decisions we're asking to make i think i hear you i think to some degree it depends on what the decision is at the state level in terms of are they pushing it down to the local communities or not and then we would work in conjunction with our health professionals so i don't know me but in me thinking about what you're saying i'm not sure we could get there until we understand what the decision is agreed which

126is the concern with the letter okay i'm fine look i will look at a draft and i'm not opposed to looking at a draft but i think that we've kind of got ourselves in a quagmire here because we don't actually know what we're asking for we asked for more control we got more control we outside of masks exclusively i think we're i think what we really want is in in some ways the mass the mandate to end and for the control to really come back to the local communities in line with the health professionals so but look we'll dr analee and i'll talk through some of those points if there's anything we can add or tweet to the letter but i appreciate that mr brown i was just going to suggest if we're questioning the

127scope then let's say all and they can always give us less if that's the gating issue on this point yeah i mean that's an option if if we're saying we would like all control all local control in conjunction with our health professionals that's an option so look in order to keep moving i think we're in a consensus we need a letter dr alan dr adley and i will take some of the feedback back we'll circulate the letter and if we have to speak to folks individually about anything we need to tweak we'll do that are we in agreement there yeah i just wanted to mention yeah the definition of autonomy is the right or condition of self-government so i mean okay all right just to reflect on that all right well thank you mr brown

128thanks for yeah i think we should probably i think we should so good thank you you have a motion thank you mrs mckevin so um i have a motion to um go ahead mrs parent don't shouldn't we vote on the letter itself not sending a letter we we did last time and actually amended it slightly after but yeah so let's vote on drafting a letter and the letter will not be sent out to look the board approves it so each one of us are we are we all in agreement on that so that is unanimous what was the motion the motion is to draft a letter to the state second mr brown mrs best all in favor unanimous good okay no no no i'm gonna i'm staying until i see the questions okay thank you

129mrs zachman mr brown i had a quick follow-up motion to that sure um we had several months ago mrs hochman said we need to wear a mess in this board meeting in this board room to send a symbol um i'd like to make a motion that this board immediately send a symbol to our students and stop wearing masks okay do i have a sec i'm sorry i don't mean to get in the way but we should probably amend the agenda again because we've just submitted yeah you want to amend the agenda again sure i'd like to amend the agenda again that we have a discussion about removing masks at this board table for the board members staff thank you mr brown do i have a second to that amendment mr ceni all those in favor

130you have to open it for discussion okay yep thank you for keeping me on track here so since i was referenced i believe as a board we decided there were some people who objected that as long as masks were being worn in school we would wear them as well we can reconsider that however that was not a decision i made all of my own i don't really have that much power did we you have to vote to amend the agenda before you discuss it so let's vote to amend the agenda it's unanimous all right um all right any further discussion around that what is the policy of the building right now in the building yeah kids have to wear mess no this building well we've enacted this practice here uh with with the physical distance

131and for the participants and in this building yes you have to wear a mask so if we change the mask mandate in this building does that also change the audience participation there was a comment today about why only 14 people which has to do with the social distancing that we have in place in this building which is why also we have zoom and just a note we had um at one point 125 people on zoom so i think that's working although we'd love to have people here but we could never accommodate 125 people here anyhow so um anything further on that so from a from a from a governor's mandate does this building have to have masks is there no students in this building i'm being tentative on this i don't believe it absolutely has

132to but we decided that we would okay so further discussion from a board standpoint mr c so i would advocate we we follow the the the regulation or the rules of this building i wouldn't want to separate this room from the building yeah i haven't asked the board until until something changes or something significant changes to try and stay the course on that all right any other further discussion on that no just you have a motion on the table so you need to vote yeah so uh there's a motion to vote for mask removal in this building do i have a second on that you made the motion but thank you mr brown for bringing the conversation to the table thank you i appreciate that can i just ask a question yes mrs worm because

133you know dr adley just said he wasn't quite sure whether it fell under can you just come back to us with that sure sure curious i would like to know i think a lot of the conversation we've had is how do we want to lead with respect to our students and our teachers and and clearly the stress that it's causing based on the parent feedback this evening so i think we really have to keep that in consideration of how we want to lead in this room and in this building so but thank you for the conversation all right we will um move on to mr lynch and the acceptance of the hinley and holmes roof projects uh good evening mr lynch thanks for hanging with us how are you good uh we can barely hear

134you i'm not sure if it's your mic or i don't know how to make my mic go up higher there you go that's better so you have in front of you two resolutions one is for the homes roof project and skylight and one is for the hindley roof project and uh these resolutions are a standard fare required by the state department of education when we are going to apply for a grant uh the board passes these resolutions and that goes up to the state and that the state looks at that and our invoices as the proof that the job is completed and the school district is satisfied with the work and then they'll process our grand paperwork great thank you mr lynch um any additional comments or questions on the hindley and homes roof projects

135all right uh i can read all through these in just one one vote what do you think i believe they are yes yeah okay good so whereas the following project state project number zero three five zero one one nine rr received local approval from the darien building department during health department in the darien fire marshal and whereas the following project number zero three five zero one one nine rr has been completed and whereas the darian public schools board of education has assumed all responsibility for the project now therefore be resolved that the darian board of education formally accepts project number zero three five zero one one nine rr henley roof replacement as complete who may have a motion um a motion to accept that mrs achman second by mr moroney all those in favor everyone

136that's here excluding mr brown um [Music] where is the following project state project number zero three five zero one one eight rr received local approval from the darien building department darien health department in the darien fire marshal and whereas the following project number zero three five zero one one eight rr has been completed and whereas the darian public schools board of education has assumed all responsibility for the project now therefore be it resolve that the darien board of education formally accepts project number zero three five zero one one eight rr holmes roof replacement as complete a motion to accept mrs achman second by mrs mccammon all in favor for all those present at the table thank you thank you mr lynch thank you you'll have a good night you too appreciate it thank you we

