Board of Education Meeting of June 7, 2022

001[Applause] [Music] calling the meeting to order welcome to the west hartford public schools regular board of education meeting it is tuesday june the 7th 2022. charlotte may you please call the roll dr chang present mr goldman here dr harris here ms nazarella present miss poland here dr steinberg here dr thomas farquharson here student representative andrew maglio president student representative avery woods weber president thank you andrew may you lead us in the pledge of allegiance thank you we do not have a revision to the agenda order and we now are going it's time for public communications this is an opportunity where we're able to hear from you we're able to hear your thoughts your suggestions and your concerns we certainly welcome all that has to be shared but one thing we certainly emphasize is that it's

002important for your comments to be shared in a respectful way we have many people that are here especially our young people so we certainly want to model for them appropriate ways of communicating each individual will have three minutes to speak and there are up to 21 minutes per subject matter and please you can look over at charlotte she will hold up a yellow card for you to let you know when you have one minute remaining in your time and when your time has expired you will see a red card and we ask that you please respectfully take your seat at that time looking here we do have a list so we'll go down the list and if for some reason we do reach the max of 21 minutes with a particular subject matter we do

003have public comment at the end of the meeting as well first we have scott zwag [Applause] it's zweig scott swag 19 clay bar drive good evening yesterday i filed a lawsuit in hartford superior court seeking to enjoin the west hartford board of education for continuing their efforts to rename the conner chieftains and hall warriors the board's actions in reaching this point were fatally flawed and must be stopped the purpose of my lawsuit is simple to prevent the board from taking any actions that violated their own policies written policies and the rights of current and former western residents the board must be held accountable for their actions to bring about this historic change i respectfully request that the board take no action tonight on the team names and preserve the status quo until the july 7th

004hearing before the court i also respectfully request that the board coordinate with town officials to place the question about whether or not the team name should be changed on the ballot for the upcoming november election if the board will honor the results so will i an issue this important should not be left to seven people there are more than sixty thousand residents of west hartford their voices are important too their voices should be heard thank you for your time [Applause] thank you next we have joelle grove or grove [Applause] it's uh joel grove 143 walbridge sorry to disappoint this is not about mascots but maybe the assembled people will be interested um so thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight having two children in the west hartford public school system has been

005an enjoyable experience for my family and it served as an opportunity for everyone involved to learn and grow their school journey has fed my curiosity about the things they learn how they're guided and watching them evolve when my oldest daughter entered high school i was able to be exposed to another benefit of the high school experience sports it's been a good and valuable opportunity for her so far and has fed my curious nature about how things work and operate that curiosity ultimately brought me to why i'm here tonight it didn't take many games for me to notice the difference between the softball facilities provided for the girls and the baseball facilities for the boys in west hartford i wondered why do the boys have fenced in fields scoreboards dugouts electricity scored shits storage sheds and

006the girls do not why at both hall and conor do the fields consist of the bare minimum to play the game a single backstop a dirt infield and benches behind the screen when asking these questions to the athletic director and veteran parents of the baseball team the answers i received were two part one it's always been that way and two the money isn't available for improvements unless it comes from the parents okay challenge accepted last fall somehow some hall softball parents and fans generously raised over fifteen thousand dollars for a scoreboard and power to the hall softball field the experience was illuminating nothing happened quickly and as of today nothing has happened at all no scoreboard no power no improvements for fifteen thousand dollars we quickly realized that this method of improvement was not a

007viable option we thought it could be why were we as parents and fans working so hard to provide something that the school district should be obligated to do do you realize that softball and baseball are the only sports in west hartford public schools that don't share facilities it's easy to celebrate 50 years of title ix accomplishments when the boys and girls teams can share the same gym pool court or track but the systemic shortcomings are painfully obvious when comparing one place where shared facilities are not possible i'm here tonight to ask you to right this wrong i believe the board's equity and anti-racism vision can be applied to support this request the statement solemnly promises to quote identify and dismantle all elements of systemic racism and historic inequities and will strive to allocate resources and

008funds to meet the needs of all students while they directly targeting interventions and supports that address identified inequities i would say that the inequities based on gender apply in the situation and i can imagine many of the girls that experience these inequities on the softball field feel marginalized because of it it's always been that way is no longer an excuse to how these differences uh that these differences can remain i'm asking you to find the resources to bring both hall and connor facilities up to par with the baseball fields and other surrounding districts that have seen the value in supporting these students [Applause] thanks okay thank you so very much thank you and so with that let's now hear from eleanor farquhar [Applause] is the mic working awesome good afternoon miss chairwoman thank you for

009the opportunity to voice my opinion my name is eleanor farquhar and i'm an 8th grader at bristow middle school looking around the room perhaps i have a unique perspective on this topic first i completed the elementary school sel lesson three years ago when i was in first grade fifth grade i also have a background i also have some background information on this topic through a recent research project that i performed where i interviewed over 80 students regarding their opinions about seo i know from experience the sel isn't trying to brainwash children to make them gay transgender or someone who they aren't that is nonsense one of the primary lessons of scl is that people are different but that doesn't mean they should be treated differently with this knowledge i was baffled when i attended the

010most recent board of ed meeting and heard adults express fear about the so-called effects of sel these fears however were articulated without substantiating data or factual backup oddly many of these adults did not appear to be listening to the informative presentation provided by dr haskins and the assistant superintendent this makes me wonder whether any of those loudly protesting adults had ever gone into a modern classroom and witnessed an sel lesson because it seems to me that their fears were completely disconnected from reality eleanor i'm so sweet i was whole for some reason we're having sound matters again and i want to make sure that you're able to be heard so please hold just a moment we've just received notice that there are sound issues just a moment please i restart you can hear but we

011have viewers and they're not able to hear what's being captioned on air thank you for being patient and patiently waiting [Applause] yes eleanor please have a seat here we'll try to see if it works and ladies and gentlemen for those that are here eleanor spoke before and heard the sound did not go through so we are not trying to repeat what happened the last time so if you hit the button there there you go let's say testing testing testing test all right let's see if we hear a response should i restart yes i'm so proud of you you are really showing versatility flexibility in spider [Applause] somebody we're just going to the studio room to see if we can learn what's going on but thank you all again so much for your patience especially you

012eleanor yeah no problem [Music] so we're receiving a word that you can be heard just fine so please wait for our teammate to come back and then we will okay all right thank you and so you can go back to the podium yes so excellent thank you so much eleanor another round of applause please for eleanor [Applause] good afternoon miss chairwoman thank you for the opportunity to voice my opinion my name is eleanor farquhar and i'm an 8th grader at bristow middle school looking around the room perhaps i have a unique perspective on this topic first i completed the elementary school sel curriculum three years ago when i was in fifth grade i also have a bit of background information on this topic from a research project i recently completed where i interviewed over 80

013students regarding their opinions about sel i know from experience that sel isn't trying to brainwash kids to make them gay transgender or someone who they aren't that is nonsense one of the primary lessons of sel is that people are different but that doesn't mean they should be treated differently this knowledge i was baffled when i attended the most recent board of education meeting and heard adults express fear about the so-called effects of sel these fears however were articulated without substantiating data or factual backup oddly many of these adults did not even appear to be listening to the informative presentation provided by dr haskins and insist in the insist assistant superintendent this makes me wonder whether any of those loudly protesting adults had ever gone into a modern classroom and witnessed an sel lesson because it

014seems to me that their fears were completely disconnected from reality i can attest to the fact that sel is not something that students are afraid of nor does it have any effect on children's gender or identity sel isn't hurting students ignorance and bigotry is each year more than 1.8 million lgbtq kids ages 13 through 24 in the us seriously consider committing suicide that means that in the three minutes i've been given to speak tonight four kids as represented by these marvels will seriously consider committing suicide please think about your actions and how they're affecting those children because kids need your support and sel is a critical source for that support thank you for my time thank you next we have karen i will just say s and you can complete your last name thank you

015hello good evening karen scheinerman 29 clark drive i've not spoken to a board of ed meetings since 1995 when the racial balancing the school district was a hot button issue don't quote me on the date but it seems like yesterday i've lived in town for 39 years have raised my children and now have a grandchild attending morley school i'm a special education teacher both in the classroom and for the last 20 years in early intervention working in this field i work with emotions a lot tantruming toddlers fighting emotions cranky babies emotions and their corresponding labels start early we work with the adults in the room to help these little ones navigate their big and little emotions and the adults label these emotions and over time help them learn to navigate them as well recently my

016grandchild was excitedly talking with two friends about having a play date their minds were off and running suddenly my grandchild said some unkind things and they were marched off to the principal's office and parents were called turns out the unkind words resulted when playing with the two family dogs became part of the play date because after all dogs are part of the family unbeknownst to everyone my grandchild is deathly afraid of dogs at this time it changed the entire discussion of the play date for them the play date was now something to dread context matters calm heads matter resources and protocols matter with the clearer picture empathy and apologies diffuse the situation our administration is mandated to meet the needs of all the students in this town the sel curriculum presented over the past months

017has demonstrated its goals of doing just that the goals of teaching emotional regulation empathy and inclusivity is well thought out researched and based on state standards and it teaches children how to approach each other with respect and kindness fact in west hartford we have over 70 languages spoken the diverse languages cultures customs religion unbelievable how diverse we are fact bullying is alive and well in west harford i personally know three families whose loved ones have suffered from a needed intervention for severe eating disorders this year alone fact the who says the pandemic triggered a 25 increase in anxiety and depression in the first year of the pandemic alone fact mental health was mentioned in the media today over a million times the curriculum is necessary now more than ever students needs are more diverse and

018are already overburdened teachers need support and guidance emotions start at birth and continue growing and get bigger with each age the adults in the room need the equipment to help guide and manage these emotions in this ever-changing world the sel curriculum does just that and my grandchild is a boss on a horse go figure thank you next we have katie finn [Applause] hi my name is katie finn i live at 24 woodruff road and i have a first grader at walkett and a three-year-old who will start at charter oak next year thank you for taking the time to listen to my comments i wanted to speak today to share that i fully support all aspects of the social emotional learning curriculum i spent quite a bit of time reading through it after the last board

019meeting and watching many youtube read-alouds of the mentor texts i'm sure there are folks on the board and in the room who disagree with me specifically around the identity portion of the sel curriculum we can agree on one thing and that thing is that we all want what is best for our children i am in support of the sel curriculum because not only do i want what's best for my kids but for all kids who attend school here my family and i are new to west hartford before we settled we spoke with numerous principals special education teams dr haskins and i just kept thinking wow this is a place that fosters acceptance kindness compassion and curiosity about one another which are crucial parts of a school education it's often said that school should be a

020place for the core subjects and to leave to all leave all the other stuff out of it but what do we all remember about school my guess is that it's the social and emotional interactions that happen in between learning the facts of course we want our students to excel academically but what i found after spending time on the sel curriculum page is that west hartford supports our babies being the best versions of themselves by not only touting kindness and acceptance but by having a real framework for how to achieve that among our kids that is very developmentally appropriate on a personal note my children are black and my older son is autistic we are a little different i can say with confidence that no matter the difference and let's face it all kids feel different

021at some point teaching the full scope of identity is imperative for all our children when my children see a family in a book that looks like them oh it matters so much all children should be given that opportunity it doesn't even need to be talked about just seeing yourself reflected back is enormous whether it's a different of difference of religion race family structure gender identity sexual orientation or ability all of the mentor texts should continue to represent all students the clear benchmarks around identity for the littlest learners are i can express who i am and i show respect for others when they express who they are we could all benefit from reaching those benchmarks and if those are the only two things my children learn when they leave elementary school here in west hartford i

022will be eternally grateful i hope they can read and do a little math but really i would be beyond thrilled so thank you for your comprehensive compassionate and inclusive curriculum thank you next we have graham brown good evening everyone graeme brown speaking from bainbridge road i've spoken here a couple times i'll i'll keep it simple um the most consistent thing that you've heard so far tonight is that parents care for the well-being of their kids and i agree with the last speaker it's nice when kids can see their family structure reflected in a book i don't disagree with that at all i think the most important thing that this whole issue comes down to is parental rights hands down it's parental rights parents have the right to decide when to injure and to introduce certain

023subjects to their kids the thing that parents are here concerned about is not so much that some parents want to introduce their kids to the concept of gender identity and read them books about it it's that it's forced on their kids against their consent this is one of those books it's a fifth grade book it's required reading you can look it up if you're a parent here it's called it feels good to be yourself if you have a kid in west hartford school system in fifth grade this is something that they are required to read i'll read a couple pages from the books just so that everyone knows what's in it i think the artistry is good there are some pages that talk about being kind those are all good things but there are some

024parts that as a parent are undoubtedly a little controversial so there's one page here in particular that shows children when they're born as babies it says see when you were born you you couldn't tell people who you were or how you felt they looked at you and made a guess they being doctors maybe they got it right maybe they got it wrong what a baby's body looks like when they're born can be a clue to what the baby's gender will be but not always we have several doctors up here we've got doctors in the audience i think in general this this kind of material is portraying something as fact when it's not conclusive fact at all that doctors make guesses about babies and their and their physiology when they're born and about what their sex

025is this is the kind of thing that again it's it's something that takes a normal education a little too far i do not think that parents are bad if they want to teach this stuff to their kids or even let the schools do it for them i don't think that's that's totally up to them that's their rights as a parent other parents feel differently and their rights should be respected too because we're all different and again as the other speakers have said we are diverse that includes parents who disagree with this material being introduced to kids that should be heard that should be respected and parents should have the option to opt out of this those who don't have that freedom to keep it the same thank you next we have ryan lead uh my

026name is ryan ladd um i'm five highly street in west hartford um sort of uh not to this area at except for like the last eight years um i had found out about uh this sel program a few months ago and uh you know i agree with my previous speaker that you know i think it's the parents right to decide when and where a parent decides what's taught to their child uh i have a child who's about to enter kindergarten and i think maybe not at this age but definitely when they get older you know would be very confusing and you know if you're able to opt out for a kid to not take sex education why can't a kid be opted out of this um and i i don't agree that you know a

027kid has to have all this you know i've seen some of the curriculum i've seen some of the books depending on the you know what grade they're in and i don't agree with the i don't agree with the books i don't agree how they're forcing this on us i don't agree that it was put into effect without talking to the parents first i believe that you know it should have been put past the parents first you know the the whole point of the school board is to see how the parents respond to it and you know that wasn't done i think the parents should have the say as to whether this goes forward and it was never done so this is now being done backwards um now that's being done like this i i think

