Board of Education Meeting of February 1, 2022 - Adoption of the CIP

001order welcome to the west hartford public schools board of education it is tuesday february the 1st 2022. we will have the roll call please charlotte dr chang present mr goldman president dr harris president miss nazarella present ms poland here dr steinberg here dr thomas farquharson here student representative andrew maglio president and student representative avery woods weber present thank you charlotte and ruma you please lead us in the pledge of the allegiance for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you we do not have a revision to the agenda order we now will proceed to public communications so this is an opportunity where we're able to hear from you your thoughts as you come to the podium each person has three minutes to share their thoughts please be mindful of

002charlotte for she will hold up a yellow card when you have one minute remaining in your time and when the red card is shown that means your time has expired when you do come to the podium please do share your name and your address and want to thank all of you here for please acknowledging and abiding by the mandate for masks to be worn indoors in the town hall here so again wanting to ensure that all masks are on and please have them to cover your nose even when you're at the podium as well we very much look forward to hearing public comment and most importantly we look forward for them to be delivered in a level of respect and a way of trying to listen to learn also while speaking it is policy that

003the board does not respond to public comments but please know we are attentively listening to what is being shared i have a list here of several who have signed up and for tonight's purpose again we have three minutes per individual 21 minutes per subject that is typical for all board meetings but for tonight what we're going to do we're going to allow 21 minutes for the subject of those that are speaking in favor of one or no change in name as it relates to the mascot and 21 minutes for those that are speaking in favor of no change at all so again 21 minutes for those that are speaking rather key of keeping both of the names and 21 minutes for those that are speaking in favor of changing one or both names so to

004start we have scott zweig if you may please approach good evening members of the board my name is scott zweig and i live at 19 clay bar drive i'm a lifelong west hartford resident and a proud hall warrior class of 2001. over the last several weeks we've gotten to know each other a little bit better tonight i stand before you asking for two things first i ask that you delay the vote on the high school team names until the entire community has had an opportunity to weigh in and participate in what should be a thorough and transparent process second if you do proceed with the vote tonight i ask that you vote no on motion 2 which seeks to discontinue the use of warrior for hall high school the name should stay there are several

005reasons why you should delay the vote first the board has not adequately or actively sought input from the community on this very important issue there have been no public forums no committee or subcommittee meetings and no surveys of parents students or other interested members of the community to put it simply you have not done your homework if you truly value and respect the opinions of your residents you will do more than pass lip service you will actually listen to what we have to say in fact i understand the overwhelming majority of letters submitted to the board oppose any change second neither the board nor the community has had an opportunity to properly consider whether a change is actually needed despite the legislation becoming effective on july 1st of last year the issue was not raised

006by the board for 159 days a mere 57 days from introduction to vote is just not enough time for example have you considered the cost to the taxpayers of the changing of the team names there are several other reasons why you should vote no on motion 2. first warrior is not implicated by public act 21-2 as i and others have articulated the term warrior is not uniquely or inextricably linked to native american culture i know that people don't want to hear this but there are other types of warriors for example courageous men and women of our armed forces who are injured in battle are revered as wounded warriors individuals who fight for the rights of the lgbtq plus community are affectionately known as rainbow warriors and individuals like myself who have courageously battled cancer are

007proud to call ourselves cancer warriors second there are other ways to comply with the act because warrior no longer has a native american association the town can keep the name and comply there are seven other schools in the state that use the warrior name and they will likely all do the same since 2012 hall has not used a single native american image in connection with the warrior name given the great lengths the schools and administration have gone to disassociate from the past we should be able to finally look forward we could also actively seek the consent of the tribes of connecticut which i understand the board has not done in good faith third to change only hall and connor team names would be a demon demonstrate profound hypocrisy by the board remember there are still

00815 streets in west hartford and a middle school that bear native american names do we have the permission of the mohawk mohegan arapaho seminole seneca or sioux king phillip middle school is named after medicom a wampanoag chief who was involved in one of the bloodiest conflicts in american history excuse me scott pardon me your time is up yes i'd like to finish by saying at the end of the war king philip was hanged beheaded and drawn and quartered are you now saying the street and school bear his name out of respect do we have his ancestors permission or is that a convenient cultural appropriation you wish us to ignore i ask you one more time to delay the vote because it is not correct for you to take such an action without meaningful and deliberate

009discussion with members of the community thank you and long live the hall warriors [Applause] thank you next we have dr tracy wilson good evening my name is tracy wilson i live at 251 ridgewood road i was appointed town historian 17 years ago i wholeheartedly support changing the names of hall and connor's mascots the use of these names has troubled me since i began teaching and coaching at connord in 1979 while some continue to argue that the mascot honored native peoples i never felt that way and refused to have any of the imagery on sports t-shirts and clothing the students bought over 40 years ago the love of the chieftain was never universal i just published an article in weehaw.com telling the story of simone hannibal and york they were the children of an african captive

010father and an algonquin mother captured during king philip's war they were enslaved in this town 300 years ago those who support the native mascot name often argue that it reminds us that there were native peoples who lived here and that we should teach that history in our schools simone hannibal and york were enslaved by the hosmers descendants of the first english settlers in this town these three were forced to work for no pay while they built the fortune of the hosmer family this fortune and they themselves were passed down in wills to the next generation this is not a story that can be told by having a native mascot it is a story that comes from historical research it is the purview of the social studies and english teachers to relay these stories not the

011job of coaches and sports teams thanks for soliciting the opinions of the federally recognized tribes in this state all of them find the names abhorrent please have the courage to follow the words of every connecticut tribe that replied to you urging you to rid the town of these offensive names thanks so much for your willingness to serve the town in public office in 2022 this service takes courage and fortitude thank you [Applause] thank you next we have beth bai good evening my name is beth bai i live at 251 ridgewood road and i'm here in support of changing the names of the mascots i know that serving on the board of ed is not always easy especially when people with good intentions on two sides of an issue come with varying points of view all

012feeling strongly on nights like this it's particularly difficult and it's good to see you all listening to both sides i'm really grateful to the board of ed for their leadership on this issue and i strongly support changing the names removing the names affiliated with native american mascots is a positive step forward for west hartford farmington glastonbury and so many other communities are adapting as our state learns more about our history and listens to the native american populations it's progress those native american populations are sharing their clear views about appropriating names last year i was really lucky to see the chieftain project at connord and what i learned watching that play was that the last time this was discussed far too much was on the backs of the students and not the policy makers it's wonderful

013to see all of you policy makers at the table taking this on and so it doesn't fall on students some of whom still feel pain pains today from the tension and energy around that i'm grateful that you're taking it this time around to move our community forward to be a more inclusive more caring town i fully support the effort to change the name of the mascots from the prior names that are clearly affiliated with native american imagery thank you so much thank you next we have john killian john if you're in the overflow room john please now it's your turn what we'll do we'll go to the next person and john once you come in we'll call on you at that time next we have chris corcoran pardon if i mispronounced your last name is