137will move up to uh moving on to the budget uh follow-up questions and discussions regarding the budget and budget modifications under consideration um mr rudel you've crafted your spreadsheet which will help as we capture this data so we will i think it's best if everyone is in agreement anything you want to add yes i just i just want um sorry just to mention uh the board had some budget questions which the responses are there if you want to talk about them that's fine if you don't sure um let's start out there and i did receive just a couple other questions from the board since then uh that i have the responses to if the board would like be distributed and they'll do that and then post them accordingly is that okay sure great thank you

138it's just a one pager so we will go to um the january 18th document board of ed questions budget questions um we'll go through these real quickly number one any updates or questions with respect to middlesex middle school students and the genius hour are we good number two uh the music uniforms the same cost in all years um any any further discussion on item two music uniforms [Music] we will move on to three band uniforms um any further discussion on band uniforms great thank you we will move on to four um can we can the finance committee discuss how we want to report things going forward such as psychologists social workers um i think that is for a future finance committee board meeting and overall conversation around the budget how we report things are we

139good there uh number five i think we satisfied that on open choice uh number six um any additional questions on number six with respect to the 85 desktops can the district uh budget specific expenses between rc's any additional questions on number seven good number eight um provide a list of budget items that would have to be cut in order to reach a sustainable budget it was referred to so i don't think we need any further conversation there we'll get to that when we get to the specific rcs number nine any additional questions on the budget transfers which will be discussed shortly [Music] [Applause] and this is a forecast attached to that anything to add dr adley no determine okay then the document that dr adley just handed out how do we determine and measure success

140of the initiative so if anyone needs additional time to read through that but any additional questions with respect to that this is about the dei initiative anyone need another minute to read through that i think a lot of these questions were answered any additional questions or comments we will add these questions in the corresponding format i say we'll add these questions to the board questions in the format the rest of them so we move on to the budget book i think best we probably go sarah and jill could i ask for back up on capturing some of this information and rich you're prepared with your spreadsheet all right good um dude could i yeah suggest one yeah um since open choice it sounds like we're gonna have a policy vote on is there any way

141we could just hold that until the policy vote because yeah i think if there's any additional questions or comments around open choice or the dollars that are in here specific to the liaison we should have that and then as we work through the agenda of the next meeting we'll talk about a vote on the policy so just like to put a marker there like we're definitely going to talk about it for public comment purposes but correct it's contingent on a policy vote yep good thank you yes may i just suggest that we have a couple board members and audience members that may not understand the process tonight can you go through what we're going to do yes i read i touch base a little as we kicked off the meeting but happy to repeat that

142so we're going to go rc by rc it's traditionally called a cut and add night and anything specific to line items board members will will comment on or ask additional questions around those specific line items and it's a process of other places we want to take dollars out move dollars around or add dollars anything else sarah you think you should cover on that okay good perfect yeah i think part of this as well is to signal to the public what we are looking to cut or add so that they can comment next week at public the public hearing for us to receive the public comment on what what offerings we're proposing to put up to be reduced eliminated or whatever the case may be yes they said that earlier in the meeting but it's been

143a while so yes i mean you'll see our work this evening and then we look forward to hearing um from the public their thoughts their thoughts on the work that we do and then we'll continue to work after that next weekend so thanks good mrs just super quickly if we're having a policy vote on something maybe the chair and as policy chair we can talk because the policy committee didn't know that okay so usually we have a two cycle i think we have to see what the yeah what the actual policy is and so we'll discuss that thank you all right so we will start with rc one mr german kind of just make it make just a quick if board members don't really have the number but just have the concept of like where

144you you wanted to add you mentioned that i will either get it to you and i or get it to you afterwards so if you know something but you don't know the actual number or whatever we'll we'll flag it and mr roodell will know that so um i will go to start the process rc1 the durian high school mrs achman account number one one zero one three um the bursar specifically i'm looking for i believe we said last meeting that we've actually already been paying this so i'm specifically looking for how we've done that and the and the full amount that we've been paying sure um so they've been through budget uh you don't have to do it tonight okay we could just keep going i appreciate it but i'll try let's catch let's capture

145the information this evening which is good so thank you mrs achman anything else on rc one darion high school mr brown you can propose changes i would like to propose a change of 59 909 52 for physical education teacher 110134 so let's do this so we were consistent here if you could start out dennis with the line item and the account number so that would help thank you account number 110134 physical education teacher it's an addition of 59 952 right what are you proposing to remove that 59 952 okay thank you can i just uh um so part of that is contractual wages for existing teachers it's not just the news okay so i i am proposing to remove the additional 0.6 fte thank you mr rooney continuing on rc1 mr brown um no the

146account number the account number is in rc one one one zero one three okay i have a couple more in rc one okay so you're you're cutting the 16 881 correct okay go ahead mr brown uh from rc again one account number two one two two zero i would propose a cut of eight thousand nine hundred and thirty four dollars you just name the line item also so everyone knows what we're speaking about sure curriculum supervision correct what is your cut cut of 8 thank you mr brown i've got a couple more you know keep going go ahead uh next we have in rc number one one zero two zero zero three a cut of seven thousand dollars just name the line item two because the eyes go to that quicker maybe than the numbers

147no problem it's uh what do we call other student activities row 53 okay next what is the what are you proposing there the china trip i don't think we need the seven grand for people coming here it's just a hunch uh for people coming here yeah just for that trip people going that's for people going there right okay uh let's see rc1 i would like to suggest in rc number one account number 2102 spreadsheet [Music] line number three i'd like to propose a cut of one fte which i believe equals 192 thousand eight nine zero but that is just working off the average rate so that may not be the exact number thank you you're proposing cutting one assistant principle yes i am at the high school that's correct okay a couple more i would

