Board of Education Meeting of June 6, 2023

001good evening and calling the meeting to order welcome to the West Hartford Public Schools regular Board of Education meeting it is Tuesday June the 6th Charlotte will you please call the roll Dr Chang here Mr Goldman president Dr Harris here doctor came off here Ms nazarella present Dr Steinberg here Dr Thomas barkason here student representative Megan Murphy here student representative Caitlin strathcave here Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you we do not have a revision to the agenda order and now it is time for public Communications this is where we're able to hear from you your thoughts your suggestions your concerns each individual has three minutes

002to speak we ask when you come to the podium to please share your name and your town of residence and please be mindful of Charlotte who will hold up a yellow card when you have one minute remaining in your time and when your time is expired you will see red card we ask for you please to respectfully take your seat at that time while you were talking we are attentively listening however it is policy we do not respond to comments as they are being made we also do prioritize hearing those that are speaking on agenda items first and for this evening this evening the agenda items include the following accepting and approving revised bylaws 8355 equity and Excellence safe School climate report and approval of financial report so we will Begin by those who signed

003up speaking on agenda items and if we have time remaining we'll hear from those speaking on General comments and we also do have public comment at the end of the meeting as well starting with the list of those speaking on agenda items first we have Sean Daly good evening West Hartford board of education members and those in attendance from the general public my name is Sean Daly I'm a registered voter in West Hartford and reside at 1779 Asylum Avenue my wife and I have a daughter who's currently a senior at Hall High School will be graduating next week I've lived here for over 50 years where I attended Duffy Sedgwick and graduated from Connor in 1984. I've never been more disappointed in the Democrat majority party than I am today the lack of communication the

004lack of transparency lack of trust and in many cases the lack of maturity and courage to do the right thing for the town by this Board of Ed is the worst I've seen in at least three or four decades in this town on a few occasions the board has requested public feedback only to disregard that feedback in its decision-making process the board along with its former school superintendent and head of Dei were notorious for stating that the parents and the public should not be involved in school curriculum and even on a few occasions where you did involve the public you attempted to either narrow the sample size to manipulate the outcome or you outright hid the outcome when the results didn't fit your narrative and needed to be foyered for transparency the success of our

005schools has never been due to the Board of Education in fact it's probably been despite the Board of Education even teachers and school administrators know the success of a school is more than having great teachers and administrators since nearly every school has them instead teachers and administrators readily admit that the success of a town school is due to the heavy presence of Parental and public involvement in our schools and that volume of involvement is what has made West Hartford unique however prior to covid at a national state and local level we've seen a direct correlation between restricting parental rights and a decline in education outcomes for our children now you want to further restrict parents and the Public's right to communicate with you it's amazing how can so many so-called intellectuals with so many letters

006after their last name be so blind restricting the ability for the public to speak with and provide feedback in a public forum to the board of ed is directly correlated to the decline in our education outcomes here in West Hartford you don't even have your own party support on this motion simply take a look at the conversations happening on the West Hartford political forum to a certain extent it's part of me that hopes you pass this silly motion you've grown complacent as you think a glass of water can get elected in West Hartford if there's a D in front of it I notice you're having a good deal of movement within the board of Board of Ed and I get it it's a great way to play Switcheroo vote on a silly restrictive proposal like

007this then leave the board and hope new Democrats can distance themselves in November My Hope Is you will either table this vote to study this issue further or you'll do the right thing and vote against this proposal regardless of party affiliation it is the right thing to do for the Democrats who clearly are on the fence about this do not be afraid to vote your conscience don't be afraid of the bullies in your party do the right thing for the public you serve if you don't I promise we won't let the town voters forget I can't wait to see how the footage will be used to show the voters of West Hartford your true character for those who vote in favor of this motion shame on you thank you thank you next we have side

008swag hello check check Scott's wag 19 clay bar Drive Hall High Warriors class of 2001. I'll start with something very simple you cannot vote tonight on the newly proposed change to policy 8355. do you know why because the reason is very simple tonight is the only the first time that reading has ever been proposed policy 8310 requires two public readings of any substantive amendment to board policy I know that some of you may not be familiar with this policy because you ignored it last year when you improperly voted to change the names of our high school teams Warriors and Chieftains so I'm going to read to you the relevant portion substantive Amendments of policies and bylaws shall be made only after a second reading of the proposed change I know you were all in attendance

009at the last board meeting on May 16th so let me ask you when was the first reading of the language you're proposing to vote on tonight because it certainly wasn't last meeting the first time this newly proposed language was made available to the public was last Friday June 2nd when it was posted on the website along with tonight's agenda yet somehow you're claiming that tonight is second reading why the deception during the last meeting a change was proposed to force all public comments on non-agenda topics to the end of the first meeting of the month the goal was obvious to suppress certain residents from expressing their opinions in this public forum as I explained during my last public comment on 516 your justification for this radical silencing of public discourse is completely flawed the goal

010of the meetings have gotten shorter not longer the number of speakers has gone down not up during that meeting Miss nesarella proposed an amendment allowing non-agenda items to follow agenda comments at the beginning of the meeting the amendment involved only six simple words replacing the words at the end with after agenda items this amendment is reflected in the board minutes and was approved by the board 4-0 as a first reading yet here we are three weeks later not voting on the proposed change amended by Miss nesarella and accepted by the board as a first reading but instead to vote on a totally different policy with materially different changes there are two critical differences between the language approved by the board as the first meeting first reading last meeting and tonight first the change proposed on

011May 16th specifically removed the 10 speaker limit on public comment at the start of meetings yet mysteriously that language has been added back in second the new change being proposed bans members of the public from speaking on non-agenda items at the end of any board meeting again we've never heard that before because these changes are being proposed tonight for the first time and were never previously presented to the board you are prohibited from voting on the change it's the first reading you've already lost the trust of many residents of this town I ask you do the right thing and don't lose the rest finally I want to express my gratitude to those members of the board who are continuing to serve the full duration of their terms you accepted an honor to serve this community

012and we appreciate your dedication thank you for not quitting on us and our children thank you next or Naggy Maggie pardon if I mispronounced [Music] good evening my name is Mary Nagy I live at 43 Acadia Street please vote no to restrict public comments before Board of Ed meetings the motions and primary vote regarding policy 8355 to eliminate public comments before one or of the two monthly meetings is deeply disturbing it limits the ability opportunity of West Hartford community members to have a voice preceding any board meeting the opportunity for the public to speak freely both before both monthly meetings should not be restricted please vote against this presumptuous proposal which silences public input and voice without reason and without Merit the reasons privacy following statutes State statutes offered by Jason Chang who is resigning

013from the board are not with Merit when parents and the public attend and comment and they freely choose to disclose their concerns what others or certain board members might consider as private it's no longer private and the board should work to protect these rights to free speech not eliminate them again do not restrict these public comments lastly you do not care about privacy if you base your yes vote to this restrictive policy change the public will know you are dishonest they will not trust you you have seen evidence of this in the plummeting number of public comments preceding meetings during this past year you have no honest reason to execute another policy change restricting public comments at all simply for your own sakes vote no and lastly I want to thank each and every one

014of you for all the hours of service for your dedication your credentials and your professionalism thank you next we have India Liddell India Liddell West Hartford I want to voice my opinion again on the proposed amend changes to policy 8355 regarding public comment as previously mentioned this policy was changed in November 2022 only six months later the board is now proposing to amend this policy again to further limit the Public's ability to address the board these changes are intentional the proposed changes make it more difficult for parents caregivers and other community members to bring up and speak up about issues and concerns that they may have with our schools and or with the board itself as noted at every meeting the board does not respond respond to public comments so therefore please keep in mind

015all you have to do is listen you may not like having to hear that some people are angry or upset or possibly that the board is not doing a good job at times but it is important that these members of the community your constituents are heard you cannot pick and choose what you want to hear you do not have that right while you may not agree or while you may not agree with or want to hear certain topics or opinions this small amount of time is there for people to express their own opinions and their concerns good and bad and to bring the topics of topics to your attention that are important to them they have the right to be heard not many people attend these meetings which we all know the board counts on

016however people are aware of what the board is trying to accomplish with these changes you are trying to dissuade people from coming to the meetings from being involved being engaged so there is no opposition to what the policies the policies that the board wants to put in place sometimes pushing through your agendas without any input or conflict from the families in your community interestingly enough Sean mentioned this public comment topic was recently brought up in a West Hartford political Forum it's a Facebook group and it came out as a question and a poll are you in favor of the proposed changes to policy 8355 regarding comment public comment of Board of Education meetings it being a West Hartford group I actually feel safe to say that the members in this group are predominantly Democrat versus

017Republican and most in the group would probably agree with that I only point that out because while generally there are extreme opposing partisan opinions on almost every topic posted this time around the overwhelming results of the poll voted 100 against further amendments to this policy I can say that the vote was 100 against these changes wires it does show one percent said yes but that one percent was a person who is completely unconnected or not connected to anyone in West Hartford and lives in Wallingford so I'm sorry their vote doesn't count to put it simply listen to the people this is your job give them their time to speak and I thank you all for listening to me tonight thank you next we have Kate capes caps again pardon if I mispronounce Kate kappas West

018Hartford I am the parent of four children who have gone through the West Hartford Public Schools and I'm a former West Hartford Public teacher in both roles I have witnessed West Hartford doing things and making decisions that are not in the best interest of children I left teaching in 2012 knowing that West Hartford was about to implement Common Core having been on committees to learn about common core I was well aware that it was not going to be good for children as it forced children to reason before the age of reason and to use reading and writing skills before they had been solidly acquired this was not in the best interest of children here in this very room after the covid lockdown debacle your very own Tom Moore said that he and you knew that

019shutting down the schools and going remote would hurt children but we had to do it you did it to get a ton of federal money and you used our children as collateral this is not in the best interest of children during their High School experiences my children did not have biology or chemistry Labs because of the policies created by West Hartford Administration this also was not in the best interest of children you are now pushing for young children to be taught that gender is fluid it's not but you also felt the need to control language so that our children cannot walk through their own high schools using the words Warrior or Chieftain any longer this is not the best interest of our children or anyone teachers in this town are now giving a psychological assessment

020to children and collecting data on those children without parents permission and often without their knowledge what is being done with that data is not in the best interest of children with bylaw 8355 you are now trying to limit when and how many parents can speak at these meetings it's an attempt to not allow parents to present their concerns if it doesn't match what's on your agenda what parents have to say may not match your agenda items but more often than not it's connected and our words sometimes are the only other way that parents are informed about things that are happening in this town and in our schools that are not in the best interest of children if you pass this by law proposal it should signal to the entire town your plans to slowly and

021methodically silence parents I could go on with a laundry list of things that I have witnessed as a parent and as a former teacher that are not in the best interest of children here in this town but what is abundantly clear is that you are pushing even further your Marxist agenda to make the child a product of the state rather than an individual who is loved and protected by the family parents have every right and the public has every right to stand before you at each meeting to address their concerns in order to protect and defend their children excuse me because you clearly are not thank you next we have Paula m a partner good evening I'm Paula Mercier I've lived in West Hartford my whole life my parents even graduated Hall High so I've

022been around a while I am here to oppose okay dear West Hartford board of ed one reason this town and school system are successful is because of the parents who have given their time their commitment and their expertise to this community parent involvement and input are vital to the success of our children and our schools it is unsettling that the Boe is now attempting to restrict the voices of the community that elected this board this is democracy this is not a dictatorship the only way a community works is when all members are given voice and the community feels their voices matter public input is a critical component of any decision-making process diversity equity and inclusion requires transparency and the inclusion of all voices even those of dissent if you approve these proposed changes as you

023sit on this board with a Democratic president and a Democratic governor but imagine you are no longer sitting there on the board is made up of people with different goals and values how will you feel then how would you feel when it is your voice that is being silenced please treat others as you wish to be treated please reconsider these proposed changes and instead work towards creating a more open and inclusive environment for public participation thank you thank you for listening thank you next we have Kyle zelensi Kyle zelazny 77 Warwick let's cut to the chase limiting The public's ability to speak on Boe related General matters to only once a month at the very end of the meeting when everyone is checked out or as left is absurd and contrary to the spirit of

024Connecticut Law surrounding Board of Education meetings not only this but the Boe changed the bylaws only a short time ago already limiting the volume of public speaking about non-gender topics have you noticed that neither the chairwoman or Dr Chang who proposed this change can offer a coherent explanation for it what's the purpose what's the reason as justification they'll say things like most Board of Ed meetings do not entertain any non-agenda comments that's a quote from last meeting this is an outright lie the vast majority of schools in our drg including Avon Farmington Simsbury Glastonbury and Greenwich all out public comment on non-agenda items before every Board of Education meeting the West Hartford Public has also rarely been disruptive or inappropriate in addressing non-agenda items at meetings no evidence has been raised by anyone on the

025board that this is a problem if you listen carefully you will basically hear the Democrat majority saying the chair sets the agenda and you have no guaranteed right to speak at Boe meetings if this seems pretty extreme it is and it's analogous to the situation with the Native American High School team names where an actual Connecticut Chieftain was invited so late in the process that people barely heard and reflected on his very important argument for retaining the Warriors and Chieftains so to the Democrats in town whether you realize it or not this is what you voted for if you disagree with this and you voted for these people this majority then you have no one to blame but yourself you voted to virtually eliminate public comment at Board of Ed meetings you voted for people

026who are on tape admitting they prioritize Dei equity and social emotional concerns over academics you voted to change the team names even when a Connecticut chief called that cultural genocide and now there's a there's a really great campaign recently that a lot of families did to save music teacher positions that would have been precluded under these recent changes if it was your child died are you concerned that the board of education is not doing enough to address the depths of various students or that do you have an issue that's important to you as a tax paying member of the community that you want to bring before the board which sees like 80 percent of our Town's budget under these new rules too bad so sad I wonder what the reaction would be if a republican-controlled

027board proposed this and if Republicans do take over the board eventually I wonder what local media and Democrats will say when a Republican chair precludes topics that Democrats want to speak on just like with the Harry Reid gamble with the Supreme Court this will backfire and damage the Integrity of our institutions in this case a local Board of Ed play stupid games Win stupid prizes only this time the prize is the removal of a key pillar of the local Democratic process people of all political orientations should be upset at this blatant attack on the Public's right to ask questions of their elected officials if you vote for this you're not a Democrat you're not a republican you're a totalitarian who forgets their role as a public servant so that is all who we have on

028agenda items and those include seven individuals and with the policy that we have we allow up to 10 persons to speak at the beginning for Public Communication so is there anyone else who would like to speak on an agenda item when it comes to talking about an agenda item there is no limit on how many persons can speak it said Seven Persons per subject matter and so just want to see if there's anyone else who would like to speak at this time on an agenda item yes if you complete but I do want to also say this again Seven Persons per subject matter so most persons who have spoken have spoken on policy 8355 so is there anyone else who would like to speak on an agenda item again the remaining agenda items are equity

029and Excellence safe School climate report and approval of the financial report the comments on those are prioritized to go at this time well we've had seven people to speak on a day 55 and with part of me oh the right speakers oh Missouri okay nope that's okay we want to make sure to follow through so from what I see here everyone did speak on 8355 every every person correct and so now we are going to open it up to she also made reference to 1855 and signed 8355 on this list yes that's all right that's all right so again if there is someone who would like to speak on an agenda item that equates to either echoing Excellence safe School climate and report and approval of financial report and anyone else who would like to

030speak on 8355 we do have public comment at the end of the meeting but at this time other agenda items will be prioritized for public comment yes please share your name and town of residence please Anita rakealian a town of residence West Hartford um so I will speak about Equity since Jason Chang is resigning um I'm putting my name in the Hat I'm a registered Democrat I believe in equity and I believe in diversity and I believe in inclusion um one of the things we learn at school is know your audience and I've heard a lot of the terms multiculturalism I haven't spoken much but I understand multiculturalism to be more than just what we look like I am someone who speaks six languages I took time to learn those languages I studied abroad and

031I learned abroad but I think one of the most interesting experiences I had as a foreign exchange student and I think you'll like the story Paul I happen to be in West Berlin when the wall was still up and it was an interesting experience my friend and I another American we were in the store and there was rumbling of the ground we ran right to the opening because she and I both summered in California and when there's running Rumblings you run to the opening because that's an earthquake well when we ran there it was in an earthquake what we saw were three tanks coming down they had the U.S flag automatically two of us went like that on each tank there was a soldiers who sat on top and when he saw that I don't

032know if it's our Garb I don't know if we did this instinctively he went like this at that moment I understood what my mother meant when before I I boarded that plane she gave me a list of where the U.S embassies were for all the European countries that we were going to visit I have uh we have relatives there and we had friends there first thing my mom said you are U.S citizen whatever happens you go first to the U.S embassy U.S embassies are protected by military aren't they because you will be protected and that's our goal isn't it the protection of our children the knowledge and excellence in education when I say excellence in education I don't know how many of you have been abroad but I can tell you when you walk around

033with a blue passport first thing you'll hear is Yankee go home second thing you hear is Dom yang that's why when we talk about globalism and multiculturalism it's K to eight those are extremely the foundational knowledge has to be strong and that's why I think I would be a very good candidate as a registered Democrat to sit in one of those chairs and by the way I am a Bryn Mawr college graduate so you know you don't graduate a college like that in order for me to graduate I wrote a 40 page paper in Spanish I defended it in Spanish and I defended it with native speakers from various Spanish countries so going deep is hugely important thank you thank you is there anyone else who would like to speak yes on an agenda item

034of equity Excellence safe School climate report or approval of the financial report hi my name is Alejandro payuk thank you for the opportunity to speak I am a West Hartford resident I'd like to talk to you about equity and Excellence today specifically about the math Quest program and its intersection with equity um I love the math Quest program I am very very grateful for its existence my son who is here tonight is a part of that program and uh I am so proud of his achievements and I'm so proud to live in West Hartford where we have such a wonderful program the issue is that I unfortunately believe that the same opportunity is not being extended to my daughters and to other girls in the West Hartford School District um on May 25th I submitted

035a foia request and I received some data I compiled that data and I have some of it here if you'd like to take a look at it I will also be emailing it to you and what the data shows to me is that for seven years in a row there have been more boys admitted into the math Quest program than girls if you believe as I do that math ability is uniformly distributed against between boys and girls and there's about the same number of boys and girls in the school system then it's pretty apparent that there is some kind of systemic bias that is occurring I don't know how it's happening I know for sure it's not on purpose right nobody here wants to have bias in our system but it's it's happening it's evident

036in the numbers um the the number of girls in math Quest has never even broached 40 percent and again I will share these numbers with you and you can take a look at it uh what I'm requesting tonight is for you to please take a look into this and and try to do something about it um I would love for for my girls to have the same opportunity as my son thank you very much thank you I'm a Dr M Shane Tutwiler at eight Farm Hill Road here in West Hartford I think this is a wonderful segue actually from the previous speaker because I did in fact submit a report to this board and the superintendent and the Town Council last month that showed from the data that historically 70 of the students accepted into