014this john oh pardon okay chris just one moment thank you john yes hi good evening i'm john killian and uh these days i'm bunking with my mom at 37 burnham drive i'm a connor class of 84. for you guys you know sometimes you get a chance to do something for your community even when you don't want to i want to you guys really don't have a choice there's always a conflict between those who want nothing to change and those who do not wish to see everything remain the same the motivation to change the names of mascots is that they derive from nicknames and tropes that were purposely pejorative in order to demean and belittle native culture these mascot names echo a practice of subjugation our european ancestors pressed with deadly effect in a time when

015state-sponsored violence was a common tool to displace non-europeans who stood in the way of the domination of the new world okay i'm going to skip over this like a hot stove let's see we held on to the chiseled face of the indian chieftain longer than franconia notch these mascots are layers about a rotten core if we are not careful and we don't tear down these walls the worms will eat into our brains and that's what i learned in tracy wilson's u.s history course while listening to pink floyd thank you now we will have chris thank you very much my name is chris corcoran i live at 21 brian road i appreciate the opportunity to speak to the board tonight in favor of changing the names of both schools mascots um i'd like to start off

016i've attended several events recently at the bushnell and beyond and uh one of the first things they do in many events night 10 now is read the land acknowledgement statement i'd like to read that now we would like to acknowledge to begin by acknowledging the land we on which we gather is the territory of the mohegan nation tucker pequot eastern pequot skedagog golden hill pog asset knit muck and lenape peoples who have started this land throughout the generations we thank them for their strength and resilience in protecting this land and aspire to uphold our responsibilities according to their example it's really been striking to me that's been mentioned several times i think very pertinent to the conversation tonight um the reason i'm here tonight is because i think it's just i won't use the word

017absurd but i think it's just it's just time for this to change my daughter um kind of continuing her legacy as a senior in high school back uh about seven years ago was very involved in the effort to get the mascots in the names changed of course there was a compromise at that time just to change the mascots she was a senior uh she was a person of strong beliefs and character she had a passion for activism she probably inherited from me and her mom because we were constantly out you know on the front lines opposing injustice at all levels and unfortunately her senior year was marred by you know a lot of mistreatment she was constantly vilified by her student fellow students for taking the stance and being vocal about it speaking up not

018just being quiet she relayed to me recently i told her i called her to tell her i was gonna be here tonight discussing this and she just was just shook her head on the zoom that we were still talking about this but she relayed to me that one of the things that happened to her as she was a track runner on behalf of the hall uh track team the students would throw things at her as she ran by because of that you know prior to being involved in this effort she was well liked and popular kid but god forbid she'd speak up and have a principle so tonight i'm asking for the board as was mentioned by beth to you know not put this onus on the student body let's resolve this at this level

019and i think it's just time i think the other thing i would say is i can't imagine that any member of the soccer team or football team track team would suddenly show up next year and say oh i'm not a hull warrior i'm not going to participate if they're a connored cardinal i think they're still going to fight as hard as they did to win for their team and to have just as much spirit as they do under the current names so i would strongly urge the board to pass the resolution and change both names thanks for your time tonight thank you next we have mary fleshly hi my name is mary fleishley and i live at 28 brunswick avenue thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony in favor of changing the names and

020thank you all for your service to our town and schools i'm a proud parent of a three sport varsity athlete as you can see i even have my own merch and you may notice that the shirt says connored girls soccer there's no reference to the school nickname i'm here to support changing the nicknames of connerton hall high schools i would not have brought bought this merch to support my daughter's team if it included the nickname i am proud of my daughter and i love the connor community but i am ashamed of her team's nickname seven years ago a compromise was made to re remove the mascots but keep the names some make the argument some could make the argument that the names don't necessarily refer to native americans however i know that at connerd there

021are still some students who refer to the student section as the tribe it's impossible to separate the names from their original dehumanizing origin some may say that the names are meant to honor native americans however when giving an honor it's important to consider the honoree and whether they feel honored none of the four tribal nations who responded to your letter supported the names or felt honored they gave you some suggestions on better ways to honor and engage with the tribal nations and their history shirt shows that it's easy to change the nicknames connor could just be connored or the connor community could choose a new name that everyone can get behind what we have now is a name that i will not shout from the stands a name that i will not wear i know

022that there are others who feel the same way let's start a new chapter with a new name we can still have the connor pride with a new name i want a school community that is inclusive where everyone feels valued and where all the fans feel comfortable shouting the cheers thank you thank you next we have judy kelly good evening i'm judy wyman kelly i live at 52 thompson road i'm here tonight to urge the board to retire the names chieftain and warrior eight years ago in 2014 i stood before the bur the board urging them to retire both the native names and imagery while i was happy to see the board vote to retire the imagery i was disappointed that the names were allowed to remain so thank you for bringing this important topic to

023a vote again you might recall that this past december i emailed the board on behalf of the connecticut human rights partnership regarding this topic i will briefly summarize the most germane parts of my email one these names continue to conjure up stereotypes which harm everyone some people argue that the names can be detached from the imagery and therefore aren't harmful but i disagree how can the names be detached when historically in west hartford they are presented and considered a package with the name still around racist use of the imagery is still happening by both home teams and opposing team fans two there is therefore a moral imperative to retire the names and connecticut indigenous tribal members and nations agree as they have publicly stated and finally three there is a legal imperative in june 2021

024as you know the connecticut state legislature passed act 21-2 which states that and i paraphrase no municipality shall be paid a grant from the mashintucket pequot and mohegan fund if a school or athletic team uses any name symbol or image that depicts refers to or is associated with a state or federally recognized native american tribe or a native american individual custom or tradition as a mascot nickname logo or team name so here is another chance for the board to do the right thing the thing they could have done in 2015. please vote to retire the names chieftain and warrior and continue your leadership in the areas of equality social justice and human rights thank you and next we have taylor santana good evening my name is taylor santana and i live at 527 mountain road

025i'm a current senior at connor high school and the chieftains have been a tradition since 1957. it is regarded as a name to be proud of a name representing honor and dignity i appreciate that opinion however it cannot be denied that name has a connection with native americans as a freshman i recall my older peers wearing shirts that pictured a native american wearing a traditional headdress our tribe leaders were then and still called tribe leaders and we were known as the tribe naively i believe this was normal and acceptable i didn't understand the history behind that word or the sacred nature it held in native american culture we are approaching a completely new new era in america one where we can rectify the mistakes of the past and strive for a more just society total

026totem middle school in washington state has dropped the name thunderbirds lamar high school in texas has dropped the name redskins natick high school in massachusetts has dropped the name redmond now is time for a change and i want west hartford to continue its legacy of being an enforcer of such to quote amanda gorman's poem history has its eyes on us this is the era of redemption thank you [Applause] thank you we have reached the max of seven speaking in favor of a change those that are on the list now if you have spoken in favor of keeping the names you may proceed to the podium if i call your name and you are speaking in favor of changing the names if you can please just respectfully uh to pause next we have arita ava valea