148like to suggest an rc one two one 602 which is the campus monitor [Music] yep i have a campus monitor is a reduction of forty one thousand five five one and the purpose for that is not to get rid of the campus monitor but to remove it from rc1 and move it over to middle school lastly i would like to propose an rc one two one two one five department shares two one two one a reduction of five hundred eighty nine thousand six hundred fifty five dollars and that's all i have on rc one that's department chairs what does that represent all of them oh i'm sorry okay thank you mr brown anything else on rc1 uh where where are the parking revenues i marked that and i forgot it would uh they are an

149rc one on line 64. okay so this is a revenue line item um that i'd like to have put into the uh school basically school funds versus going into student activity account so just a hundred percent of the part yeah so rich could you just give a little clarity on the student parking kind of to the conversation we had earlier uh so we do collect student parking revenue uh primarily seniors who park there uh we collect approximately 22 23 dollars gets credited to the board of education's budget the balance of those funds typically funds like senior events so cassini breakfast or senior lunch or um sometime some type of an event uh in some districts uh who credit 100 of the parking fees to the board of education's budget they levy a fee towards the

150senior class and they collect that money and then that funds you know senior events some districts like ours uh you know cut that mountain in half after it goes to the board of ad half of it functions senior activities and then in some districts none of it goes to the board of ed all of it funds you know senior activities right uh there's no right way or wrong way to do it it's just really a choice as to whether whether or not you'd want to levy an additional fee on the student page so the effect of moving the parking fees back into revenue from student activity is then there are no funds to do those senior activities and would have to have a discussion about a student a senior student activity fee correct okay so

151did you have we captured with mr sini i propose okay anything else on rc1 [Music] all right we will move on to rc2 fitch academy [Music] anything on rc2 for fitch academy good we'll move on to rc3 which is middlesex middle school anything on middlesex middle school rc3 mr brown so in rc3 uh line two one two one five which is department shares looking for a reduction of one hundred forty seven thousand four one five okay next in two one two two zero one two two zero curriculum supervision looking for a this may be a question maybe a reduction i'm not sure how to proceed i showed is a 0.33 fte getting paid 103 000. i'm not sure if that's a roll up or what that is and that's so the uh the 0.33 does

152not get paid 103 000 so within that account uh is the release time for the art supervisor which represents 0.33 uh also in that account is the academic club at the middle school and then any other clubs and councils like quiz bowl geography literary magazine things like that that's all in two one two two zero correct so those are the stipends for those clubs perfect thank you okay no cut there sorry in it two four zero one one which is general tech supplies a reduction of sixteen thousand one hundred twenty-five dollars teaching sports rich what is that 16 125 again genius out okay [Music] anything else mr brown uh not for now okay oh yeah you adding the campus monitor into middlesex from the high school no i did not but i would if i

153do the numbers i don't have that so thank you so much we understand what we're trying to capture yeah perfect all right thank you anything else on rc3 just to clarify sure was the idea to take a campus monitor from the high school and move it to the middle school so that there wouldn't be an increase in the middle school and that's that's my intention correct just to reallocate the resources okay thank you so we go to rc5 henley anything from rc5 hinley first elementary school yes mr maroney so line 510534 physical education teacher the i would propose the 10-3-5-3 if that's non-contractual as well if that's is that the point too it's a portion of the contractual point the part that's the point two of the physical education and i would roll that for

154the whole elementary school okay so you want to roll that through all the elementary schools okay thank you mr ronin mrs mccammon can i ask that the information that we that we were provided be clarified a little bit i went back and tried to read that chart and i still don't understand the scheduling um i understand how that individual person is scheduled but i don't understand from reading that um why we're unable to do now what we could do before so if it could just be i guess augmented please thank you mrs mccabe anything else on rc five henley [Music] we'll move on to rc seven homes anything on rc seven homes just to be clear we're gonna the open choice items for each one of these are we're gonna talk at some point i'm

155not going to call out every open joist item get rich is that okay rc8 oxrage additional there on ox ridge or c9 royal anything there rc9 royal 11 physical education and athletics mr brown in uh rc 1121201 two zero one two zero one which is i'd like to propose a cut of one hundred ninety one thousand nine hundred sixty nine dollars sixty nine or sixty sixty nine i see could be six you're cutting the director job yeah that's correct i'm cutting the budget for that position recommend so you're eliminating that's my suggestion for your elimination your suggestion is to eliminate that position that would be the effect correct okay anything else on rc 11 physical education i just want to know i received a question about um coaching ratios again uh so i just note

156that um [Music] that the edition of the the field hockey coach made that a question for some folks the second thing was i was asked about um protective equipment for hockey in the in the wake of the most recent tragedy locally if that equipment is included in this budget good question anything else on rc11 this is akron i just have a clarity for my notes nrc1 we're taking out the other student activities for china it was for the china trip i'm sorry i know i'm going back mr brown is that what that was correct okay thank you and actually do quick fault yes if that would reduce it it may or may not reduce the position you could keep the position you'd have to find the funds elsewhere that it's the two options i'm just

157suggesting the fund reduction yeah this is just a bad cut yeah yeah yeah got it thank you mr brown appreciate that all right um we'll move on to rc 12 maintenance rc 12 maintenance mr maroney account 71001 groundskeeper the 80 thousand eight eighty thousand sixty five dollars that is not tied to pay increases so for the part of the ft that's there thank you mr maroney anything else on rc12 maintenance [Music] we'll sing right over to music wow that was good you were waiting all week for that one yeah sorry i got a lightning every now and then right rc13 julie best has agreed to sing for us indeed go ahead uh two four zero one one i'd like to add eight thousand three hundred and seven dollars which i believe represents the of that

158total cost for uniforms that would provide uniforms for next year's music program participants thank you anything else on rc 13 music the rc 14 art anything in rc14 for art we will move on to 15 technology i'm gonna be quick with the page flipping here bear with me a second mr brown [Music] rc-15 technology mr brown uh i'd like to propose an increase to one three zero three five of one hundred nine thousand three hundred and fifty dollars for the purchase of open gov i would also like to propose in two one two zero one which is row five six eight a reduction of one hundred ninety one thousand nine hundred and sixty dollars which represents the position the dollar amount equated to the position director of instructional technology correct anything else on rc15 mr