037math Quest are boys well fifty percent of the students in West Hartford are boys and girls it's it's evenly distributed that can't be right now I'm an educational psychologist by training I have my doctorate in human development and education from Harvard I'm on the faculty I'm a tenured professor at the University of Rhode Island in the College of Education I study gifted and talented identification I can tell you without hesitation that the procedures taken by the quest program in West Hartford violate practically every best practice known to the research Community to the National Association of gifted children and more importantly it violates the Connecticut Department of Education guidelines which I sent to this board in an appendix to my report systematically showing the ways in which the quest program deviates from the Connecticut Department of

038Education guidelines on the identification of gifted and talented children I have two daughters in this District I am very concerned that they will not get a fair Shake compared to boys in the district and I've spoken to principals in the district who tell me time and again about girls coming into their office crying because they know they're every bit as good as the boys and they don't get selected and the thing is this isn't new we've known about this for years I spoke about this years ago to the quest coordinator this needs to change we know better we have members of this board who are academics who know better than to deviate from best practice deviate from what the research says in my report I gave recommendations about audits two audits in fact one is

039an audit based on the standards from the National Association for gifted children two is an audit by comparing the district practices directly to the Connecticut Department of Education best practices you will see if you do those audits or that you request that the superintendent do them that are get are gifted and talented program is not in alignment we are underserving our children and to give one more statistic above and beyond math Quest General Quest 29 of our students are historically underrepresented minorities historically nine percent of our students from historically underrepresented minorities are selected into the gifted and talented program again that is not moral that is not possible if the system is working ethically thank you thank you any other comments on agenda items I'll ask once again any other comments on agenda items okay

040we will pause on public Communications and we do have it at the end of the meeting and those who've signed up on the list to speak on General comments will be prioritized next we have non-staff communications and reports and this is where we're able to hear from our student representatives and this is a Bittersweet moment because this is our last meeting of the year and our last time seeing these lovely faces and so with that we know it's for good reason why it's the last time because you all are going on to bigger and wonderful things so I'm going to ask you to do something excited ask you give your heads up beforehand once you conclude with your report if you do care to share where you will continue on with your next Adventures it's

041up to you but certainly would love to hear that so first if we could begin hearing from Megan uh good evening everyone so the end of the year has been a really busy time at conard but all very exciting stuff so I'll try and go through it quickly um starting with Athletics we had our girls track um team they were state champions this year they won the state champion tournament uh the state tournament so that was really excellent um our boys volleyball played in the state semifinal game today and so I don't know the outcome of that but regardless of that it's really amazing how far they've made it in their state tournament as well um the girls golf got six at their CCC tournament and our boys baseball team won the mayor Cup against

042all so all very exciting things regarding spring Sports some other announcements seniors and juniors both had their prom senior was at the Riverview in Simsbury and Junior Prom was at the Glastonbury Hills Country Club and speaking from experience senior prom was really fun and I heard Junior Prom was really fun as well seniors and juniors both had Awards nights these were athletic scholarships and academic a bunch of different Awards to recognize a lot of our students so that was fun um last night the class of 2024 um the new members for the National Honor Society were inducted and this was remarkable because it was the largest induction class ever with 135 new members being inducted last night so that was really amazing the West Hartford Fire and EMT programs held career day during lunch periods

043as well as the police they had one on another day and it was really great for students if they're interested in that to see they had some activities to try out and stuff like that last night oh sorry oh yeah last night students attended students involved with the Frozen musical attended the Sondheim Awards which was at the Shubert Theater in New Haven I heard it was really fun and two we won two Awards one being the pit Orchestra the pit Orchestra sorry won the first ever achievement in an orchestra award and one of our actors Marlena who played Anna she won a scholarship for her acting so really exciting for the whole program they had a wonderful as everyone knows it was a great success with the musical also today was the last day for

044scene singers which was very Bittersweet but we are all looking forward to graduation next Tuesday on the 13th and safe grad after that which a lot of parents and volunteers have put a lot of time and money into that so we're all very excited and also since this is the last meeting I just wanted to say a big thank you for um Laramie to have this opportunity I've really enjoyed and I've learned a lot and yeah I just want to say thank you and next year I'll be attending the University of Maryland studying on the pre-law track with a minor in Chinese [Music] all right we're gonna have some words for you once we finish this piece up thank you so much Megan Caitlin hi everyone um Hall is doing almost exactly the same thing

045as Connor so I probably won't repeat all of it but Awards nights the induction ceremony the fire and police um visit all of those things same thing happened um today was our last day of school for the seniors um I was outside all day I played spike ball that was it um we had prom senior prom last weekend at the Basketball Hall of Fame um and Junior Prom was a few weeks ago um the hall boys track team won States um they won State open ccc's and states which is the first time that's ever happened to Hall and it's a really big deal so that's super awesome Hall one two Halo awards for the for um best original music in a play for comedy of errors and best contemporary play which is for Smallmouth sounds

046um we had Earth night last Friday which was very well attended it was promoting um the coral reefs and the Gardens at our school and general sustainability uh we have graduation next week on the 13th followed by safe grad we have our last comedy improv show this Friday and I have the choir performance tonight um that I do have to get back to after this but um other than that I do also want to just say thank you so much I've had a really great time listening and giving you my little three minute speech every meeting and I really appreciate the opportunity and next year I will be going to Williams College uh and I don't know what I'm doing yet there but I'm sure I'll find out so thank you well Megan and Caitlyn

047want to say how proud We Are of the both of you and you all have been through a lot not only during the time of this Academic School year but just thinking of your whole High School experience where the bulk of it was through a pandemic and yet still you survived not only survived but you thrived because you're here and you're preparing to graduate and walk across that stage next week as you move on to the University of Maryland and Williams College we are so very proud of you and whatever kept you compelled to keep moving forward hold on to that because trust Julie you're going to have other moments moving along where things are going to get tough it's going to be a challenge but you're going to have to dig within persevere and

048keep moving forward and you know you've done it so you're going to keep doing that we have something here for you but do want to ask our teammates here if you have any comments for our younger teammates here I think the collective silence means we are collectively proud of you we wish you well we are going to pass something to you we do know that you first and foremost our students if you have to depart early that is certainly okay your job is to be a student you've done your job well so a round of applause please [Applause] well Lauren passes those out I just want to thank say thank you to both you've been nothing but outstanding ambassadors for your classmates I've been doing this a long time you two are top shelf very

049well done thank you for what your time here with the board another round of applause now moving on to unfinished business where we have a motion by the board policy subcommittee to accept and approve revised by law 8355 as a second reading again seeking a motion of the Board of Education accept and approve as a second and final reading the following bylaw which was revised by the board policy subcommittee is there a motion so it moved is there a second second thank you Jason thank you Renee discussion I am just bring up one thing a point of order here um the the policy that we were given in this current agenda is not the policy that we voted on in the last agenda and the language has been entirely changed it is not and I'm

050not talking about Claire's abendum and I'm talking about the significant changes in the in the language from the last meeting to this meeting so I don't really see how this can be a second reading of something that we never had a first reading of thank you for that and I I am so glad that we have a Corporation Council here uh Attorney Gina varana who is here to help us in that regard I will say just from a high level piece I do believe we are within do order to pursue in this direction however we'll defer to our legal expert uh thank you very much Madam chair so um it is the opinion that you could proceed and vote on the policy as it is on the agenda today it would be a more difficult

051problem if you voted uh to amend it tonight then you would not be able to vote on it but the fact that you address it in the first reading you amended it that night you voted on that night it's ready for a vote tonight as a second reading okay I just want to respond to that I I'm not what I'm saying is that what we voted on in the first in the meeting last time is entirely been changed this this policy has entirely changed the language is not the same there are things that have been added there are things that have been taken out and I'm not referring to Claire's Amendment which was voted on I'm referring to the policy it I mean you can look at it yourself it is not the same policy

052there are things that have been removed and things that have been added and I mean we have already been in a situation this board where we ended up in litigation because we did not follow our own rules regarding the mascots and I think that it would be a major mistake to try to put this on the uh agenda for a vote tonight when the reading in the last meeting what we had is entirely been changed so if I may what I I appreciate the question comment because we want to be thorough and so just to kind of recap where we were and where we are now we know when we came together the last time the initial language that was proposed was there was a suggestion to amend the language and what we mean by

053that is from the original proposal it was recommending to have non-agenda item comments to be at the end of the meeting that the beginning of the meeting would be just four agenda items and I'm I'm not I'm looking just at you a pan as much as I can but just trying to respond to your your comment um and to have non-agenda items at the end of the meeting the first meeting of the month and through discussion and through a suggestion to amend the language what we voted on was in terms of the content of the policy to have the beginning of the meeting to be prioritized agenda items followed by non-agenda items and then the end of the meeting is open so what we voted on in terms of the language was instead of having

054non-agenda items only at the end of the meeting it was to have it at the beginning of the meeting now here what you're saying in terms of specifics words per se but substantively speaking if I'm not mistaken the content is still the same the substance has not changed in that what has been brought before us to vote tonight on is recommending to have the first meeting of the month prioritize agenda items followed by non-agenda items and then we have Public Communication at the end of the meeting the second meeting of the month is only for non-agenda items so in all pardon me only for agenda items pardon me the second meeting of the month is only four agenda items so the difference from last meeting to now is the same with what was voted on

055in terms of amending that we now keep non-agenda items still a possibility of that at the beginning of the meeting the first meeting of the month where the second meeting of the month would be for non-agenda item well before agenda items alone I hear what you're saying in terms of specific words like if you do word for word for word yes there's a difference but collectively substantively substantively speaking it still is the same as what we voted on before so my question is when is it determined that I brought a highlight I highlighted the changes and on the first paragraph and you can pass this and I screwed up on the first phrase so that was there two-thirds of it is new words when does it become I don't honestly unders know the difference so

056one is it because I did hear at the last meeting and I've heard before we're not allowed to change it for the second reading or the minor so if I look at this oh a bit more but it's mostly it's pretty much changed two-thirds and the first paragraph is where the bulk is if I made a pardon I'm going to cut you off please that's fine if I may also say as well in in terms of the overall content of it that with the policy as it as it currently stands it is one and this reflects the change that was proposed in November and from the November uh change overall what was recommended was for there to be a 10 persons to speak at the beginning of a meeting we all recall that priority would

057be given to those speaking on agenda items and Seven Persons can speak per topic matter that was from November and that remains as now as it is now evidenced by tonight's Public Communication piece where seven uh person speaking on the agenda topic seven individuals that is and so with again going word by word it a word here wordsmithing there may be different but in terms of the it's it's support and and I have the the first reading if you want to compare it it's not a word here I highlighted excuse me you know again I'm tell if I'm misinterpreting the rule because I only heard it anecdotally and I have not like Scott which I'm impressed knew the rule but I do remember at the last meeting being stated we can make minor changes I

058I do have concerns about how it's written and I'm the probably the worst Wordsmith in this room but that's a different question but if you have two-thirds of the words because a lot of the words were from the original policy then got reverted back to this policy that to me is a change you know whether it's it's just the magnitude is what I'm I'm a mystified pie so do you want the original uh policy um through you I can only evaluate what's exactly in front of me what the policy is today it's difficult for me to say well what if this word was changed and what if this word was changed or where on the spectrum is it substantive versus non-substantive so I'm really not it's not an answer it's not a question that I

059can answer but what I can tell you is what you have before are you tonight is ready and available for a vote so thank you I just like to understand one is the change a change and what is it not a change because it's going to come up in the future I don't know if there's a specific answer to that question but I do want to allow others questions as well but thank you yes um there is a substance change in this besides the fact that two-thirds of the text here has been entirely changed taken out put back in changed entirely there's also a change on this that is entirely different than what we have currently as a policy and it says public comment on non-agenda items shall only be permitted at the first regular

060meeting of the month that is not our current policy we allow people to speak at the end of meetings on non-agenda items and this is now saying that they can only speak at the first meeting on non-agenda items that is not the policy we have I was on the I am on the policy committee I did help write that policy that we all agreed on and this is entirely different so I don't know how anybody here can sit here and tell me that this is this is the same policy plus Claire's Amendment it's not it's entirely different and I you know with this the town has had to litigate in court when we make mistakes like this and I just don't understand why we don't take the time I was on the phone with Lorna

061for an hour begging you to go back to the policy committee and work this through instead we end up with another policy that's entirely different than the one we had last time that's also changed important items that we had in terms of people being able to speak at the end of the meeting so I don't know I mean I agree with with Ethan I'd really like to understand how this is going to be a second reading when it's an entirely new document other comments questions Jason all right um excuse me um so just to recount you know the the process that we've gone through um so with the first reading that we had I did present only one one opportunity for non-agenda public comments that was in the that occurs in in the first policy

062reading Claire's Amendment shifts that to the beginning that that opportunity for non-agenda items to the beginning of the the first meeting of the month so the language that's been changed here is reflective of that intent just a sec I'm not done yet so with the with the vote that we had on the amendment that Claire raised um we see that agreed upon language has been passed by the board through those amendments through that Amendment so it's my understanding that in the writing of the new policy that some language will change right but the intent has not changed based on what was passed last meeting right so so you may not agree with the policy but we have followed procedure one is a question because I'm generally I'm honestly confused I thought Claire's policy change had

063a reading of the one one of the meetings at the beginning but also both at the end that's not how I read this but that we can wait to to answer your question Jason and I'm asking the question is I see two-thirds of the words change I'm not saying that the wording is different okay it's probably basically consistent but to me that's a major change and should have another reading it's not going to change the ultimate outcome but we should be I don't know I I also think this was rushed and again I am not a Wordsmith because I I was General it took me several readings to understand it and now that could just be me but um so my question is one is there public comment at the end because I thought that

064was in the amendment it doesn't read that way in the last one it does oh no I know that put in the current but uh I I don't know I I'm not a lawyer I don't even play one in TV so um it just I'm struggling with the fact that all these words were changed or added and they were in the original policy and we're saying that's not a change so thank you other questions or comments I just have to respond to what you're saying Jason the last reading which was the first reading states that if a person wishes to speak to the board for three minutes at the end of the regular first at the end of the first regular meeting of each month and three minutes it's so confusing that I can't I'm

065having trouble following it this cuts that out so you're so we no longer allow anybody to speak on non-agenda items at the end of a meeting that wasn't that wasn't part of the reading last time but that's what it says this time what oh pardon so what what is we see before us is saying that there is an opportunity to speak on non-agenda items at the beginning of the meeting we already know that we have Public Communication at the end of the meeting so a non-agent item could be spoken of of then as well what was it sorry could you say that one more time sure so with what we have before let me just read out loud what we have before us just so those that may not have it before them you can

066follow along the board welcomes public comment as it represents an opportunity for members of the public to express their views to the board on matters within the board's Authority each member of the public wishing to speak May address the board for three minutes at the beginning and three minutes at the end of each meeting for a total of six minutes during the board's two public comment periods persons commenting on agenda items shall be permitted to come to comment first at the first regular meeting of the month no more than 10 persons shall be permitted to comment during the public comment period at the beginning of the meeting provided that such limitation shall not apply to persons commenting on agenda items a maximum of seven persons shall be allowed to comment on each subject matter public

067comment on non-agenda items shall only be permitted at the first regular meeting of the month and the rest is what we have before so again of the month and then before that you're saying people can speak at the beginning and the end of the meeting so which one is it it's both you can speak at the beginning and end of the meeting on agenda and non-agenda items for the first meeting of the month the second meeting of the month you can only speak on agenda items I'll read again but but what I read is what what but please oh there's comments others comment Claire um I think in your last line it says public comment on non-agenda items shall only be permitted at the first regular meeting of the month I think you forgot and

068we mentioned to say the beginning of the meeting so it's just meeting missing the beginning of the meeting your statement earlier states of public comment can be at the end of any meeting and it doesn't stipulate agenda or non-agenda but your last line is missing the word beginning that way you're saying there's four Public public comment periods in a month and only one is restricted one is restricted to be only agenda the end of the meetings are both in the beginning of the Tuesday meeting is both so thank you it was intentional as it was written because we're saying that it the first meeting of the month Public Communication is as it currently is we're the first spinning of the month we have public comment at the beginning you have public comment at the end

069the first meeting of the month at the beginning of the meeting you can speak on agenda items followed by non-agenda items at the end of the meeting you can speak on either agenda items or non-agenda items for the first meeting of the month whereas the second meeting of the month is only agenda item so the language here is trying to articulate that instead of specifying the beginning of the meeting as it reads it as it reads acknowledging that the first meeting of the month that's where non-agenda items may be spoken on so again the way that the policy is proposed here it's specifying the only specification is that only non-agenda items are permitted at the first meeting of the month the second meeting of the month it's on agenda items someone who's non-agenda items at

070the end for both meetings sorry correct the last one we spoke we spoke at the last meeting what was originally proposed was saying non-agenda items only at the end where this right here it is acknowledging that the first meeting of the month agenda items nanogen items whether whether it be the beginning or the end again as it says at the beginning of the policy here each member of the public wishing to speak May address the board for three minutes at the beginning and three minutes at the end of each meeting for a total of six minutes during the board's two public comment periods so each board meeting will continue with having a public comment at the beginning and the end of each meeting beginning at the end of the first meeting of the month beginning

071and end of the second meeting of the month however only agenda items at the second meeting yes you know Lorna this is really we have we're going to try to pass a policy here that not a single person has written an email in support of not a single person has spoken in support of and we have now this convoluted situation where it is not clear what this policy is saying and for some reason I I get the feeling that you want to force this thing through without doing due diligence I mean I think that and I asked you on the phone that you're well aware of to go back to the policy committee and try to write this in a way one that might be except more acceptable to all of us and two that

072it's not this convoluted that we're like arguing here about language two-thirds of the words are different there is a total like hypocrisy between the beginning of the policy and the end of the policy and you want to force it through and I think that that is a major mistake I mean if this is written Rewritten in a way that is clearer and more concise and you know more at least the public can understand what is going on here I think we all we all win I don't understand why we would want such a convoluted policy that's been changed so dramatically to be forced through on a second reading when it really should be the first reading if I just went through things if I made I appreciate you sharing that just two things I do

073respectfully disagree with one is there is no effort to to force and second we're not arguing we're discussing this is this is discussion for motion that's on the floor and this is what we do this is the part of our of our process and um and so with that appreciate what what you're sharing also I want to say I think we also have to consider well nope I'm going to pause past the mic please Claire are you we're going to speak yeah so in the beginning it says each person can speak for six minutes during the board's two public comment periods do you agree that any person can come to the first meeting and the second meeting of the month and speak for three minutes at the beginning three minutes at the end they can

074come to both meetings let me explain so we are putting in the stipulation that board business and focusing on board business is reserved once a month for the beginning of the second meeting of the board and so that line is in there so that at three of the comic periods three twice a month two in the first Tuesday and one in the second Tuesday people can come and talk to us about anything they want it's open public comment but one Tuesday the second Tuesday of the month we're asking that they stick to gender items so the first statement says six minutes you can speak at the cup public comments you can speak but the stipulation is out of those six minutes in the second meeting three of them must be focused on the agenda I

075agree that was the intent I heard last meeting I just don't think it's written that way that's what it is but wow the second sentence no I see the second sentence but for I just think it when I read this originally I'm just sorry when I read this that I came away thinking oh it's back to the way I want and and the way I wanted it so I just think it's very confusing and and um but I I do vote I don't want to see the policy change but I think this this is before the vote on that this is just I just think it's very confusing whether I wanted to change or I didn't so but I do agree with you on the intent of what you said when you made your resolution