027pardon if i mispronouncing if you are speaking in favor of keeping the names please come to the podium okay pardon me sure i will spell it a-u-i-t-a okay hello my name is anita arakalyan i live at 48 west normandy drive and i come in in support of keeping the names for one reason um public act 21 2 does allow and i'm sort of nervous so i i apologize for that so on olr public act summary page 47 it is stated the act additionally provides a grace period until fiscal year 24 for municipalities that provide timely notification uh that they are that they may be seeking tribal consent i have not seen that on any of the paperwork that you even considered that point one point two sorry because i am nervous point two um there

028there's there was another legislation in colorado that was charging schools uh twenty-five thousand now um the difference between that law and this act there are two big differences ours did not have public testimony theirs did but the most important difference is um that the colorado commission of indian affairs shall identify they're the ones who are going to choose whether a name is acceptable or no having given that law the nation the native american guardians association has filed a lawsuit against that law the native american guardians association announced on november 2nd that it felt that the title prohibit american indian ass mascots is unconstitutional because it bans american indian tribe names symbols and images in colorado's public schools but does not prohibit use of non-american names they are calling that discrimination now on the point that

029was said that the tribes here in connecticut are opposed i will state that i took the time to speak with clan mother shorin and she said she is not opposed she says if they use the names do the courtesy of putting a plaque explaining whose land this belonged on if you want to make a change have you studied the history have any of you gone into the archives of connor high school to understand why they put those names and of hall high school have you taught and most importantly as an educational system and this is and i go to the con to the letter from the congress the national ncai the national congress this was written in 2015 prior to the mascot change the west hartford school district and the board of education has not

030contacted them recently to show them the newest legislation and what their opinion is and i read educators have a responsibility to teach their students about the struggles and triumphs of american indians and alaska natives whose cultures histories and contemporary contributions to him humanity present incredible learning opportunities may i add that on [Applause] pardon me your time is up uh can i just say this one sentence please it just uh on one of the government websites when the settlers came to america our u.s constitution in part looked at how the american indians uh were governing themselves and with one last thing anita pardon me no your time is up thank you so much but i ask anyone who speaks after me ask have our children be been into the museum anita anita thank you so much

031but our children will be competing with kids from other states i come from the state of pennsylvania and they did take us to these museums and we worked thank you anita that is your time as we continue i will again ask for you all to be mindful of the three-minute limit charlotte will graciously hold the yellow card to let you know when you have one minute left and the red card when your time has expired and if you by chance do you go over please do respectfully take your seat thank you so much next we have and again if you're speaking on the subject of keeping the names please do come to the podium addie lordon i live at 561 park road i have two current students in west hartford and i have one graduate

032from connard i'm going to leave the sports and the school pride to everybody else i'm going to speak about the actual names it is a touchy subject chieftain and warrior are not native american names they're not irish names they're not scottish names they come from the english who came to this country and many others to conquer to take over and to rob the native people of their language their cultures and their identity nobody can deny that however chieftain and warrior they are words in many many other languages in irish chieftain is coun count faina for family for clan the warriors are the fianna even women are ben fiannine woman warrior hunter it is our culture as well it is our ethnic identity yes it was taken it was abused it was used but we cannot

033deny other ethnic people their identity even connord is named after nicholas co after frederick you connored his descendant nicholas connard fled ireland in 1757 coming to nova scotia he fled the oppression the yoke of oppression by the british crown frederick ew connard was a delegate to the state constitutional convention for the first district in 1965. our constitution in this country is based on native american government we should be teaching our children these things we don't we used to my eldest child went to the pequot museum in third grade she learnt about our native tribes she learned how to identify their languages she learned how they lived they built native american homes from this state hers was a long house i do not see any reference to this in the curriculum since 2013 why not where

034is the money for that education this grant money will go into the town fund it is not earmarked for the curriculum when i last heard any mention of education in the curriculum it was at a equity diversity council meeting in october where a list of books was given in fifth grade we are supposed to be teaching our children the story of pocahontas well mr vicinis could not tell us in fact was quite surprised that pocahontas had four names he told us and cautioned us not to believe the disney version i learned about pocahontas a very long time before that movie in ireland i learned the true story of pocahontas excuse me addie pardon me your time is up thank you thank you [Applause] next we have india liddy liddell thank you i'm here to share

035my opinion about changing the high school mascot names and i am in favor of keeping them i first need to say that i am fully aware that there are much more important matters to be concerned with right now such as the horrifying decline in our children's mental health however i will say that i already know where the board stands on this issue and how you intend to vote tonight if you vote no matter what i say or what former warrior parent said tonight and two weeks ago or what anyone says you will do what you want without any consideration simply because you have the power to do so please keep in mind you are appointed by people like me to do what is right for our schools and our community on december 7th ronnie newton

036of weha.com who is here tonight wrote an article on this topic an excerpt here an initial proposal to have the board vote on january 18th on whether or not to change one or both of the nicknames was modified in order to provide additional time to obtain feedback from the students and others in the community ms harris said the parents have accused the board of not listening and asked that there be enough opportunity to get input miss nozzarella also thought there should be more time after the holidays to get feedback i'm just curious where the student body stands she said the current student body where do they stand by a vote of six to one the board approved a motion to address public act 21-2 with a vote on the use of chieftain and warrior and

037create a process if necessary to adopt the measures on february 1. my question is did you create that process did you run through a process as you said you would did you ask the student body their thoughts or the community the answer to these questions would be no you did not possibly the kids wouldn't care or maybe they would but you did not ask them maybe many wouldn't be so opposed to the change if the student body came out and said they were fine with dropping the names but you did not bother to find that out because you do what you want the negative imagery is gone the name warrior is one who is strong and proud the google definition is a brave or experienced soldier or fighter please know that i am completely aware

038of the why in this matter unfortunately you are not listening to anyone who has a different viewpoint which sadly happens everywhere these days on almost any topic whatever happened to civil discourse by the way some of you live in an area of the town that is called the reservation you live on the streets named mohegan and mohawk will you be petitioning the town to change those next and while you're at it you might as well put in to change the name of king philip as well where does it end i am leaving you with this history is not there for you to like or dislike it is there for you to learn from and it if it offends you even better because then you are less likely to repeat it it is not yours to

039erase it belongs to all of us i ask you to delay the vote run through the process that you said you would i appreciate your time tonight thank you thank you next we have kim hughes and again this is for those that are speaking in favor of keeping the names as is okay all right that is all i have listed here however if there are we have room for three more public comment for those that desire to keep the name and just one and at the end of our meeting we do have public comment and we start the round again so anyone that would like to speak at that point in time certainly may if you can please share your name and your address good evening my name is patty fleming 34 linwald drive good