159murphy sir go ahead mr brown oh good dude that was awesome okay good mr brownie i would like to propose a cut to the technology support one one zero four four of seventy six thousand seven hundred say that again dennis technology support the fte of 76 700. got it all right thank you anything else on rc 15. rc 16 administration rc 16 administration mr brown so in rc16 in line one two zero zero one a reduction of eighteen thousand five hundred [Music] okay line one three zero one three one three zero one three correct other boards okay a reduction of eighteen thousand three hundred okay and finally one one zero one one a reduction of thirty one thousand seven hundred thirty one one zero one one correct a reduction in what thirty one thousand seven

160hundred and thirty dollars mr brown could you clarify what you're doing just so the public knows what to speak on i'm reducing an allocation proposal to cut i know that but in relation to anything in particular so the public can comment or yes one one zero one what's the dollar amount it's the superintendent the superintendent's stuff thirty one thousand [Music] uh thirty one thousand seven thirty it's a ten percent reduction anything else on rc16 [Music] we're going to rc17 which is health rc17 health anything there all right we will go on to rc 18 personnel mr ceni uh line 669 account 3100 budget control i'd like to reduce it by one f to e but so i calculated 72 000 807 but somewhere in that range so that as it stands now it's three fte

161rich right so you're proposing go to two yeah all right thank you singh anything else on rc 18 we're going to rc 19 curriculum rc-19 curriculum mr ceni uh line 697. six nine seven okay twelve zero zero one consultant services yep i'd like to reduce that recommended budget by 20 000 okay thank you mr brass so row 704 704 professional development two five zero zero three reduction of twenty four thousand dollars okay thank you mr brown thanks dude anything else on rc 19 yeah can we german running procedural question if i wanted to change consulting services to reduce 45 000 can i do that yeah okay i would propose 45 000 of consultant services dennis would you mind just giving that line again uh line 697-12001 consultant services and you would go down for 40.

162i would drop 45 000 out of it thank you you're cutting 45 correct okay anything else on rc19 [Music] yeah sure mrs mckenna um we are definitely doing field trips again right thank you [Music] rc 20 finance anything in rc20 for finance rc21 library media anything in rc21 good rc22 rc22 technology education [Music] rc23 summer school anything with summer school rc 23 [Music] rc24 special education i think rc 24 on special education rc 25 denison i i don't throw it out yeah i'm just i'm just i think mrs ochman brought this up and i think it's something we have to be cognizant of that the i don't have the line number but the school psychologist which i am all for doing which is free and comes from a grant but by accepting that i think

163we're now adding one fte for our next budget just so that we're all that we are aware and the public is aware that that is what's going to happen for the next budget cycle i mean not necessary we don't have to but i would assume that that would continue for the next budget this year it's in a grant this year for this upcoming and next year it'll be an ftp correct that's so just to be clear for everyone if that's well just to be clear we'll be considering it next year for those of us right likely considering yes and and that particular that particular position i would surmise would be probably in the budget somewhere next year the following year that's probably a reasonable assertion at this point for that position so i fully support

164it but i just want to flag and be aware that we're adding to next year's budget already okay thank you mr moroney probably probably thank you clarification thank you your forecast is rc24 special ed we're good thank you rc 25 fixed expenses anything on fixed expenses rc25 rc26 the early loaning early learning early learning program sorry yes mrs parent i would like to um a line one four zero sorry account one four three zero zero three elp tuition i would like to enrich you're gonna have to help me with the number but increase it to four percent instead of three percent increase okay thank you parent anything else on rc 26 the early learning program is there a reason are you seeing a discrepancy or you just feel like yeah i mean when you look

165at the numbers that were presented to us and then i just added a four percent to those numbers that were this year's we were still way on the bottom so i mean we're second from the bottom much lower than the rest so i just think it should be we have more hours and a more qualified staff so i just thank you for the quality of the program good thank you move on to rc 28 i'm not sure anything there and covet expenses all right so we are done with the rc's anything else we capture go ahead mrs uh yes i missed something sure rc 16 administration sure let's go back to that rc 16 administration okay line 612 line six well dues and memberships using memberships um i went to propose cutting 5119 uh center

166for school change it is two five zero two six [Music] anything else on the rcs we just went through [Music] um can i just cause i just ask them rich since you're keeping a running toilet can you give us um the total effect of adds and cuts to the operating budget at this point uh it will take a little bit of time okay thank you good thank you mrs zach move on to capital [Music] we will just start it during high school uh anything with respect to the 2022-2023 capital project [Music] middlesex middle school anything on capital projects heat up there kinley there's one item there rich are um are you guys working on one of the rtm fmb's questions just to um kind of almost certify those elevator costs uh yes i believe it's

167in the batch that's waiting to go out okay good thank you anything on holmes elementary school anyone want to change anything on oxridge [Laughter] anything on royal anything on tokenique yes sure robert do we know when we need is it in this budget cycle or before that we need funds for the libraries we imagine for tokenique the middle school and and um so i think it's a conversation outside of this budget and i touch base with board of finance and what the administration is going to come up with as to when initial dollars are needed to scope out the project and then what the timeline of that is i think it's almost maybe back to the facilities committee to kind of discuss that because i think we should also think about the kickoff of the

168other three renovations that are going on um there's some conversation is there any synergies you would change the end specs but any synergies to those libraries being done at the same time we have construction same time that we decide on the architect and the construction firm for those other renovations so i would propose to go to the facilities committee if that makes sense for everyone good thank you joe um on to central office anything for central office capitalized mr maroney yeah it's kind of ironic to say it here but new hvac unit for boe meeting room of 155 000. that's one freezing time to reduce that yes to reduce it to cut it to cut the whole zero cut the whole thing correct okay you'll bring the fan then um anything on the district-wide um