076before your Amendment before and that's what this reflects I it might not be crystal clear and it takes a little bit of time to digest but basically the way that Claire presented it is what is in this written policy and you yourself Ethan said yes that's what we discussed last meeting that was part of Claire's proposal and this policy that is in front of us right now reflects the changes that Claire proposed so it is this is this does reflect what we discussed last time I I I'm struggling to come up with that interpretation myself so if you guys think it is and but I'm struggling so I I yes who is going yes um I I thought you had said a compromise would be having the public comment on non-agenda items be once a

077month that that would be a compromise no it wasn't I appreciate you doing it right now I'm just talking about the wording okay but that's the intent and that's what we're voting I appreciate that and I mean I still I'm still unhappy we made a change but I appreciate that there was at least a compromise to put one at the beginning I just wish it would read like that in my interpretation I mean I'm looking at them both right now to me the one that we're voting on tonight is clearer if we if we if we took the other one as a direct edit it would not make sense because of all the the qualifying language we had in it before of the first meeting this this that we're voting on tonight is clearer based

078upon our intended amendments last time foreign I just want to clarify with you the last sentence of the current policy the way I read it okay and I know it's different from what's at the beginning of the policy but what it says to me is that public comment on non-agenda items can only be spoken about at the first meeting of the month that means that if somebody comes to the second meeting of the month and they want to speak at the end of the meeting on a non-agenda item they're not going to be able to because it says public comments on non-agenda items shall only be permitted at the first regular meeting of the month and you can just add in the back half of the second month or the second meeting so if they

079come in they want to speak at the end of the second meeting of the month they can't because that's what the policy now says it's very confusing because the beginning says something different I'm just curious because you seem to disagree with the way I read it but I mean how do you interpret that they can only come once a month it says each member of the public wishing to speak May address the board for three minutes at the beginning in three minutes at the end of each meeting for a total of six minutes during the board's two public comment periods each meeting so that states you can speak at the beginning and the end down at the bottom it says non-agenda items do not belong in the second meeting now practically speaking do we have

080meetings at the end of the meet you know comments at the end we don't often but if somebody on a non-agenda item wants to speak at the end of the second meeting we're not saying it's not allowed what I would say has to be Crystal entirely different so so to clarify what the pilot what the policy here is saying it is saying that only the first meeting of the month non-agenda items are to be spoken of the second meeting of the month is only for agenda items that's what is that is what is intended here again the first meeting of the month is for agenda and non-agenda items the second meeting of the month is only for agenda items the compromise that was made was to allow for non-agenda items to be spoken at either

081at the beginning or the end what was originally proposed was non-agenda items only at the end of the first meeting of the month what was suggested to amend in what was agreed upon was to include non-agenda items at the beginning and to keep it also at the end so again what the policy before us is proposing is for the first meeting of the month to allow for non-agenda items the second meeting of the month is only for agenda items I also want to remind us which I know we are aware of that with reference made to limiting Public Communication or not wanting to hear from the public that is not the sense at all that is not our effort our intent at all we know that our role as board members is to govern and

082in terms of the day-to-day operations the administration oversees that and we know there are many opportunities to communicate with Administration about questions comments concerns you have that this is not the only Outlet to voice one's concerns we know that caregivers and teachers can parents can go to their teachers they can go to their principals they can go to the superintendent and they certainly can come to us as well but this is not the only means of voicing one's concerns we know that many principles have coffee hours they have open hours where they have open house to be able to hear from the public to hear from parents and caregivers so there's a web of opportunities to communicate with others we know that we have whether you see someone in the grocery store you or you

083email someone there are many means of communicating what we as a board are talking about with respect to the business of the board meeting I'm going to ask for those in the audience to please be respectful because we have young people here and watching so we need to model appropriate behavior as I was saying in terms of attending to the business at hand of the board meeting what we are proposing is to continue to have Public Communication that will is what we are proposing to continue it's not about removing it it's not about limiting it we're saying that when it comes to Public Communication the first meeting of the month will be as it currently is agenda items first followed by non-agenda items whereas the second meeting of the month will be for agenda items

084alone I just want to be clear again there are many opportunities for Public Communication what we are talking about now with respect to the policy before us is permitting for agenda items at the first meeting of the month and the second meeting of the month non-agenda items are only for the first meeting of the month now we may disagree with the policy we can agree we can agree to disagree but it's important that although we may disagree does not mean that the process is Tainted does not mean that the process is being pushed you may disagree but let's hopefully we can agree to disagree but I want to be clear with what the policy is being proposed at this time uh ether I saw your hand and then Gail your hand yes mine's a question

085right now I was under the uh from last meeting that the policy that was proposed in the amendment was that the first meeting you could have non-agenda items at the beginning of the meeting and the end of the meeting and the second meeting you would have non-agenda items at the end of the second meeting Lauren you said something different you said it's only in the first meeting so I just would like to clarify because that's part of so if something wrong I'm wrong certainly from what was proposed of the original proposal last week before we amended and even with the amendment the intent was for there to be agenda items at the first meeting of the month and non-agenda items of the first meeting of the month whereas the second meeting of the month is

086reserved only for agenda items at the beginning right right so I don't see any change for the ending of the meeting and that wasn't proposed there was never a restriction on agenda or non-agenda items at the end of the meeting we're not changing that the policy the policy we read in the first reading only had non-agenda items at the end of the first meeting there's nothing about being at the end of the second meeting the second meeting is strictly for agenda items both at the beginning and the end of the meeting now the second reading is presenting non-agenda has the opportunity at the beginning and the end of the meeting so there's two chances to speak once a month thank you so Claire Gail yeah I want to make a motion to well we have

087a motion on the floor and so are you looking let me hear what you have to say but let's Okay my motion would be to uh to table this right now and to go back and have this revised so that it is clearly written that when we we can at least we can agree to disagree about the policy but we at least would be clear on what the language is and I I really think the back and forth here is is making it very clear that that the language is very confusing so my motion is that this goes back it is revised by whoever revised it this time because it wasn't us I don't know who revised it that now we have two-thirds of the text is different whoever did that maybe should meet with

088the policy committee or should at least revise it so that it is clear Madam chair if I just may request is the motion to table the item or is the motion to refer it to the policy subcommittee thank you so I want to refer it either to the policy subcommittee or to refer it to the um to our attorney who can clarify the language and change it I wanted to go back and to be written in a more understandable way because I I appreciate what everyone's saying here and I appreciate that you all understand it one way but I think it is entirely open to interpretation and I do not think on a policy like this that we should have any daylight between what's written here and what's what we understand so I would like

089to have it go back to the either the policy subcommittee or go back to the person who revised two-thirds of the text so Madam chair in the order of priority you first have to vote on the motion to adopt the policy itself um that is not the motion made by um to refer to a subcommittee does not take priority over the main motion so I just confused why the last time we were here when somebody made a motion that was acceptable to be voted on before we vote vote well maybe that was the first reading so maybe that's why okay so Madam chair the the motion before the body is it's been motion it's been seconded it's under discussion and you can at any time call for a vote yes thank you and I I

090think that the robust discussion reflects the process of wanting to have the discussion that's the point why we come to the table so I think that is a good thing but yes we do have a motion on the floor and we have had discussion is there any other discussion regarding the specific motion on the floor before we do call for a vote I will ask for a roll call vote please um Jason I see your hand and then Ethan your hand yes Ethan sure yeah I'll go after you okay foreign so I appreciate that you want clear language um and I think what we have in front of us does achieve that because what we have is sentence by sentence description of how public comment will occur and the exceptions to the to that rule

091all right these were rules that were agreed on for the from the last meeting and I don't want there to be any doubt that we've proceeded in any way other than one that preserves the intent of this body um you know just also for the record I want to correct some from prior discussion about uh music teacher comment that music teacher comments have only occurred during agenda items right so um so you know which is just to underscore the fact that the board covers many many different issues and and that the public has has commented on those in very meaningful ways this policy preserves public comment on non-agenda items the board also has a policy where it can change its rules at any point given two-thirds votes so if there is an A A A

092someone who wants to speak on a non-agenda item it's possible for the board to vote for that so the insinuation that the board is trying to limit public speech or to uh to somehow dictate the terms of the Public's engagement is false this is a policy designed to preserve public discourse to preserve Civic culture based on based on truth so what I see in front of us is a sensible policy that that puts the boards that prioritizes the public work of the board according to the agenda as well as providing opportunities for the public to comment it's it's very clear to me thank you sorry just go ahead Ethan are you deferring your time to Gail first okay yeah um I had two point two points and one is uh I'm being very sincere I'm

093not trying to cause problems I heard a different policy from Claire than I heard from Lorna is the second uh meeting at the end non-agenda or only agenda second meeting of the month is for agenda items which is different than what I thought it was before it is for agenda items last meeting no I I understand but my impression was and maybe I must I must have misunderstood I thought Claire was saying they would be available to have public comment on non-agenda items at the end of each meeting that's what I but that's not something we amended last time and as presented it's always been yeah we are that's why I'm confused again I'm not trying to be difficult but there's two different interpretations so in the in the first reading last last time the

094non-agenda items are only the first meeting there's nothing even at the end in the second meeting and that was not amended in the first reading so as presented here today non-agenda is only for the first meeting of the month beginning and end sorry Claire's compromise was we need to allow non-agenda items in the beginning right no I right so then we said Okay so once a month we will have it be at the beginning and the end but the the second meeting will be agenda items only and that's how it was presented the first the last meeting and the compromise was we can't ask people to just come and come at 10 o'clock at night or whenever we might end so the Claire's suggestion was we should allow non-agenda items also in the beginning that's

095that's what the change was that was my interpretation all right I interpret different but let me move on so I would like to make a motion to this amendment that we take out the first sentence because I think we are in contradiction when we say the board welcomes public comment I don't think we do just my opinion yes public comment is one way residents share thoughts board members use emails letters you stated that the first we heard of things was through board comment that is not true over and over we get emails and hear about issues before they're spoken at public comment on the wh website suggested steps to address the issue is teacher first then principal assistant superintendent and superintendent and finally the Board of Ed I've had Parents take specific classroom issues directly

096to the superintendent the suggested path allows people to work in the district with opportunities to address brainstorm work together with parents to solve issues some issues need to go to the board but some are out of our scope of influence the board just made a difficult decision to hire superintendent and we trust Paul vicinas to lead and support his staff in solving problems when before they become a board issue contrary to accusations we are listening and do care the needs of military families was first heard at a board of ed meeting and was addressed immediately the girls softball Playing Fields before and after care concerns and special needs support all came to our attention in emails before the Board of Ed comments to say that the Board of Ed comment is the only way people

097are heard is a lie we hear we read we talk to people Board of Ed comment is one method and you know that because you receive the same emails that I received prior to comments being made at the podium this is a public meet abort a business meeting held in public it is not a public meeting and so our business needs to focus we have work to do we need to hear the agenda item feedback once a month is a good opportunity for people to share things that are not being voted on that are not being discussed emails another way the state of Connecticut requires us to have one board meeting a month it does not require public comment we have four opportunities a month we are meeting the state guidelines yes and then we're

098going to call for the vote Yes so I understand you get emails and probably in some but my memory is some of these came out the softball won the military one came out from people coming up here well that could be you got the same one I got all right well I have I think it's and there may be but my perception no I'm not questioning you I'm just saying to me that's most effective to hear people appear and speak and we and we agree and so with that Charlotte may you please call the role we're going to call for the vote now well we we have to vote on the motion that's on the floor and so that's the one your motion is not prioritized over the motion that's standing on the floor at

099this time well if the let let us vote on this let us vote on this first okay Dr Chang yes Mr Goldman no Dr Harris no doctor came off yes Ms nazarella yes Dr Steinberg yes Dr Thomas farqueston yes so the motion passes so again as it reads as it is now in terms of Public Communication public Communications will continue at the beginning of each board meeting we welcome hearing on non-agenda items first followed by we welcome hearing on agenda items first followed by non-agenda items we also have Public Communication at the end of the meeting as well whereas the second meeting of the month will be on agenda items alone and so before we move on there was a comment or you a motion that you wanted to make but before we do that

100part I'm gonna just ask legal counsel is this something that we are permitted to do since this policy has passed well the motion is she wants to make the motion so you can motion second but I'm not quite sure what the import of it would be because you've already adopted the policy understood thank you so with respect to you wanting to make the you can certainly make the motion and will follow suit with procedure following a motion being made I so again the motion that I'm making is that this is poorly worded it is poorly understood it is poorly written it is two-thirds the text is different than we had on the first reading and it is certainly in my opinion not clear and open to interpretation so I'm making a motion that this goes

101back and is revised that the language is uh clearer as to what we are actually proposing what this policy is is there a second second discussion all of those in favor say aye those opposed emotion does not pass so again we will continue with our Public Communication just prioritizing agenda items the first meeting and second meeting of the month and the second meeting of the month will be just for agenda items now moving on to new business which we do not have any of now moving on to staff Communications I'm sorry I have a point of order uh just one moment please staff Communications and reports before we hear the superintendent's report yes so my question was why the agenda item that I requested um be on the um agenda here is not in new

102business that it was put in requests for future I judge items I mean requests for future agenda items is when I requested an agenda item but once it hits the agenda it should be and I believe in new business not in future agenda items so I build so thank you for the question I believe that according to policy and it um that is where it was to go but I'm going to again defer to our Corporation Council please for that rationale again yes in response to your request for future agenda item that was applied to the agenda but your question is where exactly why it is placed where it is on the agenda because when I requested it back in March it was placed in the minutes on future agenda items now it's back in

103Future agenda items it's not a future agenda item it's supposed to be an agenda item from what I will and I'll have again our legal expert to to specify the difference being from when it verbally was requested to be a future agenda item compared to it now being identified as a future agenda item is it will allow us to have discussion on the subject that has been proposed so with it being on the agenda and listed here in terms of development of a curriculum committee that will allow us to have a discussion on that specific request on that agenda item my question is why isn't it in new business so Madam chair my understanding is that you had received a written request from um uh two board members to uh include on the agenda uh

104the development of a curriculum committee and under 8354 which is your bylaw with respect to agenda construction it does say that upon the written request of any board member the superintendent and chairperson shall place on the agenda for the next board meeting any motion which is an item calling for a vote of the board under new business section of the agenda so the request as presented does not require any action by the board but it is within the cognizance of the board and so in that example it then comes under request for future agent items and that's why tonight it shows up as a request for future agenda items the action you can take this evening is to um you can direct the superintendent to prepare a report for perhaps the next board meeting but

105based upon the way the request was presented and following this rule it shows up as future agenda item so we are compliant with policy and bylaws with where it is at the current time at the current place within the agenda attorney just wanted to ensure oh I just want to ensure that we are compliant with the policy and bylaws with where it is currently on the agenda right it's 8354 it's called the agenda construction the item shall be included on the agenda under the request for future agenda items the item shall be addressed by motion directing the superintendent to prepare an oral presentation to be included on a future agenda thank you so can I ask a question yes so in theory that never has to leave future business so because it's not really a

106superintendent it was more bored type thing I'm generally I'm confused again is that what we're saying what are you saying what I believe what I believe is being said is in response to the email that you both said and having it placed on the agenda what was read by attorney alvarano was specifying why it's paced in future agenda items on the agenda and and so is your question is your question wondering why is it under Future No my question is does it ever leave future agenda items well when we get there and we have the discussion the actions that take place during that discussion will determine what takes place there yes sure now returning to superintendent's report Mr vicinas good evening everyone um I'm gonna hope to bring some uh positive energy to expand on

107the positive energy here in the room with a with a number of congratulations to begin my report it is the end of our school year it's a time of great celebration and I want to begin I know that a couple of meetings back you all had the opportunity here to meet our teacher of the year finalists and this really is the first public opportunity to recognize and extend congratulations to Emily McMurray who's a pre-kindergarten teacher at Charter Oak international academy on being named the 2324 West Hartford Public Schools teacher of the year um Emily's an outstanding representative of an incredible team of Educators who dedicate themselves to inspire and prepare our students and she's a true champion at creating a personalized learning environment and I'm just very very pleased to have the opportunity to uh

108to acknowledge her once more um I'd like to provide kudos to our music department for another outstanding inter-ell which is our inter Elementary Music Festival which was held at the Bushnell back on May 23rd it was simply a remarkable and inspiring program and its testimony to the amazing work of our music teachers and the inspiration that they provide I want to provide a heartfelt thank you to American Legion Hayes Village Post 96 for putting together the Ninth Annual military inductee recognition dinner that was held at the Town Hall on the May 30th we had the phenomenal opportunity to celebrate over 20 graduates from conard high school Hall High School Kingswood Oxford Northwest Catholic and our friends at Newington Public Schools as well our keynote speaker was Major Jerry gorse who's a conard high school graduate

109and currently is on to West Point Military Academy and our own Ethan Goldman gave closing remarks on behalf of the Board of Education which highlighted not only his 20 years of service which I thank you for but also his experience as a military parent um this past Thursday morning we hosted our annual Mentor program breakfast and it was truly inspiring to see the auditorium filled with community members and with students volunteers who have given of their time to Mentor a child a very sincere kudos to Carol Wilkes for everything she does to coordinate our Mentor program and facilitate not only that celebration but the efforts that are ongoing to impact the lives of a child I'm going to take a risk at leaving someone out I want to thank Jocelyn timberl Sarah Isaacs Ben Norland

110Becca Lewis and the entire staff involved with the future educators of diversity I attended the pinning ceremony alongside the High School principles this past Wednesday I was moved in that meeting to see so many young women and men from Connor and Hall engaged in the feod and I'm encouraged to think about the potential created through this pipeline of future educators of diversity I want to congratulate Danny Brown she's a para educator from King Phillips she was named the 2023 Keeper of the light award recipient this award is given annually to a staff member that has exemplified the values professionalism and dedication to Excellence and support of students with disabilities and advancing the mission of the pupil Services Department finally I want to thank our own Equity diversity Council and the one community group for putting

111on a wonderful end-of-year Retreat last Friday where among other things we had the opportunity to celebrate our own Dr Rosina Haskins with a reading of a formal Proclamation absolutely by our mayor Sherry Cantor this event was a wonderful way to kick off pride month exams will begin the week of June 12th Monday June 12th looking forward high school summer school begins on Thursday June 22nd the Elementary and Middle School summer programs to include the Esau prep program begin on Monday June the 26th our special education esy extended school year program begins on 10 July and finally of interest to the board is our hiring process um uh the hiring is well underway for the number of administrative positions that we have to include principal ships and assistant principal ships at the elementary middle and high

112school levels and we'll be pleased to name our newest team members before the end of the school year Madam chair that is my report thank you so very much questions or comments in regard to our superintendent's report just just one comment I thought the um dinner at the for the military was great and compared to when I went in where you were told not to wear your uniform in public it was a lot different so I appreciate you guys doing it and the American Legion doing uh all kudos to the American Legion they're excellent Partners in this like to respond to something you shared in your report where you made reference to a teammate who is transitioning on and do want to take this opportunity to publicly thank you Dr Rosita Haskins again for your

113service to this District you have been here for quite some time and your Footprints remain and have left a legacy to hold us accountable to what we say we are going to do and who we say we are about it's one thing to talk about being Equitable it's another thing to actually walk the talk and to walk the talk not only when you're before a camera or being quoted in the paper but in the classroom in the hallway in the grocery store on the playground wherever the case may be so thank you for being an example in that regard and we cheer you on yes we're going to miss you but we know that the other District you're going to be a part of is going to be equally blessed so I'm going to ask

114us please to give a proud of Applause to Dr Haskins [Applause] thank you and with that we're going to move to staff reports and board discussions but I'm going to ask if I want to recommend please just a five minute recess I think our biology is talking to us um is there any objection to take a five to seven minute recess before we go on to equity and Excellence okay thank you five to seven minute recess thank you thank you all for your patience we're going to reconvene thank you for allow us to listen to our bodies and at this time we again are having staff reports and board discussions we're going to receive the equity and excellent student voice and agency the background will be reported To Us by Dr Rosina Haskins Ms Sarah

115Isaacs Miss Jocelyn tamborello Noble and student presenters from Connor high school and Hall High School we are eager to hear this so passing it to you please oh great good evening good evening everybody doing okay yes good so to begin I'd like to thank you The Honorable board for this opportunity to highlight for you and members of the viewing public um some uplifting and exciting ways that we operationalize our mission to inspire and prepare all students and our vision for equity in our schools so we feel like something special is happening here in the West Hartford Public Schools and tonight I've invited a few special guests very patient special guests to join me here at the board table to tell a story about equity and excellence in our high schools with impact pre-k through 12.