040evening i'm here tonight to speak in favor of maintaining the chieftain and warrior names for the west hartford high schools of connord and hall you as a board have not done your due diligence to seek out the matter of public opinion on this issue mentioning that the community can express their opinions via public comment or email in the minutes of a boe meeting is not an exhaustive research in the opinions of the student body or the community at large please don't kid yourself or the community that you've sought out the matter responsibly be accountable to what you say you're going to do which is what you said on december 7th secondly this is not a question of non-compliance but eligibility have you sought out the native tribes and or the legislature to specifically ask if

041these cross cultural terms would actually disqualif disqualify whps specifically have you waited for a response to your inquiry lastly changing the names is a pointless waste of time and money as was already brought up by mr goldman at the december 7th meeting 27 thousand dollars is not a substantial amount of money considering the size of the overall budget especially when considering how much this would actually cost the school district once uniforms for every single sport have to be purchased a new website design wasted letterhead and stationery updated signage and printing not to mention the cost of designing a new logo and mascot i haven't priced it out but i bet the farm it's substantially more than twenty seven thousand dollars focus your funds and time in more important pursuits like the mental well-being of our

042children or the fact that suicides suicidal ideations and self-harm is on the rise it's due to the pressure isolation and anxiety that our kids have been under for over two years being told they can't see their friends lock down mandates and telling them they could kill their grandparents tie that in with the divisiveness over masking and vaccination status that has caused bullying in the schools and that kids are being socially ostracized depending on where their parents stand on these issues pay attention to the real issues at hand and focus your energies there instead of theatrics that satisfy some woe quota you're trying to meet getting back to a sense of normalcy would do us all a world of good especially our children getting kids back to normal social behaviors is far more important than changing

043the names of our high school mascots thank you [Applause] again we have space for two more speakers speaking in favor of keeping the names anyone here young man yes please share your name and your address please hello i'm uh ryan zadanowitz i live on 50 juniper lane um i'm a hall football captain and hall wrestling captain um i'm for the 20 20 20 20 22 season um i'm in favor of this because as soon as you're brought in as a freshman for the whole football team we learned what a warrior hall athlete is um we learned resilience perseverance responsibility and respectfulness is the key values we learn as a freshman for the whole football team and um i've always wanted like when i was little uh i used to love to go to the hall

044football games and i always loved being there and can't wait till i was a hall warrior on the football team it was such a great thing to see and now i'm here i'm going to be a senior and hearing that the name might be changed and chosen for all the athletes and people who have been waiting for so long and all of a sudden too we have really not had enough time so i'm either asking for a delay or just to not change it at all for the student body and i feel like there hasn't been enough time to get everyone's consensus on this and um it's a sentimental value from the past generations the future generations i have a freshman here and uh now the current generations uh on the uh as a hall

045student that's all i wanted to say thank you [Applause] thank you and i believe young man you also would like to speak yes hello my name is griffin margolis i live at fort kirkwood road and i'm also a student hall i think having the name warriors facilitated with the hall is more than just a name talking to coaches and teachers in the town that went to hall i realized we were all connected through the same thing which is the warrior's name if that changes then it is going to be changing all the history that is involved with the schools before us i think we should keep the name so the 50 years of warrior history stays connected with past present and future students thank you [Applause] thank you that concludes comments on the subject of

046school mascots were there any other public comments on a different subject matter for those that are here in the room or in the overflow room again any public comment on a different subject matter in the room or in the overflow room okay with that we will conclude public communications we will move on to unfinished business adoption of the capital improvement plan for 2022 to 2023. we have the recommendation that the board of education adopt the capital improvement plan for this time frame refer to our colleagues here all right so andy dr murrow will defer to you thank you very much um as you remember last time we were together we presented the capital improvement plan that covers 2022 in 2023 we walked through the various projects we explained uh the delays we had had from

047last year and the board went ahead and received the plan since then we are simply here to answer any questions you might have and the board as you know in the process as uh liz explained the board goes ahead and approves this and then passes it on to the town because it then is part of the town's capital improvement plan overall thank you so much and before we go into questions or comments our team may have just want to remind everyone who is in here to please follow the mandate for masks to be worn inside the building and that is mask to cover your nose and your mouth so please all ensure that your masks are on covering your nose and your mouth thank you so team with that questions that you may have in

048regard to the capital improvement plan who may have a question claire yes thank you for your presentation on the the plan and you had mentioned some work to be planned over two summers in some schools with the air system i'm just wondering if you could speak to any prior summer work that you're able to do as a teacher when we're told to vacate a building for a big summer project and then sometimes there's runovers and so you're in a tight window can you speak to some of the things that you can do prior to the start of work sure thank you um yes you know claire what we try and do each each summer is we're getting ready for these projects they go out to bid obviously once we then have the contractor selected our

049contractors uh we'll meet with them we'll make sure that the plan is in place that the plan that we have is appropriate for the time and that the work will be able to be completed in that time we're able to go ahead and pre-order materials we're able to go ahead and prep areas that we know will be impacted so that we're able to really maximize that time so the day after school ends we're able to get in there and start that work thank you other questions ethan um just for future and i think i asked this last meeting is there a way just to get a context i mean there's i see the total plan it's under broad categories it would just be helpful to whether looking back at a prior year or the future

050year what are the projects how many got spent because right now it's more a continuation year over year so i think we talked to or i asked for that and i understand is the town driving this but is it you know and i can try and show you what i think i just i'm used to seeing it that way no i appreciate that and i think we shared that you know table two talks about the projects that were planned and completed right for last summer and the ones that didn't get completed then are either then planned for this summer or had to be rebid based on the configuration of them so even if those could just have a mount so just to get it i'm just trying to understand the context sure because we're being

051asked to vote i'm fine voting but i just feel like for future i'd like to have a better understanding of what worked you know did we hit those numbers are those numbers too low did things just happen it just would be very helpful well and liz can perhaps speak to that but again we don't we don't track at that level with the town does the town track so these projects are managed in our capital projects fund which is totally managed by the town um so i don't have those figures i don't manage those figures so what we're really doing is looking at the operational needs and the capital needs of our building and then you are voting on these projects once you agree to those the management financial management of that is turned over to

052the town so our the projects you vote on get incorporated into the town's overall capital budget just like the streets do etcetera and they manage that entire fund okay and if i could one of the things might help is that we're presenting the estimates of what these costs will be for all of these projects sometimes we'll have a summer couple years ago asphalt asphalt costs dropped dramatically so we were able to accelerate projects that were two years out into that year and combine a couple because you got a bid that could allow that so you got more bang for your buck other times we go out to bid so this isn't the list of what we've gotten bids and come back for in that amount it's what we estimate we might go to bid and

053the bids come in over now if they're significantly over that mean that could mean we have to postpone it and get a larger allocation there's other times if it's within a window then you take from one project move it over and that's why one gets completed another dozen so so these are our best estimates to plan but we're doing it before we get the chance to go down absolutely except i appreciate it i in real life i do this quarterly with the companies that i i work with and it's just i i'll talk to you maybe off offline no i got you it's just the issue is that it's a town yeah it's well it's it's two things it's the town and that our funding inherently could be quarterly if you look at it but