169which predominantly next year is replacing two maintenance vehicles and adding a suburb anything there okay good mrs ackman we will go back to the rc's yeah i'm sorry with the board's indulgence on um rc 16 page 137 legal services an increase of 50 000 it's uh account number one to 0.04 you're increasing we have a 25 000 decrease in there you're putting in a 50 000 increase thank you anything else on the rc's mrs best yes i'm sorry i missed a question also i wanted to ask if we um i'm not sure what the budget implication would be but to go to a true opt-in on the the device for next year what kind of adjustment will we need to make to this budget as it currently stands if any would you mind just saying

170what opt-in is relevant i'm sorry the bring your own versus bring your own device at the high school so if there were if we were to say that each student could elect to receive a device from the district or bring their own device and not receive a device from the district is there a budget implication to that versus the way it's designed or proposed right now for next year i'm sorry isn't that the way it's proposed now if somebody doesn't bring advice they'll get one i'm just one just trying to find this this is the semantics conversation we got into last night and i'm still not clear off you must refuse to bring your own device in order to have it they will they will have a device so there is not a budget implication

171there's nothing else from what i'm saying and what you're saying right thank you thanks for the question mrs mccammon um back on where um mrs ochram was with with rc 16 legal services we get just maybe five years of looking at trend for legal services because i know you know negotiation years change those just so we can see some history please so i mean that's there the trend right in terms of [Music] where we don't negotiate to a year where we do have a negotiation so that we have a budget number okay make sense rich okay would you mind just repeating the rc in the line for me it's it's uh the same one you were on 1200 four legal services on a regular year versus a year where we're doing negotiations okay good thank

172you anything else sticking with this same rc um mr ceni brought up the open choice so will that be included that one two one two zero zero one i believe as a consultant service for open choice so to remove the 10 000 in there if we're discussing all of open choice correct yes is that where that liaison is the 10 000 it's part of the 20 000. okay good thank you mr ronin anything else on the rc's anything else on capitol all right so mr rudolph do his magic with our spreadsheet and get that out to us as soon as possible we look thank you everyone for putting all that on the table we will have public comment next week around that i think that will give us some indication as to our continued work

173on the budget um but the budget process continues thank you very much dude could i just yes sure mrs best does that spreadsheet get posted on the district website or is it made available to our community uh friends who are following along well as soon as it comes soon as it comes here it's public yep good thank you so we will move on to um the discussion on december 2021-22 financial report and proposed budget transfers [Music] all right mr rudel this is the financial report through december uh through december we are forecasting a positive balance of 339 239 or about a third of our budget uh the general education rcs are forecasting a positive 146 000 special education rc's are forecasting a positive 236 thousand and then the cobot rc is forecasting a deficit of

174forty four thousand uh for cobit expenditures uh we are forecasting about fifty three thousand dollars in the operating budget uh similar to the previous ones a little over a million dollars in the grant for a total of one million seventy eight thousand dollars salaries are forecasted at a positive thirty one thousand uh salary savings and turnover are about twenty four thousand uh we do have a transfer recommendation to for part-time help uh for deficit 15 000 uh clubs and councils that are currently vacant for about twelve thousand uh the remaining portion of budget control which is unused at forty three thousand and then proven expenditures for the teacher mou at thirty four thousand dollars to a deficit um operating costs are forecasted at a positive sixteen thousand uh legal fees continue to trend positive by

175about forty three thousand uh we do have a deficit for the projected cost of the dei consulting the forty thousand uh materials consultant fees travel pd are positive twenty three uh small deficit for storm elsa of eight hundred and seventy five and then uh the cobot rc is forecasted at a deficit of ten thousand dollars for ppe's uh fixed costs are positive 67 000 utilities in general or about positive 28 000 property insurance workers compensation and student accident insurance are almost 40 000 to the positive moving to revenue uh field and building rental revenues are a positive 17 000. uh elp tuition is short by about 34 000 and then excess cost is about 240 000 to the positive we did submit a claim of about 3.6 billion we are still assuming a 67.5 reimbursement

176rate uh we did discuss that the finance committee the state's estimated revenues currently right now are at 82 uh they did indicate that they expect that to drop so we did leave that at the sixty seven and a half percent say that again rich and eighty-two percent so the state's estimated revenues right now we're at eighty-two percent based on all districts in connecticut filing on december first uh the state did say they expect that to drop when the march filing goes in uh so that is why we left it at 67.5 in the forecast so there are four transfers for consideration and approval uh the first is for thirty four thousand dollars and this will cover the plus the estimated cost of the teacher mou we are recommending taking funds from salary savings and clubs

177and councils teacher aid salary savings uh workers comps dues and fees sewer savings and property insurance uh the second transfer is for ten thousand dollars for ppe recommended taking uh funds from savings in the sewer account as well as the salary savings study line item third transfer is for part-time help uh within facilities uh we do have a couple individuals who are out on workers comp uh we did receive reimbursement from workers comp uh so that is to cover the cost of that but it does cross broad object codes and then the fourth transfer is for forty thousand dollars to fund the dei initiative uh the bulk of the funds would come from savings and legal fees for twenty eight thousand five thousand dollars from the superintendent consultant three thousand dollars for a conference that

178is canceled for the superintendent a reduction in an itinerant travel and then property insurance two two minutes excuse me you want me to reflect on the finance committee uh sure if you want so just just on the transfers um yeah we got a consensus in terms of recommendation for so the first three transfers the uh substitute health supplies and part-time help we unanimously uh voiced the recommendation to the to the board um consulting services of 40 000 i called it a broad consensus not not unanimous in terms of recommending it to the board to execute to approve the transfers thank you mr ceni any board questions or comments on the transfers don't request i just have a question on the financial report itself not the transfers sure no go ahead all right it's super quick