028there should be some way put in motion that allows the parents to decide how you move forward basically you know if some some kids don't want to if some parents don't want their kids to be part of it you know something to opt out of it or you know equivalent version thank you [Applause] thank you next we have tom midney tom m [Applause] yeah i'm tom midney i'm from originally from the wood pond area i'm here to talk about my concerns with the uh the mascot naming i'm concerned because it sounds like it's a done deal when you pick up this piece of paper and i agree with mr zog that there are some concerns about the way this was done but to me the bigger concern is i think quite frankly that as a

029point of order the board has done a real disservice here to the town by coupling this decision they're two different names or two different high schools and that's what i'm going to address here because in the west hartford news there was a comment made about native stereotypes and using native names to ridicule i can somewhat understand chieftains being a little bit of a concern because it's generally from tribal culture but what does that have to do with warriors by definition warriors has no reference at all to native americans it is a generic term and by definition it is a braver experienced soldier or fighter a person experienced in conflict or battle it's not restricted to native americans it's a generic term it applies to many groups over our history from the spartans of greece to

030the current members of our country's armed forces um i know you've heard of wounded warrior project i hate to say it there's the golden state warriors none of that has to do with native americans it's a generic term um my concern is that there's over sent over sensitivity here that's gone way beyond reasonable considerations on this topic and i'm really defending the whole warriors because it bothers me i don't think there's a problem with that name um the board should not stretch its actions beyond based on over sensitivity it should not overstep its bounds on this the name warriors has absolutely no correlation to native stereotypes or ridicule by actual definition it's actually a great nickname for sports teams brave participants in battle that's why you have the golden state warriors i think the board

031needs to keep perspective on this and stick with this facts at hand the name's not in violation for hall's standpoint it should be defended there have been voice concerns that there's a link to prior imagery i was involved in 2015 i spoke in 2015 we got rid of the imagery if there's a concern with prior imagery change the imagery there's no problem with the name warriors in fact why not present that in a better manner why not present warriors as representing our brave veterans and members of our armed forces why not focus your efforts on redefining the name's image to something we can all be proud of that would maintain the legacy in this town and at the same time in an improved manner to me it would be a win-win so i think in

032in summary i don't understand why you've coupled the decision i think the whole warriors is a proud name and it should remain i think because of a point of order that you guys should not make this a final decision and should consider one on its individual merits and i believe warriors has no negative connotation at all it could be re-imaged to be something that represents our armed forces and everybody be very proud of that thank you [Applause] thank you next we have jeff [Applause] good evening my name is uh jeff senrth 24 price boulevard a proud parent of a seven-year-old girl named elizabeth and um i'm here tonight out of concern for the stl program um basically in my opinion education is supposed to be about information giving our children the the tools to achieve

033their goals um i have a problem with gender identity politics being introduced mandatorily as part of the curriculum um i read two books today one one was something that grant had um read from you earlier and the other one was introducing teddy at a kindergarten level which seems a little bit early to be introduced in that kind of material to kids in any case i've learned a lot just listening to people speak tonight especially eleanor which is a testament to the west hartford school system someone eighth grade to be that articulate and get up and speak in front of all these people but um basically i would like to suggest that you make the uh that part of the curriculum an optional part of the curriculum so that's about it thank you thank you we

034have space for one more speaker on the topic of seo and so i'll call the next name and if you are here to speak on seo please do come to the podium but any other comments regarding scl if you can please reserve your comments for the end of the meeting next we have ariella [Applause] no i'm still going down the list those that have signed up [Applause] hello my name is ariela elroy 1930 boulevard i i just wanted to say that we've seen a lot of heartbreak this spring the violence in this country is stunning and one of the things that keeps me really hopeful for the world is that my kids are actually growing up in the west hartford public school system i'm grateful for the leadership of this district the outstanding teachers and

035the curriculum that includes a well-researched sel component a bit about my family my kids stayed home last year from school and because of they had a baby sister and my mother is very immunocompromised so they were socially isolated to the extreme uh you know when it was time for them to go back to school they changed schools so they not only didn't we're out of practice with you know social interaction with others they knew nobody in their in their school at all and it was really scary sending them back um you know during the year and a half at home they did basically what a lot of us did they had crazy haircuts and then they decided to grow it long instead of letting me cut their hair anymore uh you know we went on

036walks we baked they hatched chickens it it was a wild year and there was a lot of good that came from it but they really they just they came to back to school really raw and they did not have the social skills at all to succeed at school when they came back my my first grader he was freaking out on the first day so much that they had to call administrators out of the school to carry him into the school and he was like screaming and crying these kids were they were not prepared and miraculously he came home from the first day of school okay it was like a miracle and and the school is really showing us over and over and over again that the sel curriculum works these kids are safe they're learning

037how to interact with each other they're learning how to treat each other with respect they're brought all of the quirkiness that they developed in quarantine with me and i apologize to them about that but they brought it all to school and they were accepted they made friends they're making friends with kids who don't speak english and it's really just it's been fantastic to see and the fact that they are thriving and doing well in school now at the end of their first school year back is a lot of it has to do with the seo so i just wanted to thank you very much what you're doing is working and uh keep going so thank you [Applause] thank you again we've reached our max on the sub comments being made on the subject of seo

038next we have addie lauren on the list [Applause] good evening i'm attie lorden i live at 561 park road i'm not here to talk about aciel or mascots i'm here to talk about procedures and policies kind of brings in mascots and seo i suppose but here we go i have three children a connored graduate and a seventh grader and a third grader so i'm the old parent i started asking about finance and that onion has the gift that keeps on giving it's just layers and layers and unfortunately it has led to an eye opening for me about procedures and policies and how they're not followed in west hartford we in 2015 talked about the mascots and for seven years we were silent suddenly there's a rush to get rid of chieftain to get rid of

039warrior why why is beth bai and tracy wilson coming to testify against these names after seven years well why is senator austin announcing that there's three million bond coming to west hartford well miss austin is the one that put it through in the budget for education for the native american education curriculum which we don't have now miss beth bai is married to miss wilson and miss beth bai's ex-husband is on the bond commission and i believe dr farquharson you're an employee of miss buy and miss austin's press secretary announced it so we have a connection there connect the dots it's not the only money that's flowing in it's not the only money made from equity and from education the question is where is that money going discrepancies have been found have been highlighted not just

040in the budget but in schools finance questions are met with hostility and bullying there are questions of unimp employment practices cronyism co-mingling coercion and collusion we have hired people who have no place in the position they hold they have no experience they have no educational background yet they are in positions where they make decisions for our children for our money and parents who asked are vilified mr dodge you actually work for roy and leroy this is an education lobbyist and they say we put clients in front of right decision makers decision makers for us and our money excuse me your time is up thank you let me tell you the foundation is not cracking it's rotten and the house of cards is falling thank you next we have patricia billings thank you for your honesty

041thank you so much and yes we also have uh paula who is also an scil i believe thank you and we have zay zai grove and i believe you're speaking on a different subject matter [Applause] hi i'm jane grove um i'm talking about softball kind of got lost in everything um uh i'm a junior at hall high school and i've been playing softball for two seasons because my first season got cut short because of covid uh and i've always noticed the inequities between softball and uh baseball in west hartford ever since i was young playing rec softball at sterling field and i always watch the boys play it their their little league complexes with scoreboards and outfield fences and full dugouts while we were stuck behind just a singular fence as our dugout um and

042when i entered hall high school i these these uh inequalities these inequalities became further illuminated when we traveled to other schools and i saw that the softball the softball facilities were were exactly on par with the baseball facilities at those high schools when i come back home and play play softball at hall our field is is much [Music] is in much lower condition than the baseball fields and uh that's that's what i'm here to to ask the school board about um is an updating of the softball field to to be on par with with the likes of the baseball field because i feel that that's what softball players deserve is equal facilities equal opportunities as the baseball players and and i want uh softball players to be able to feel as if they're their sport

043and their their careers matter just as much as uh the baseball players do at hall in it and at hall and conord and uh the entire town of west hartford thank you next we have jackie [Applause] all right hi everyone thank you for the opportunity to speak today my name is jackie hamid i'm a student at hall high school and i also play on the softball team so yeah i'm just going to talk about the softball facilities the hall softball fields are in bad shape compared to the hall baseball fields the softball dugouts are just a fence and a bench other schools have gated dugouts for safety and a roof for shade and rain protection but our singular fence doesn't protect us from every foul ball one of our teammates for example the other day

044was hit in the head by a foul ball which wouldn't have happened if our dugouts were more developed we don't have a scoreboard either despite raising enough donation money to get one installed we play on other schools as fields where we are able to read the number of runs outs strikes and balls as well as the inning number but at hall we have to keep track of these things in our heads parents watching on the sidelines at hall can't look up at a scoreboard to see how the game is going this clear disparity in funding between the baseball field versus the softball field should be looked into especially because the hall softball field is or softball program is so strong but even if our team had a losing record i think we'd still be as

045deserving of equal facilities as if we were a winning team it feels deflating to travel to schools that have batting cages and practice nets next to their fields along with a nice dugout and a scoreboard and a home run fence i and many other hall softball players have noticed this huge difference between our school and other schools and the difference between baseball and softball fields i think it's only fair that both teams are given the opportunity to practice and play on fields that help not hurt us and for a school that prioritizes and promotes equality hall should make the changes necessary to improve the softball facilities thank you thank you next we have caroline hi um i'm caroline austin i play softball for connord i've been playing for a very long time and i also

046have nothing prepared so um but i really think jane and jackie hit it over the head i've been a part of the connor softball program since i was a freshman and we've consistently been we've our equipment has not been you know as well-rounded or as accessible to compared to the baseball team and i'm i believe that's something we've spoken out for change for and it's it's always in our own parts and duties to fund on our own which is really tricky as a softball team that had a losing record last year and the years before but now um i just i'm really grateful for the experience i've had but i do really think that there's room for improvement so thank you for listening to my unprepared speech thanks thank you next we have tatiana okay

047that's all right next we have diane with devon it's a duo i believe okay hi i'm diane wilcutz 195 auburn road and here is devin devin is one of my clients i work as an education advocate on behalf of students with disabilities and uh one of the and actually quite a few in west hartford um i'm really concerned about a board practice that has been brought to my attention um i'm very concerned that the board may be inadvertently discriminating against students with disabilities and devin is the person who brought this to my attention devin should be graduating he's in 12th grade he should be graduating this year but he has been told by the district administration that he will not be permitted to walk in graduation because he is missing a credit now it is

048not uncommon for students with disabilities to take longer than garden variety student to graduate the idea that the town is is effectively saying well if you're a student with disabilities you're not allowed to graduate with your with your classmates i was basically told no this is true for everybody we don't let anybody who doesn't have all their credits graduate in devon's case it is because he had programs ieps throughout and he did what he was supposed to do he took the classes he was required to take there were a lot of remedial classes that took the place of graduation requirements between that and his difficulties with the pandemic just like a lot of other kids he is one credit short and all he wants to do is graduate with his friends to walk in graduation

049not receive a diploma give him a folder or something but let him walk in graduation with his peers i'm really concerned that west hartford is excluding him and i'm concerned that from what i understand when i communicated with the superintendent and with the director of special ed that this is a west hartford policy that this is what we do we exclude students with disabilities who take longer than other students to complete their graduation requirements and i hope that you can intervene this is an issue whether we help evan walk on tuesday or not and i hope we will this issue is not going away so thank you for your time thank you next we have shin mall i believe but i believe it's on seo and so next and then laurie also on seo and

050mary okay thank you for your honesty thank you and getchan [Music] if i if it's on scl if you can please reserve your comments for the end of the meeting [Applause] uh [Applause] my name is getch i live on 50 60 late street this gender war on our children is happening excuse me sir that's on seo so i'm going to ask you to reserve your comments for the end of the meeting social emotional learning and gender are the same yes and within the context of sel yes so if you can please reserve your comments you welcome hearing you from you we've reached the max of how many we can hear per subject matter and we do have public comments at the end of the meeting okay thank you thank you do we have anyone else

051in the audience who would like to make a comment on any other subject matter apart from sel yes please come to the podium and share your name and address thank you [Applause] here i go again cindy gothier manchester circle um speaking on behalf of children with special needs i have been here the last few meetings expressing my concerns about how differently children in the special education system are treated in our town and have another case in point i requested another ppt meeting two weeks ago and in the meeting every one of my daughter's teachers said she was not a behavioral problem she was respectful she's polite she's a good kid and again was refused the school that i would like the town to send her to because connor cannot give her what she needs to

052be successful and i was told you can ask again mom but again i'm going to say no and they offered me the strive program which is for children with behavioral issues in which they had just finished telling me my children my child does not have so this just proves my point the town just keeps giving me all this wonderful information to just prove how right i am and something needs to change this breaks my heart for this young man and it's not right our children with special needs deserve exactly what every a student in this town gets and we put way too much focus on those children because they're making the town's numbers look better and that's bull my child deserves an education she's going to be a senior next year and i have failed

053her again because now another year gone by where this town has done nothing to support me thank you any other comments yes please in the rear please come to the podium [Applause] hi thank you it's mark stewart greenstein i'm at 2 cross hill road and it's two reactions and one other comment reaction one madam i endorse what you're asking for no system should be emotionally hurting a student who's trying hard we can have standards but let the kid walk now speaking of standards i'm not sure we have standards across the board in ways that west hartford really wants to uphold we we're a good well-known school system because we have standards but this morning outside of connor i was walking the pe class had 16 students 12 of whom choose to just sit and not

054do any exercise in pe class i asked the teacher so you know what kind of encouragement because these kids probably deserve d's or f's i didn't get much of a response you know four of the kids were doing their exercises mostly with footballs the others were on their cell phones on their butts and if we can't get kids to do pe with some motivation parents i think should be told um my one comment about elevating west hartford the most and i i hope dr moore you can be behind this in whatever role you take on i think west hartford could get ahead of a game it's not a game it's serious at least two legislators will be introducing choice in school proposals statewide the divisiveness that you see here is so big and will get