054it's really it's allocation and then expenditure in the summer i mean pretty much all of it is expended during the summer it's a very limited amount that's not i just feel we're approving it we should have more of a understood it's you know nothing against what you guys are i got you i mean you're presenting what you have but i just feel as a body we should be more attuned to what's there and whether it's spanish let's be understood how much care is over all right other thank you ethan other questions comments okay well with that again the recommendation is that the board of education adopts the capital improvement plan for 2022-2023 do we have a motion so moved is there a second second all those in favor say aye any oppose any abstentions the

055eyes have it thank you so much liz andy and bob thank you now we will go to letter b new legislation update school mascots andy yes thank you you're still right there and we have the recommendation that the board of education addressed public act 21-2 with a vote on the use of chieftain and warrior and if necessary create a process to adopt new measures before moving on are there any other matters to bring up yes ethan i would like to propose i don't know if it's an amendment or a proposal just to extend the review process to go till the beginning of june okay is there a second second okay so again restate the proposed amendment please when you would help me i would like to propose we extend the review process for the um

056in terms of the nicknames till the first board meeting in june thank you and it has been properly moved and seconded all those in discussion yes um a question through you madam chair to the maker of the motion what would be your proposed plan between now and the first meeting in june that would provide you with the information that you need to cast your vote at that time so i had a number of things but so there were a number of things that i thought should be done i can go through what my speech was used but among other things i think the public forum that i heard about is important i think capitalizing on the numbers was important um i we have gotten an incredible at least i feel that there's been an incredible

057amount of emails and i'm going to make a estimate like 75 percent have come in the last since this weekend and i think there's a lot of people out there willing to express their opinion i think uh so much from my speech i think the important though it's important that this be looked as a thorough fair transparent process and one of the comments that came from people who wanted to change the name was that they thought the process would bring the community together and i believe unless there's a perception of fairness whether the fairness is there or fairness isn't there but if there's there has to be a perception a fairness to do that and so um i was hoping to work with you all to come up with what needs to be done because

058frankly i'm relatively new at this so i don't claim to know but the dollars should be determined the resources should determine we're in the middle of covid and my fear is if we get another you know something could happen and we could just be caught out busy looking at nicknames as opposed to dealing with issues but i think the perception of fairness and i think if we appear to be rushing it and i'm not saying we are because i didn't come up with any proposals of what we should have done i should have done at the beginning but i didn't but i think the perception of fairness is critical and there were a number of people over the weekend and that's what caught my attention and i contacted lorna and to say this is what

059i wanted to do but we it has to be a fair process and i think more importantly one of the things i got this weekend and yesterday and today is hearing people's ideas those who were for the idea and those who were against the idea helped me understand it so it doesn't matter if i agree with them or not at least i get the understanding and i think right now people are looking at the other group and just figuring they're all jerks so i think it's important for the town to have that conversation and then hopefully it works out the best um through you madam chair i i appreciate that explanation and um you know to be honest i would probably support a small delay i i definitely couldn't support waiting all the way through

060the spring and to the end of the school year because i feel that the current students should have a say in any new name that might be developed so for that reason i'm going to vote now on this motion any other discussion with emotion on the floor with that could i just let me go through i wrote it up but i'm not just all out of context now um just want to cover all my points i believe as i said that that um we appear to be rushing um appear to be rushing in the decision i think that's not good for the school board i don't think that's good for the decision whatever it is and i don't think that's good for the town and perception is reality um and you know like i said

061there was the comment which also heard from people who said they wanted to change the names that this would help heal the town or whatever i think that's important but you're not going to do it if it appears to be rushed through and it appears to be an unfair process and i just think we should give everybody a chance so i think we should have the forums i think we should look at the cost we should look at the resources from which i have asked for but you know sort of ambiguous right now to me and i would also like to understand better what happened in 2015. we haven't had that discussion and i realize there's some of you who know but that's sort of trying to understand that and that's basically all i have

062thank you thank you yes gail thank you um i guess i'm struggling a little bit with why we are feeling that we have to rush this this through uh you know it's only been about i don't know five or six weeks since the original motion was made and we seem to feel that we need to you know work very very quickly you know we can't get into budget season and i guess part of my question is is why like what is what is the big rush this is a big issue for a lot of people in this town and to like rush it through without the proper process um which i think they're you know some of the things that ethan said but i think they're even you know there's the ability to to garner

063more information from the tribes which we haven't done there's the ability to get permission from the tribes to use these names which we haven't done so i'm struggling a little bit with why this is such a big rush and why we can't take our time and have a transparent full process that includes our entire community alumni students and i don't feel that we've in the amount of time that we've had we've been able to really accomplish that thank you other discussions again to the motion that's on the floor to amend the current motion uh proposing to extend the vote and to the first meeting in june any other discussion on the current motion on the floor jason yeah thank you uh really appreciate the the concierge's uh deliberation over the public's business and just wanted

064to reflect on the process that we went through as a board to to determine the vote date and we did delay from that point and um and we did push it back and to it was a six to one vote to to do that um so given given our you know the understanding that we had at the time this is the this is the pop this is the process that we've gone through there have been no obstacles to engagement and and i've really appreciated all of the public input and the demonstration of the the personal research the reflecting the um uh the meditations on on uh how people have uh have built their lives in this community so i i really appreciate but i'm gonna vote no on on on a delay so can i

065ask a question because more to deb with everybody else i picked june first because previously we said let's not interfere with the budget so my question is what would be an acceptable date because i do think we need to delay june 1st to me is not uh was just literally me trying to figure out something trying to stay with what i know but is there another date uh that would be acceptable you said short delay yes um through the chair speaking just for myself um i would support a delay to march first if we were to hold an online public forum between now and then to provide the public an opportunity to share their thoughts with us the reason i say online is we're obviously restricting how many people are in this room at one

066time because of covid but online would provide more accessibility for our entire community um and so that's just for me i would i would be able to support a delay to march first and that would give us time a full month to schedule a public forum and receive additional input and perhaps receive additional input from the remaining two tribes that have not responded so just to be clear again the current motion is in regard to delaying the vote until the first meeting in june june 1st so discussion now is in regard to that motion so i'm willing to modify it to get it i'm sorry i'm willing to modify it because i want to see what's possible and and what i'd also like to do or ask is that we sort of identify what needs

067to happen based on the comments based on we think so that we walk out of here with a plan so it's not just we're postponing this with you know waiting i i would like to see for those who want to make their opinions public i think that would be incredibly healthy you know because i've i've just been very impressed by a number of the comments on both sides that came through in the emails but i feel like we're seeing them but the community's not seeing them and i think it'd be very healthy in my opinion for people to understand why other people are saying something totally different so you're restating you're retracting your initial motion and you're restating it and if you can please do so i'm trying i am willing i would propose we