179it may even ask the finance committee meeting and i may have missed it but um the deficit that we're seeing in the building rentals um this was dance on the download the duns and the dl that reduced email are we seeing that from other groups or is that is that a trend or is that just so they are the first group that's told us they expect it to be reduced typically we rent our buildings more in the spring so we'll probably find out more in the coming months okay thanks sorry all right anything else all right we'll move forward a motion to approve the joint go ahead mr martin so on the 40 000 and the sheet that was handed out to this evening it says that part of the 40 000 will be to

180support the dei committee supporting additional professional development developing student leadership and facilitating community community conversations i would like a little more detail on facilitating community community conversations what does that entail what what will that look like do we know and how will that play out so dennis is that pertaining to this transfer or this is this is for next year's well for me this is where the next 40k budget will transfer that's in the second line so to me and maybe i'm wrong but is that what part of this 40 000 transfer is for yes so i would like to hear more about the community so prior to the pandemic the district was engaged the district and the larger community was engaged in community conversations that were facilitated by mccj following the incidents that happened

181at the high school in the middle school in the fall there was a request from the community to continue those so the idea would originally there were three and the adjustment was two so this would be two facilitated conversations with identified community leaders and representatives from the school district to continue that dialogue so this is not the consultant ken shelton leading a community it is it is as well okay you mean in the model of it's been done before and now it's being done again with a different facilitator yes yes mrs worm so um i just have um i'm just slightly concerned about the idea of community engagement by ken shelton when we have such a division on that right so is he then only speaking to the half of the community that is for

182him and then we're leaving out the other half um and i think that i also want to make a point that a lot of this is not it's not about that people are against diversity and inclusion i think a lot of it has to do with the process in which ken shelton was hired it is broken down a lot of trust within the community and i just don't see how him being involved in community outreach is going to be helpful in our situation thank you mr sworn any problems i i just wanted to ask well two things first i do think we just need to be careful in general about generalizing bodies of the public half the half or four and half are against i don't think we have any data to that effect so

183i just think we have to be careful and use our words carefully um and chris if you could just explain a little further would this be an open forum with the general public in the community or was this more as it was in the past with community leaders um from various areas i think we had librarians and police and um mrs stevenson was part of these conversations can you just give a little more color and what those would look like the spirit of how this was designed was like the latter that you just mentioned that it would be identified community leaders that would be representative thank you mrs so i'm just a little confused what we're considering we're talking about ken shelton but we've been asked and consider a financial transfer up front i thought

184the board had a role in consultant and i could still argue for that but i think that council has advised us that's not the case so at the moment we're considering a financial report and a financial transfer and yet we're talking about a personality so i kind of need to know where we are in space i was told we were considering a financial transfer that is correct okay thank you to fund the dei initiative true and then but then we're talking about personalities and this and that like understood or one or the other anyone else all right um go ahead mrs mccabe um i think in the spirit of of understanding that this has been a complicated issue these kinds of conversations are going to be hard i hope that the members of the community

185understand the board is listening we're not always going to agree with you you're not always going to agree with us um but we are listening to you and we hope that while you may like or not like our decisions we want you to know that your voice is important um you know i don't uh i will vote for this transfer the transfer for the for the dei work i stand behind what's outlined in the administration in an administrative memo i think things like um culturally responsive materials are important i want to see kids with disabilities represented in my picture books but in my kids classrooms i want to see i want to know that we have authors of all different kinds and colors and there are different ways to get there i get that and

186there might be different people to hire but that's not our authority so i stand behind the work and i'll vote for the transfer but it's not because i'm not listening and not hearing and it's i do think we'll have to continue to have the conversation together at the board table about the work that's done um and maybe at the curriculum committee it should that ever be appropriate um but i just anyway that's that's my i'm done thank you mrs mccown any other board questions or comments i i do yeah sure mr sini i'm going to support the transfer too but this isn't a solvable and i think a lot or so this is not going to solve all this transfer and i think as a community we have a lot of work to do on

187that front so there's a lot of everything or nothing i mean this is just a drop in the bucket of the effort we have going forward thank you mr ceni yeah i think if we go back in time we gave the administration instructions to go do the work on dei yes i think we've heard from the community we'll continue to hear from the community i think this has to be fluid i think at this point in time the dei work has been outlined of what's going to be done and who's going to be doing that work i think overall the administration has heard from the community and from the board i would hope that the people involved or the organizations involved in doing that work will expand and we'll bring in the people in the

188organizations we need as we go forward and just that i know we'll hear back from the administration on a regular basis to the point of many comments this evening of how is the work going what is the feedback like i'd like to hear more about when those community interactions take place who's involved i think getting uh him for getting input from the board and the in the community would be important because i think to other points at the board table there's a lot of conversation around this um i'm not going to get into the fours and the against there's just been a lot of good conversation and good questions and good feedback around it but the goal is to move the district forward with the dei work and i think that will continue to evolve

189and that's what's important mrs well since we are talking about how we feel about dei i just would say i think we have heard a concern that in some way that the schools want to raise children we don't but we do have a responsibility to react to what is happening in our schools and it is happening in our schools we are getting swastikas at schools and so we believe the community members that say that they are raising lovely wonderful children and we want to believe that but when we have um when we have people coming and saying that there is hate and there's there's not inclusion we have a responsibility during those school hours to to deal with that and we have a responsibility if there's a tornado that goes through a school and we

190have a responsibility to do a lot of things that people do not understand by law we must handle when we have children in our schools so no one is saying that you're not doing no one is saying to the people who are saying i i'm doing a great job and i'm sending good people out into the world we see you we hear you and we want to support that but we also have a responsibility to all the children in our school and all of what they are experiencing at school and it is not an isolated incident it is a repeated incidence we are seeing and we have to do something so i thought we were considering a financial transfer but if we're all kind of putting our throwing our hat in the ring that's where