116uh to my right I am pleased to introduce Miss Sarah Isaac's assistant principal of Hall High School Miss Jocelyn timberla Noble assistant principal O'Connor High School student leaders Amani snelling's grade 10 scholar and of Hall High School and Jason Hernandez grade 11 scholar at Concord High School and they are among many other voices that you will hear tonight through a short audio video clips that we've included in this presentation because we couldn't bring them all they're very busy young people and their leaders but in a moment you will see just how special these young people are and how unique they are but collectively they're just so dynamic so I can certainly frame like the narrative on student voice and student agency and belonging but truly it is their story to tell and their voices that

117really deserve to be heard so I'll provide you with some brief context that guides our effort and then I'll step out of the way so that you can hear from this talented group so that they can Enlighten you and perhaps inspire you as well so for those of you who are on the board uh last spring May March March 2022. I recall how delighted you were upon hearing from then assistant superintendent now um superintendent Paul by sanis and um Now assistant superintendent for curriculum Anne McCartney on the Mastery experience which is shaped by the vision of the graduate this is essentially a port a portrait as you see that image of our hopes and our aspirations for our young people which we make visible the essential attitude skills and dispositions that we believe help students

118to be successful in school and Beyond High School it also provides a road map for our district strategic plan and the Mastery experience itself provides a pathway for students to really deepen their learning with greater purpose and passion until it also lets the community know you spoke about accountability what we are holding ourselves accountable for enhancing student voice and building capacity for student agency it's grounded in a vision for equity and a vision and an equity framework and that is inclusive not regardless we don't want to use that word anymore but it is inclusive of the complexion of your skin it is inclusive of your beautiful mother tongue from where you hail from how you wear your hair from to where you sleep at night where you worship and who you love and so we

119make not just a commitment but we make a promise we value and honor all in our community as Unique Individuals capable of reaching their full potential and when we clear the sleep out of our eyes and we recognize we have blind spots we also clear paths and we're Relentless about that and we pledge to partner with all families in service to equity and that includes partnership with all of you so these are just a few examples outlined here of ways that are dedicated Public Service your dedicated Public Service as board members this is the fruit that you bear in the work that you do and the support the Mastery experience we've talked about that it provides that pathway towards student agency and self-efficacy truly when students have success and they feel like they can Master

120something they believe in themselves and then they can Thrive the student equity and diversity Council we call it the sedc was the you know brainchild of one amazing leader at Hall High School who's graduating actually this year a few years ago and she modeled the equity and divert the student equity and diversity Council after the adult the faculty in staff equity and diversity Council and they actually model really well ways to wrestle with really tough issues and and civil discourse so we learned from them you heard about future educators of diversity we've brought them before the board before but we know we are supporting students and their voices and their choices but we are trying to model for them and um encourage them and support them for those who aspire to become Educators they're always

121watching us too and so I think that that's important and the student student focus groups that's another way that we go about hearing from students and getting their feedback in fact superintendent vicenus and I we conducted focus groups with graduating seniors just a couple weeks ago kind of hearing about their K-12 experiences or their experiences if they were new into the district um later in grades or those who can recall way back all the way back to kindergarten but each year we've been doing this since prior to um to superintendent um I see this being named and we've been doing this for a long time with his predecessor and so we do something with this information every year we hear something and I tell you if it doesn't make sense to us we stop doing

122it we make changes and so with that the one thing that we really want to highlight tonight is youth Equity Squad and so I'm going to flip the mic to Mrs Isaac thank you thank you so much um first I want to start by just thanking you all and Dr Haskins and superintendent viciness for this fantastic opportunity to come here and talk about um an opportunity that I got to take on this year and I just find these student leaders to be so energizing and it it's just been a wonderful experience and then to support the teacher leaders supporting them has been just a real privilege so to talk about youth Equity Squad it is a focus on leadership how to demonstrate allyship the variety of avenues for students to use their voice and develop

123self-agency to create impacts at all levels when we talk about what youth Equity Squad looks like it's students across Connerton Hall identified for their leadership potential by teachers Club leaders counselors administrators and sometimes self-identifying as wanting to learn more and to have a greater impact on their community students come together from multiple backgrounds experiences clubs activities to represent each school's rich and diverse student population on the school level youth Equity Squad meets bi-weekly and comes together at the town at town hall or at conard high school on a quarterly basis as a larger group this provides the opportunity to learn and Implement leadership skills experience collaborative norms as well as constructive conversation protocols teachers lead youth Equity Squad at the school level and the work is supported by administration at both building and District levels

124we work to partner with caregivers and parents and community members to enrich the youth Equity Squad experience and then and then numbered among these adults supporting or supporting our students are these Partners who make up our one Community for Equity Network and then I will pass it to Mrs tamborello Noble good evening everyone and thank you for the opportunity to be here to speak and to share the great work of our students because the first and foremost is their energy and their love for their community and their schools that really cultivation cultivate change and allows for all many students to come to the table together so thank you so in terms of Youth Equity Squad we've really made a commitment to strengthen leadership and communication skills so how do we agree to disagree and how

125do we come to the table to find common ground and how do we work together in times and model for one another how to be kind and how to move forward when we disagree deepen understanding of equity and education in our community so they understand the impact is not only Regional but how do they impact their larger community identify specific areas of barriers opportunities and impacts and if you work with young people you know they're very honest which we appreciate I have two teenagers at home who are also very honest and provide critical feedback communique recommendations and action steps so students provide us feedback and are able to work together to say here are the key areas we would like change in our school in our community and also work beyond that sometimes it's even

126our regional areas and then translate ideas into action you're going to hear a couple of students today speak about the sphere of influence having students understand who is in the within their sphere of influence and how do they make critical changes for themselves and self-agency which we connect to with our vision of The Graduate so students had the opportunity to really do some great actionable changes so last year students created their whole an equity Symposium that was all student-led student-run student organized and myself Mrs Ambrose and Mrs Isaacs were able to be kind of on the sidelines to support So students were able to do all of the parts and pieces and they identified what are the areas that students need to learn about in our community students consult on community lessons so the community

127lessons which are like the advisory at the high school levels students provide us feedback on the community lessons so we work with culturally responsive instructional teams students provide us feedback and then from there they tell us what works and what doesn't and what other things we should change we we have a lot of student focus groups who provide building level feedback so what's working so for example what is the best structure when we're doing community what are some pieces that we should do better how we should structure the cafeteria and what are some other recommendations that we have curriculum analysis and feedback is also another area students have provided some feedback on a variety of different topics on curriculum but also instructional practices that work for them we've had student panels for a variety of

128different teacher lessons especially speaking about culturally responsive teaching practices students principles advisories and then another pilot like to highlight is that students from Equity Squad and feod have been part of our recruitment fairs what an amazing way for future teachers who would like to join with Hartford to hear about West Hartford Public Schools than from students themselves who tug and highlight why teachers should work here because as much as it comes from a colleague or somebody who's currently employed hearing from these young people would motivate me to stay here and return here to work in addition to that looking at screening committees and also one of the pieces you're going to see later is a video we have a mentorship program for which these students participate on they have gone to the elementary schools and

129read books about different pieces of empowerment working together but what I also love is that students spoke to us and said we have a lot of variety of different languages so last our last one to read had books in Spanish Mandarin Portuguese as well as English here's a picture right here of them and we're going to also queue up a video for you so you can get a little Feel For What It's Like you guys getting high and brown I'm gonna say it three times yes you guys like taking naps no no he wonders as tears fall ing the um I trust that I will accomplish my goals and dreams I trust that I will accomplish my goals and my duties right smile smile thank you so as you can see many of our students

130really benefit from going to classrooms for younger grades I won't know that some of our students actually were able to visit the Elementary classrooms for which they attended and one of the first grade teachers at willkit elementary school had one of the students pictures on her wall still from when he was in first grade I'm really proud that you said that without getting choked up because every time she says that she gets really choked up um in addition to the reads we also have students learn about um Regional leaders and Community leaders in our district so students had a graphic organizer that really spoke to our vision of The Graduate skills and dispositions students were able to ask Community leaders and District leaders a variety of questions regarding policies practices and why are there leadership

131style what about their leadership style works for them so they learned about a lot about leadership and asked our leaders some really hard questions and we're really proud of them for being able to formula questions and go beyond in thinking about our community and also our district and Regional areas for which they want to change and activate change within that so actually one of the last pieces of leadership that we made a commitment to was having the opportunity for our students to speak at a board meeting so I really appreciate the opportunity for our students as this was one of the goals that they identified at the beginning of this year at this point I'm going to turn it over to our students who have a great idea about what they're going to share with

132you today um hi I'm Jason Hernandez a junior at Connor high school I'm also a leader and facilitator of equity Squad and fdod not to brag or anything um I want to thank the board of education for having me as well as superintendent vicinas and the executive team I would also like to thank Dr Haskins for all of her support the Connor Administration team Miss Lewis Miss Harville and all of her all and all of equity Squad the student voice effort through Equity Squad fdod have had a great impact on me throughout the time I've been a part of it um we were able to create a very good um Community with each other and I have a special bond you know like every day like every Thursday when we have our meetings you know

133it's like you're walking into a center where like you're not getting judged for anything you're saying you know like everyone's idea matters and you know everyone's heard so you know everyone feels very comfortable you know bringing up an idea that bothers them or you know a real world problem that you know they want to talk about um and even if we disagree with the idea uh we come to table to find common ground and discuss the idea and also find a way to respect that person's idea and you know if it's not you know such a good idea we try to build upon it to make it a better idea um a connection to the vision of The Graduate that I picked up on personally are my leadership skills which ultimately uh ultimately led me

134to finding a voice um through my increased confidence because um you know even six months ago I couldn't see myself doing something like this you know I always had stage fright going up you know I couldn't really talk in front of even six people you know it's always been something you know that I haven't been able to do and I would love to thank um Miss T for you know empowering me to believe in myself for that and uh pushed me to go outside my comfort zone and even this is a stretch for me you know it's something like you know I was I'm very hesitant about doing you know but you know I end up like her confidence in me kind of you know really pushed me to you know end up sitting here

135and actually giving this speech um it also gave me a place to know that I'll be able to be heard and seen and I'm sure I could speak for a lot of other people a part of equity Squad and fpod that you know we all feel very heard and seeing when we're you know even with Hall when we go with them for the bigger you know ultimate meeting you know everyone's heard everyone's seen you know a lot of people chime in with their ideas and everything and you know it's just a good it's a good environment uh my favorite moment for fdod and Equity Squad is when we do our winter and spring readings as you saw um going to elementary schools and working with other students is just you know seeing the look on

136their face when they see us like oh these are high school it's like you know this is going to be us someday like you know they look at us like we're like like God or something like that you know it's just it's just you know it feels really good you know um we also make sure to spread this to your influence with them even though they're younger and you know this might take them a little bit time to you know even realize what that even is you know we still want to install into them now but like because you know now is better than later um me personally I'm like growing up it was always you know being a part of the NBA but you know you know that's just a stretch but you know

137um but as I started to mature I started to realize you know I inspired to be a social worker someday and you know return to our public schools to you know sit here and you know you know teach young kids about Feud and you know Equity squatting you know teaching about real world problems and that you know you're hurt you know you're not some random person with ideas that are not going to get hurt something like you know you're going to be heard you know people are gonna you know want to hear about your ideas and you know your your opinion matters uh my hope for the future is you know to increase the spirit of influence that the students have in the West Hartford Community and you know to expand these efforts of Feud

138and uh Equity Squad throughout the district because I know you know some people in the district don't have this opportunity that we have and you know I'm personally grateful that we do but I would hope to you know expand and throw other schools and um you know we're hoping to expand it to middle schools and also an equity Squad mini so okay [Music] hello um I'd like to thank all of the fvod and Equity Squad advisors as well as everyone else who's been involved and everyone here today for listening for their time and for their guidance my name is Imani C snellings and I'm a sophomore at Hall High School as Caitlyn mentioned earlier tonight Hall recently won a Halo Award for best contemporary play which was really big for us but something that wasn't

139mentioned is that Conrad actually won for best classical play so Wes Hartford swept that category for the whole state and that was really really cool but the best part is we're all backstage we're screaming we're cheering we're really excited but it wasn't okay this one school celebrating one school celebrating we were all one town one Community working together and supporting each other and I think that really represents what feod and Equity Squad are like for us Equity Squad and Feud have taught me how to express my ideas in a way that promotes Community helping me call people in instead of calling people out helping me become a better leader a better Communicator which helps me in every aspect of my life and helps exemplify the vision of the graduate which is part of why I

140use equity Squad as my master experience both groups have surrounded me with like-minded people which I feel is really really important because I remind you you're not alone in this fight that Equity is an issue that matters to more than just you which is really important especially when you're in high school and you mentioned people are like okay that's fine but I'd rather see the game or I'd rather do this or I'd rather like it's it's matters because it makes you feel supported it helps prevent you from being frustrated or apathetic or burnt out so getting on the equity Squad bus like when we pull up the Conor we have certain songs we're gonna play and everyone's cheering and everyone's excited because as important as it is to listen to the speakers and talk about

141these issues it also matters that we create a community and again we're still teenagers so we're having fun while we're doing this work which I feel like is really important this year as Equity Squad students we've been working on community lessons as well as over the summer which is really cool because when they come on on Wednesdays I'm like okay friends here's what we did what are your thoughts and I know they're going to tell me exactly how it is if they don't like it we're going to know and we're going to know in their specific words so it's not going to be necessarily polished or well it was okay but we're gonna hear exactly the specifics of why they did or didn't like it which is really important for modifying things for moving forward

142and I feel like it helps us bridge the gap between planning and the actual execution which I think also matters because on paper two slideshows might seem very similar but they might create very different reactions among the students so I think it's important to feel feel what they're feeling and make sure that's represented in a positive way overall I only have one main hope for West Hartford Public Schools I hope that one day everyone feels comfortable and supported knowing that their needs are met and their identities are affirmed thank you so here's a short clip on students giving feedback having taken feedback and promoting Community which is our high school advisory and um you know there's no better Testament or voice than to hear from our own students hello everyone and welcome to Community Reach

143week during period two we will cover lessons and activities connected to social emotional learning and social justice standards these standards provide the guiding principles to create and Implement community lessons [Music] the student Equity Squad and teacher-based culturally responsive instructional team collaboratively create lessons based on your feedback comments and suggestions it would also be asked for feedback at several points throughout the year each month we ask you to celebrate our community by sharing a comp etent Community keep a lookout for our Google form to fill out so we can celebrate those in our community to me is a time to share opinions a time to bring awareness the time to find Common Ground even when we disagree a time to honor perspectives a time to celebrate our heritage and culture attempt to elevate issues and topics

144that are meaningful to us if you are interested in becoming a member of the equity Squad and a part of developing community lessons please apply by scanning the QR code on the screen remember your voice matters we hope to see you there [Music] foreign [Music] so while we spend a lot of time last year talking about elementary SEO this is what was happening at high school they were building community in every way and really promoting it so that they all feel everyone feels valued seen and heard um you know and as I said something special is happening here in the West Hartford Public Schools and we've got four great examples of what we should be excited about um I'm gonna here's why this is my I just snuck this one in on them this is

145my amateur photography of Miss Isaac's and Miss tamarella Novo after our spring there was a spring College Board conference it's a presentation that they gave apropodite conference a professional development conference for educators working to make a difference for Latina students latinx students so as a result of this we learned that there are Educators and administrators and families and Community Partners Across the Nation that are hungry to do more of this build capacity for student agency and they're knocking at our door they're looking at West Hartford and we truly are a destination District so there is so much to be excited about in our schools and um you know when you're having productive struggle or wrestling the way you were this tonight just to find that Common Ground I think we can lean on the wisdom

146of our young people we want to close with this uh with this quote in this image because it says so much about like what we should be excited about and I'll begin and I'll ask I'll ask my co-presenters to join me your beliefs become your thoughts your thoughts become your words your words become your actions your actions become your habits your habits become your values your values become your destiny foreign [Applause] thank you we'll open the floor for questions and discussion and this beautiful image of our young people and the adults that support them my oh my yes thank you so much questions comments regarding what we have received and those who are before us Claire so it says you you began in 2016. can you share a little bit about the growth and the

147projection you see of the involvement by the students I'll just start with youth Equity well it only started two years ago but it was what inspired it was future educators of diversity and that group was growing and growing and we I called them and some of them imposters because not all of them wanted to become Educators necessarily but they found a space where they felt like they can show up and in Affinity spaces and they could feel affirmed um and feel like feel safe bring in their authentic selves to school and into those spaces and then so it inspired the youth Equity Squad and Jocelyn do you want to say more or Sarah you want to say more about that so some of the pieces that students came to us in working in both Holland

148conard was really the piece that they wanted to have some of the tools for agency so it's our vision of The Graduate really looks at some of that we needed to provide some tools for that so some of it began with one training for one year it really impacted and extended to all of our students and it's really a vision that we have that our students are able to have the tools and be able to grow and learn about themselves as they learn and impact the world around them other questions or comments Jason all right thank you for that amazing presentation um Jason Amani we need you we need you desperately thank you for sharing your experiences and for giving light to to this to this group you know I'm curious about one your plans

149after you graduate or and you're you're still have a couple more years with us um but would love to know what your what your thoughts are given this experience and how that's shaped your plans um but then I'm also interested in um in the ways that the program is designed feedback loops between students and and other faculty in the high schools um and it sounded like there were opportunities for uh for teachers to hear feedback from students uh and I'd love to hear an example of how that worked because I think there's um there's I don't know I've just seen other kinds of narratives about trying to update you know uh pedagogy trying to improve teaching and sometimes it's it feels very far away like that there's a skill that's unattainable or that there's um