055worse west hartford might want to adopt as a few parents have already said let parents choose i mean even within a single building when i went to king philip excuse me sir part although you're not referencing or using scl it sounds like you're speaking on that subject uh it's it's let's take it out it's but i'm going to whether to vaccinate whether to have so please excuse me excuse me as i was saying we want to hear from you but anything on rega in regard to social emotional learning or something they're about we have public comment at the end of the meeting the board feels is divisive a nice solution might be real choice within west hartford's many schools even within a building like king phillip which is very divided anyway there might be some

056parents that want certain procedures others that want other procedures and the the the real acute one is going to be how much or whether to arm schools or not it's a biggie maybe west hartford can get get in front of it thanks thank you any other comments from anyone in the audience all right thank you so much and again we have those who are on the list already speaking on scl we do have you listed and please do share your comments at the end of the meeting also so we will now put a pause on public communications and we will now go into unfinished business uh before doing so though i'd like to make a motion i move that we go into executive session for the purpose of discussing strategy with respect to pending litigation

057to which the board of education is a party to witness swag at all versus west hartford public board of edge west hartford board of education at all and that we invite superintendent tom moore assistant superintendent andy murrow corporation council dallas dodge deputy corporation council gina varano and attorney james healey of the law firm of calgary and murphy to join us is there a second second any discussion all in favor say aye aye aye any oppose all right thank you we're going to go into executive session [Music] hello walking around uh [Music] thanks again for everything you're welcome jason thank you all right thank you all so very much for your patience thank you just want to share with you that we have just held an executive session to discuss strategy with respect to the lawsuit

058that was filed earlier today by attorneys scott zwag and mary mcgowan in order to maintain attorney-client privilege and out of respect for our duty of confidentiality under the town code of ethics i would ask board members to not comment on the substance of what was discussed in executive session i will note however that i personally feel confident that the lawsuit filed by attorney zwag is unlikely to succeed on the merits this lawsuit was just filed today however i am aware of no court order or any other legal reason prohibiting us from proceeding to a vote on item 3a with that we will move on to item 3a with the agenda i would like to invite dr andy murrow mr zan detune mr jamal heinz mr jason siegel students and committee representatives to unveil the new

059mascot names and discuss the selection process i will be making separate motions to approve the name change for each school but for the sake of efficiency i would ask that we debate and discuss the new names that have been recommended jointly so please do come to the table so once again i want to say thank you so much for your patience and we look forward to hearing what you have to share so as we get set up i want to apologize to the students and the committee members who have been very patient tonight uh but before also we begin our presentation i wanted to take a moment and update you on a search process that has been underway as you know from our former two countered principals that are here in the room there is

060a very high bar for connerd's stewardship and leadership and when we began our search process for the next leader we were looking for someone who embraced the diversity of connor's community and would help students develop positive self-identities and the critical skills that they need both in school and after graduation after an extensive search process one candidate rose to the top of a very competitive pool of candidates as the clear leader for connor's future everyone who engages with this man knows his warmth his commitment to students and his absolute dedication to connor high school he goes the extra distance to know all students at connort not just in the hallways but in classrooms on athletic fields and on the performance stage please join me in congratulating mr jamal heinz who has been appointed as connor's permanent

061principal [Applause] i have every confidence as does the executive team in mr hein's leadership ability i know that you who know him well will be excited for him as well as he continues on for the remainder of this year and then on uh for next year and the future at connor so earlier this year the board approved motions discontinuing the use of both mascot names and directed us to oversee a process to develop new mascot names for hall and for conor and in doing so students at both schools focused on the idea that a mascot should be something that has the potential to include everyone at the school and embraces the positive qualities that they see in themselves and in their school community with this in mind both schools began an inclusive process that they're

062proud to share with you tonight we'll get the screen going and i'll turn this over to mr zatun who won the coin toss and we'll be introducing his team albeit limited due to the multiple end of the year commitments uh that we have at this time of the year he will expand on the process and he will then unveil hall's new mascot name thanks uh yeah so first uh thanks everyone for the process we would like to do is start by thanking the committee who worked so hard on this and so here are the students teachers coaches alumni who are part of our committee we do have sebastian fortuna he is a one of our teachers graphic teachers he's also our esports coach may i suggest using the other i'm not sure is honey i'll

063sure oh okay oh there we go uh so as i was saying as i was saying i just like to thank the members of committee we have sebastian fortuna here as introducing we also have one of our students avi jacobs who is also part of that committee who are just really uh very helpful in just kind of working through the entire process as we were doing that and so a little bit of our timeline back in february 9th we started with soliciting suggestions from the student body we also emailed the 8th graders at kp and bristow looking for those suggestions and we were able to get over 200 suggestions from the student body and with that we also had to ask them for like a rationale of thought process to why why they chose it

064not just picking names and and um you know and we kind of uh brought it into our vision of the graduate and looking about the theme of and what hall high school represents and and the important things that that that we want to have it um kind of emulate over time so we got it oh we go back uh it's all right let's go back sorry for the titans uh in there too late thanks tomorrow so you're good um and so the quarterfinals we had about 10 uh 10 top names we had students picked up to two and we had over a thousand votes so the students were really getting into it really kind of getting involved in that process we then narrowed it down to four finalists uh that that we had we still

065had a lot of votes and then we got down to three votes and this is where the committees kind of helped us kind of narrow the focus and they had the idea of if we had a graphics class and more mr fortuna's class come up with some like images some suggestions so so people could start visualizing and not just have it be part of the name and so when we did that uh ultimately we got through the voting and we got to a consensus and then there you go mr hines here's what the hall titans um and you can see the image here with the h and the you know the t embedded in there uh and this is a suggested image that was created by elizabeth karam class of 24 she was we asked

066her to come but she wasn't able to come tonight but we're really just impressed with that image and it really just kind of stuck out we know at this point we still may work with the graphics classes work with student body to see maybe just trying to refine the image or maybe create what sometimes some schools will do like a a primary and a secondary like i know in farmington high school when they did it they created kind of a few different to choose from depending on the situation maybe it you know different on a uniform versus a field versus different pieces so so we may still look to do that in that process but we really thought this one was just really kind of popped out um and and represented what we wanted with

067the idea of hall titans and so in the next slide you can see a little bit of you know why it was chosen and these are the student feedback where when they recommended titans this is what they had talked about so you know really just a titan could be anyone with any abilities and how this really represents the diversity in our school the titans are strong and compassionate and never give up it represents how on the inside all of us are strong and the definition of a titan is a person or thing a very great strength intellect or importance this can respect all of our great achievement sports and academics at hall and i just thought those were really great statements that really kind of um represented you know all that we stand for at

068hall high school and so so that was our our process kind of in a nutshell um and going from there so i don't know if there was either any questions or if you want to go to connor yeah sure so i'll switch it over to my counterpart jamal all right so connor high school i want to initially thank um our our committee members uh mexico who is our committee chair student activities coordinator and coach kelly casey who couldn't be here today matt sarsomo also was on the committee as well as pj foley who couldn't be here eddie lydos is gracing us with his presence as well we're really excited about him being here um and then one of our one of our four committee members um he's one of three who was one of the

069artists that submitted one of the prototypes that we're going to be looking at as well biolume class of 2024. um this man tristan mangini who was one of our school counselors she was on the committee she can't be here today then we have the brothers trong and tai uh nguyen class of 2024 there are also artists who contributed as well to this process so we were really excited um with all of them elizabeth novak who is parent of connor alum and then sitting to my left is emily o'keefe and emily was instrumental in a piece of this campaign that i'm going to talk to you about because we had the same process that hall had but our results were a little bit different and i'm looking forward to talking to you about that as well

070because um the difference is is remarkable and emily and the committee had a huge part in influencing how the the final result happened heather russell is is here in attendance as well she's a coach and a teacher cindy branich who couldn't be here uh but she also was on the committee so committee met three times um first time was just sort of to set up the other two meetings and protocols and things of that nature then they had a virtual meeting they may have had two um virtual meetings the first one was once again to just sift through the different choices and then after that um talk about how we were going to um take a look at the data so here was our timeline we too february 9th had over 200 suggestions and with

071the hopes of you know narrowing it down to the top 10 for voting contrary to mr zattoon's student body our kids were just like kind of not feeling any of these right now and so it was interesting because not there wasn't a lot of buy-in just yet um so the committee was formed and it was they were tasked with trying to figure out how do we get our student body fired up about this what are some things that we can do while they're going through this process we were able to narrow it down to the top four um there were we won the top three but there was a tie for third so it ended up being um four options so we had that voting during may 11th but once again kids still were trying

072to figure out rationale what they wanted to get behind how could they see themselves as some of the other suggestions and again it was a little bit better as far as the voting went but there was still something that we needed to do more of and the committee could put their heads together um and then emily and the rest of the committee members started to figure out well maybe students are having a difficult time conceptualizing seeing themselves as a whatever and maybe we need to talk about the principles because this is a this is a group school-wide that they really gravitate towards this feeling togetherness they like to do things together they want to make sure that everybody is included and the committee felt that that was a really really important um aspect of the

073selection process for them to highlight and so they put together poster we had posters um with the rationale the name and then three sort of prototype samples that could possibly be the the um mascot symbol or the image and so kids were then taking a look in the hallways having discussions this was when it was the fun part they were having discussions in the hall um emily would sort of sort of chime in to some discussion she may slide into a discussion listen to what kids are saying then slide back out and come and tell the committee like hey this is sort of what's going on in the in the school these are the conversations that kids are having about the mascot situation let's think about how we really want to get everybody fired up

074so it was an all-out campaign so from may 11 to may 18th the posters went up the community um uh campaign started to happen and kids had a whole week to have conversations to debate to talk about why they liked what they did and why they didn't to hash out the rationale and really talk about all right where are we going to have our buy-in what can we hold our hats on and what will keep us fired up when when we run out of the tunnel or when we come onto the court or when we're sitting in the stands cheering our other student athletes on um when we go into the community we want something that we're proud of and that represents those the integrity the the the um loyalty and the togetherness that we

075find so important so once that last push happened with the campaign the week later kids couldn't wait to get into community and vote and so we had the final vote in community as a school and it wasn't even close we then came to the conclusion that there's no other choice we've got to be the countered red wolves and kids loved the idea of being a part of a pack they love the idea that the red wolf is is unique it's rare you can see red wolves right here in connecticut um they love the idea that they're courageous they're territorial they will do anything pack first um those were ideals that they could hang their hats on and then they started to talk about ooh the red sea's gone but we could be the wolf's death

076oh can you imagine everybody howling when we were running out at night through whatever this is gonna be awesome they started to talk about the the marketing they started to talk about the way that they can just galvanize the the whole community behind this and our artists probably 10 minutes after we started to really nail down the options these young men started firing off prototypes and they're amazing and we're looking forward to having all three work together and bring in hopefully um graphic artist department or even a professional that may want to give them some tips on how to solidify and fine-tune what we already think is a a really cool name um kids and faculty alike um it was over 60 for faculty over 60 percent for every grade including the 8th graders that

077we reached down to bristol and sedwig and luckily we had emily's brother who was giving her intel down at sedgwick and she was bringing that intel up to our commute our committee as well so we were really working to try and fold in all voices and get that total buy-in and our students and the students who are going to be coming up next year can't wait and we're looking so forward to now pushing forward this opportunity to bring the community together under uh dare i say it full moon let's go get em red wolves thank you so much oh here's what here are some of the comments the wolf has an innate understanding of the value of teamwork wolves are fiercely loyal to their pack they are the ultimate team players wolves are expert communicators

078brave and loyal if you ever watch them and observe them on those nature shows they communicate and they coordinate their hunting strategies for the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack by rudyard kepling red wolves are rare and connected with connecticut through natural habitat and conservation at beers lee zoo in bridgeport connecticut so you can see them and what's a fun fact too is wolves the red wolf is very closely related to coyotes and so they're they're genetically very very close um you can even take a look at them they look very similar depending on on the look and where they're living and so it's really cool we had you know some of the other suggestions but this was the one that rose to the top

079and was the clear favorite across the board questions discussion so again i wanted to thank um really all of our committees i know that this has been a a long process that's taken up a fair amount of everyone's time and all of the students that participated in this and the groups are here to answer any questions you might have all right thank you so much yeah you can put the screen up charlotte if you can have the screen to go up please thank well you you so much so now that the secrets have been revealed teammates questions comments you may have yes andrew oh and now it is okay um for the imagery is that something that would the same committee decide that or would that be like a school-wide referendum or a more unitary

080mr hines if you could just turn your mic on um it'll be a little bit of both um we're i'm gonna wait for some direction from from the board of central office as to how they want us to proceed moving forward but um we hope to include um the the committee members that submitted some of the sketching um and then of course they'll have a wide var a variety of selections that kids can select from faculty members as well so we'll go through that process as well hopefully to be able to to have student voice faculty voice um because they're they're the ones that are going to want to live with it connect with it and really push it out there moving forward sorry just to piggyback on that a little bit is um you

081know i think it's a kind of a combination of all those you know at least at hall we'd probably look at keeping that committee together but you know now that we've revealed the name if there's some other uh students um or even faculty people who want to join the committee for the kind of that final imagery um you know i think we're hoping to to look at even getting some uh kind of some professional people in there just kind of help sometimes with you know i don't know if sebastian want to talk about it he's a little bit more articulate about you know color and and and scheme things so that when you go out to get the the various um you know the very swag and things that you know you talk about certain

082uh here i don't know if i want to put you on the spot so some of the things you want to focus on when especially selecting colors and making sure that can be represented both in print fabric um in lights everything so making sure that you use a certain color tone uh for everything so we're definitely gonna make sure that a professional will be there to make sure that all the colors will be used correctly and then whether it's print fabric anything the color is represented correctly and obviously to fix up any kind of lines or anything that a student may have missed avery um so this may be a question that members of the board or that will be answered later but in regards to um merchandise and school imagery like the posters that

083we have on the walls um is there a plan for how we're going to be phasing out the retired names and adding in um the new names you wanna i can talk about a little bit in general and then andy if you wanna jump in so this is one of those things that this is the switch between the names and the mascots and this is one of the things that goes back from seven years ago and some people have asked questions about costs and things like that we've phased out the old names and the mascots pretty significantly at both schools even in uniforms there's a few left so what happens is a lot of that phase out happens with uniforms over time is the natural progression is varsity uniform become jv uniform become freshman uniforms