068go to march first as a decision with the idea that we set up a working group which you'll have to help me figure out how we do to set up ways for the public to be communicating and to get a better handle of the information that we should be looking at and with that proposed motion is there a second discussion with the updated motion on the floor hearing none we will vote on the current motion which is to postpone the vote until march the first to allow for other activities to happen in the interim all of those in favor say i i all those opposed say nay nay the nays have it the motion fails um madam chair for the purpose of the media could we do that by roll call certainly with the motion

069for the vote to be delayed until march the 1st charlotte may you please go through the roll call and we will individually state our stance dr chang no mr goldman aye dr harris yes ms nazarella no miss poland yes dr steinberg no dr thomas farquharson no once again the motion fails we will now go to the motion on the floor again the recommendation that the board of education addressed public act 21-2 with a vote on the use of chieftain and warrior and of necessary create a process to adopt new measures before we go with the formality of the motion just want to open it up for to hear thoughts from our board members and in doing so would like each board member to share their thoughts and we will go in alphabetical order starting with

070dr oh pardon me before doing that yes thank you so very much before going into that i want to first acknowledge how much we appreciate the comment that we have received not only here today but also in preceding meetings in public comment at the beginning of the meeting and the end of the meeting as well as those that have reached out via email or those that have reached out to others individually again from when this process began we stated our desire to want to hear from you we greatly appreciate the wealth of information and feedback that we have received from the community so thank you so very much and in doing so we were quite clear and saying we wanted to hear from the community and importantly we also wanted to hear from our students

071and so with that we have the motion to vote but before doing so we want to hear from our student representatives and we're so appreciative to you avery and andrew for the way that you represent your schools connor and hall high school and we certainly want to defer to you to hear what you have to share please from your peers in regard to tonight's vote so let's start please with avery okay for the sake of time um i just wanna about how much time do i have because have a bit of a report here we want to hear from you okay so just to begin um i sent out a poll to hall high students um about a week or two ago there were 505 respondents which was approximately a third of hall high school's

072student population by my estimate six percent answered not sure 32 answered for changing the name 62 answered for keeping the name and there are 161 short answer respondents which is about 10 of the school of the students who were for keeping the name the factors influencing their opinions were the belief that the warrior name no longer has a the connotations that it did originally or that new interpretations can be created one student responded it represents the strength and bravery of all students teachers and alumni who value what it truly means to be a warrior students have concerns about the logistics of a name change including funding for new sports uniforms and students freedom to create a new name and logo students have grown up with the name it holds both familial and town history student

073athletes responding to the survey cite the warrior name as a symbol of pride a large proportion of the responses for keeping the name factored in tradition and the desire for a new perception of the warrior name students relate the names universal definitions of warrior and european warriors a student who self-identified as quote part native american said quote if the name goes away then no one will know where its origin comes from and therefore is g cultural deculturalization i think the native culture should be recognized and not hidden some students who voted to keep the name mentions that they are not native american therefore they quote do not think that it is right quote for them to vote on it and quote whether they think it is wrong is irrelevant students who reported not sure reflected

074a similar sentiment one student saying quote the opinions of native people in connecticut should be greatly considered over my opinion as a high schooler as i cannot speak to whether through my experience the word warriors is an offensive term of the students who were for changing the name the factors influencing their opinions were the belief the mascot name does not represent hall's missions and values once one student said hall cannot claim to be anti-racist and simultaneously keep this name it is offensive and dehumanizing school climate concerns a student who self-identified as having quote native ant native ancestry said quote i always feel very tokenized whenever i see our mascot name it's honestly very uncomfortable especially because there are not many native students here multiple students referenced the continued use of native american imagery such as

075feathers and school merchandise and language citing this is an example of quote normalization of casual racism at hall students desire to use changing the name to set a good example one student said quote this is an amazing opportunity to break away from west hartford's racist past we all know that the name warriors although it isn't directly racist still holds roots to hall's past we still have native feathers on our shirts and the administration doesn't stop this by changing the name we can move on as a community and truly show that we've moved forward so that's the poll student equity and diversity council a student-led organization at hall that works with administration and community organizations like the equity and diversity council to promote an equitable school climate for all has provided a short statement mascot names

076evoke a sense of pride for school environments that pride is wrongly placed when the names are based on and dehumanize a group of people keeping mascot names that are based on indigenous people gives others the idea that it's okay to otherwise and believe that their sense of community based on that name is more important than the group of people it is disrespect disrespecting i also spoke with a faculty member who reflected concerns about whether student input would be considered if one or both of the names are changed students want to be part of this process for instance students in a graphic design class have brought up this conversation during a logo and branding design unit there is some excitement for the possibilities of this to be an opportunity for students to use their skills and

077to get involved in the community [Applause] i hope that the board of education will consider these invaluable perspectives when making a legacy changing decision tonight whps's mission is to provide every possibility for every child this is an opportunity for the west hartford community to continue leading and to make a decision about how we will look at history decades from now this is an opportunity for the board of education to ensure an environment where every child is undeniably learning and practicing our shared values respect personal and community growth equity and excellence [Applause] okay that's all i have thank you avery andrew uh the results of my communication with my peers at connard were generally very consistent with what avery mentioned last week i sent out an email to all students grades 9 through 12 briefly informing

078them of the situation and the process that we're currently undergoing and encouraging them to reach out to me with formal statements i did not receive as many statements as avery did but of the ones that i did three of them were did not very strongly take a position one of them just raised wanted to more fully flesh out the debate and bring he brought up the idea of funding and the possible financial implications of changing the name um one of them um did not express her position but did say that she would um that she believed students should have input on the new mascot and the new name if the board did decide to change from chieftain and one student just inquired about speaking tonight but two two students did write a very much in

079favor of changing the name from chieftain and i'll read part of one of their uh statements to me who and and this is um this is the statement that i passed out to everyone prior to the meeting uh she is um let me find this uh so she self-identifies as half anishinabe which is um a native american group indigenous to north america and um and in the second paragraph of her statement she wrote quote every morning i walk into connor with the word chieftain plastered over my head while i understand the meaning of why connor and hall use words like chieftain and warrior are by no means meant to be offensive they are end quote and she proceeded to end her communication saying quote the conor chieftains and hall warriors are actively participating in racist

080motives while it may not be their intentions it is offensive to me as an indigenous person to be only the face of a high school team when my culture is much more than a team end quote the vast majority of people who did reach out to me were in favor of keeping the name though of the students who very clearly took a position so not counting the three students who were speaking more about if the process advanced what they would like to see happen or just inquiring about the process or rounding 82 percent were in favor of keeping the name chieftain but to get a more full picture of what all students thought i found in one of connor's old newspaper issues back from when the issue was initially being discussed back in january of