150that there's you know some some other gap um but I think the model that you're presenting demonstrates a very immediate route to improving that by dialogue and that Equity Squad sounds like a group problem-solving crew um and you know driven by Equity so I think that's a really exciting kind of collaboration and would love to learn more just about that that teaching part so first would love to hear about your plans how this has shaped your experience thank you Barbie when I grow up have 100 jobs many careers many aspirations one of my main aspirations is I plan to go to law school but while I have so much admiration and respect for lawyers who work in a typical sense as public defenders and representing people in other ways I want to work as an

151advocate as an activist educating the general public about how the law works because there's a lot of inequity in that and helping people understand the new policies we need going into this new age and the ways the policies that have existed over time have created systemic issues and systemic inequalities I also am an actor I'm a performer so I intend to keep dancing and singing and acting and writing and all of that as well um for me I plan on attending college um I have a few colleges in mind but um I plan on going for education or like a psychology conduct because you know other than being a social worker I always like thought about being like a therapist for even like kids my age or even younger because um you know I feel

152like not a lot of people you know feel valued in life and I feel like they feel very you know alone in this world um and I always wanted to be that one person to tell someone like you're not alone like you know there's someone there who cares about you um you know you're not you're never alone like I always want to be that one person who like people come to like you know oh I have a problem with this or I'm not feeling so well today like and I want to be like I always want to be that person to you know uplift them and make them feel like you know you have a purpose you have a purpose in this world no matter how long it takes you to find it you're gonna

153end up finding it someday and yeah so foreign to answer the question about the the feedback loop is I think we provide a number of different opportunities for this to happen on the student level one clear example is during the summer Equity Squad met and developed ideas for what community should cover student voice then as we worked on creating the lessons we were able to work with our CRI team who developed the lessons and then we were able to share back with the students in the Thursday meeting during Equity Squad and then we would meet as a district as the as of the adults looking at the lesson again so there was always kind of a consistent feedback loop as we looked at and you know really tried to develop something that was going to

154be meaningful to to our learners um in general we work really hard to promote develop and promote best practices for student voice and that we're working on creating supportive environments as we develop tools and really building staff and teacher capacity to have those conversations and to work with students and create those stronger feedback loops so we can quickly Implement really thoughtful feedback from our students and and Elevate those voices other questions excuse me questions or comments yeah sorry I don't have any questions I just wanted to um well I first wanted to thank the three of you and I see Becca in the back and she's in all these pictures so I'm gonna shout her out as well um but I just want to thank you for coming up with these um opportunities for our

155students to have a safe space to have Brave conversations to help them kind of navigate the world and I when I heard the two of you speak I mean Amani I want to be you when I grow up I've decided no joke and Jason if you are serious about pursuing social work when you go and get that degree you come and find me and I will offer you a job because all you had to do is what you said right there is all any social worker needs to do is to make kids feel heard seen and validated so you've got all the skills already it's in your nature so now you just have to go and and finish the education piece thank you [Applause] foreign other questions or comments yeah thank you um I was

156wondering how many kids are in each of these squads both at Holland and conard so um we are not competitive in equity Squad um so I will tell you it's about 45 in each school and when we come together for the trainings we do have some in-house trainings that we do every other Thursday and then we have larger trainings that happen at the district level about four times a year so it's about 45 in your school and we usually train intensively about 25 from each School okay that's one other question um you know you wrote here you identify and prioritize Equity needs and concerns and respective schools could you give us like an actual example like from the last year of what that actually meant and how you wait what the um I what the

157concern was and how you prioritize that wow which one I mean we had you all raised well think about some of the um think about some of these folks that you spoke with and you raised questions um matters and inquiries do you want to speak to any of those so I think one of the specific things that we talked about was how and community lessons sometimes there can be backlashes in the right word but there's helpfully discourse among people with different opinions or similarly I guess that's technically last school year but when the mascots for Hall and Connor changed that was definitely something we made sure to cover in community lessons and talk to students about I'm going to share something I had the privilege of being a guest speaker for Equity Squad and while

158the superintendent search was a rigorous process I say with no joke talking with the equity Squad was a very rigorous process um I was in the role of assistant superintendent at the time and the equity Squad wanted to hear about what we had done to support a greater representation within our curriculum they wanted to talk to me also and I pretty sure they talked with Rick and giulio about representation in terms of um are the diversity of our Workforce and I was um I Was preparing to to Really provide this positive narrative about where we are because we are as you saw on the slides we're not just as Rosina mentioned we're not just a leader in the state we're a leader nationally so I'm expecting to come in and have students you know really

159congratulate us on the amazing work and it was you know it was humbling and it and it gave me perspective to realize you know of course in a student's you know I I have the perspective of uh having been in the work both as a teacher and an administrator for over three decades but in the students they they simply were saying and rightfully so in the span of their lifetime um things are not there yet and they're not moving nearly fast enough for them to feel that impact at where they are in this moment in their lives and it was um it was motivating it was inspiring it was uh made me sweat a little bit uh more than a little bit um but but it really you know it centered me um in that

160moment for um really never never being complacent never resting on yesterday's accomplishment and always you know always focusing your efforts and and reminding yourself of of why you're doing it and when you know to Gail your question how many how many um students I'll go back and I say when I went to that pinning ceremony when I went into that Equity Squad meeting um you know Affinity space is not a strong enough word to understand the success of this program relative to um how it creates an atmosphere where students can be themselves students can and and I want to you know I want to put on my Pollyanna hat and say that it's that way everywhere because we want it to be that way everywhere in every classroom but I recognize that it you know

161it just it just takes something to where you can walk into a space and naturally feel welcomed feel valued and feel like um there are those around you who may not agree with you exactly but they have enough shared experiences that that you'll be heard you'll be listened to and and that's exactly I think if I may project that what you know the feod what the youth Equity Squad what what some of these other efforts have created for our students and it's what we want to create everywhere in our district everywhere in our schools at all grade levels so I'm so proud of this work I'm so excited by these students um I think you share that with me in terms of you know you just think you're you're talking to some young people about

162what they want to be and they're so clearly focused um about about what their future is and then you hear what that future is and and there's so much promise and excitement in how they're looking to make a positive difference in this world so I'm thrilled by this presentation I just want to thank you guys listen yes students have always pushed education forward so I just want to you know thank you for using your voice and thank you for creating these programs this is very special thank you other cards I Echo all that has been shared thank you so much Jocelyn thank you so much Sarah of course Dr Haskins thank you for your leadership I certainly Echo with an exclamation point underline italicized in bold letters thanking you Amani and Jason as well I

163do want to ask you a question because you are a sophomore you are a junior so we have one more year with you two more years with you and with you both collectively describing this experience as being beneficial feeling heard heard that multiple times feeling heard I also saw the importance of representation seeing the video of you all reading to those young people I got a little choked up because representation does certainly matter and with you talking about feeling heard what would you say you have gained from this experience that will prepare you when you are in settings where you are not heard and when you are overlooked what can you say you can tap within yourself to still allow you to persevere and to speak up and speak out so what I'll say about

164that while an equity Squad we don't always agree with each other on every single thing there's such a level of mutual respect and support the knowledge that even if the people supporting me aren't in the room right now they're in my heart I'm thinking what they're thinking and those sorts of things it's really motivational so knowing that even if I'm in a room by myself I'm not actually by myself and I have the support of all these people behind me is really important um for me I mean she really took the words out of my mouth but um I mean even in a room that I'm not feeling heard but I know other people are being heard that still feels good because even if I'm not being the winner I know other people are being

165heard for their ideas and even you know I can tap into their idea and be like oh you know I agree with you or I disagree with you and I know that you know everyone's like she said the mutual respect uh factor I mean you know everyone's gonna respect each other's ideas at the end of the day it's not like someone's like oh your idea was dumb like you know everyone's just gonna respect what you have to say so yeah excellent excellent always remember that always remember when you were in those rooms and even if it appears as though there is no one there agreeing with you or supporting you or cheering you on please know you have many many many many many many people that are there with you in spirit cheering and supporting

166you on and that's going to be important because there are going to be moments when you are going to have to dig within and remember why you are speaking and why your thoughts and why your opinions do matter even in those moments when you may be questioned you still must remember that your thoughts and your opinions do matter and you do have the right to be heard we are so very proud of you thank you so much for encouraging and mentoring them and we look forward to seeing and hearing more from you both so a round of applause please for our young people [Applause] this is my last board meeting and I have the mic um I'd be terribly remiss if I didn't show Express gratitude to all of you I mean this is an

167example of like muscle Equity muscle memory this will continue on and on and on and I've just been so fortunate I'm grateful to have had this opportunity to serve in this way um and to just be influenced by people young people that you know I really aspire to be like they are um in this work in service to equity and in humanity at large um so thank you also for your earlier warm chair um and I want to also recognize your service because it's not easy and I Know It Takes a great level of intestinal fortitude to make some really tough decisions but I know that you're keeping our students as your North Star I'm really grateful for the way that you all Champion our students you Champion or educate caters and and our families

168um some of you I've known for a very long time I hope that you've seen the ways in which I have evolved others I wish that I could have been here longer to really get to know you more but I'm going to continue to follow the West hartford's Journey because something special really is happening here and I do want to acknowledge Dr Chang especially especially as an outgoing board member who I've come to know in such a wonderful way you have definitely influenced our work I love the humanness that you bring to all of the complexities that you all grapple with and and into board governance it's a great model for for our young people but you also bring our mission and our vision to life in everything that you do and I don't think

169people see it enough but I want you to know that we see you when people when people say oh Jason's leaving the board you're not done you're just getting started right and so we see you Jason we thank you and I'll look forward to following your journey and following the Journey of this destination District so thank you all thank you thank you all once again [Applause] all right as we continue on and make the transition we now will prepare for safe School climate report and as we have coming to the table thank you so much we have Dr Andrew Murrow Miss and oh Miss Anne McCartney Dr Chad Alice sorry seeing them emerge from behind the screen Mr Juan Milian there we go Mr Wright all right the team is here be passed for the

170time to you thank you so again at the table this evening with me to talk about school climate and our new school-based diversion initiative we have M Kernan and joy Wright and Juan Milian and Chad Ellis and I know it's getting late uh Liz made me promise that we'd be very quick she's very sleepy back there but I did want to start with a little story that I think helped explain some of the work that we do with students and why that we feel that climate is so important in our schools so back in the early 1970s two psychologists came up with an experiment and they took a group of Princeton Theological Seminary students inherently good people we would presume and ask them to walk across campus to give a lecture on the parable of

171the Good Samaritan along the Route the psychologists positioned someone in a doorway not moving eyes closed coughing and groaning as the subjects went by someone in other words who clearly was in need of a good Samaritan's help so there was a Twist before the students left to give their lecture some of them were told they were late others were told nothing at all and this little variation in the situation made all the difference in their behavior only 10 percent of the students who were put under pressure of being late stopped to help the struggling man whereas nearly two-thirds of those who were on time stopped to offer help so as the psychological as a psychologist put it on several occasions a Seminary Student going to give his talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan

172literally stepped over the victim to hurry on his way so what does this study have to do with school climate and why do we talk about this when we talk with administrators and teachers and and with parents I think it shows that our behaviors are in sometimes not about us as people but instead are about our situations and the pressures that we're under we have great kids in our schools who often times are having a bad situation or having a bad day or just sometimes a bad 10 minutes and so much of our job as school leaders and counselors is intervening and helping students find the pause helping them find the time and situations what we're asking students to look at is to look beyond the moment to do the right thing to make the

173right decisions and our job is to teach young people to show to slow down during these stressful situations to navigate these decisions that sometimes lead to poor choices and consequences and when they make a poor choice we ask them to learn from it we ask them to rebuild and we ask them to restore those relationships so when we talk about help me out here anna how do we load this up you got okay so when we talk about uh School climate there's a clear relationship between climate and outcomes and the both the federal and the state legislation of legislation recognizes this relationship we're charged in Connecticut and at the federal level with uh with tracking and with looking at this relationship and so we say and we make sure that when we're when we're looking

174at climate in schools that we look at three main components we look at engagement we look at safety and we look at environment and so we talk about establishing relationships with students with staff and families we talk about our respect for diversity we get kids engaged in activities and we have connections with schools and with the community we talk about physical safeties and emotional safety in schools we talk about emergency Readiness you've heard Eric and and Anna and I talk about that again and again and then we talk about a safe environment about clear consistent and fair policies and school-based supports you've heard this year about thanks you've heard this year a lot about our ongoing supports for students mental health and the challenges we've been facing we're a reflection of the larger community and

175we've maintained the extra counseling and the extra support staff in our schools and we'll continue that for next year we've also seen a marked increase in at our at-risk assessments this school year and I wanted to share this with you and we shared this in the board report this is as of the end of March I'm sorry the end of May and we continue to match students and families with both services and support at an alarming rate and you know we're we're a microcosm for the community and I would argue the communities of microcosm for the state and so this is something that is is consistently uh a concern of ours and something that we've been saying now for for a while and so this is something that we're going to continue to to track

176as well as far as our our assessments and our ongoing supports but one of the supports that we've added this year for students and staff at the middle school level is rsbdi and Ann has been the lead on this program and done some amazing work in developing teams at each of our middle schools so I want to turn it over to Ann to explain the program and to the talk about the positive impacts on the school climates right well thank you thank you Andy and I have my colleagues here from the Middle School who who gracious enough when we said we think we have an idea here we can go after there is a grant from the State Department of Education um on the topic of school-based diversion initiative and this is an initiative which

177really seeks to reduce the number of all types of school-based arrests expulsions out of school suspensions and in school suspensions anything that separates students from their Community from learning with their peers and we also knew in this program that could help to build the knowledge of the staff and the teachers and all all of the staff members not just the teachers and help them manage Behavioral Health crisis more effectively and learn more about how to access Community Resources and work as a team and finally it was an opportunity if we got this grant to link students with the appropriate support so I asked this group hi there you're doing quite a bit already but how would you like it if I wrote a grant um and hopefully we get it and it would allow you

178to bring even more support and as you can imagine they all immediately said I'm on board I said I want to start it in the middle schools because I think that's a really great place to start um it it's such a difficult transition into middle school middle school is certainly so new and so the environment is so much bigger for kids there's more adults to navigate there are more children to navigate and there as such there's more supports needed so we were we were fortunate we wrote this grant last summer I believe we were awarded the grant it's not a lot of money but what I like about the grant is it can it is the way they designed it so the first thing that we um we were able to find out was it

179would be um it would be administered by the chdi the Connecticut health development I'm sorry it's right here the Connecticut um health and development Institute so it's a state Grant administered by the Connecticut health and development Institute I see some nodding heads so this must be an organization that I knew I'm new to learning about but um has been around for a while and they got some initial seed money from the um the MacArthur Foundation to start learning about how to do this work so um chdi came in and they have a few goals that one of their core components is professional development and so I worked with this staff and what was nice about it is um when you talk to chdi they will give you a menu of of different professional development um

180topics that you can bring to your staff and I just put four or five up here that I think that our team decided to bring to our staff so this is a core component is to enhance the knowledge attitudes and skills of the school staff to support diversion and the diversion principles and practices so we started the Year by bringing chdi in three times and kind of laying a foundation for what we would be doing another core component was to build more Community coalitions reduce burdens on schools to always address the mental health components teach more about two and one bring the bridge and other Youth Services bureaus in and just help with more connections so one of the big focuses has been on the on restorative practices I'm going to let the team talk

181a lot more about it um we also um we have not done this part yet but another component of it will be a disciplined policy consultation so they'll help to come in and look at how we have designed our our discipline policy to make sure it's gradual and to make sure it makes common sense to not only the adults but but to the children the grant as I say wasn't a tremendous amount of money but what it allowed us to do was and I think these guys appreciate more than anything is we were able to name a leader in Residence in each building and they got a small stipend to lead the work and what that really did was start to make it really a teacher initiative too and that group would that and I

182think one you had one and yours was one and Joy's at Joy school they decided to have two people to split this type in and this group was a thing this small group of very motivated teachers were was to start to go to special meetings learn more about the program get a small Cadre of interested teachers to learn more about where is our data what can we do better and what I really like about the grant not only is did you name a teacher and leader in Residence who got additional training and was the kind of cheerleader to build a teacher team and they got extra training but it came with a little bit of money not a tremendous amount as I say between maybe five and ten thousand dollars per school to say what

183do you need in your school it can sedgwicks can be different than KPS can be different than bristos but what do you need for your unique solution and so we have um been able to empower and teach these leaders in residents who've really taken on the work because they believe in trying to find alternatives to suspension um and and then been able to working with their principals identify specialized programs that might help their school so I'm going to stop here and let each principal talk about how it played out in their building I do want to let you know that at the end of the year I said should I write for the grant again or was one year good enough training or was this not a good path to go down so should we

184stop and they they all said no please write again let's see if we can get this we're growing or think we're on the right track so with that I want to turn over to my friend Juan to talk about what this looked like at Sedgwick thank you Ann and thank you for having us here tonight is great to be with the board and we're excited about this opportunity for us if I may say before I go to the specific question I'm I'm very optimistic about our children I think I see a lot of our children doing better and better and I'm excited about how receptive they are when we do things that are actually helping them I see this Readiness to really move on to take on a better scenario better outlook for them so

185I am very very optimistic about our Cedric kids and our West Hartford kids in as a whole you know I see it every day despite the difficulties yes we do we are in the middle of a mental health crisis well this is what it looks like in schools we have challenges we have kids who are truly struggling and there is is a context that it makes things a little bit more difficult but despite all that we also see a vast majority of our our students really wanted to do well and showing us the need for joy and and when we give them those opportunities they are embracing them so I I can't wait to keep going on this work and just summarized this is a year for us of planting seeds it's a year for

186us and for our staff to understand the reason behind and why we are doing this which I think is the first step for any successful story why are we doing this and I I believe that our staffs are there in that respect we we've had a good presentations a good professional development truly looking at the reasons why you know a more traditional approaches might not have been working for all kids and I think that's the key of our talking about we need to do things slightly different and what really excites myself and our staff is precisely that I want to look at other possibilities that are probably more responsive to the needs so it's been about training it's been about reflection it's been about a familiarizing ourselves with the language this is when we talk

187specifically about restorative practices it's a pretty simple concept there's not a lot of complexity to it I think it's more about a committing to it it's about finding that time time is the key here to pause finding time to really engage our work and adults and kids in in good conversations in good dialogue so that's a lot of work we've been doing that discovering those opportunities we through teacher leaders but also we have form committees this is truly teacher driven Pro process you typically talk to our teacher leaders circumventing me completely which is great it's a good signal that is the key people here are the teachers and then so we are looking for a experimenting a little bit to next year go into a specific goals that would bring the restorative approach to every

188classroom to every situation this year for example we have at Cedric a good number of teachers already implementing some of the strategies in their classrooms in their daily life and those teachers are sharing those experiences with colleagues and you know the power of you know peer training but we're also trying to go beyond the classroom you know we as administrators we're trying to to when possible have their sort of approach when importing discipline and in collaboration with the family so we do a lot of education and for families trying to understand what is behind this and also opportunities outside the classroom like I said we have something we call restorative lunches which gives us an opportunity to really take the time to sit with the kids understand their needs and then provide them with a