084and so you'll see that switch over time in the coming years in terms of in the building there isn't a lot of things left that say chieftains and warriors at the two plays we've chosen to go with conor hall at both schools over the past seven years because of um what's happened in the past so realistically you're just talking about a couple spots in the gym floor which will be sanded and then and painted over and then the end zones so the solution for all those things is really just a matter of paint um so yeah the end zones like for example would be painted over but you wouldn't replace all the turf you'll paint them over um that's what they do it foxborough stains what they do at giant stadium there's stencils that you

085use and then eventually you'd replace that enzyme you replace the turf field naturally i hope that answers the question yeah thank you so it sounds like it's going to be relatively simple yeah claire um yes i wanted to thank especially the students who took the time to be part of this process but wondered if any of you would like to speak and share what the experience was like or what you learned about taking this different kind of role in your school um so um so i asked to be part of this committee back in march because i wanted to have a say in the new name of the school um as part of the committee we discussed a bunch of new names suggested by students um we reviewed a lot of them every single friday

086to ensure that the new names were selected by the students and represented the whole community as a member of the school i'm happy that we chose titans i think that it represents hall very well um and i'm excited to see the new titans in the future coming to the school and anyone from hall or from conner that want to share okay other questions comments jason um yeah i just also want to really echo the thanks and and appreciation for the thoughtfulness that went into the process um and you know i i i really enjoy learning about how the the process created new conversations uh at the school and um and you know i think one thing that you know is that i hope those conversations continue happening right that continue what how each generation of

087students that comes will will will define that and um and so i'm curious you know how how might you know the uh these these these new names um you know uh sort of inspire other conversations or continue the culture of of the high schools maybe in ways that haven't done before or or to continue that a tradition that has been has been effective thanks i'll speak to that i think part of the excitement is sort of seeing how students moving forward interpret what it means to be a red wolf i think that you know what's going to be exciting as well is having those discussions in community um always going back to those principles of of you know what it means that loyalty that togetherness just really thinking about who we are and it's a

088way to continue to check you know in a in an easy way are we lining up with those principles that we know are are established as vision of the graduate and to be good people but it's also a part of who we are and we we really are looking forward to folding those those concepts um into the climate and culture of our school and it's going to be a part of what we do and we'll be re revisiting and re referencing what it means to be a red wolf um just like we used to with the other name as well it's it's going to be an integral part of who we are and how we have discussions too always other questions or comments if i may sitting right there yes not to put you on

089the spot but he put you on the spot they put you on this rod may ask and if you don't feel comfortable then that's what motivated you to be so involved in helping to get to the finish line um mr sosmo asked if i would be interested in helping so i decided that um i knew people that would be talking about it and i have friends that i've heard talking about it so i just decided that it'd be good to um kind of step up and see what other people were saying to help let them know what they were saying well i hope i'm not speaking out of turn for my colleagues here but very proud of you and very proud of you as well for being willing to receive and engage with others and

090hear their thoughts and work towards a common goal so very good for the both of you we're proud of you can i just interject a little bit on emily's behalf um emily is downplaying her involvement and i appreciate her modesty but she really helped organize the campaign talking to kids that's an understatement as to how important that piece is to be able to navigate those spaces um and really understand explicitly what kids are feeling about because she'll be able to get you know an untethered ex response they'll tell her the real feeling where we may get something that's guarded or lukewarm so it was really important that she was able to tap into those different circles and come back and say listen we need to change this up and this is what we need to

091do in all out blitz and here's how it needs to happen and so working her voice was so important in that room amongst adults and amongst some some leaders in the school emily really made sure that we understood what the kids were thinking nicely done that's a skill set nicely other questions or comments teammates ethan i just have a minor question is it you don't have to do it now i'd be interested to see what the other three names were for each school if you guys can send it because this is sort of the mystery just curious my i will share ethan that that the my personal favorite the hall monitors got very little traction we had a whole little image of the little gecko it was it was going to be spectacular didn't get

092the votes didn't make it it didn't make the cut no oh yeah student section could have been time out it was we had a whole plan other thoughts or comments all right receiving none then i am seeking a motion that we approve the recommendation of the superintendent that the name titans replace the name warrior as the mascot for hall high school is there a second second and we'll have discussion all right we're going to proceed with a roll call vote oh discussion yes ethan i don't know if this is discussion it's a comment um this has nothing to do with you all when the original debate over the team mass got started most of the emails that were sent to the board for the change of the names emphasized the importance of healing the town

093the implication being that the past names were divisive however again it has nothing to do with the students or the teachers or the administration i feel that the process was rushed we had only two months during the holiday season to discuss when we asked then the motion was asked to extend it for a month it failed which is i understand when part of the process of the two months was to look and see what the feedback would be from the um students from the community and from native american tribes the student feedback we got was negative to the change the community was mixed at least i thought it was mixed again a subject opinion and even though he came two to three months late the one native american who took the time to come talk

094to us was emphatic about not changing it so i actually like the names i just don't like the process i would which again i don't you know is on here um i just think it's important to take time to delay get people to buy in and just heal the town so to speak because there's just too many issues that devises this so therefore i will vote no but i figured i must explain it so thank you thank you ethan i appreciate your your thoughts and um i will say that i appreciate your thoughts and we can respectfully disagree on how the process took place but thank you again for your candor i realize it won't change any other uh points for discussion with the motion that's on the floor okay yes deb i want to

095say that regardless of how anyone feels about the names chieftains and warriors i think the community can all get behind the civic engagement and the sense of community that has happened at both high schools as a result of this process and the sense of empowerment for the students so this is an exciting new chapter for our district and i would encourage our town to come out and support the titans and the red wolves i do appreciate for tom and for the group of you there were people whose names i recognize who were opposed to the process who you included in the committee so thank you for that i thought that was good other points for discussion with the current motion on the floor in regard to accepting the recommended name of titans for hall as

096the mascot hearing none charlotte may you please call the roll dr chang yes mr goldman no dr harris no miss nazarella yes miss poland yes dr steinberg yes dr thomas farquharson yes the yeses have it so hall your new mascot name is now the hall titans all right now moving on to the next motion seeking seeking a motion to approve the recommendation of the superintendent that the name red wolves replaced the name chieftain as the mascot for connor high school is there a motion so moved a second i second discussion hearing none charlotte may you please call the roll dr chang yes mr goldman no dr harris no miss nazarella yes miss poland yes dr steinberg yes dr thomas farquharson yes the yeses have it so we now have a new mascot named for connord

097the connor red wolves all right well thank you so very much again for your collective effort we look forward to the journey ahead thank you thank you all all right we will proceed with our agenda as emotions and things are happening but we'll be flexible in the process and now we're going to move on to new business and with that we are looking at the ratification of the west hartford board of education paraprofessionals contract as well as the ratification of the west hartford board of education custodians contract in addition to the ratification of the west hartford board of education skilled trades contract so we have mr gilo duarte here and dr andy murrow so passing it to you please great thank you as you can see we've all been very busy um you know before

098i begin i do just want to give a quick shout out and thanks to dr morrow and also liz hewitt who couldn't be here with us today but they've been just a huge resource for me as i've transitioned into this new role and i think we finished eight contracts or hopefully after today we'll have a fair amount done so it's been a great learning experience for me but i really want to just publicly acknowledge andy and liz for their support and partnership in this process so with that said before you for approval is a ratified agreement between the board of education and the west hartford board of education paraprofessionals this is a group of approximately 200 extremely dedicated staff members that perform designated functions in a variety of settings these range from traditional office duties

099to supporting students who have been mandated for special education and regardless of the role they use their diverse skill sets to work collaboratively with school staff and administration the paraprofessionals ratified this agreement on may 25th the contract you were voting on this evening is a four-year contract i did want to just say in response to a minimum wage increases in general market conditions we did make some structural changes to the contract which we believe will help us not only better recruit folks but also retain them and certainly as you know with our paraprofessionals that's been a challenge for us so we are very excited to to be able to move forward with this and so in addition to these structural changes we're also looking at for the 2022-23 step movement and a 3.5 increase in

1002324 step movement and two and a half percent increase and 24.25 there'll be no step movement for folks but we will do a three point three and a quarter general wage increase and again in 25 26 a step movement and a three and a quarter uh general wage increase looking at the insurance category we have increased the employee employee premium cost share 22 23 to 17 and a quarter and 23 24 to 17 and a half and 24 25 to 17 and three quarters and then in 25 26 to 18 percent in addition we also increased the employee premium cost share um and for pension plan there and so that'll be in 23 20 22 23 to five and a quarter and 23 24 to five and a half and 24.25 to five and three

101quarters and then 25 26 to 6 percent uh the last piece i want to just highlight is that we did increase the longevity payment by 150 for the first three categories and then for 250 dollars for the last category which is 20 years of service or more so that summarizes our agreement and i did want to just take a moment to thank all of our paraprofessionals for the work that they do and that the health they help provide a supportive safe and a nurturing environment in all of our buildings so we would be happy to answer any questions that the board may have on this agreement thank you thank you so very much questions comments claire um yeah i was just curious on the salaries the the reason for the 2.5 um each year it's

102a 3.5 and then you have a 2.5 is there something going on in that second year is it about staff increase yeah um yes it's a we had to wind up uh restructuring part of their salary scale for a number of reasons for two two major reasons that were driving the conversations that we were having with them one to bring in line with the increases uh in connecticut minimum wage uh for some of their categories and then also to better come in line with neighboring districts as far as recruitment as you know we've talked about the the difficulty we have for some of the uh specific para needs that we have in recruiting and retaining personnel which then leads to at times than having to outsource for various services and we think that this will

103make us more competitive but in you know in many steps we were combining different steps and so forth to address those two concerns i just um it's a very important group of people and most people don't understand their importance and how much a school wouldn't run without them so i'm glad to see that these improvements are here other ques yes scale thanks um you had said that the um the insurance premium was increased just like those are increased numbers right can you tell me approximately at you know how much it was before that we've increased that so we were at for the pairs we were at 17 and at 17 flat and then so we've gone up essentially a quarter percent throughout that so going to 17 and a quarter and then you'll see the

104increase every year that quarter okay and um are we paying this this is health insurance right correct correct are we paying just the employees health insurance are we playing like the family as well it's that's really a decision that the employee has has a chance to make this is for example if someone chooses to to just have their own just one person uh they're paying 17 if they choose to engage in a family uh in the family portion then they're still paying seventy percent of that increased so they're paying paying 17 in either situation and then i know i've asked this before but i apologize the longevity is a yearly thing right you give that every year yes that is correct okay thank you ethan i know i already know the answer to the question

105but i want to ask it anyways and i realized liz isn't there here today i assume this fits within the budget she told me to tell you yes i'm not i'm not exaggerating liz said remember ethan's going to ask if it's already factored into the budget yes so can i ask you and i'll save you yeah ethan i'll save you the trouble for the other two contracts too no and as i think we explained before um when we when we go ahead and budget we we project certain expectations and we we had a rough idea where a lot of this was going to land again looking at previous contracts looking at neighboring districts and such so we wind up with the president i assume that but i actually just figured i should have a question

106thank you other questions yes jason thank you um so i'm thinking on about the last contract that we talked about too and um you know our discussion about potential shortages uh in the coming year or years and um and i'm wondering if you can help me understand what are some of the certification requirements for paraprofessionals and um and you know uh that i've kind of a follow-up question to that but i wanted to understand that piece of it first sure it really depends on what role they're feeling within schools and and you know truthfully too the state of connecticut has increased some of the requirements which is also making it more challenging for us to find folks because they'll now need to meet certain training certain credentials and so again when we took a look

107at the contract we wanted to keep all that into consideration because that also has costs or employees that now need to get some of these credentials and you know i think it's important for us really not just the recruitment and i hear that piece but and in my world too it's also really that retention and we want to invest in our folks and as claire mentioned they are a key component and they make really strong relationships not only with our kids our families but also with our staff and and i know and i remember being back in the building where you knew who's the parent you can trust um and when you've got a situation you know you're going to go to them and and that that child and that family is going to be

108in really good hands um and we want to make sure because we've developed that and that we maintain them and that they stay with us you know i'd follow up as a just as a caution as you plan going into the future and with this contract which we think is a fair contract with that being said we have to adjust this contract for minimum wage for people that are doing unbelievably important work for us and it's going to be there's a domino effect of a shortage of teachers which is a connecticut issue and it's a national issue right now coming out of the pandemic with more hiring because of esser one of the ways we get paras is recent college graduates that will be a para for a year or two maybe wouldn't get a

109job for x reason why reason but then they get in the district they get known in the district they're beloved in the district and so many of our professional staff our teachers have come from peritas we're going to have less of those people because the kids graduating from college are getting hired immediately right now just to follow up on that just to give you a sense of how much a relationship the peras have developed in my time at connard in the eight years that i was principal there two of the years the pair up hera was named as graduation speaker by this class that's the type of connection that um in the relationships they're forging not only with the students they're working with but with all kids not to mention the number of yearbooks dedicated

110to a paraprofessional shocking also just to add you know we we also go the the flip side of that and if we have in the past if we have paraprofessionals that that have indicated that desire to be certified as a teacher we have certainly gone ahead and helped and supported that and we'll continue to do so because again these are valuable members of our school community yeah and i'm excited too we've mentioned some of our our teacher residency program which i know we'll talk more about so we actually have folks that are current paris going into that that we're really excited to support through that process and can't wait to see them in our classrooms good to hear good thing paul please jason and leclair yes um yeah so uh that's that's really important information

111thank you um and this as a note you know i i've i've spoken with two parents whose jobs changed during the pandemic and have found really satisfying fulfilling incredible work as paris in the district and um just really have been um so grateful for that experience and have a a whole new outlook on their career and being a part of the community uh such a fantastic role um but i you know there was something about the last time that i asked it was it was a bug in my head and i remember hearing about a reciprocity initiative that i think so the date i have is in a april april 21st and apparently it's was some kind of state level initiative to recognize the credentials from other states or increasing the flexibility is that already

112factored into the the the the playing field or yeah in terms of connecticut's reciprocity connecticut you can look at it as a positive connecticut is incredibly difficult to get certification in in comparison with neighboring states look at is a real negative in that people coming to connecticut have to jump through hoops that are really beyond unfortunate we have somebody right now that we're continuing to work with who's one of our greatest employees with a doctorate from out of state that is still questioning this one piece in the state of connecticut giulio's on the phone with the state i'm on the phone with the state reciprocity is not what it should be in connecticut [Applause] thank you claire yeah so i i'm happy to see that um some of the pairs are doing the teacher residency