191i am i agree with mrs mccannon that we hear you and and we're not making snap judgments up here yeah i appreciate that i i you know i appreciate the context and i think it's our duty here at the board if there's more conversation to be had or our points want to be voiced it's important just because of the conversation and feedback we've heard so go ahead mr maroney yep so i for one would like to apologize for myself to the administration because i think we've been very ambiguous ambiguous thank you on on our direction to the administration i think we asked the administration to do something and they have and that and i think that's partly why there is a firestorm because we weren't very prescriptive on what we were looking for and we

192just left it up to you to do which is part of your job as well but i think it was also just we just said do something and that's not real clear direction from us and we should do better jobs at least one person's opinion on that so appreciate that mr maroney um i will say also um and then we can wrap this up and move forward it's important that we've heard you and i think there are lessons learned here in terms of the process and so we hear that loud and clear and there's work to be done there and i don't think anyone would not acknowledge that we've got to do a better job from a process standpoint um as we move this stuff through the conversation pipeline to reality so all right thank

193you um we have a motion to move forward on the budget transfers as presented do connections yeah yeah yeah yeah we break that's fine okay sure uh may have a motion on the first proposed transfer of thirty four thousand dollars mr ceni second mrs achman all in favor that is unanimous thank you they have a motion on the ten thousand dollar uh transfer for covet health supplies mr ceni mrs best all those in favor that is unanimous rich this is this 15 000 is a transfer too right all right we have a motion on the salary workers comp uh transfer of fifteen thousand dollars mr ceni mr moroney all those in favor thank you we have a motion on the transfer of the forty thousand dollars for consulting services for the dei work may have

194a motion mr ceni second by mrs best all those in favor that is scenie best achman mccammon dineen and parent anyone against mr brown and mr moroney any and mrs worm anyone abstaining the transfer passes all right thank you thank you for the conversation around that we will move forward on the first reading and discussion of proposed revisions to the board of education policies uh 1025 automatic external defibrillators 1050 possession of deadly weapons or firearms 1075 green cleaning programs 11 25 pool safety plan 1150 sexual offenders 1175 prohibit prohibition prohibition i guess i don't like that word prohibition against smoking must be an irish thing 1275 freedom of information and freedom of information request log non-discrimination community again this was gone over the policy committee this is a first reading and discussion of proposed revisions

195i will turn it over to mrs achman and messiah messiah so i think really that the only thing that's not required by law we updated legal references we updated statutory changes but for the policy committee especially we did go back and clarify that um the requester's name and address will be included unless it relates to their child in which case that would be a purple violation and then that the number of pages may be included and if you look at the log i've started to include them because when it becomes meaningful dr adley and i had a conversation it will be helpful for you to know exactly how much time is being spent okay good thank you miss cyan right any additional board questions or comments with respect to the first reading and discussion of

196these proposed proofs proposed revisions that if board members have questions that they we can talk about tonight but if they have additional questions to please get it to us so we can review it during policy and make a full recommendation at the next one okay good thank you uh we will move on to the foia log review mission i mean i think that it speaks for itself we've had an uptick in recent months um and you know we're working with council but the freedom of information act requires you to comply so that's what we do all right any questions or comments with respect to the foia log i just um i have a question on man hours a few years ago we had so many um foias and so many pages because the requests were

197so broad that we actually had council doing some of it um are we able to handle this in-house are we are we seeing an uptick that we're concerned um that we just may need to allocate legal fees towards it no you know what no i mean we're doing it i read 10 000 emails they were fascinating and i'll continue [Laughter] we'll we'll make it we were happy to save the legal fees when we decided to bring it in but i think to your appointment sign we just need to keep track of it because we've made some decisions over the years to go in-house with reviewing these to save dollars but if we're bumping up against thousands and thousands of emails that have to be reviewed that's impacting productivity it's also um impacting the budget so

198or it could impact the budget with additional resources that we may need all right mr senior yeah i was just going to say if we could maybe highlight to the community that if they do have a four-year request totally you know acceptable of course by law but if maybe they could be more targeted you know if they're if they're looking for a specific item or something maybe define those because i think that's where you get into the 10 000 email issue right marge so so that would be very helpful um if if they're looking for a broad item you know we can't regulate it but just just have a realization that it does have an impact on the person hours that are employed to meet that request yeah appreciate that and i spoke to mr

199mooney around this about this if there are cases up the line in terms of someone looking for 50 000 documents so we're happy to have the conversation to make sure we understand what you're looking for to narrow it down so we can get the right information out to you um so again we just appreciate the partnership and if we do reach out to clarify it's just to get you the information that you're really looking for in a timely manner so any additional questions or comments on the floy log we will move on to further discussion in action on board master agenda for february uh 2022 to august 2022. so that's the this agenda includes just what i spoke about earlier the update from maryland friend on the presentation on may access may 10th according to

200our schedule mrs mccammon we talked about a couple things during the budget well first off thank you for acting adding doctor friend i'm excited to see that um we did talk about updates on a couple of other things um i just wrote down the dei committee the elementary aps um in the library an update of just where we are in the library so we can look to add those in there and still keep meetings at no more than two hours [Laughter] and anyone else that has any input we are um further discussion in action so are we ready to um we should probably bring this back again okay that's fine so between now and the next meeting if there's anything else to jill's point or what you feel should be added please uh send a

201note in so we'll put that off to the next [Music] um you will move on to the personal action report um miss scion just one more resignation okay um miss cyan i think it's important as uh we have a lot of discussions in the community and there's some questions um from the rtm committees or how is recruiting going for openings that you have it's going i mean we're trying but it's um it's a struggle yep okay thank you we have a motion to approve the personal action report as presented mr ceni second by mr moroney all those in favor all right good thank you michelle we will go back to public comment for participants in person please wait for the chairperson to acknowledge and call each participant to the microphone for participants via zoom please