189with strategies and a level of readings to then restore to have that conversation with the adult if the harm was done with the adult or with the peer if it was something among peers I think that the value of this at the end of the day is that you know traditional discipline you impart a consequency pretty much leave it there this is actually a model that is forcing our our students and our adults to really have an opportunity for healing an opportunity for hearing each other what we see is that when you know the two sides talk you know that opportunity truly exists and then an opportunity for learning there is an opportunity for growth learning outcome that I I think we're missing with a more traditional approach of suspensions and and out of school

190uh situations that I I don't believe is in the best interest of our students and or our schools [Music] all right good evening so you've heard probably some of our colleagues talk about or use the phrase pre-estortive and if you haven't yet you probably will soon the idea of pre-storative work is really setting a baseline because when you're restoring something you really need to think about what are you restoring to are you restoring to something that is inherently you know biased inherently you know we talk about systemic issues are you restoring to something that's broken to begin with and we we don't want to do that right we want to start from a baseline where we are culturally responsive where we are thoughtful we're mindful of things and we are we take an informed considered

191approach and so the work we've done across the schools and certainly at Bristol this year is focused on the adults because if you think about you know that sort of the different elements of the equation here you have a student behavior and you have an adult response now kids based on where they are their age they have certain reactions that are developmentally appropriate and not necessarily rarely rational you would hope that the adult by virtue of age training experience would have a rational response but unfortunately we're human beings right so we're faced with a 12 year old that is you know using some interesting language to express their dissatisfaction with us and we're humans as well but we have to sort of you know bite our tongue and react in a way that is above

192what our animal nature dictates in the time right and I just want to say you know the the kudos to the high schoolers for being such models of mature young people right that is exactly and again thank you I hope you're still back there that's exactly they're not good it is a school night and it is late so they're exactly you know the type of person that we're looking to create right and to model their type of you know the depth of their thinking that you saw tonight and their ability to communicate with each other and disco re-effectively that's what we're trying to build right but before we can get there with kids we need to get there with adults so we've spent a lot of time this year focusing on you know Ann mentioned

193we had three sessions one was just to get staff used to the idea of what is this sbdi in the first place right because we are used to this idea of punitive something happens I hurt I want you to hurt and that's Justice right you hurt me I'm going to give you some element of Revenge and then we're okay that doesn't change Behavior right we know that suspensions those are things that sometimes Once Upon a Time made somebody feel right that Justice was being served but it does not change Behavior what ultimately we need to do is we need to understand what are the root causes of these student behaviors what is it that is causing the student to Manifest this Behavior and so we spent time you know after the first session on what

194is spdi we focused on what is trauma you know what is it how does it manifest in student Behavior right and so where you as an adult may see a student and in your mind they're being quote unquote willfully defiant chances are pretty good that student has a history of trauma right doesn't necessarily need to be capital T trauma right it could be lowercase T trauma everybody's experienced some degree of trauma we also had a session on vicarious trauma for adults right again we are all adults I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with adults in my building this year who have come to me to close the door and been like do you know what I had to go through as a kid I had to figure it out on my own

195pull myself up and get through it and my response is I'm sorry but can you imagine what your life would have been like if people understood if people took a different approach to you growing up how your life as an adult would have been different if we knew better then and we didn't know better then but we know better now and we're trying and this is one of those programs that's allowing us to do that so that's been our focus at our school I am excited again for what we're going to be working on for the future because we are building those spaces within the school for when a kid is dysregulated we don't really have a great space right now right so it tends to be you know administrative offices which are not just

196places for punishment they're places for counseling there are places for healing there are places for conversations I've been in the room I'm not too proud to say rosina's been in the room I've been sobbing with parents who have shared their stories with me this year right that's I mean this is the community that we live in it's very real and everybody is here because at the end of the day we want what's best for our kids this program is allowing us it's giving us resources to do that in a way that you know we we do the best we can with our resources these are just extra things for us to do that much more so you hear different stories one thing that Juan said that I think is important is that this is a

197time of seed planting and it's a shift in our thinking uh if you're a parent there's this piece going around about gentle parenting right in the way that we parent and the way we may have responded to responses is different now and people have different ideas about what that is Ross green um the author of a book the explosive child lost at school he's done collaborative practice Solutions says kids do well if they can and I think people do too great people do well if they can and having that approach and so this is new for us so similar to what Chad said where this is a time of educating the adults about what that looks like what does it mean it also means saying how do I have to shift the way I approach

198and I think we all do well people don't get into education because they don't like children because they don't want them to do well and the idea about discipline is teaching how do we teach students to do something better the next time and the response the question is how do what is the best response for that and there's challenges right when a student is dysregulated or there's a physical safety issue right we exclude for a time right but the question is when we exclude what are we doing how are we teaching what does that look like and it doesn't mean that that's not imperative to do but how we do it and what we're doing during that time matters you know if I'm sitting home now if I had gotten suspended I would have been

199cleaning that I would have been begging to come back to school because my nana would have had me doing so much work I would have said school is the place where I want to be but as one parent says if I'm working I can't manage my child and what are they learning as a result of it and so we have work to do right we don't have all the answers at this point and so I do think it's important to say we are at the beginning stages of this and we are in the process of kind of saying what do we do and how do we respond in a way that really is focused on discipline restorative practice is not about without consequences right for every action there is a reaction but it means how

200we talk about those consequences the way that we Implement um teaching along with it so that when we say Maya Angelou said if you do better right when you know better you do better well we have to how do we get them to know better so that they can do better the next time I say the road to wisdom is paved with mistakes right we don't become wise without making mistakes and so we expect that what we want you to do is make different mistakes right because you're learning from all of those and so we're all in this learning process I'm really happy about um the teams that we have that have been trained there have been 12 staff members at KP who have already gone through um the two they had four days so

201two days each of different levels of training we have an interdisciplinary team so it's not just teachers we had Paris trained with one of our security guards it's trained because they are part of the community and what that looks like so we're looking at the next stage of getting more staff trained but also kind of turnkeying that one of the um it's in the board report one of the trainers Chris rate has been wonderful in terms of talking with our staff getting us to this point there's something called the social discipline window and so moving us from like that authoritative approach I tend to lean towards that um initially and not punitive but just I I was I grew up in a directive way right in understanding where do we kind of lean and that

202we're all going to move between kind of passive permissive but we want to be in a with approach we want we don't no one wants to be having something done to them we want to know that with that process you heard that with students who talked about that here in terms of the equity Squad is about building this with relationship we are in community with each other and that's really what we're going to be focusing on and so the beauty of this is kind of building these circles these restorative circles in some ways we're in this kind of view here but if we think about closing this we are in community and sometimes our structure creates that community so we're going to focus on how do we do that in the context of our advisory

203time building those communities to what Chad said we're setting that Baseline of we are in community which means how I treat you right when we're a community is going to be different if I don't know who you are right if I don't value who what you bring to the table and so we're going to focus on that and continue helping the adults I don't think the kids it's funny students get it right like students you having these conversations they understand okay I need to make amends how do I sit in in this kind of circle with you and identify this it does take time right it's easy to initiate this consequence move forward okay and then I move to the next thing it takes time to have conversations with students and talk about where did

204we go wrong what could we have done differently and that's the struggle I mean remember teachers are and we have a schedule we have nine periods right now in the school day they're moving from things from from pay face to peace that's the hard part how do they take the time to do what's necessary to do that when they have to move to the next piece so that's what we're trying to figure out and it means they can't do it that all themselves how can we use the staff that we have how can we use ourselves as Leaders to start to initiate those conversations and and build that foundation so that their time is respected and they're doing what they're there to do and so that's what we're focused on I'm really excited because this

205isn't um this is new in some ways but it's much needed we need to think about how we respond differently in a way that really respects the Dignity of the adults of the students of our families and so that's where we are seed planting we're we're starting with progress and I look forward to what will continue especially as we move into the second year of this grant so a first year accomplishments we did established leaders in Residence at every school which was tremendous they built teams of small teachers who were also interested we've trained over 30 Professionals in a two-day training really that social discipline window is great because it really says to an adult how do you want to be with a kid do you want to be too like I tell you two

206do you which makes a child feel a certain way do you want to be four I'll do it all for you it doesn't necessarily hold the standard too high for the child do you want to be not too busy too tired just do whatever you're gonna do or do you want to be with and that's the hardest place to be because you're working but you're not doing it for them they're working and you're doing it together and that's really been a good shift for us um they also are looking at our data this team of people they are um we've held different professional developments um I I think what's so interesting is each school was able to do their own way so so Sedgwick said let's look at restorative lunches because that doesn't take kids

207away from class and I can put my clinical team there and kids can work for two weeks on hey what was that harm and what was a better way and am I ready to make amends on that and if I'm not I'm not but at least it gives the opportunity and Chad emphasized um bringing in some real Joy to the school and let's like you know let's let's lift the the emotions here and really bring in some joy and some special speakers and celebrate being middle schoolers and having fun and kind of being a little bit silly and motivational speakers and what have you and I think Joyce was also brilliant she made sure to train all her para staff and all the people who interact because not just the teachers who are interacting so

208what was neat about it is they all went in their own way and they can learn from each other maybe someone loves restorative lunches and they pick that up so where we are is next year we are going to apply for the grant again um hopefully build on what we learned this year and I've also asked the high schools if they want to participate and they both said yes so we'll have five schools three in year uh two and two in year one so um we are we're happy where we are and it is a shift but we're learning all right thank you so much teammates questions or comments regarding what we have received clear um this is a very impressive program and I I love the teacher leader approach that you're using they also

209one school is not the same as others and when you give that person that's chosen to be the teacher leader they get to take their perspective and build it right for their Community the fact that you're bringing in Para Educators and teachers assistants is so critical because the time element is such a challenge how do you address and give restorative practice a chance when you're in the middle of teaching and you have all these other students so building capacity by you doing the grant it's fabulous but the more people who are trained the better chance you can get to that student sooner because in a teacher's day I'm sure it's those times you can't so Bravo to you guys and and for writing the Grant and for the teacher leaders who stepped up to try

210something new and and thank you for um trusting their leadership to take it in a way that works thank you that's a great Point Claire that's always been I'm sure the principals would agree that it's always been one of the the hidden the hidden secrets of middle school is some of our best counselors are are our non-counselor staff our security guards our peras rtas our cafeteria staff our office staff are are all fantastic and working with kids and are some of the best people that we have in the building other questions or comments Jason yeah this is uh really exciting program in the midst of very Grim figures for the risk assessment um the yeah I'm reflecting on the the presence of the excuse me the mental health counselors that we have for the elementary

211schools and pained me to to think that we didn't we weren't able to make a more robust Safety Net in in the middle schools and so this this program feels really meeting that need to continue that that care for our students and I just so appreciate the perspective of if there's a conflict or a problem it's that there's usually an unmet need that's happening and um and I think you know when there is conflict or problems we tend to move directly to solution right and but the restorative philosophy behind that is to First understand and to listen and to build that relationship and um and so I'm incredibly grateful for this Grant and thank you for writing it and thank you for putting so much heart into uh into how it's carried out and I

212hope it has just tremendous success and continues to grow and we get another year foreign thank you um so I just you've you've been doing this about a year that's what I'm understanding okay so I'm curious if you have um any results or any data that shows that you've had any impact with these programs and with the Grant and bringing that trajectory down in any way right so thanks uh yes thank you for that that is part of it you know it's it's not just doing things but it is measuring things and we'll have end of the year data soon but the leaders in residents meet about three times a year with chdi and we re we actually report and they're looking for a 25 decrease in in school suspension and 25 decrease in out

213of school suspension they're looking for a I can't remember the percentage like at least a 10 increase in two one one referrals and calls and a decrease in arrest now we have very few arrests so that's hard to decrease and each school is in a slightly different place and we'll have results pretty soon to see if we made that 25 or if it's safe to say we I I think you know the results aren't finally in I think we might make it in some places but even if we saw any decrease um that's that's working in the right direction and we want to see the decreases for the right reasons right we don't want to just make numbers for to make numbers um as as Chris Wright said one of our primary trainers is here

214um this isn't about like just replacing everything that you've ever had some of those things are in place for very good reasons but it's trying to transform our relationship with kids and as Andy's first story said a lot of our children our great children all of our kids are great children but they get in bad moments sometimes so we will um we will continue to do this work and hopefully get better at it we are measuring it we do have very clear goals for it um and I think we can report that pretty soon but I mean I think incrementally we are very close to our goals this year at least last time I looked it's a baseline right now we're not in full implementation of anything really yet it's more the training but I

215think it's a good start you know and I hope to see some encouraging signs with the data but still a lot of work to do a lot of new things to put in place once we develop this expertise and understanding of how it works in every classroom in pretty much every setting of the school you know but I would say that it's encouraging questions or comments thank you so much thank you for what you're doing what you've shared in the wide approach that you are in doing so so thank you again thank you [Applause] courteous audience here all right let us now move on to routine matters where we have the financial report and we are seeking a motion that the Board of Education approved the financial report for the period ending April the 30th

2162023 is there a motion I make the motion thank you Claire is there a second second thank you Ethan discussion we glad to have Liz Hewitt with us here as well so Ethan I believe you have the honors today on the discussion sure the um just to recap the school funds are reported in four categories first category being the general fund report which was budgeted for fiscal year 23 at 181.2 million dollars second category is the state and federal grants funds this point the school system had 17.2 million in funds entering the fiscal year um some of those some of that funding covers next year as well as this year or future years third category special funds report which covers eight different funds and the fourth category is nutrition service fund which had 3.4 million

217at the end of April um as of April 2023 the general fund had had your expense year-to-date expenditures of 140.4 million against a budget of 181.2 for the full year 140 was that obviously at the end of April at this point the school administration is projecting a positive 25 000 variance to the 2023 budget which is basically just above break even um the overall variance is unchanged from the prior update that we was given at the end of March well the projections month the month have had changes they've been relatively small in the salary group there was a positive which accounts for 119 million of the budget or almost two-thirds there's a negative variance of a hundred thousand in the teacher salary line and an offsetting hundred thousand variants in the teacher substitute line and

218teacher assistant online there was a positive 10 000 variance in the benefits category in the cat unemployment compensation line as well as a positive 15 000 in supplies of materials offsetting that is a negative 25 000 purchase Services the net being uh just being flat to the prior years projections in terms of state and federal grants there is over 11.2 million in estimated expenditures for the fiscal year 5.4 million in Esther 3 funds that will be used in the future primarily next year as already discussed the replacement of those funds will become important in the budgeting for next year we brought the year thanks in terms of special funds there are eight different funds as I said to project and project today in the year with a 1.4 million dollar balance a net decrease of

219437 000 from the prior year balance of June last year the largest negative activity came from the Education Services reimbursement which was five hundred thousand dollars and that was used to replace a reduction of the anticipated funding from the state of Connecticut finally in terms of the nutrition service funds there's been a significant increase in this nutrition service funds balance going from being over 2.1 million at the end of April a year ago 2022 to a balance of 3.4 million at the end of this April 2023. and that includes 195 000 interns equipment purchases and the expectation is there will be more equipment and infrastructure spending in the this summer and in the future based on the money that we have so that I've enthralled you all basically I guess any questions primarily for Liz

220or for me or Claire thank you so much Ethan Timmy's questions regarding our financial report seeing none hearing none again all of those in favor of approving the financial report for the period ending April 30th 2023 say aye aye any opposed the abstentions the eyes have it thank you so much thank you now moving on to approval of the minute seeking a motion that the Board of Education approved the minutes of the regular Board of Education meeting of May the 16th 2023 is there a motion so moved thank you Jason is there a second second thank you Renee discussion seeing none all of those in favor say aye aye any opposed any abstentions the eyes have it thank you very much now on to information and reports board members do we have any Communications and

221reports from other boards and organizations okay all right other information and discussions well I will interject information discussion we are aware that this is the first rather the last look at them I said the first I'm trying to keep you here but the last meeting with Jason with you being with us here so yes you got to suck it up we're going to have a moment of making comments to you so we know that um Jason is going to be moving on he's still going to be in the district but moving on to bigger and wonderful things and so we just want to give an opportunity for our teammates here to share some words with you and so uh let us go in alphabetical order if we may and beginning with um so Jason well

222there is clear differences of opinion of the various policies that come up between you and me in terms of the issues I enjoyed working with you and really appreciate your Wellness to listen to different pending opinions and um felt that even though I disagreed more times than not with your ideas they were always meant in the best of intent and I'll be sorry to see you go so but the good part was at least my feeling was from listening last meeting that you're excited about what you're doing and you're choosing to do it and I wish you a lot of luck and I hope it all works out well and I'm glad to have met you so thank you Ethan Gail Jason it's been a pleasure working with you we don't agree on much we're

223always on the opposite side and it's funny that out of all of the board members I think I spent probably the most amount of time with you on different committees and different uh things that we ended up doing together um I wish you a lot of luck in what you're gonna do and I I'm impressed with your thoughtfulness on different issues it's been a pleasure sometimes to hear with the way you think about things um there's a Jewish saying from ethics of the fathers that it says who is a wise man a wise man is somebody who can learn from everyone so I hope that the feeling would be mutual that we've learned some things from each other and I wish you only luck in the future thank you Gail Renee so I'd like to

224share that the reason I'm here today is because I was inspired by you I was so inspired by your work with the mascots in your words if you're rational it really inspired me to step up at the public service I'm so honored to have worked with you and I can't wait to see where you go I was so excited to read about you at NBC tonight again I was like yes I worked with him I'm so excited um it really shows that West Hereford is a great place for breeding talent in Western in in the state and I can't wait to see where you go from here and it shows that the impact that we do here is a bigger issue and I'm so honored to have worked with you even for our free time

225together [Applause] okay all right clay thank you any Claire um so when I applied to be on the board of ed you applied at the same time and when I saw who they chose I understood and um then I got to work with you so your consummate educator working to make a difference for so many people in the world I enjoyed work with you and seeing your thoughtful approach to policy research and reducing hurdles for the people who really need the help the marginalized students and I know you'll continue to make your mark I'm thrilled that you're going to work on the state level with the aapi working at the state level and giving that kind of expertise and influence is going to be so important when we get the curriculum in the classroom um

226we need someone who cares understands and will do the work so thank you for your service and all I've really enjoyed working with you so Jason I just really want to thank you for being a champion for our District's Mission you are committed to the schools our students and our community as a whole your passion for learning models for our students that nothing is unattainable I just refer back to your story about failing failing College High School yeah and look at you so I just being transparent and authentic is also a gift that you share um with each of us but but also you know with the community as well not everybody can do that I appreciate have always appreciated um your thoughtful and meaningful dialogue at the board table you put a lot of

227thought and and effort into to all that we do you never come unprepared I appreciate the fact that you just constantly are advocating for equity and inclusion across all aspects of our district and at as a larger Community as well you really have been a source of support and guidance during some very difficult years on the board and your Eternal optimism is inspiring on a whole different level um you know we're gonna I will miss you as a colleague I'm hoping and I'm confident that we will continue to build our friendship outside of the board um and and collaborate maybe on other shared interests and issues moving forward I'm really sad to see you go but I actually realize that it's time for us to share you with bigger and better things so I wish