113program um i just wondered what kind is there any para professional development offered and is their support for the parapro exam for paris and one of my big passions is raising up and helping the parents have more of a voice they do represent a larger diverse staff and and for students to see people with a voice people with a passion people that you know represent a wide diverse absolutely yeah it's an incredible incredibly important part of our school communities and and they really are uh you know hand in hand with our with our teaching staff with our with our office staff and that um we we do have and have developed specifically um in the past four years uh specific targeted training for paras in depending upon different job classifications um and and certainly encourage

114them to to be a part of this uh and and so we will continue to work uh really through our curriculum office and to work with the principals on developing this and it's been very well received yeah and providing some of that time and we have some flexibility where students may not be in the building but the pairs are with us so that we can really accommodate their schedules and as andy said i think what's important is identifying areas where they they see growth and needed growth and then saying let's provide that professional development and find the experts within our system that can do that i know rosina's done amazing work supporting that melissa carey jones a lot of them have done some really great pd for folks other questions comments all right well we're

115going to move with three separate motions the first one we have a recommendation that the board of education ratify the negotiated agreement between the west hartford board of education paraprofessionals and the board of education for the period of july 1 2022 through june 30th 2026 is there a motion so moved is there a second second any discussion all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed all right the all eyes have it thank you on to the next one seeking a motion that the board of education ratified the negotiated agreement between the west hartford board of education custodians and the board of education for the period of july 1 2022 through june 30th 2027 is there a motion so moved their second by a second any discussion uh yes just to ask for the presentation

116pirated me yes indeed excuse me there's always got to be one in the wrong guy you hurt him it's rarely me it's fair he's partying there you go that's good we're good all right all right take it away if i could have the attention of the class again please before you for approval is a ratified agreement between the board of education and the west harbor board of education custodians this is a group of approximately 75 extremely dedicated staff members that really are the heart and soul of many of our buildings um we've always known the importance of our custodial staff but i think over the last couple years um it's probably been even highlighted how important they really are and and what they're willing to do to make sure that our students and our staff

117are safe so the custodians ratify this agreement on june 4th and so the contract that you were voting on this evening is a five-year contract it will call for a general wage increase of three percent for the first three years of the contract and a two and a half percent increase for the last two years of the contract looking at the insurance category we have increased the employee premium cost share in 2022 23 to 19 and a half in 23 24 and 24 25 to 20 percent then in 25 26 it will increase to 20 and a quarter percent and in 2026 27 it will increase to 20 and a half percent in addition we have increased the employee premium cost share and in 2022-23 and then again in 2324 to five and a half

118in 2024 25 to five and three-quarters and 26 to 6 percent and then in 2026 27 to six and a quarter so that summarizes this agreement um i did want to take a moment to thank all of our custodians for their hard work and what they do every day to ensure that our buildings and our grounds meet the high expectations that we've set forth here in west hartford public schools thank you thank you and again i do apologize for jumping not with that not at all questions comments yes um i have just a question on the pension plan so the employee is going to pay like for example in 22 23 5 and a half percent of their gross income is that i i'm just curious how it works in terms of is the school

119matching that or is the school putting in i mean the district putting in is it a match or is it work differently the the custodian it's uh they participate in the town of west hartford pension plan and so this is their contribution piece into that um we it's it's different than what what you're thinking from a matching standpoint is uh like a 403 b or a 401 that may be a a private uh situation where where if you're not covered under at the town pension piece uh you can contribute six percent of your income in the town or the organization or the company would match that that inc that contribution piece but this is a defined uh defined pension piece through the town of west hartford okay other questions comments yes clear yeah i just

120wanted to make a comment um having worked in elementary schools i i just have to say the custodians are so loved by the kids and for people out there who have been removed from elementary i don't know how it works in high school middle school but i don't know how you hire such great people who know all the kids names they it's really wonderful to see they're an amazing part of the building thank you claire that's and that's a direct um you know a direct reflection again of of the hard work they do we've talked about i know i've talked about with you especially in the last two years um just the important work that our custodial staff has done uh across the board and you know when we some people talk about you know

121well couldn't you should we be you know some districts outsource custodian work and stuff like that and we've really we've always made a point to saying of just how integral they are to our building operation and what a key component they are um for our for our operations and really to our community and that's why i really did say one you know i really meant when i said they are the heart and soul of many of the buildings and and what i always admire too with them is when they had a job to do it wasn't just about doing the job it's about doing it right and and really having a passion for doing that and they always knew that what they were doing you know had a had a big picture message so again

122i i really do want to publicly thank them um and especially i think over the last couple years they they deserve an extra thank you so absolutely other questions all right so now i will follow through with seeking a motion at the board of education ratify the negotiated agreement between the west hartford board of education custodians and the board of education for the period of july 1 2022 through june 30th 30th 2027. i'll motion again thank you thank you so much any discussion all right all of those in favor say aye aye aye aye aye any oppose right the eyes have it thank you back to you please all right before you for approval is a ratified agreement between the board of education and the west hartford board of education skilled trades so this is

123a group of approximately 15 dedicated and highly skilled professionals to help ensure our buildings run smoothly and comfortably every day some examples of the roles that they feel are carpenters plumbers hvac just to name a few the skilled trades ratified this agreement on may 19th so the contract that you're voting on this evening is a five-year contract and will call for a general wage increase of three percent every year looking at the insurance category unlike most of our bargaining unions the skilled trades premium cost share is a percentage of their base pay so the chart on page seven of your board agenda book highlights the percentage that they will be required to pay each year as you can see we have increased the employee premium cost share each year throughout the duration of the contract

124in addition we have increased the employee premium cost share in two thousand twenty two twenty three to five and a quarter and twenty three twenty four to five and a half in two thousand twenty four twenty five to five point seven five in two thousand twenty five twenty six to six percent and then in two thousand 2026 27 to six and a quarter lastly we also increased the longevity payment by 225 dollars for each category so that summarizes the agreement and as i typically like to do i did want to take a moment to thank all of our skilled trade professionals for maintaining the comfort and safety of all of our buildings and grounds so again i'd be happy to answer any questions that the board may have excuse me questions at all comments all

125right well before we seek emotion we'll wait for arrested but i do want to to say with with all of these uh first individuals these groups here are paraprofessionals education custodians in our skilled trades country i think certainly the last two years uh if not more than any other time has reminded us of just how important all of our educational teammates are in particular those that are here and uh they're just there's some things that when you may be inclined to take for granted you are reminded of no no no no you certainly i may not do that so thank you so much so at this time again any yes ethan yes just had one question um how many more contracts are still open um we have three left that um we're going to work

126on them probably throughout the summer and i'm hoping to bring them before the board um you know first thing is september depending on if we can meet with everybody so they can wait till september they will and and so like i said our we've had some different obstacles and challenges with just scheduling none of our issues really is just with trying to coordinate schedule so we i feel very comfortable and we've actually got two of them that are currently in motion right now and if we had you know a little bit more time we probably would get through them but we didn't want to rush anything so we're just trying to see the process thank you other questions or comments all right seeking emotion that the board of education ratified the negotiated agreement between the

127west hartford board of education skilled trades and the board of education for the period of july 1 2022 through june 30th 2027. is there a motion so moved is there a second second any discussion all of those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed all right the eyes have it all things have passed thank you so much moving on now to staff communications and reports we now will receive our superintendent's report but before just passing the baton the mic over to you mr moore just want to recognize that this is your last time giving the superintendent's report in this role for those who may not know and i can't see how you would not know this is the last meeting of the academic school year but it also is the last meeting with tom

128moore serving as superintendent of west hartford and so we are used to you giving the superintendent's report but this time it's quite a bittersweet moment so with that passing it off to you thank you and before i address that a couple things that um i have another chance to mention congratulations to michelle haggerty from smith stem school who was named west hartford's teacher of the year again a great a great collection of teachers and michelle will represent west hartford so well there are too many people to recognize all the things that have happened in sports music and academics over the past couple weeks it is remarkable the successes at our two schools and um congratulations to all the kids and specifically um andrew and avery did a wonderful job as our board reps from me

129i've known a lot of board reps and you represented your schools exceptionally well and thank you for that and congratulations on the great things ahead for you with graduation next week congratulations to all of our graduates and our retirees it's whatever their um wherever they're retiring from in west harbor public schools they have been a part of the fabric that makes um west hartford great um in the public schools and i'm i'm so fortunate to have been a part of it this is my 318th board meeting as assistant superintendent or superintendent there's been 321 i missed three one for covet at the last meeting it finally got me um one for um being named superintendent of the year for the state of connecticut which i will be at the white house november 4th and i

130thank all of you because that wouldn't be possible without west hartford and what west hartford's done for me and um the third one far most importantly i missed it to go to a connor state playoff game that my jack played quarterback in and will always be a memory though they lost um so with that um you know i'm a history teacher i i introduce myself when people don't know me when they ask and i want to be if i'm on vacation or anything uh hey tom what do you do i just always say i'm a history teacher it's much easier that way um and when people ask me what i'm doing i say i'm a history teacher on special assignment as a superintendent right now um because it's far more of who i am so

131when i uh at the risk of tremendous hubris i want to paraphrase washington's farewell address and the second to last paragraph i won't do the 34 pages um washington's farewell address was far more well known by the civil war than the declaration of independence was washington's farewell address was the treatise of what it means to be an american way more than the declaration of independence it kind of shifted in the 1880s back to the actually the 100th anniversary kind of threw it off anyway um but people used to view read 34 pages of washington's words second last paragraph i'll paraphrase for my purposes though in reviewing the incidents of my administration i am unconscious of into of intentional error i am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that i may

132have committed many errors whatever they may be i fervently beseech you to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend i shall also carry with me the hope that west hartford will never cease to view them with indulgence and that after 26 years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest not rest yet though and if i could um thank you to my wife tara and the sacrifices she's made um for me to be able to do this job and to work in west hartford to make west hartford more than just a job but my life my two kids jack and fallon have had um uh it's not easy being

133a superintendent's kid everybody's gonna know what you do and how and they have handled it with such grace and i am so honored every day to be their father um thank you to the board and all the boards that have gone before um your support of me has um support without agreement is something people don't understand um support without agreement means um what's your motivation where you're coming from and i've tried to come from a place of integrity and i'm very thankful for the boards that have come before my team [Applause] andy paul rosina [Applause] gretchen melissa [Applause] young mr duarte and carrie everybody that had a hand in making this district so good but god if you saw what they did during copen if you saw lycenas and ann and andy for weeks here

134past midnight literally i don't know how bycenus does it i don't know how he lives his life with the lack of sleep [Applause] but they have represented me in this district so well thanks to the parents of west hartford in allowing and trusting their most precious gift to um me my team and uh you know we promise all the time safety and we're reminded in texas that it's hard to make promises but i can tell you that eric densie our security our teachers our staffs do everything we can to keep our kids safe every day and any criticisms that come please level with me lay those with me because these people i can't say enough about what they do finally thanks to my kids by my kids i mean those i was fortunate enough to

135teach in coach iconic to them i am filled with never-ending gratitude for the lessons that they taught me when i was supposed to be teaching so with that thank you all i have loved my time here thank you tom you're not off the hook because there is a moment later in the agenda where we're going to share our thoughts with you but no no no no no so thank you but any with respect to the superintendent's report any questions with what has been shared at all all right hearing none we will move on now to staff reports and board discussions we now will receive the elementary and secondary schools emergency relief grant we have dr andrew murrow here mr paul vicinis and thank you so much mr giulia duarte take it away at the risk

136of popping on the screen we are going to try to visually show you um what we're going to be doing please yep [Music] there's the problem luckily we have an entire summer to have it fix that so we should get on that [Music] um so this is really a an update uh as we talked about initially when we explained the esser programming and the plan that we had a lot of that was uh the placeholders that we said once we were into the recovery effort into the time we would shift around and we would share with you where we're headed with that so this is really an opportunity to go ahead and do that you don't have a motion or anything this isn't informational here's where we're headed uh going forward with using up our

137servers so just by way of reminder esser is grounded in federal legislation it actually breaks out over um three different acts as you see here which for simplicity's sake we refer to as esser one two and three the allocations of funds are based on actually based on title one allocations for districts so every public school district you know receives a different allocation and the funds themselves have a different term of expiration in terms of our ability to use them with the funds really being able to be applied over multiple years so [Music] in terms of how the funds are targeted we have developed really these six lines of effort with academic renewal and learning acceleration being one of the greatest but certainly of importance are all of our lines of effort as you see here

138i won't read them to you but i will make mention that they do mirror the really the parameters and the requirements that are set forth in the federal legislation um and uh they do need to all of our efforts are submitted and they do need to be approved at the state and federal level so everything that we've done is in good keeping these were our initial allocations and what we're here tonight is to do is to talk to you about the changes as each year we have a requirement to kind of recertify resubmit um and provide updates to the state in terms of are we sticking with this plan but this was our initial plan when we went into kind of coded relief or covert response and relief so this really is the meat of

139our report is modifications that we're planning to make um first most importantly and i think in in follow-up to a board conversation that we had recently with the budget where we were looking at the reallocation of play-to-play money we looked at what were some needs in the buildings that that we are observing during coveton and beyond our academic needs which we have again significant funds addressed with that one of the one of the biggest glaring needs that we anticipated but couldn't necessarily get our arms around the depth was in and around student dysregulation as it manifests with student behaviors as it manifests with mental health needs so what we're looking to do is make a significant investment over the next two years and a corresponding modification to our grant to be able to provide school

140counselors and you know behavioral trained behavioral specialists those with some behavior specialties directly within our elementary schools we had already provided supports within our middle school and high school under the yes under our initial application and so this was an area that we felt uh we're really seeing some significant need and the earliest possible intervention will serve us the greatest yeah i apologize this is equally driving me crazy um i'm gonna let you look at this this this slide uh defines the variances you'll see that the major modification again is is the increase and the shifting of funds over to the social emotional and mental health uh aspect and uh that's really where we see also then the pay-to-play reduction is in the family and community connection there and it's offsetting uh offsetting that yeah