202click the raised hand option the facilitator will acknowledge and unmute each participant for all the participants please state your name and address for the record blog each participant will have up to three minutes to comment thank you michelle we'll start with any of our friends in the audience amy zurby nine more house drive so my comments do not apply to most of the board of ed members earlier i quoted from the board of ed website that schools exist for children some of tonight's proposed cuts do not reflect this i believe that some of the cuts were proposed out of spite for teachers mms dhs and the district shame on you for not putting our children first thank you thank you for speaking this evening anyone else in the audience michelle we'll move over to zoom

203greg grambling you are unmuted and recognized greg can you hear us i can't can you hear me yes we can thanks greg go ahead great i would like to i'd like to express extreme disappointment with the board's decision to move forward with continued funding of california consultant ken shelton against the wishes of nearly a thousand members of our community in school in reference to darien public school policy 6330 curriculum design basic and special instruction program which references to the sensitive nature of programs such as those pertaining to family life education and the opportunity for parents who do not wish for their children to participate in family life education i will be submitting a letter to the principal of my schools my my children's schools and the board informing them to exempt my children from any

204such courses including any talks classes or anything related to ken shelton ken sheldon has already attempted to attempt has already started to attempt to indoctrinate our community with crt including topics on white privilege anti-racism and micro aggressions among others i would encourage other parents who feel strongly against ken shelton to do the same and submit a letter to the board thank you mr grambling stefan omrali you are unmuted and recognized good evening um this is uh stephan m reilly 531 hollow tree ridge road i have four children in the school district elementary middle school and high school i want to apologize in advance for not being very improper however uh my children future matters more uh first i want to just talk quickly about kids parking at the high school i think it's uh unreasonable

205and to ask the kids to pay for parking when they are essentially saving the district money by not taking the bus twenty three thousand dollars is pennies comparing to the massive 113 million dollar budget that we have at the school so that's a quick comment about that regarding open choice school administration is focused on norwalk students masks and other things that's deemed as doing good um those children have been exposed to something that's unprecedented in american modern history um they're now being told that human contact is a negative thing for them that interaction with other people does not yield the social skills that they're supposed to get they're afraid of interacting with each other subconsciously unconsciously um we need to focus on recovering from that and we don't we should not be focused on other

206school districts and other uh initiatives and programs this the mental well-being of those children is very important i saw massive degradation in my kids uh social skills weight gain depression negative thoughts and that just was directly resulted from the idea of interacting with other people is a bad thing in their subconscious so the school instead of being very focused on what's so-called doing good the road to hell is people in good intention obviously we should be focused really on the well-being of darien kids uh we hired mr adley's administration to take care of darien kids um and that's what should only be a thing that should matter right now um we need to unmask our kids my family has coveted my extended family has coveted the vast majority of the population had covered one variant

207or another it is a risk to people with pre-existing conditions and those are the ones who are supposed to be protected unmasked are kids they are not supposed to not see human interaction and reaction um to their there's no human response and communications because they can't see their face um and i want to speak briefly about the swastika incidents um when i was a kid if that somebody did that in my school in brooklyn they would have got a slap in the back of the head and says hey you're being you know an idiot so to speak and um they the school wouldn't have not done this what we're doing right now we take an extreme measure which is encouraging kids who's seeking attention to draw more swastikas and take it to the next level

208thank you sir your your time is up thank you for speaking this evening debbie mcgaren you are unmuted and recognized good evening debbie mcgaren 60 holly lane i would just like to clarify any confusion from the mass conversation from the very thoughtful speakers this evening we want local control and parental choice which will include the following mass choice you can wear a mask if that's what makes you comfortable but we will no longer require or be mandated to wear them in our school buildings social distancing six feet apart three feet apart two feet apart whatever it is for that choice of the week will no longer be in place in the classrooms hallways lunchrooms gym classes recesses library buses etc contact tracing and quarantine these measures will be lifted we will return to normalcy by

209using common sense if you are sick you stay at home until you feel better and you will stop shaming and making the children feel like lepers we will return to respecting individual health information and privacy of their health data the well-being of our children matters it is time to give them their lives back when does the harm and abuse being done to these children start to matter we never voted or approved for any of these measures and we will no longer go along to get along it seems after tonight's testimonials our resources would be much better spent on speech therapists school psychologists and i'm sure a myriad of other special services that our children would benefit from in order to heal it's time for this board and dr adley to do its part send a

210letter to hartford demanding to unmask our children and lastly kudos to our brave darian teacher that spoke up this evening please know that you are not alone and you are on the right side of history thank you for speaking this evening lauren haley you are unmuted and recognized lauren can you hear us your mute is on michelle let's move on to the next person laura laura pesky gray you are unmuted and recognized can you hear us yes good go ahead thank you i know that um i'm at 131 holmes avenue um for those of you who are still around you know my position on ken shelton and open choice but since funds have been transferred i know that um mrs worm was concerned about the people that that were opposed and the community discussions i

211would actually like to be involved in and persuaded and understand better about all the people that are in support of ken shelton and what he is doing for our community so dr adley um we always have had a good relationship and i look forward to being part of those community discussions and um and we'll go from there that's that's all i have to say thank you for speaking again this evening we'll go back to lauren haley sure lauren can you hear us lauren can you unmute all right anyone else out there michelle aaron noonan you were unmuted and recognized thank you um to mrs best mrs ochman miss parent mrs mccammon mr dineen and mr ceni thank you for voting for the transfer from mr shelton thank you for prioritizing the students thank you for

212taking action tonight you have given hope to the children in our community who are hurting from repeated physical emotional and mental abuses because they are different tonight you have given hope to the parents who love them we appreciate you thank you thank you for speaking stefan omrali stefan's already spoken right lauren haley is the last one okay but stefan already spoke in the second public comment okay so who's next miss lauren haley lauren can you hear us okay anyone else there are no more raised hands at this time okay thank you thank you everyone for participating this evening and for the public comment may have a motion to adjourn mr brown second by mrs mccammon all those in favor that is