228you well foreign going to be transparent I'm speaking off the cuff from the heart in this moment I think I intentionally did not prepare because I've been in um didn't want it to happen but it's here it's here it's can't avoid it and I Echo all that colleagues have shared I really appreciate the words that each of you share tonight and and shared through words and through tears and you got me going I just I'm not gonna look at you Renee but it speaks volumes to who you are and I had the privilege of crossing paths with you as a parent I'm a parent you're a parent we have children and clearly seeing that how and who you represent and who you speak up for it's not just here at the board table but that's

229how you are as a parent that's how you are as a professional and you are someone who clearly walks an authentic path someone who walks the talk and that is so meaningful for us because that is what we continue to strive to do as a district to walk the talk and the fact that you are moving on to encourage others to do the same on a local a Statewide and a national level is a beautiful thing because as much walking and talking we have to do the reality is not everyone is there not everyone wants to do that and so that is what I'm so impressed and have been and continue to be impressed with you Jason that even in those moments when they're conversations that need to be had but people don't want to

230talk about it you're still willing to show up and still willing to speak up even when adversaries Target you and want to say that we know that since you have been on this board there has been quite a lot of that and in spite of you continue to show up you continue to speak up you continue to advocate for those who may not feel as though they have a voice you are someone who is an inspiration to many thank you I want to thank your wife Julie thank you for sharing your husband with us you get him back a little bit more but we thank you but we appreciate your presence we look forward to our past Crossing again we do have some tokens of appreciation for you now we know you mentioned before about

231not wanting a chair we do have a chair over there insisted on still having a chair why because we know that it is our practice whenever we have a board member who no longer is sitting here at the Deus we give them a chair you've earned that right now it's your choice whether you choose to take it or not it hasn't been engraved yet so please let us know if you don't want it we want to engrave it but nonetheless you have earned the chair but in addition to the chair we do have for you something that you can carry with you and this is a symbol this represents a gift from all of us here all of us here again thank you so much for your time thank you for your service thank you

232for being you and you know I'm not saying goodbye I'm just saying see you later thank you so much thank you Maggie your husband a hug thank you [Applause] that's all right I just want to say thank you um you never know exactly how you come across um but I had a friend tell me that you always speak from the heart and never go wrong and um thank you all be right behind you [Applause] good now moving on to Future business announcement of future meeting dates the next meeting will be part of the upcoming Academic School year Tuesday September the 5th 2023 where we'll have our regular Board of Education meeting at seven o'clock here in the town hall followed by Tuesday September the 19th 2023 regular Board of Education meeting seven o'clock here at

233the town hall and then again Tuesday October the 3rd a regular Board of Education meeting seven o'clock here at the town hall and then Tuesday October the 17th a regular Board of Education meeting seven o'clock here at the Town Hall and so now moving on to request for a future agenda item so we do know that there was a request that was made I believe in February uh of a topic to be discussed and that was right on the heels of us getting ready to go into the budget season so Gail thank you so much for your patience at that time but since then we have had some conversation uh in response to that but nonetheless did want to adequately respond to a written request via email from our colleagues Ethan and Gail uh specifically

234to talk about and have on the agenda a development of a curriculum committee and so with that want to please give you uh to to share and elaborate more your thoughts on this matter okay thank you um so I did email all of you guys a few days ago about the this idea and um I wanted to discuss it if if we could I know it's very late but I I do want to see if what your thoughts are on this um I'll just quickly summarize for the people obviously who didn't get the email which is just the guys sitting here um so I would like to propose that we consider developing a subcommittee of the board that deals with curriculum um some of the information that I want to share with you with is

235that we are one of the few districts in the state that actually doesn't have this committee eighty percent of um districts in the state according to Cape do have a subcommittee that deals with curriculum and this would what some of the things that I think that a committee such as this could help us with is first of all I want to be very clear that this is not in any way going to replace um or to interfere with the current curriculum committee that exists on the district side but it would allow better collaboration between the board and the administration in being aware and knowing one what curriculum is actually being introduced into our schools what in what curriculum is potentially leaving the schools and what materials are coming into our school it is it is

236a state mandate as far as I understand I'm not an expert but there is a mandate that that the board is supposed to be voting on materials and and books that are being used in in the schools and and I don't we don't really do that in a direct way now and and curriculum committee is something that could do that um I also think that you know this type of committee helps to bring um consensus to transparency to between us and the community and the administration so that we're all sort of on the same page um and I'm not implying in any way that you know things are being done sort of like behind our backs but I do think that we don't really have as a board of good understanding of um the curriculum

237that's that's being taught except for certain things that are presented here but in an overall picture I don't really think we have a good good sense of that um so those are the you know General ideas of this um I think in in places where it it is been implemented it tends to work well it's not I don't think it's something that is pretend uh particularly um time consuming I think curriculum committees meet maybe a couple of times a year just to kind of you know let's say once a quarter kind of thing to be apprised of of what's going on with curriculum I'll just start there Ethan did you have what you want to share sure um I just think to follow up on Gale that the more transparency and the more conversation and

238the more discussion that we have on any subject and that's what I was trying to do before when I raised the finance it's not a reflection of the administration I think they do a great job but I think the more involvement we have and the more the community has the better for everybody and um I'd like to see it my understanding from Cabe was because I called to ask because I didn't know how much the curriculum who has it who doesn't but was we should be approving things that are added in materials they suggested in the budget which I think is already too chaotic so this is one way to do it we are thinking we're discussing is there a formal motion by chance to develop into curriculum committee so then we can formally have

239formally have it as a discussion per se I wasn't sure exactly how this gets done because you know typically I do this Madam chair if I could be recognized yes please all right thank you um your current bylaw a354 uh does provide Direction on how the board is supposed to address this so the item that's the future item here shall be addressed by motion directing the superintendent to prepare an oral presentation to be included on a future agenda so the only motion that the board can take now and entertain with respect to this is a motion directing the superintendent to prepare an oral presentation to be included on a future agenda thank you thank you does that do it I mean I don't really think that is the intention of the Mo of my idea

240here I mean I'm certainly happy to have Paul do that but I don't want to give Paul extra things to do that aren't really related to what I'm trying to to do here so um I I don't think that's what I requested and I don't really think that that would really unless unless Paul feels that that is somehow going to promote or you know support this idea or anybody else here [Applause] clear um so in your letter you stated that I think it was six schools in our derg have curriculum committees correct or no yeah so that ends up being 28 and 72 percent I guess you don't know if they do or they don't have it yeah I mean it was kind of time consuming for me to go through like every single you

241know district and find out what I came told me that 80 percent in the state have it and I picked I went through because I have to go through their website and see if they have it so I picked some that do and some I mean some in the dirt some in our Dirk that do and some in the Dirk that don't I mean like we could certainly get that information it's just like I'm you know it's it's a lot of work to go through every every single one but if that's the information that we wanted I mean I guess that could be part of a presentation so um by my account um we have eight curriculum related policies and one in particular 64-20 says that the superintendent and his her his or her designee

242shall establish guidelines for the selection process of materials so for books and materials there is a a policy about that there's also policy for public complaints there's policy for controversial issues there's a policy 6234 curriculum design and development um having served on curriculum committees and knowing what the process is like there are I think at least 12 major subject areas at least 15 grade levels from pre-k to 12. all of those needing materials needing books needing curriculum decisions currently the board is given a presentation when there's major overhaul of curriculum but in general curriculum is is developed by curriculum Specialists teachers who are specialists in their field people have been educated in curriculum and when they develop something it's presented to the whole board a new program so I think as long as we all

243get new curriculum presented when there's an overhaul or a big change I'm happy with that I think all board members should hear a subcommittee to me when curriculum teams will take two full days and work on curriculum and West Hartford has a reputation where some of our staff actually work for state boards they work are recognized nationally the people look to West Hartford for the curriculum that we develop when Native American curriculum was being developed by the state we were way ahead of developing Native American curriculum and Paul shared the work that we had so we're not behind on doing curriculum work but I think sometimes people don't realize what's involved in it and how people who specialize know when learned asks were you talking about SEL curriculum you said no all curriculum all subject

244areas all grade levels and the scope of that this is people's careers they work on curriculum as their job teachers get subs and take time off of work to work on curriculum so how a board member could be involved in all the choices of material and hear presentations I I don't understand your view of curriculum and what you think we could do better because we are already an amazing District as far as curriculum development and people come to us for our ideas [Applause] so I don't I don't think you're potentially not understanding what I'm proposing I'm not proposing in any way that we have a curriculum committee that's going to start writing curriculum it is a cape recommendation that the polit that the Board of Education have a sub committee that deals with curriculum at

24580 percent of districts do so the question I guess is why do 80 percent of districts have a curriculum committee and we don't I think that this is a way that we so that I think that this is a way that we work in better collaboration with the administration as opposed to in tandem um so I there's no I'm not I I think that you know what other curriculum committees are doing is something that we could be doing as well I understand that you know we do get some notice here when when curriculum changes but I don't think that that's a complete list of of what's going on in terms of curriculum coming in and coming out of the school can I just share you you mentioned in your letter that it was a caved

246mandate yeah you use the word mandate and and Cave is a volunteer organization a board of EDS they don't represent every Board of bed you can choose as a board of ed to belong to Cabe but cave is not a regulatory organization they are a collective of where you can go for support the state mandates curriculum committees and we meet the state requirement with our curriculum format we follow now [Applause] no that's okay but actually what I do want to caution is because the the we're now getting into the specifics of your your email however it it has not been widely distributed and so if we are going to unless you read your entire email then just want to um uh base the Genesis of our conversation or what is said here at the table

247here no no I understand your piece I'm just trying to avoid us not reaching what policy so we want to make sure that we are being transparent in what we're discussing um and because not everyone is privy to um to your email just uh yes I turned I thought I thought you were going to Madam chair I was just going to ask you to put her mic on it sounded like uh Miss Harris is going to comment I mean I I believe that this would enhance the connection between the board and the um Administration I think it's it's a way to do some of the things that we've talked about here I don't you know I don't see it in any way um being overly burdensome and I don't see it in any way um

248interfering with what type of curriculum is in in our schools but I don't think I don't agree that you know and this is not in any way a criticism of the administration I just think that there's a limited amount of time here and I think that you know we we maybe do hear about big curriculum changes but I don't think that we hear about all curriculum changes and I do believe that this can be organized in a way that's not not particularly burdensome either to the administration or to board members I mean I do question why we have no Finance subcommittee here we have no curriculum subcommittee here those are things that are fairly standard in words of education and you know to fight not to have them I I guess I question why why

249we wouldn't want to sort of enhance our our um our our working environment with with Administration on on both of those issues foreign no that that's all right no respectfully receive what you're sharing um and I what I wonder too is because I think that with with you describing wanting to um to to be aware to be informed I don't think anyone knocks that at all I think we certainly you want to be aware of me informed what I do then we actually we do have a financial um advisors committee even to part of that as well as Claire um but with you speaking in terms of a policy subcommittee I I do not a policy pardon me a curriculum committee I do think that there are many pieces already existing that address that that

250we may not um uh be well versed in and so if if I may ask um superintendent vicinas if you may just outline what is entailed in terms of the curriculum development process please certainly um so and I appreciate uh the question um I've had the opportunity to share a little bit about it in terms of uh in terms of my understanding of the statutory you know requirements uh Boards of Education need to have a curriculum committee um which we satisfy through curriculum Council which is a collection of both standing and ad hoc members who will hear curricular reviews of not only you know all the curricular programs that exist all the content areas all the disciplines but also the the specialized programs to include things like um to include things like our nursing program

251our school counseling program otpt speech and language and and things of this nature and and we do so on on a regular calendar um typically a five-year review the standing membership typically represents instructional leaders from the curriculum office itself our assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction our director of Elementary and secondary education representative from pupil services and a representative from English as a second language and then ad hoc members are brought on uh based on their their either their experience in the content area that's that's under self-assessment or based on their relative to position so if if a Humanities area is being reviewed maybe another maybe another related discipline under Humanities we'll we'll hear that really with the lens of what to the complementary opportunities and and so so certainly that that is a component in

252terms of the committee being able to recommend develop review approved curriculum um in terms of the Board of Education as I as I further read down this statute and I see things like the establishment of goals and policies um I think Claire was referencing how those those policies are in existence um and and I certainly understand you know I've had the opportunity to um to hear this question and understand if there are if there's interest from the board to have greater communication to have greater frequency of reporting um that's certainly something that you that you all can ask for if as I as I hear um our legal you know our corporate Council share if if you wanted me to prepare a report on what other districts are doing to dig into the cape recommendations

253um you know it's that's also something that you can ask me to do but but either way I can be responsive to whatever the needs are and if there are more questions about um what are the major curricular efforts what are new standards what are um how does our curricular programming essentially serve the board goals server educational Mission I mean that is my hope that that is the information that I'm bringing to you um in terms of the selection of resources versus voting on resources I'm not you know I'll be honest with you I'm not clear on that my understanding is you know you certainly vote on um Financial expenditures and um work through uh especially as we as we talk about the institution of programming and and something such as an emphasis that we've

254had as a district on computer science and looking to boost that curricular programming under under the aims and under the auspices of uh of a of a district You Know A District Vision that that my expectation is the board supports I mean that's that's the kind of thing certainly that we've had conversations around here that I would look for the board to either affirm or potentially um you know if there are course Corrections at any point in terms of what you're looking for in your in your uh vision for the schools that you're helping to inform that but those are the those are generally going to be the recommendations those that type of program that I'm bringing forward to this group to say this is the direction that we're trying to go this is the

255type of curricular programming that currently exists this is what we'd like to see in the future and then certainly through the budgeting process as we bring forward uh whether that's uh positions to help staff deepening or or a direction that we're following or or certainly when you see within the budget process as we're as we're trying to Resource those things and then certainly of course uh to close that out what our metrics are as to how successful are we on that what what what metrics have we established so that that's all within the reporting that um I hope to to ensure that everyone's comfortable with that you have enough information and where those information gaps um I would simply say you know let's uh we would we would ask for those reports and we would

256provide them with whatever Whatever frequency the board is seeking I've got eager eager people who stay up late so uh they're happy to happy to comply but um you know I stand ready to uh to respond in whatever way the board would like thank you yes I just want to ask you one thing Paul so given the infrastructure that you already have do you see as opposed to maybe what I'm what I'm presenting here is there a place on that a board member or two board members or because many board members could be let's say on you know working on on with you um as opposed to forming let's say a new committee there's something that already exists that you know a board member could be part of and again I I'm not looking for

257something if you tell me this is something that meets like you know every single week obviously I don't believe anybody up here is going to be able to do that because it's going to be too time consuming but if there's some some you know type of infrastructure where somebody you know once a month or once a quarter that you already have something that exists that a board member could be part of sure so um our our current uh curriculum Council essentially uh the frequency is probably quarterly that they're that they're uh commissioning and hearing um full day reviews of of a Content area um that's always something if folks have interest in in finding out about that I guess I don't know enough about um the formality of the ask and so you know again

258that's something I think that that we could develop but at any point I mean if tomorrow someone wanted to call me up and engage in a conversation about hey what are we doing and you know whether it be Science Education social studies anything um I can create that opportunity because there aren't you know there aren't any real big secrets in curriculum I think it's just it's a question of what is the board looking for formally um informal things we can do at any point Jason okay thank you um so um I'm trying to think through the the spirit of of your um of your request and you know I'm thinking about um the different ways that the district conducts its own reviews of that um of the curriculum um and the different ways that it

259receives feedback either from from teachers from the community and occasionally through the board from presentations and it seems like what you're asking quarterly you know every few months it seems like that happens already with board presentations for the curriculum and you know the vastness of of all curriculum in the district is it you know to say that there would be like a quarterly meeting to look at one aspect thoroughly would go beyond you know any one individual's term um on the board so what I'm saying what I'm trying to say is I think um the spirit is to know and understand and I think that happens and so maybe maybe what you're looking for is maybe more of like a calendar map of when the district presents its curriculum at board meetings because that seems

260to be the time when it's presented to everyone and it gives the district a time to think through how it's going to present and and I feel like we get really strong updates and we often hear from a teacher who is involved we often hear from um occasionally from students who have experienced the curriculum so I I don't know if that's if that satisfies the spirit but it seems like maybe having a a sense of what will be covered over the course of a year uh in board presentations might give a fuller sense of what what is happening um because I I have a really hard time seeing how how us a subgroup of the board meeting quarterly could could meaningfully interact with the materials of the curriculum when we have opportunities to get that

261already [Applause] so what I thought what I believe I've heard Gail ask for which is and also I think it fulfills our role as management review which is how I've heard it explained where overall we're not to get immersed in the detail but just to have an overview and be able to interact and understand the different thought processes without getting into the minutia so to me I'm surprised this is an issue but like how what can you differentiate for me what would be a board presentation and this curriculum committee what what is the what is the difference in in so content or a I'm happy so from my perspective I'm not speaking for Gail is we've had board presentations but we haven't hit the whole curriculum or you know it would just be to hear

262the different parts get a feel for it and particularly because when we add in the budget the budget doesn't have that much that's when they said to look there's not we're really not spending money on textbooks anymore so but to me it would be you do the different parts and you do it from an overview and you get an understanding it's again it's it's bringing up communication and just interactions so and oh sorry go ahead nope that's all right go ahead I just want to respond I I mean I I do agree that we get some of these presentations but I I don't believe it's comprehensive and I think that that's not that's not a criticism it's just that there's a limited amount of time here and we have you know we're getting all kinds

263of presentations on lots of things so I think that you know the way I foresee this is it would be meeting periodically you know I'm going to say quarterly but maybe it would need a little bit more frequently and [Music] I mean we're not I think no I think that the idea is to look at what's new in the curriculum and what might be being removed in the curriculum not to go through every single curriculum you know item but just what is being introduced you know what is what is being taken away and like you know other other committees come to this board and then present you know in a small in a short amount of time what those things are I I don't think that we're getting you know every all of these curriculum

264changes because I just don't think it's feasible and there's just simply not enough time so you know and I I guess I I do question why 80 if this is like such a bad idea then why the 80 percent of districts actually have this and you know sorry I could just not putting it on tonight um like I'd want a better understanding of what these curriculum committees look like because if it's the committee getting a presentation from the superintendent then we that that's already built into our board system so I guess I would want to have a better sense of what are these curriculum committees what are they who are they composed of what what is different in those committees than what we're receiving here at the board table because my suspicion is that we

265have it built into our board meetings and maybe other districts don't I would be very surprised if there's some sort of independent curriculum committee that does more than our district currently does for us yeah I wanted a piggyback on that just because I want to make sure I'm clear on what you're asking as well Gail so that I can be responsive um I've had only one conversation with a sister District to get an appreciation of what their curriculum committee is about and it's not what you just kind of described in terms of what's coming in what's going on what's being taught what's not they were doing more on their policy as it relates to curriculum and I and this was through email so this was not an in-depth conversation so if if the ask becomes