141those are the ends of the slide so we can bring that up oh such a relief yeah i'm just going to take a moment and enjoy that again the major modification um is the introduction um we're currently templating in the neighborhood of five counselors that would be spread across our elementary schools any student mental health coordinator would not be an administrative position but would be kind of a teacher type position an individual who has specific training within mental health that can help to oversee and coordinate the efforts of those of those school counselors and their deployment to our middle schools the programming the things that they would be responsible for we're also looking to on the academic side where we're seeing a bump in our english language learners and so we want to be able

142to provide additional ftes additional full-time employee equivalents to make sure that we have the most highly qualified support for english language learners as kind of a tweak to our academic plan those really are the major major differences in terms of placeholders within the esser budget as you saw very briefly on the slide uh the over you know as we shift those funds uh to help support the elementary counselors really a bulk of that is coming from the pay to play as we said there are tweaks uh in the academic but as you saw uh the decrease there was really only one percent of the overall allocation that we have to the academic plan so all of the pieces that we have previously reported on do remain in effect and um please do yeah one of

143one of the pieces that i'm sure melissa would want to highlight as well is um and it it it's really uh an immaterial economic impact but just so that you have it in the back your head and we'll present more about this next year is one of the the things that we are that we are working at is means of of increasing access uh for families and for students to to mental health uh supports and what we're seeing in many cases is again students who who may be having a need to engage in in professional supports outside of the school day who are unable to access that due to uh due to employment of parents due to family situations due to a number of situations and so we are working and melissa and i have

144had conversations and we're working with uh some various providers and clinics and major medical groups in the area about starting at the high schools to have dedicated space for clinicians to to see students who would normally be seen after school at the the bridge or whatever that whatever their their services would be and so many other districts have looked at this and there's there's very little if any cost to us and it's just working out some of the specifics and legalities of it and again working hand in hand with the various providers but i do think it's something that um that we're excited about i think anything we can do as as paul said anything we can do to provide uh and facilitate access for students and for families is is definitely a plus and

145that's really also then the idea behind the mental health coordinator someone who will work with not only the counselors but also with the social workers and the various outreach uh people that we have to make sure that that we're not we're not leaving anyone behind to make sure that we're not having anyone fall between the cracks of this and so really the only other thing i wanted to mention obviously we would we plan to continue to provide you these reports as the ester grant progresses throughout its life cycle and each year we have we look at the funds you know some of some of the variances that you'll see are more minor just based on hey we we budget this much for x number of people um based on you know if it's a person

146charge based on where they come in on the salary scale we budget x number for these particular resources maybe there's some slight modifications or differences but those variances are fairly minor relative in the big picture but we do have the ability to continue to be nimble with choices that we make in the grant each year as uh as we update both the state of connecticut and and obviously you the board uh so that you're clear on the direction that we're moving and how we're utilizing these funds so we're prepared to answer questions as we can um all right thank you so much i saw a hand here for us deb thank you i do have a couple of questions about the new mental health positions um my first question is these are projected to be

147one-year positions or two-year positions these are these are projected at two years and that's what that has been budgeted um do we do we think given the their durational nature that we'll have any difficulty recruiting are we looking for social workers uh or psychologists so we're looking at i can answer we're looking at school counselors actually we've got a couple um postings and they were doing some interviews already for uh opening that we have and so we're starting to sort of build that pool i'm actually have a meeting you know hoping to get through today and then we have a meeting tomorrow with uh melanie thomas and adatio and melissa to sort of to think about um the process and how best to recruit and um you know again we've got interns at high schools

148that are eager to stay in west hartford and and we see this as a good opportunity to get in um you know we know that there's always turnover and so you're in here um and to start that process but um both melanie and ed feel comfortable that they'll be able to find quality candidates for this okay i think you hit on i mean a debate we had in the exact not really a debate but is triage model will you throw everything at it next year with 10 would that be better i don't know but it would be much harder to get 10 people to agree to a one-year contract than five to agree to a two-year contract so that was basically more stability and gives us a better option and i appreciate that peace time

149because that was the debate that even i was wrestling with in my in my mind given my role um and you know i think it's hard to find and convince 10 folks to come and say hey just give me a year and you know maybe we'll and then i also think there's a piece too if you're here for a year like what is your commitment level perhaps um and so i think getting a two-year commitment and knowing that we've got some possible retirements and just natural shifts that happen really opens this opportunity to a lot of people thank you and my second question has to do with the new school mental health money that's going to be coming in from the state and how this might interplay with those new funds i don't know if

150we yet have an accounting of how much our district is slated to receive i haven't seen anything in writing on that but um i just think it's important for us to kind of keep an eye on the bigger picture as far as there are these funds now coming from the state which could also help support this absolutely and again i haven't seen a specific figure yet on that either i know that there has been a commitment but and we don't know the numbers on that but that's certainly something that we would we would factor into all of this planning as well yeah and i would just piggyback to say that you know we've seen that between the different title grants and different allocations so we've had some things that initially we might have looked at

151for esser and said oh this grant fits it let's create a different opportunity over here ethan i had two questions um and i don't know if i have the right title because the screen's not down but i wouldn't want you to put it back down um the student health position was that is that a new position or is that something you're copying because it just sounded like it was sort of pulled yeah that's um that's in one of the pieces included in that additional 872 variants that we showed for the student mental health what that what the goal of that would be is again it's a it's a non-administrative position it's it's a position that is working with with the counselors it's position working with counselors with principals with social workers with our community outreach

152staff and really helping to coordinate the the various uh mental health services and the various um the various supports that students and families are really like it was something totally new is that correct correct yeah with the addition of the additional counselors as well as the other mental supports and the possible clinic and so forth that we really need someone who's going to be available to to help families navigate this but it's still a development correct yeah second question it would be a two-year it could be a two-year commitment understandable yeah i think that's important if you want people to come to two years i get that uh athletic pay to play was you had a 484 000 reduction on the family was that two hundred thousand for athletic pay to play or was that

153more so my recollection is uh that that's being phased in over over two years and i wanted to say that in year one it was roughly uh a two hundred thousand dollars uh variance and then in in the year two it would be the it would be the four hundred thousand i believe at that point yep so for budgeting purposes the commitment was we put it back in somehow i don't know how but i guess we worry about that next year thank you okay other thoughts or questions claire um so i had a question about um the uh the investment with the esser funds in the teacher residency program do you foresee that continuing after um the cliff comes so i think that'll be something that you know my office and and working with rosina

154and the team here will really strongly advocate for um although i feel like i'm i'm saying i want to buy something i haven't really seen yet but i feel very confident that this is going to be a strong program and really too we know that there's some more coming more opportunities related to special education a similar program so we're really hoping that we would invest in that as well as a district so i know we've got three mentor teachers already lined up they are very eager um they're very good teachers and so i'm excited to have them working with uh like our paraprofessionals and other folks working in that so it's a it's a really great opportunity i think for us as a district and to to support our folks as well so i i've

155had two years with working with teacher residency and it's amazing and when they enter our building they bring such a different dimension and and they've become successful teachers so i'm really glad we're doing it um i you know hope there is a budget area that can add this because i think it's it's a great way to diversify our staff yeah and on a personal level just getting to to meet and uh interview different folks that applied for um you know the program it's really just it was heartwarming to see their true dedication to the craft and to then see just some of the roblox i know jason you've mentioned them that are really put in front of some people's ways that um make it really an obstacle for them to get in a profession that

156their heart is in and their desires in and it really seems like a roadblock that people are putting in their way that really you know i would hope at some point we can look at on a state level to to eliminate those and so i think this is one great way of doing that and again i'm really humbled by just listening to them and their experiences in the classroom and their life experiences which i think is also really fascinating that many of these folks have some some different life experiences that you know will bring that lens to the classroom to the building to the district um that you know sometimes some of those life experiences are not things you can get in classrooms and really bringing that knowledge and that engagement too to our students

157is is again something i'm excited about so i'll stop talking about it because it gets me excited if i could talk about one other thing that julia is excited about that he'll be leading just as a under that same vein of bringing people in six years ago i recommended to eliminate the leadership academy um which you remember that we had teachers that we brought in tapped on the shoulder 10 to 12 per year that it wasn't like they were getting their masters but they were learning how to be a west hartford administrator doing special projects and people that then got into the pipeline giulio's graduate of that academy that we had i felt like a this was a time that time we were cutting budgets and we had just hired so many new administrators that

158i felt like we're going to be telling eight people a year there's openings coming and there haven't been now there's about to be i mean i've in the time i've been at this meeting i've gotten three notifications from superintendents asking me do you have somebody that can serve as an interim high school principal these are going to be happening we need to rebuild our bench of future administrators that have come on board in west hartford as teachers over the next few years and that is something we can at least get seated and started with as her money um so i know i just wanted to get that out there now because it's not formally in but it's something that i would say we'll need to do and we need the board support over time and

159it's tremendously cost effective it's not an expensive program and i would just add to that because i am um biased and passionate about that program as i went through it um but it's not only for those folks that want to be administrators there was so much power and uh you know a teacher or anyone a staff member that went through the program and said like i don't want to go into administration i just want to learn more of a systems view and and really from a principal lens they would always come down and say wow i understand like when you guys make a decision and and i'm sitting in my chair and i'm like what are you guys doing and all of a sudden now i have that systems understanding and it really helped even

160swing some of the different conversations within the building because they said hey wait a minute and that was colleagues having conversations with colleagues so again that's another program i am very excited about and eager to bring back one thing if it is brought back i would love to have you let people apply rather than principal recommendations it was both before it was both there yeah right so i just think there's unsung heroes and people that you wouldn't know about that would be great to be in that and then just quickly to the the focus work in the elementaries right now with the behaviors and those supports it's so critical that you help them before they hit teens before they hit the middle school and when we talk about these behaviors that are overwhelming the schools

161those behaviors you could have four or five in one classroom and then you have a teacher who then is trying to manage a classroom and and teach with those kids that are struggling so it's really great you're getting that help gail um yeah i was just wondering we didn't get the the graph where it shows the differences in our packet we only unless i'm wrong we only got um you know what the original amounts were but we didn't get the changes um i can certainly make sure that we send it out and you know it just you know posted it there so um i just had just a very couple of questions here this end date that's on these um three esser funds is that the end date when the money has to be actually

162used or is that the end date when we get the money no i'm pretty certain that's it's an expenditure date yeah yeah that's when we use that's when it has to be has to be used committed et cetera can't it can't just continue rolling rolling past on most of the grants and again i can i would defer to liz on this who i'm sure is at home yelling at me through her television um but uh on most of on most of the grants uh that we we currently have there is a two-year uh window for that where as long as they are committed that we then for bills and such to come in so yeah we could use it beyond that two years as long as it's committed yes that's my understanding i thought she

163said you had a return so some of these oh sorry if you don't if you don't spend or commit it yes yes and so we can yeah but we can clarify that and go forward on that but again we fully expend uh our funding on this and fully exp ex plan to and then my second question just and i apologize because the slide went up so far and we don't have it in the packet we added into the family and community connections the pay for play money is that correct i just make yeah it's uh subtracted from there make sure i understand the question yeah so what what the slide had shown was was the overall net uh variance and it does account for the pay for play within it it does even though it

164seemed to be negative but i didn't get a good yeah that was taken out of there and then put into which category you're in essence you're taking out you're taking the original allocation for the family and community connections was was 1.4 million dollars you're we've modified it uh 484 000 which is the pay-to-play offsetting the additional funding that was put into the bridge contract that we explained before and then you revised allocation for that to family and community connections is now our revised plan for that is 972 000 towards that on the other side the modification for the social uh and mental health line went from 1.4 to 2.3 that reflected the increase in that's where that's really bad at numbers and if i don't see it i appreciate it we'll make sure we get

165you this one because you just maybe we will make sure we forward you the the slide piece because i understand the feedback with the with the screen okay appreciate it thank you other questions or comments jason yeah thank you um uh let's see sorry i'm recovering from a cold or i still have a cold i hope to be recovering from this cold soon um um yes thank you so much for the work on um presenting this and the vision of you know using these these funds uh to support our students um i wanted to ask about how how counselors are evaluated or how that is a part of um the the district's evaluation of impact or uh um you know what are some of the metrics that have been used in the past about how

166counselors uh have have impacted uh student life and well-being um and you know i want to connect that to the the availability of this new you know incredible funding from sb1 sb2 and uh hp that establishes funds going forward uh funds that aren't available until um that measuring and producing information about the impact that counselors have is in my to my mind a solid path to establishing a a kind of track record and in as i understand it's kind of grant application um so you have to apply for for those for those funds um from the state but if if the work that we do with these counselors can serve as a basis for demonstrating a certain kind of impact that we want to be able to track that for that future state you know

167application to continue those funds or to maybe the data tells us something different right but i i'm kind of curious how how we can think of this as you know a way to generate more information if i could go first just there's one simple thing there the the basic nuts and bolts they themselves will be evaluated by principals and by um by um both melanie who's in charge of um school counseling at diadio who else was so there's a couple levels there about their evaluate difference it's not the same as a teacher but you might sit in on a meeting with a child that the child gives approval to sit in with meeting with parents so there's that functioning of are they effective is the program effective and this is what i want to jump

168in and i'm sorry paul but it's one of the things i'm most passionate about the counterintuitive nature of numbers going up of referrals people thinking is a problem is one of the things we most have to fight with it means people are coming forward it means there's somebody that they trust yet those numbers are always used against us and always use against schools and i can show you schools that look like wow that district has no mental health problems that's not true they're not finding them and um so as those numbers increase the general nature is people get alarmed and say look at this increase but that is a testament to children coming forward children being found and it's almost like it's almost like terrorism where nobody knows about things that are prevented and you

169can't quantify things that are prevented but that that's a part of the element of this is that we'll know if there's effect basically the very time that they spend with children is validation of the program because that means someone's seeking out somebody i don't know if you want to jump on so i i don't know that i can really add uh to what you said tom um just maybe to you know you go back to the first part of your question because i really think you were asking a programmatic question i think tom answered it but but relative to the performance of these individuals and maybe to just dovetail on what julio was saying in terms of our ability to kind of look out and say are these people we want to be able to

170try to keep longer term as you know through attrition and we're able to add them into you know retirement there is a separate evaluation system for all educational support service staff it's sess student education support services and it looks at their ability to um you know do their program delivery it looks at their professional responsibilities and ethics it looks at all you know their student relations components so so it has pieces that are parallel to a teacher evaluation system but customized and it's under a general framework so that it can fit school counselors over here it can fit special educators over there curriculum specialists over there and we interpret it based on those specific roles as tom mentioned you know and again as part of that additional role that ethan was asking about having someone