0812015 through the high school through connor high school's history department about 900 students took a survey at that time and while it is important to note that that was before the imagery was taken away at that point at 60 percent uh did support keeping the name chieftain while 32 percent did not support the use of the chieftain and 8 were undecided so um that's pretty consistent with avery's uh poll from very recently this this month um i'll just echo what avery said that the students at connard and at hall by extension um are definitely an important consideration um but our perspectives the perspectives of every student who reached out to me and the board i i hope that they are taken into consideration and everything is weighed i think that a lot of people bring

082up very valid points and ultimately it will be your decision to weigh them all and find what you feel is the most constructive path forward thank you andrew thank you both once again for representing well and sharing the thoughts of your peers we greatly appreciate that and with that coupled with all of the information and comments we've received thus far teammates want to hear from you and your thoughts so again if we can go in alphabetical order and share your thoughts starting with dr chang all right thank you lorna um thank you avery and andrew uh really appreciate your time that you've taken uh after midterm exams and everything that's been going on i really appreciate your your queries with your peers and engaging them with this question i also want to thank all of

083the the people who've taken the time to write emails to share their experiences it's been wonderful to learn of all of the different ways that that people have made their lives here and and through through the schools so first off i want to wish everyone a happy lunar new year today is the first day of that very special holiday and it's also apt because it's about addressing old business and celebrating new beginnings as we ring in the year of the tiger so i have a brief introduction here and then i want to make three points so i was raised in a family that devoted a great deal of attention to the lives of indigenous people i learned from my family's experiences with the kanaka maoli in hawaii the sioux in minnesota and the miami in

084indiana i was raised with an ethical concern for living on colonized land early in life i learned that every square mile of the united states is indigenous land here we are on the traditional lands of the tungsten sikkiag and wang peoples and every resident ought to know the dispossession and enslavement of these people which paved the way for this community to be established working for the dignity and well-being of indigenous people is a duty of everyone living on colonized land these are the lessons of advanced citizenship luckily we are at this crossroads now where we have an opportunity to begin a new chapter if you vote with me to discontinue the use of warriors and chieftains look forward to our community building a new collective identity for our schools so with my time i'm going

085to make three points definition versus impact educational value and working together first the debate over the school names has largely revolved around a difference in opinion but there is a deeper matter living in the hometown of no webster i suppose i shouldn't be surprised to have received so many emails providing the dictionary definitions of words warrior and chieftain it's common for colonial cultures to appropriate the imagery and language of the original inhabitants to mark their domination this is true from canada to chile from australia to south africa colonial cultures also often hide their histories of dispossession through the creation of mythical and romantic made-up stories of the indigenous populations such as savage warriors and noble princesses our school names warriors and chieftains are a product of this cultural process in 2015 the board hoped to

086disentangle our schools from this colonial culture in hopes that the removing the imagery would separate us from the problem of racial stereotypes but the words we have kept and their historical baggage forever attached to those words continue to haunt us i see with clear eyes we are at the end of the bargain struck in 2015. revisiting this issue has shown that despite the valiant efforts in the district to rewrite the meaning of the names there are those who remain steadfast in continuing to use names like the tribe and the reservation for non-school-sponsored groups demonstrating the deep seated trappings of these stereotypes the debate on the meaning of these words will never end we have all inherited imperfect institutions but we are not bound by the past i am a part of this colonial culture as

087much as anyone else and for that reason responsible for undoing its terrible legacy debate over the meaning of these words of of these words is a distraction from the more important work of identifying their effect on the educational environment that is the reason that these votes are before the board tonight my second point educational value our anti-racism and equity policy unanimously passed by the board last year asked us to identify and dismantle all elements of systemic racism and historical inequalities i believe this charge is the substance of the choice at hand for decades native americans from across the country have campaigned for our institutions to stop the use of his of stereotypical harmful terms and images connecticut's tribes have spoken on this issue many times we could look to the many instances of connecticut's native

088community public presentations testimonies and letters such as crystal whipple's vice chairman woman of the mashtucket piqua tribe who testified to the education committee on march 17th of last year advocating for the law in question 21-2 when she identified the harm which school names and mascots do to tribal youth in addition to local native voices we have education researchers and social scientists who have addressed this question directly one article by fryeburg ad all published in 2008 entitled of warriors warrior chiefs and indian princesses the psychological consequences of american indian mascots which found that native inspired mascots decreased self-esteem decreased feelings of community worth and generated fewer achievement related self-images for native youth the authors concluded that quote american indian mascots are harmful because they remind american indians of the limited ways others see them and in

089this way can strain how they can see themselves last year a study a survey of this type of research was published by davis delano at all this peer-reviewed study affirmed the findings of fryeburg in 2008 and added two critical insights regarding the impact of mascots on non-natives first that the names encourage the maintenance of negative stereotypes by non-natives second that native mascots undermine intergroup relations and are associated with the maintenance of other racial stereotypes this survey article also points out that quote there was no evidence from any study that native american mascots foster positive or beneficial psychosocial effects for native americans all the research advocated for the removal of native inspired mascot names as well as the introduction of native studies curriculum when american indians do not have enough do not have authentic representation in

090the media references to native people have even more weight such as team names there are no educational benefits for keeping the names and there are verifiable harms for native and non-native people and making them and maintaining them the answer from this perspective is clear it requires two steps one discontinue the names two expand the education of our community on local native american voices stories and representations our vote today is one part of this solution the other is found in sections 274 and 277 of pa 212 which require the inclusion of native american studies across grade bands these two changes go hand in hand how can we learn from the past if we can't recognize the harm being done in the present my last point working together we are not strong because of what we call

091our teams a community's strength is derived from how we cultivate and support growth for each other we need to build a 21st century education that recognizes the most challenging horizons of growth ahead voting to discontinue these names says to our students we are all ready to learn with open hearts and build a meaningful collective identity based on mutual respect and dignity if given the chance i would be so excited to support our school community through this process and therefore give our students a crucial learning experience in participating in institutional change thank you for your patience and i look forward to hearing my colleagues comments as we proceed with the meeting thank you jason ethan thank you i realize i'm being repetitive but i would also like to thank everyone who has come to the meetings

092to speak on the subject of the team's nicknames as well as those who took the time to email us on the subject it was great to see hear different points of view i think that's healthy in the end i am sorry that our process does not allow us to interact with those of you who spoke the meetings or emailed us but that is the process i would have also liked to have had time to discuss the issue with other board members prior to tonight but again that's a process i am against either name change and have four specific points as to why i'm against the change for both schools point one prioritization resources and what this means in a coveted time period if the decision is made to change the name of the high school

093mascots it will take a considerable amount of time and resources well no one can predict the future we are in the middle of covitt i understand that everyone especially me hopes that cobit is once against peaking but the reality is we don't know what will happen and there have been multiple times in the last two years that the united states and the rest of the world have declared victory over covet wanting to see koba come back stronger whether it's delta omicron or another variant we should not be distracted working on this name change if something happens with cova we should be focused on it that's just my opinion and the analogy that i keep thinking of is nero holding or fiddling while rome burns we should have our school administration focused not distracted by changing