266relative to this agenda item for me to go and you know dig into the cave uh regulations and do some Outreach with some Partners you know again more than willing to do that to be able to provide more conversation if the ask is more about um what's in the curriculum and I heard I think I heard someone say comprehensive I mean comprehensive understanding of the whole curriculum that's that's likely that's not going to happen in one board meeting that's not going to happen in one subcommittee meeting but we have boards in the past not necessarily this board but boards in the past have commissioned um multiple part curriculum presentations that we have given if there are specific questions and that has provided the opportunity for us to come up and do a two-part or a

267three-part series that breaks down a larger curricular area or perhaps some related areas and provide reports on those so so it's so I'm trying to determine is it a is it more of a governance function that you're asking for which sounds a little bit potentially different with um you know because that's how I would Envision or if it's a if it's an understanding and more interaction a greater understanding of of the talk curriculum and and what's changed like what's different about it today versus last year versus 10 years ago to me that's that's more of an informational presentation where I can bring some experts up and they can have some of the back and forth with you during a question a short presentation and some question and answer and some you know related materials so

268I I'm just trying to get a sense of continue to get a greater sense of what um what the board is most interested in and be responsive to that appreciate the letter that you sent I did read that you quoted the Newington Board of Education and their duties of the curriculum committee I went on and looked at the past couple years of their minutes from their quarterly meetings and it's people within the district presenting on the language arts commit you know presentations it's presentations like we receive I did not see you know anything in there it was usually two adults or you know maybe some residents but it was presentations and I'm all for if we change the reading curriculum in you know or what is the Pre-K curriculum I I would love to hear

269about that but I think it should be heard as a whole board and it's also important that whatever we want to influence as a board that we stay within the policies that we have and we have as I mentioned eight policies that deal with curriculum issues um and so you'd have to be very cognizant of the policies that we already have in order to make this committee that doesn't violate the policies I mean I I would love more presentations but you can't honestly want to sit in on a music curriculum presentation in a science in high school and a fourth grade science and social studies and I I think you're simplifying what curriculum is it's a whole year for one child in all subjects and that's by many grades so there's so much involved in

270curriculum I would love broad changes presented and I think we received those [Applause] so thank you so what I what I'm hearing is hearing the desire to want to have more of the awareness granular details of the curriculum process how things come to be what may be added what may be taken away and I think collectively we all want again to be an informed and aware and I think um I think that as I say we don't get what we don't ask for but what's wonderful is that our superintendent is saying hey if you ask I will I will help provide and so I'm hearing that there's a desire to have more of a comprehensive summary or or an awareness of what is taking place and I appreciate you saying how it can't happen in

271one meeting but it can be broken down and so we again appreciate that level of transparency and open lines of communication want to see if that is something that you are are um are speaking of in terms of having um being intentional with having planned presentations that kind of break down the overall curriculum over a period of time because they will have to do some research and preparation for that which we certainly respect because we know that it's not a one and done when it comes to putting curriculum together as Claire just clearly highlighted so respecting the agenda item that's here and also wanting to have us to um uh to to continue to be productive with this topic does that meet the requests or the desire of what has been proposed I mean one

272thing one thing I would be curious Paul and I don't know if this is something that you know obviously Madam chair would tell you but it might be interesting and this was really hard for me to get because it's like very time consuming but you know maybe you have different connections with people to have a better understanding also in light of maybe what Ari was saying like you know Ari was saying and I don't want to put words in your mouth but I think what she was saying is that we already are doing the what I'm proposing at the board but I don't I don't know if that's true I mean maybe it is true maybe maybe so I'd be curious like what are these other correct if there's 80 of the districts have this

273what are they doing I mean you know is it true that they're we're doing it already here as a board or are they doing something different and you know just because of the fact that we're all here at 11 o'clock at night I mean I don't have a lot of other hours and it's very time consuming to get that information so I just maybe maybe that would be a way to go forward if you know the chair isn't is okay with that and the rest of the board is is to maybe have a presentation or have maybe not a presentation but have that information disseminated to us what do these curriculum committees actually do are they doing something that we're not doing are we already doing it here as a board so I I think

274I I'm trying to uh I think that is something that is is doable do one do hold on I do want you to respect that we certainly when it comes to us talking about what we do we have more of the inside scoop for that to be able to um get the information from others that is is is um from other districts that per se that involves I think another level of involvement in in ex and communication and exploration um which just want to respect that the the work and time that our teammates our executive team already has just managing what we do for them to now look into what others are doing um just want to acknowledge that would be a lot but you were going to say something clear um yeah so there

275are so many districts and many different approaches you can get minutes from these committees online but to ask someone who's got a full-time job in the district to to do all this Research into other board of EDS in their different approach I guess what is broken and what do you want to fix what is broken I don't think anything's broken but I think that we can do things potentially we could do things better I I don't in what area in the areas that we've discussed here tonight I mean I we spent like probably 45 minutes discussing it I think that if Cabe is is recommending that's not mandating it but recommending it and 80 of districts have it it's certainly worth considering I mean why would you why would you fight against a potentially improving

276our process I mean maybe maybe we are doing it but maybe there's something we're not doing and certainly we've had instances where you know a curriculum has been brought into the schools where you know I I don't think that there was a lot of good communication between even the board but you know certainly with the community and I think if we can fix that in any way and and make that process smoother like why wouldn't we do that I mean we asked we asked you know the administration to prepare all kinds of reports for us why would this be any different sorry I think I mean I just I'm gonna speak as different says from the heart um I mean in my opinion if this was my cause if this was something that I wanted

277implemented on the board then it's the onus is on me to find out those that information I feel it's a little demanding to ask our superintendent to sit and trudge through data or make phone calls when from my perception this is not something that anybody else on this board besides yourself and potentially Ethan are asking for so I feel like the onus is on you to do your research and come to the board and say 80 percent of cab members do this and this is what it looks like and this is how it's different from what we do and I propose that we do this I don't think it's it's respectful to ask Paul to do that in his is in his free time which he has none and so with where we are oh

278Ethan please you have to respond to Ari I think and again I'm not trying to get polyps to work because I'm sure he's got it the the benefit of him or the someone in the school administration doing it is there's probably um standards or there's com some things somebody's going to say something that could be misinterpreted it's at least it's yeah Apples to Apples opposed to Apples to oranges or something like that that I may hear something and have a totally different interpretation than what it actually is if it's held by but then at that point then we can we can we can double check or follow up what I'm saying is if you're gonna present an initiative or something that you want to take on and it doesn't seem to be the consensus of

279the board then again it's your responsibility to come to the board and present that information it's not it's not Paul's responsibility to get that information for us but then we get into did this mean this or did this mean that so unfortunately we can we can check it but what I'm saying is Paul should not be responsible for doing this research at this point so what I made did you want something so what I may um ask then is and this is this is good this is good work it's good for us to have robust discussion and to talk things through and it also highlights again how committed we are to want to be involved and aware of what is happening and what's happening with our curriculum um it's also important when doing some uh

280exploring and cleaning you want to start your own home your own backyard and so I think what's helpful is um we uh for us to to um uh and appreciate so much um superintendent if I've seen ASU sharing your willingness to share and we know that things are happening already addressing the curriculum piece so if you could share that with us please um if you can if because in other words we know the work is being done we don't want to create duplicative effort and so I want to add a respect for the request of being aware of what is happening especially when comparisons are made to other districts we want to be able to fully acknowledge that we're doing that but um as as one said information without that is just an opinion so

281we want to make sure to have the data you to please I'm sure yeah I can't take credit for it that was a quote from someone cannot recall the name so um but again this is it's not trying to have you to create a dissertation um just acknowledging what is already underway um and and that's in our home that's our backyard and we certainly can can fulfill that is that will that as a can we start with that if you want all to become a substance I'm I'm hearing a general description of our processes as it relates and certainly as it relates to statutory requirements and perhaps cave recommendations is that feasible all right all right teammates are we are we all on board with our piece all right yes and yes yeah I just

282wanted to comment on the on the cave recommendations because I think um cape's job is to provide best practices for governance and in some ways I think they are trying to provide safety nets so um or you know some boards only meet once a month can you imagine so meeting once a month um but that you know we have plenty of business that's not that's not curriculum business right that would fill up that that time so what I'm saying is that you know in in situations where boards only meet once a month they do not have a robust schedule that would probably call for a curriculum committee but we have two meetings a month and that provides we regularly receive updates and I can't think of an instance where there have been any curriculum surprises

283right there's been updates on plans updates on rollouts updates on implementation so um so I think you know to take the cave recommendations at face value to say all boards should be doing all of these things I think it's basically to try to say you know take a look at your situation and if it calls for these things maybe that's appropriate but we have really robust dialogue robust presentations so um yeah yeah so Jay said I just need to answer that I mean you know nobody really here I think maybe the exception of Paul um you know I I don't agree that we are getting we are getting some updates we are not getting a total feel for what is new what is going in what is coming out and you know I do agree

284that we get some updates here probably on major things but just come say that we're you know that what we're doing is absolutely meeting the um what other districts might be doing in terms of their curriculum you know situation I I don't really think that that is we we know that one way or the other so you know I if if learning you know and so that that's about I agree with both of you I agree with what you're saying with what you're saying and and I agree with that because again we're so thankful to our superintendent for being willing to fill in in the gaps and to highlight where we are and what we're already doing again we're doing it but want to respect being um so we all have a clear and can

285speak with conviction of what we're doing so thank you for your flexibility and patience with that thank you for raising the the question again that is what our charge is we're supposed to ask questions and discuss however we'll certainly um can I just make sure we understand those so we're you're what is what is what is what is the final Paul is going to at the next meeting not so much the next meeting because you want to respect it correct yes we'll we'll share um an outline of what it entails in terms of how curriculum is developed within our district and and as Claire made reference to several policies that support this effort that will highlight What policies how it's evidenced in curriculum development but but um it's going to take some time to put

286that together so don't want to commit to the very first meeting all right apparently all right so we will pause on that and now go to um comments from visitors we did have a list of those who signed up for General comments I did say I would prioritize those want to certainly honor that we'll just go down and name those uh persons that signed up please do come to the podium share your name your town of residence again you have three minutes Charlotte will hold up a yellow card when you have one minute remaining in your time Cheryl you still there with us hey hey all right and a red card when your time has expired let us first begin with Mark Walsh Mark Walsh okay not here Addie Lorden Addie Lord and Park Road

287by way of West Limerick Ireland I'm so glad that parents aren't the only ones flim-flammed and gas lit it's really refreshing so I want everybody to bear in mind that I have called I've requested meetings I've filed uh foia and finally I got somebody to agree to sit down and speak to me about hiring Mr giulio Duarte this time last year I confirmed with him that I would sit down and speak with him about hiring he agreed to it and I confirmed it in an email and I received this response at the end of that email good evening Miss Lorden the board of education is in receipt of here multiple foia requests this is not a denial or your requests I'm quoting verbatim the school district is in the process of compiling the records you

288have requested and it will provide them to you promptly I would ask however that you please be respectful to staff bear in mind the Board of Education and its employees must appropriately prioritize your requests with their educational obligations and responsibilities Please be aware that the Connecticut Freedom of Information Act permits public agencies to petition for relief from vexatious requesters who abuse the right to information or interfere with the operation of the agency while I hope it does not become necessary for the town to take this step your multiple harassing requests may eventually obligate us to pursue this option finally the foia does not require Publications agencies to create documents or generate reports that do not already exist nor does it obligate any Public Employee to meet or report to any requester regards Dallas C Dodge

289Corporation Council town of West Hartford now town of West Hartford Board of Education there are several problems with this email first of all first and foremost daus Dodge tagged giulio duarte's email it was not on an official Corporation Council heading or email secondly Dale's Dodge invokes the Board of Education board of education is a creature of the state not an agency of the town he then goes on to threaten me with vexatious requesters policy under foia it should be noted that no action was taken by Town attorney Dodge to take me before the commission as a vexations requester nor did he appear in the three hearings to defend himself nor did chairperson Lorna Ferguson excuse me Maro Duarte or Dodge comply with an order from the commission excuse me your time is expired you are

290out of order your time has expired and so with that we will go to the next person on the list Alex last initial p is Alex here continuing on to Alex oh please yes a p-a-i-u-h okay all right uh Alex okay Alexa here all right thank you uh Anita um and get turned back on I'm around so um uh Gail doctor share your name in town of residence we know we but but just for the format I know thank you Anita from West Hartford um so I am in support of a uh curriculum committee a finance committee I think there are two others why because if you look at the statutes and I'm looking at cga.ct.gov 10-220b the board of education of each local or Regional School District shall with the participation of parents students

291School administrators teachers citizens local elected officials and any other individuals appropriate prepare a statement of educational goals that's what a curriculum committee would be involved with that is separate from the office of the superintendent I double checked with friends who are attorneys in other states and they hold High positions and I'm we'll leave it at that they check this is administrative law there is a separation the Board of Education in the state of Connecticut is a creature of the state it's independent of the town that means it's almost like you're the Congress and he's the president who writes the laws Congress does president is not allowed to write the laws this is what they call separation of powers this is federalism also state and federal as well these are very important issues that we cannot

292cross attorney Verano sits here is she here for the Board of Education or she here for the superintendent's office which is a part of the town of West Hartford I've had to understand this because the town that I came from in Pennsylvania our board of education is entirely separate from the town they have separate um taxing laws separate everything here here they're almost combined and as the Board of Education which is fully separate so when you have a committee just like you have a policy committee that's what the curriculum committee is about that's what the finance committee is about that's almost like the Committees that legislature has where where you have members of the Board of Ed who sit whether it's quarterly whether it's two members whether it's three members whether it's even one you

293hold the meeting and you say what are you interested in it says participation of parents of legis of elected officials of people in the in the residence that's what the committee does it is separate from what um Paul Vice Paul vicitness would actually be Paul by sinusanai if you had a curriculum committee we'd be sitting next to each other and you know what I'd be proud to sit next to him with that I end thank you and I like you harvest time thank you next we have Jim masic hi my name is excuse me Jim a second I'm a mentor and the town of West Hartford and in the whps district I've been a mentor for 10 years now um and in those 10 years I've mentored nine different students including six for most of

294this year I'm not a resident in the town of West Hartford I don't work in the town of West Hartford I Mentor in West Hartford and I'm here tonight in support of one person Miss Carol Wilkes Who is the the coordinator of the West Hartford Public Schools mentoring program ten years ago Carol convinced me despite all my misgivings to become a mentor and I can honestly say that's been the best decision that I've ever made in my life um in this my experience as a mentor in this program I'm gonna have to go back and forth here it's been more rewarding than anything I could have ever imagined unfortunately I recently found out that Carol will no longer be the coordinator of the mentor program going forward this was not her decision the only explanation

295that I've heard is that it isn't in the best interest of the district for the past 10 years I've witnessed firsthand how Carl has run this program how she's grown the program as I believe she's done since its Inception about 20 years ago I've seen our efforts to recruit new mentors and the time she spent training them and matching them with mentees following up after men after meeting sessions and being involved Carol's made herself available 24 7 to all the mentors the support staff and the mentee's families any questions issues or concerns that come up or dealt with immediately Carol has worked tirelessly to establish relationships within the community and Beyond including with the Chamber of Commerce local business businesses and groups and the governor's prevention program and more Carol's written submitted and secured grants

296to fund program events such as training seminars and the annual mental recognition breakfast that Paul spoke of earlier every year at that breakfast we hear stories from mentors from mentees and their families about the success of the program and acknowledging and praising Carol's role in that success as someone who is deeply committed to mentoring and waiting her four hours to speak I hope addresses that and having benefited from mentoring as a youth and constantly seeing the positive effects mentoring has on the students of the school district I can confidently state that in no way is the decision to take away the mentor program from Carol Wilkes in the best interest of the district it is certainly not in the best interest of the mentors she has recruited and established relationships with nor the support staff

297that you work so closely with and most important is not in the best interest of the students current or future in need of the benefits that mentoring provides to sum it up I would ask you to question those that made this decision as to how and why this could be considered in the best interests of the district I would appreciate a response from the board as a mentor volunteering my time to your District when you receive those answers thank you next we have Alex Thomas Alex Thomas good evening or should I almost say good morning to you guys um uh I am following Jim my good brother here we've waited quite some time to talk to you guys I am not a resident of West Hartford either I'm actually a resident of Hartford and it's

298the longest I've ever spent a meeting not in my own city um so I just um appreciate um you guys and the work that you guys do and I just got to say to you Dr Thomas uh heavy is the head that wears the crown I appreciate you my sister and the work that you do as a chairwoman of this board I came today to speak about um Carol uh Carol Miss Carol um Miss Carol recruited me to the mentor program and I dedic dedicated almost every Tuesday for this whole year mentoring um a sophomore at uh Connor high school so I got a chance to meet uh you know Mrs tamborello and Mr Hines up there at conard and I I love the school it's a great school I've got a chance to meet

299other school uh students there um get lunch on quite a few occasions and the mentor program has been a great benefit to me however regardless of all that my relationship with Miss Carol has been great as well she calls me every single Tuesday after I get out and make sure that I met with Sam even though she knows I'm going to meet with him she checks in with me and checks in to see if I was there on time how uh how the staff treated me at Connor even though they're great and is always speaking to me um greatly this past Thursday we had a meeting in the Town Hall Auditorium right here in this building and uh someone referred to her as the mentoring matriarch in that very meeting and um that's just Jim

300reached out to me and I heard the unfortunate news that we're talking about taking the mentoring program away from her and I just don't understand why you know I come from you know the city of Hartford and we have tons of great people that retire and uh go on to do bigger and better things at different districts but we have someone here that's willing to stay in your district and do great things in your District I just don't understand why you would want to see her go and uh I just would love as Jim said to hear some reasons why from you guys on that kind of stuff I know it's a late meeting uh you know I appreciate the work that you guys are doing but more than all you know I appreciate the

301work that Miss Carol has done and I just think we deserve an answer and she deserves the answer too and the work that she does for the town of West Hartford um that deserves the answer and the reason why that decision has been made I appreciate you too Jason take your chair brother it's a nice share all right you guys take care have a good night and I appreciate the work that you guys have done and you guys shouldn't get rid of Miss Carol honestly you really shouldn't s sklar Sharon all right not here any other comments uh to be yes please come to the podium share your name and town of residence hi Gene wiggin uh Middlebrook Road um I wanted to address the public comment policy which was voted on this evening one

302hour was spent tonight discussing and passing a policy which makes it more difficult for the public to approach the board of board of meetings countless hours have been spent discussing this policy what if we had left the comment policy in place the way it was and instead spent those hours discussing programs that benefit our school children wouldn't that have been a more effective use of time your public servants who are elected by and work for the citizens of West Hartford the Gale there wasn't a single email from the public in favor of the policy you adopted this evening continue to hear board members say they aren't trying to silence the public but just because it is said over and over again doesn't make it true tonight the West Harvard citizens have been silenced just a

303little bit more than they were of three weeks ago it's just a matter of time before another policy comes along silencing the public a little bit more and another policy silencing a little more and so on until there are no more places for our voices to be heard thank you is there anyone else I believe all of the visitors visitors would like to speak okay we will pause on comments from visitors we do not have an executive session now seeking a motion to adjourn so moved seconded second okay meeting adjourned at 11 40 I believe even [Music]