171who can help really define this program be a liaison to our school counseling department supervisors exist at the secondary level our special education pupil services staff and our principals that person will help to to define these program metrics but we specifically are not putting that in as an administrative role just because of the because of the cost expenses and we want to ensure that we can find someone who has expertise in uh you know behavior mental health responsibilities so the formal evaluations will be able to occur and i think we have robust systems in terms of our as tom mentioned our department supervisors are our pupil services are principles that will gauge the effectiveness of the programs and a lot of it will come right from classroom metrics in terms of if if if if

172we're turning the tides and kids are able to be more regulated in school and one thing i just want to add to that too is because i know we've got a mindset sometimes that the counselors are sitting and working one-on-one with students and certainly we want that but i also want to think about it from a tier one model and really going into classrooms and delivering age-appropriate messaging and looking at you know peer relationships and they can deliver that that curriculum that that lesson however you'd want to call it but age appropriate for you know kindergarten is going to look different from third grade looks different from fifth grade but we all know it's important that that message is delivered and so they're gonna need to take that that big walk away that big skill

173they want our students to make sure everyone understands and then develop a lesson that's appropriate and engaging and then go deliver at all of those first grade class across the district so that everyone's getting that message into claire's point if we're doing that and doing it well you know hopefully we will see some reduction in different issues it may not be a reduction in um you know referrals mental health referrals but it may be a reduction in behavioral issues in the classrooms uh or peer interactions or peer you know things like that so that's i want to keep that that sort of mindset because i know that's some of the stuff we're looking at is not just the one-on-one but you know that that bigger sort of tier one piece if i could just respond

174real quickly uh yeah thank you so much i think you know um because it's a complex problem it it should be assessed in a really robust fashion um with no one kind of um indicator you know could have used to you know assess this so um so coming out with all these different angles sounds you know very appropriate and and um um and worthwhile um and i forgot what i was gonna say awesome great all right just to add on to what jason's saying with the mindset that this opportunity is coming any kind of information gathering during this process can help you apply so i know it's a normal thing to collect but with that eye on the prize later it might be a great opportunity because it is tough data to prove but a

175good grant writer can pull together the experience you guys have gained jason sorry i remembered what i was going to say um so that particular model you're talking about um sounds especially important given that there is an interest in increasing attention to ell learners right english language learners right that so that group environment having you know multiple multiple contact points and ways of of working with with students and especially important for that population all right other quick diary yes um i wasn't going to say anything and then jason started um in terms of like evaluation another key piece that i mean if if we're kind of putting our funds toward mental health and and stating that this is a need within the district i also think another way of measuring that is through some sort

176of program evaluation so pre and post measures of kids who you know kind of doing an assessment when they come in for services whether it's depression anxiety and showing that having this service within the school is actually reducing anxiety reducing depression doing some sort of you know kind of program evaluation or or measures while while students are receiving these supports would would certainly be convincing other comments or questions all right well thank you so very much thank you all right and now moving on to routine matters our financial report we will receive approval of the financial report for the period ending april 30th 2022 and i believe i just want to go on the record of saying i i offered to ethan if he wanted me to stay up here and he assured me that

177he had it even though liz was gone so i'm going to step away all right thank you ethan passing it to you great school funds are reported in four categories you can correct me the first category being the general funds report which is budgeted for the fiscal year 22 at 176.3 million second category is the state and federal grants fund at this point the school system has 21.9 million in funds and some of the fundings as was discussed cover multiple years then there's a special funds report which covers six different funds and then the fourth category being reported is the nutrition service funds as of april 22 end of the month april 22 the general funds report full year is projecting a positive overall full year variance of fifty thousand while positive the variance for

178the full year physical uh projection has gone from a positive variance of 110 to 50 and while the number is still positive the variance is just above breakeven and marginal when you re as a percentage when you look at the 176.3 million of the budget so we are on the edge but we seem to be staying positive [Applause] as with prior months there was a tradeoff in accounts the variance positive variance and total salary lines being a positive 1.7 and purchase services projection being slightly negative just below 1.7 so and it's a continuation of what's been going on through the full year in terms of the variances increases in salaries decreases of purchase or negative increase negative variance increases in purchase services in terms of the federal grants the state grants 11 million in outstanding

179funds over 9 million of those funds are the two large esser funds as was discussed and it looks like look at the report the fiscal one that ends this year looks like it's fully reserved so it's projected and then finally in terms of the special funds which are relatively small in size the different funds are projected in the fiscal year with the 2.1 million dollar balance which is a net increase of 40 000 from the june 21 balances fiscal year 21. so year over year the increase in balances was specific funds was relatively minimal and then finally has been discussed the nutrition services funds there has been a significant increase over the year and in the month going from a just being a break even at the end of fiscal year april 21 to balance

180at the end of 2.1 and as was discussed in prior months the fund has been generating more income than the pre-pandemic period with all students currently being fed free of charge until the end of this current fiscal year and the school administration is looking at their capital needs to see what needs to what can should be replaced on a going forward basis so that's all i had other than we were on the edge but we've been on the edge all year so any questions all right thank you ethan questions at all all right so with that seeking a motion that the board of education approved the financial report for the period ending april 30th 2022. so moved is there a second all of those in favor say aye aye aye can you oppose all right

181the eyes have it thank you so much now moving on to approval of minutes approval of the minutes of the may 17 2022 regular board of education meeting is there a motion is there a second second any discussion all those in favor say aye aye any nays all right the eyes have it wonderful now moving on to information and reports do we have any board members any communication reports from boards or other affiliations you may have ari yes um i just wanted to provide an update from the bridge um just kind of where they uh stand at year's end um as well as other uh summer op opportunities um for our town so overall in the school counseling um department they um had 89 school-based counseling clients they were seen across both high schools the

182three middle schools and a majority of the elementary schools there were 41 mentoring students and 120 additional students were seen through 15 different groups that were being offered the nice thing i saw is that throughout the summer counseling is actually available to any currently enrolled west hartford student or any who are being referred so counseling services will remain during the summer months which is great with regard to mentoring that is also going to continue through the summer and there are two options they can continue with individual mentoring relationships which will be more community based as opposed to being seen in the school which i think is great kind of trips to the park walks um in the students neighborhood occasional community trips on an individual basis and then they will also offer summer mentoring groups

183which will focus more on kind of social skills um community trips um so that sounds amazing an amazing opportunity to kind of continue that process throughout the summer just a quick mention of the different groups that were being offered this year at the middle schools they had a sisterhood group they had kids in divorce and separation as well as a sisterhood group and a conflict resolution group at connard at both hall and connor they offered a smart recovery which is a substance use focus in both of the high schools and then across the elementary schools they offered social skills groups with regard to the family resource center just some some numbers for them that i thought were pretty impressive there will actually this at the end of this month there will be 16 parents who

184will graduate from the parent leadership training institute which is huge and a great opportunity for families in our town the leadership group at the teen center organized and put together a movie night at the ecc um there is it's actually fully enrolled um but the four-week transition to kindergarten in the summer it's called uh one two three kindergarten for me well actually is fully enrolled with 30 children who will participate to provide some transition and preparation for starting elementary school family resource from march to may did an emergency diaper bank and raised or had donated over 5 000 diapers to support our community six family resource center families received gift cards to help support with basic needs food and household items and then throughout the year 62 families which included 90 children from birth to

1854 years old participated in their early learning play groups throughout the year so the bridge is doing pretty amazing work to help support our students and their families excellent thank you so much before we move on to our the wonderful piece we want oh jason please yes um can i ask a question of ari um i'm wondering what is the bridge's relationship to the plti did they establish could they have relationships with families that they recommend that path curious how how does how does that relationship give that over to lauren what yeah as an alum yeah exactly plti apparently asia training institute is a connecticut-based and a national based uh program and so there are different communities that apply for this grant funding and the bridge has been a reoccurring applicant and beneficiary of the

186grant funding and so with those funds that is what supports the program it's a standardized program for plti and there are many communities throughout the state that offer it and so that is how it is yes okay yeah thank you sure certainly um i i did want to give one update that i maybe counts as a report i don't know maybe not but it's just that there's um i wanted to remind families anyone who's watching about the child tax rebate that established in connecticut um does a maximum of 750 dollars that families can apply for up to three children um and with 250 per child uh there's open applications now and i think it opens it stays open for uh i can't remember how long but it's july 31st july thank you [Applause] all right

187any other updates one update i do want to share and i'm going to look at the camera whichever camera is on at this time want to certainly know that those who are viewing online are able to view uh because of west hartford community interactive and we are so appreciative for all that you do we know a staunch leader in shepherd of whc hyphen i is jennifer evans and jennifer want to recognize you as being recently recognized as west hartford's chamber of commerce spotlight community partner of the year award she recently received received that i certainly want to give kudos so if we can please give jennifer a round of applause for that effort thank you thank you and now at this time we have other information and discussions so tom sorry you're just going to

188have to bear with it we just want to certainly appropriately recognize it we just want to still just follow due diligence i'm just going to go down in alphabetical order please share your either word or sentence or two comments if farewell you deserve this time you have dedicated your time and attention and heart to this district for over 26 years so yes the hour may be late there may be some fatigue that's here but you certainly are very much deserving of hearing these words of recognition and appreciation and by the way we can say you have to hush so we just we don't do this will there be time for rebuttals all right so we're just going to go to alphabetical order so jason starting with you please thank you lorna for this opportunity to

189speak to you publicly about the work that you've done um i've probably known you the the shortest amount of time uh here and um you know i wanted to just draw from from two people uh in my in my comments just uh you know in a in a program i ran with uh with eastern connecticut state university the president um elsa nunez you know started off her remarks by sticking to one very very basic kind of formula one is say yes to truth and no to fear and i have seen you'd say yes to truth and know to fear time and time again and it's uh it's demonstrated in incredible courage and i've learned a lot from you and to see the the way that that you've brought that and made a difference in people's

190lives and the other is from my favorite philosophers franz fanon a caribbean philosopher who came with this idea of radical empathy which is not just to understand another person's life and their pain but to to think of how historical bias has created the conditions of their life and how oppressive conditions have created the pain um and so it goes much more beyond just naming it but understanding the things that have generated that historically so i say this in just and in connection with with you uh as a historian uh this is uh you know part of that charge is to understand people and understand systems and i i've really appreciated the way that you've done that and made it and how that understanding can have an impact on people's lives thank you ethan whatever i'm

191going to say is i thought your speech was was great and i'm sorry that it was just limited and when i get back from europe i'm going to try and i want to read the washington speech it's been a while since i've done it i've only been on the board since uh november so our interactions have been limited but in that time i've enjoyed working with you talking with you and felt very comfortable that you were giving even if you didn't agree with my opinions you were giving me your objective opinion and only meant the best for the kids in the families of west hartford i'm sorry to see you go i think it's a loss for the town and i hope that the um your new assignment your new place will give you the

192challenges that you're looking for and but again i feel bad for west hartford but i'm happy for you if this is what you want so thank you gail thanks so i want to wish you good luck in your next position and i know you're probably going to do great things in illinois and i want to thank you for your service to our town for 26 years [Applause] claire um so tom you've made an enormous impact on my teaching career and i wish i could have worked for you longer on the board of ed um you've taken a brave stance to do what's best for children and you always ask what is best for the students of west hartford you're an advocate of teachers and a trailblazer among superintendents your leadership and guidance and helping their

193district become more equitable and inclusive are to be applauded and i'm glad you received the statewide recognition that you deserved you will be missed tom and your new district's fortunate to have your wisdom expertise and passion [Applause] deb tom just a thank you for being the leader that you are a person who lifts up the people around you and you know your true north but you're open to hearing and considering opposing views whatever our profession or our role in our community or in our lives we should all aspire to your type of leadership you inspire me i will say especially during the two years that i was chair which started shortly before kovid did and throughout our approximately 562 phone calls during those two years we came to know each other pretty well and i

194came to learn sometimes just from the first breath of a phone call what was about to come out of your mouth something being cancelled or whatnot i will miss your guidance and i will miss your friendship best of luck ari so i'm gonna try to be quick but i was jotting things down um but i i wanted to share with you and i don't even know if you have this memory um i actually met you very briefly um years ago when i was at grace webb working on the attendance recovery program and we had a student joe petamonte and i were meeting and we were you know trying to get supports for this kid and i just remember you walked in it might have been a 30-second interaction and you said hello and and joe

195introduced me and we said this is what's going on and you said you got to do what's right for the kid get it done like make it happen and that was my first like interaction with you um and i think that's that's who you've been then who you are now and who you will be um i'm really sad to see you leave but i am so excited for you um in this next step you have done so much for our district over time i have two kids who are examples of the work that you've done um and your decisions are always based on the best interests of our students regardless of the feedback that we get i know that deep down that you are always fighting for our students and our families um i do

196wish that selfishly that you've chosen to stick around one more year um and finish it off with me um but i also know that we need to share the wealth and that there are other deserving districts that um should be lucky enough to have you lead them while you you know physically will not be a presence in our town all that you have done for us um it will live on um and you will always be a part of this town um i'm in awe of you during my short term on the board with you um and i just want you to know uh it's been an honor and a privilege to be able to work with you as a board member darn i i okay ari sorry i speak from my heart no and

197that that's how to do it that's how to do it but you're getting the the knots going um so you sir i echo all that has been shared i echo what was shared at your reception and you have done wonderful things for this district and not just the students who you have helped to educate but for the community at large i say that because we know that our motto is clear paths bright future clear paths bright future no limits and you have certainly stood by that uh through demonstration not just through words but by leading by example and the example the anecdote that ari just shared in terms of get it done do what you have to do to get it done that has been the way that you have operated and we respect that

198yes that may intimidate some but for others that can instill a sense of respect because we know when you say something you mean it and you follow through and that is so important not only for those that are at the forefront and the voices who we hear but more importantly for those that are behind the scenes it may feel voiceless and you speak up for all when it comes to equity you are just not saying that you're doing that and you're encouraging for others to do that as well i remember your the beginning of the year in the speech that you gave and you just saying clearly what we are going to do as a district what we are going to stand by and and you have led us in that way and we're continuing

199to go in that way so yes i too selfishly feel like darn you're not staying here with us but boy what a blessing the district you're going to is going to experience by having your leadership you certainly are a leader and i have referenced this quote before to you and i'm going to do it again and we certainly have heard it dr martin luther king jr the true measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands in terms of trials and controversy and my oh my if we have not seen that but in those moments when you're sitting there and receiving it whether it's coming from the podium or email or out in the streets you still stay the course you still move forward and

200for that we respect you and we care for you we're going to miss you so i'm going to pause now before i get teary-eyed as well but do you want to say that the words that have been shared here this is not the end of the words of respect and accolades that we have for you we have two gifts for you one that is physically here and one that will soon come your way the one that is physically here is this chair those that may not be able to see there is a chair that's right over there and this is the honorary chair that's given to anyone who has served on the board of education and when they step down or when they have finished their term they get this chair well certainly you are

201deserving of having this chair and we'll have it shipped to your home in illinois but also what you're going to receive is a memorabilia photo album because i want you to know that under your leadership as superintendent alone there have been 23 individuals that have served in this capacity on the board under your leadership as superintendent and i want you to know tom that every single one of those individuals every 23 of them responded to the call of please share with us words of congratulations or memories that you would like to share in honor of tom moore every single one of them responded so we have a book that will be presented to you that will include their comments and all of the bored photos that have been taken over the course of your tenure

202you will receive that as well so you're not getting rid of us you're going to see our shots and hear our words but you are very deserving of that so you know i've said before not going to say goodbye just going to say see you later but please know you are a person of integrity and we respect that and we look forward to you continuing to lead in that way the next next district you're going to serve as superintendent is so i'm going to ask once again team if we can give a round of applause a standing ovation for tom moore [Applause] all right and with that we're going to move to non-staff communications and reports and we're now going to hear from our student reps and this also is bittersweet but celebratory because this

203is their first last time rather giving their updates serving in this capacity so we're going to first start with avery so um like mr moore said there have been some really amazing achievements um in the district and at hall um and i can't list them all so i'm just going to give some highlights um the west hartford girls lacrosse youth program scholarship awarded hannah gainey and grace rusholo um boys track and field with the ciac class double l state champions um and then i think they got runner up but they still were fabulous um bridget mccann and tobias rufo were halls 2022 ciac scholar athletes and they each received recognition and i believe scholarships for that hall theatre has won multiple halo awards which are um connecticut's theater awards um and so congratulations to lauren

204schlansky and august kittleson for recognition and their performances in almost maine and madea um yes those are all the congratulations i have a time to give it's late um but actually hall alumni joey cornman who is now a semi-finalist in jeopardy came to visit and speak to current hall students about trivia about school about life and he's i think he's still competing in jeopardy and he's moving on um we've had culture week um during the last week of school for the seniors over the announcements they played music representing various different cultures um i think notably party in the usa represented north america um indeed a scavenger scavenger hunt um cold no cold noses worm hearts which is a therapy dog organization that one of the faculty ms frankel has been working with visited again to

205provide student support leading up to final exams senior prom was this past saturday and the seniors last day of school was yesterday yearbooks were given out and um capital ice cream came and gave seniors um free ice cream by the kickboard uh so for those of us who are leaving hall it's been a really um nice past few days with senior prom and just seeing the community come together and i just wanted to say thank you so much for having me here listening to the voices of all students offering your guidance and leadership um and i hope that uh in the future we can continue to have this bridge between the um student body and the board of education thank you avery just so you two know you're not off the hook as well we're

206going to have comments for you also but andrew please your updates i'll start with some things from before two weeks ago because i wasn't at the last board meeting and there were a number of things two to four weeks ago that i want to highlight that um we're really really impressive um connor held their junior and senior proms in glastonbury and sims barry respectively and that was three and two weeks ago connord farmington and uh hall high school participated in their second annual equity summit um along with 12 12 or nine other schools 12 schools in total over 80 students attended and they discussed such topics as um colorism code switching um and that was that was with the future educators of diversity and other groups as well um we had our final voting for

207the mascots obviously and we now all know what the winning choice was and um something i think is particularly notable is the mother of two connor students uh lockport sherpa climbed mount everest for the tenth time and she's the only woman to have done that uh ten times so that's that's very impressive in more recent news also seniors had their last day yesterday and the past two weeks for me and my senior peers have kind of been festivities and closing closing up four years at connard we're getting our yearbooks on wednesday tomorrow and we'll be we'll be getting them signed um another student i want to sing praise to jack lovejoy a junior at connard he received a gold medal at the national scholastic garden writing awards and for those of you who are unfamiliar

208with that contest it's honestly i think it's like probably the highest arts award you can win so he won in the photography category and he's getting honored at carnegie hall this month um less than half of less than half one percent of every submission gets the award he got so um i i find it extremely impressive um we had our junior and senior awards night um deca and the earth day club had a egg carton drive i think this is their second one they collected over 50 egg cartons and senior finals are happening now and the rest of school is wrapping up for freshmen through juniors and i'll also just take the time now to thank you all for making this opportunity possible for me and avery um public policy definitely isn't always as glamorous

209as it looks but the late nights were definitely worth it it's been very interesting so thank you for giving me a window into this and a voice too thank you andrew and and thank you you both because you have educated us in many ways but just want to give my colleagues an opportunity just to say a few words of thanks to you both starting with jason please [Applause] uh i don't imagine that when you agreed to be a board on the student reps on the board of education that this year would be as eventful as it has been um and you know seeing your guys level of engagement uh with the issues that we've heard and the um the material that we've we've um we've considered as is so impressive the your poise intellect uh

210uh candor and and uh the the you know just professional manner that you guys represent your peers and yourselves is just you know exceptional and i just want to applaud you for you know doing this kind of public service for your your peers and and and the district and that your voices have just been tremendous throughout this this this year so thank you for for being here ethan well as i said when we talk about tom this is all relatively new to me since november um i will say as i think about it it's probably one of the highlights hearing what's actually going on in the schools um because that is reality and it's great to hear how well the schools are doing and i appreciate both of you putting that point of view and

211there's been times when you guys have also chipped in on various issues and i think that's great and i enjoy your interaction and i wish you well next year wherever you're going and i hope it's a great opportunity and you guys have a great time and and everything goes well for you thank you gail yeah i want to thank you both i really enjoyed being here with you and and hearing your perspective uh sometimes you know we're we're not really in the schools and it gives us sort of a different flavor when we hear what you think about some of the issues i know this is very time consuming and some of these meetings go very late like the one tonight so i thank you for making the time and be willing to do this

212i also want to wish you both lots of luck wherever you're going next year i know you can both do really good things and i wish only good things going forward clear so it's been a pleasure to get to know both of you and i'm so glad when you do speak up um you have important questions you have important insight and um i wasn't sure how much you would speak on the board and and what your role was and i was so impressed especially i received a couple of written responses from you and and the stuff you have to share is amazing so i hope you continue service i think you see that you know we need people to step up and volunteer and everyone's voice matters and you've proven that and you've done a

213great job representing the students of both your schools so i'm i'm excited to hear what happens in the future for you your careers but i also know that you you won't let down your community and you will have a voice in the future i will build on what claire said it it's truly been a pleasure to serve in partnership with you um for our communities schools and when i think about how you have served in this role so far and what lies ahead for both of you it makes me feel better about you being a part of our next generation of leaders and what that means for our communities here and across the country and i too hope that you will continue to take on leadership roles and just bring your best self to to

214service moving forward and i want to thank you for everything that you've brought to our board and for teaching us as much as you have good luck all right um i just wanted to to kind of reiterate what what my colleagues have said but i really and and it's it's really my thoughts exactly avery when you said kind of being the voice of of the schools like that's how i see the two of you you are really you are the voices of your respective high schools and i've just been really impressed with your active involvement within meetings your thoughtful comments um really you're the level of genuineness that you um and authenticity that you present with um and your advocacy um for issues within within each of your schools and and issues that are being

215brought up town wide i'm just really impressed with all of those things and i do wish you the best whatever you choose to do next year and moving forward but i do hope and i and i i suspect that the both of you will continue to advocate you will continue to make changes and you will kind of shape the future of our world and and i think we're in good hands so thank you very much and i as well echo all that has been shared it has been a pleasure working with the both of you you you two are quite gifted and i say that not only because of the skill sets that you brought even before we first started having the board meetings with you serving your capacity but what you have endured over

216the past year you all have been through a lot i say that as you being students and certainly students in the midst of a pandemic students in the midst of many things that are happening within our town our community our state our country our world and you still have persevered you still have come here to fulfill your role your responsibility of being the voice of those who you represent at your respective schools and we thank you for that and we learn from you for that because you have shown us that we still can learn from even those that may be chronologically younger than we are and so thank you both so much for your determination of your advocacy for all of the adjectives and characteristics that have been described so far and we see a

217bright future for you both where you both are respectively going and whatever it was that motivated you to sit in this capacity right now to be a servant leader don't lose wind of that continue in that vein because that's going to continue to help you to move forward in so many ways not only benefiting yourself but also benefiting those of us who one day are going to depend on you to be our leaders so you are future leaders and you certainly have demonstrated leadership in your tenure here so thank you so much we have a small token of our appreciation to you so while we pass this to you i'm gonna ask for a round of applause please for our student representative [Applause] and with that we'll move on to future business announcement of future

218meeting dates our next meeting will be on tuesday september the 6th 2022. i heard it yes regular board of education meeting at seven o'clock here in room 314 followed by tuesday september the 20th 2022 another regular board of education meetings seven o'clock here in the legislative chamber room 314 followed by tuesday october the 18th 2022 regular board of education meetings seven o'clock here at the town hall room 314. is there a request for a future agenda item hearing none do we have any visitors here that would like to make a comment let me first just call the names for those who were on the list from before but we reached the capacity uh let's see we know that we had shiny maul shoot him all here no no all right and lori schwartz no all

219right and mary [Applause] hello my name is mary nagy of 43 acadia street i spoke on april 19th and may 17th regarding normal growth development theories and the process of informed consent i reference the extreme cultural diversity we experience being friends and neighbors here in west hartford and my concern for families as they continue to experience inclusion in public education without fear and compromise of their strongly held beliefs and identities they should not be subjected to harsh criticisms and scorn be ostracized or forced to accept indoctrinating their children into a belief system against their own views while west hartford has already adopted a gender identity curriculum the process of informed consent seems to be absent you have heard concerns about this from many parents of kindergarten through grade four over this past year i would

220like to share with you some of the views of a female to male man i think his age is 48 scott nugent who has published an opinion piece in february 2021 newsweek we need balance when it comes to gender dysphoric kids and he says i would know as a parent of three scott is against gender identity lessons introducing sexual concepts to children in grade school before they are capable of understanding them and lessons on the varied use of pronouns these views protect the natural latency period and natural puberty his views which protect the human body he is opposed to sex transition before the age of 26 he says here's what i could not comprehend before transitioning and what i honestly believe no child is capable of consenting to and there's a list of 15 different

221complications i'll read a few of them but they'll be in the email with links to the research decreased life expectancy bone damage a 12 percent higher chance to develop symptoms of psychosis higher suicide rates again there's seven to eight more we know sin in 2019 the sex reassignment surgery worldwide mark or u.s market is more than 316 million with a compound annual growth of 25.1 percent and projected global market value by 2026 of 1.5 billion we know rapid onset statistics are escalating and are driven by association with peers and prolonged social media we know sweden ended its practice of prescribing puberty blockers to minors sweden has the most welcoming environment and its longitudinal research shows that even with cultural affirmation of gender expressions suicide rates remain the same for individuals even after cultural affirmation and

222sex change surgery west harvard is not required to include the gender identity lessons pardon me your time marriage and other towns do not do this thank you thank you patricia paula getch and pardon i did not restate again on three minutes per individual thank you mary for uh responding to that and 21 minutes per subject matter and when you see the yellow card you have one minute and the red card please your time has expired hello my name is gatesh i live on 66 gillette street uh as i have been saying several times this gender war on our children has is happening across our country especially in states where the democrats are in control i will present the evidence a little later it seems that very few west hartford parents are aware of what the

223lgbtq cadres are doing to our children in the last couple of years our kids are coursed and bullied into accepting this new religion these cadres are pushing on on them regardless of their parents view unfortunately we the west hartford parents have no support from school administrators or board of education to stop this madness mainly due to the reason i pointed out earlier i was encouraged though by the pushback from the governor of south south dakota when she recently pushed back against the transgenderism policy of president biden the president threatened to cut off school lunch funding unless schools allow transgender boys in girls athletics this does not sound tolerant or fair to me however on this same stand including today we have been told by so many parents and advocates with a show of great emotions

224that this gender identity curriculum is only to encourage uh tolerance and for others to feel accepted the truth of the matter is this gender agenda is being advanced through courage bullying deception discrimination dissents and in violation of science i promise to give evidence right the evidence we have now is that all the 22 democrats governors including our governor ned lamont are in support of this ideology all the legislative efforts to stop this war on our children have been implemented by only only republican governors and legislators taking this evidence into account it should be very clear to us i mean to the concerned west hartford community in connecticut at large uh to what to do next to bring sanity into our public school system by the way where are the leaders of the feminist movement those

225advocates of women's rights why are they quiet when girls rights is being robbed trampled on and their future is being robbed by boys posing as girls i wonder thank you thank you any other comments from anyone all right yes plea please you you are yes hi i'm ronnie newton and i live at 67 rumford street and i have been at probably all 300 plus board meetings that tom has been at but i have never stood up here but i just wanted to say and even if it's inappropriate for a journalist to speak tom it's really been a pleasure working with you and um i really appreciate that you respond to my texts even when they're like sunday morning with a question because i'm working on something at a weird hour and best of luck to

226you we're really going to miss you here you've got big shoes to fall out to fill thank you to andy for filling those shoes at least for the the interim i look forward to working with you as well and just just wanted to say thank you thank you yes and and as a constituent you have every right to speak as well so thank you any other comments all right and so with that we do not have an executive session we do we did no we do not there's no change we do not yes yes we do we do not we do not have an executive session and so before i seek a motion for us to adjourn just want to say thank you so much again andy looking forward to partnering with you in the

227interim and we'll continue to move this this ship forward and so with that seeking a motion to adjourn so moved madame jarrett is there a second second all right meeting adjourned 1102 you