094the name that can happen anytime if they wanted to do it but point two while i understand there are native american team names that could be and were considered offensive such as the washington redskins or the cleveland indians especially when combined with the imagery of both of those teams that is not the situation in terms of west hartford teams especially with the change that was made seven years ago when the native american imagery of west hartford teams was eliminated changing the imagery of a team from native american to non-america apologize non-native american imagery can be done and the best example that comes to mind is that of the golden state warriors in the nba the players on that team are very outspoken politically but i have not heard them object into my knowledge the team

095has no issues in terms of its name it is the warriors and they did have native american imagery if you go back looking at them when they were philadelphia i know from the emails and comments there are a number of residents who are locked in time and always will see the old imagery when they hear the team's names but that is in the past it is time to move forward we need to bring context to the imagery and status should be the status should be what it is today if you you're a new resident who just moved into town i don't see how you would associate either team's current imagery and names with native americans we need to stop focusing on the past and look at the situation as it currently stands point three there

096is nothing in either team's name that is unique to native american histories warriors i agree the term warrior has been used to describe native american fighters however it has been used to describe fighters of many nationalities including the greeks the romans the persians the gauls the huns other european tribes as well as various asian tribes and african tribes i spent over 20 years in the u.s army army reserve the army uses a warrior label to describe its elite fighters such as rangers or special forces the army has an annual warrior competition where soldiers compete to be recognized with the top soldiers in the total army or its components the war ethos is used by the army to describe its values and the values that it expects its officers and soldiers to follow the warrior label

097in the army is about today's soldiers and the army's current missions it has never had anything to do with native americans or the army's past history with native americans for me that is the context i put the label warrior in is what i think of it as has never been about colonial american history especially given the current team's name uh imagery chieftains the name was more of a struggle for me in terms of understanding it i assume it was originally related to the north american i'm sorry native american tribes because of its imagery but i'm certain that's how the name was determined when i look up the name of chieftain on the internet the first thing that passes up uh pops up i'm sorry is a full page of selections about the musical group which

098i'd never heard of before when i tried to narrow it down to military full page selections comes up about the british world war ii tank the chieftains which i had heard about as someone who enjoys reading history especially american history and that of us history i do not remember ever hearing the term chieftain used in the historical context of native american native american history i read the term chieftain in terms of the scottish clans both in history books and in literature with robert louis stevenson whether it's kidnapped david belfort or others i've also seen the term used in terms of the european tribes that battled the romans as well as in terms of mexican history but have not seen in terms of native american history in the united states finally and this one came recently

099in the last 24 hours i was incredibly impressed by the emails from at least 15 i last stopped counting at that point individual individual members of the conner football team explaining what the name meant to them and how the name was the link to the team's culture in some cases generational family members and the responsibilities they felt being a member of that group and finally what it meant for them to be part of the tradition a tradition that does not appear in any of their letters or any of their statements to do anything with native american connection i wish everybody everyone had been able to read the emails because they were impressive and were very thought provoking it reminded me of the impact the army's honor corps had on me when i became a second

100lieutenant and how that honor quote has continued to impact my values and actions if nothing else it is a is something we do not want to lose we need to keep that kind of attitude and it has nothing again to do in my opinion with native american and the people who wrote it as i'm sure you all know were very specific that didn't point four we're making decisions for an academic organization the assumption behind those decisions should be fact and academically based at this point in time the decision should be made on the facts on the ground not what happened seven years or what happened prior to that the current imagery of the two teams is no longer has any connection to do with anything native american the team's name team names on the two

101high schools are not uniquely associated to native american history or terms like the redskins or cleveland indians while the team names could be used to describe the members of the native american tribes the team names could be used to describe a significant number of other nationalities or groups when you look the names up whether google the internet or dictionary the native american connection does not even come up if we are going to make changes the reasons for the changes should be visible and clear it should also be a process that is transparent and thorough i have the utmost respect for the budgeting process being a cfo of a manufacturing company but it should not be an excuse to rush and that's what i think we did unfortunately as 2020 hindsight and finally we talk about

102wanting to do this for the students and i didn't know this until this afternoon and this afternoon but the students indicate that they want to keep the names as what i understood so i wish we would keep the names but i i hope we do thank you thank you ethan before we continue on just wanna we're so appreciative of the media that are here but if you can please be mindful not to block the cameras that we do have here in the room please am i blocking it yes did they say so thank you so much next we will hear from gail i don't know uh okay like just one moment because we'll give you a signal if it does okay thank you so much gail please thank you thank you so i grew up

103here and i went to hall high school and i was associated with the name warrior as were all of my siblings so as somebody who grew up here and lived here i i have a connection to those names and they they mean something to me they're part of my heritage they're part of my culture they're part of my high school experience as well as all of my siblings and thousands and thousands of other people based on some of those letters that we saw and obviously the public can't really see that we saw many many alumni write and discuss how they felt and the connection that they felt to those names so i guess i feel a little bit that if you change these names you erase a part of our culture and heritage in this

104town and as much as i hear you know the other things being said on the other side i think that that has to be taken into account the thousands of people who have played under those names who have been on sports teams with those names and they have a connection to those names the second thing i wanted to bring up is i feel like we already debated this five years ago or six years ago and at that time i think that we had a vigorous debate a hard fought debate on both sides where many many people spoke out and many many people voiced their opinion and the one thing that struck me in that debate or that outcome was that we reached a compromise and it was a compromise where neither side got exactly what

105they wanted but every side got something and i think if the board now comes and then reverses that decision i don't think it really looks great i don't think it's a great look and if we decide to change just one name here tonight and we don't change two are we going to be having this conversation again in two years i think that the unity of the community is exceedingly important to me and i think if we change these names we're basically going back on our word from five or six years ago where we reached a compromise and we're going to tell the community that you know what we're going to do it again and we're going to do it again and again until we get exactly what we want to me the unity and the

106connection of our communities is really paramount and if we vote to change these names i think we create disunity in the community and for that reason above many other reasons i think it's exceedingly important to think about what we're going to do i wanted to also reiterate that you know we asked for student input and both of our students here told us that 62 percent of the students approximately do not want to change the names so are we representatives of the community at large and the student body or we just do whatever you know we think we should do we asked for their input we got their input and 62 of them do not want to change the names and i would i didn't count up all the emails but my feeling is that there

107were many more emails that did not want to change the names than they did want to change the names um i am concerned again you know that we didn't really have a process there are many things missing like a cost analysis of what this is going to cost uh could we have approached the tribes and received permission to keep these names why why aren't we doing any of that stuff why are we rushing through this um the last thing i wanted to bring up again is i am concerned that we make a decision here tonight to change one name and not to change the other and i think that that again will create disunity in our community i i don't think it's fair to say well the kids at hall we're not going to change

108your name but the kids at connored we are i think that we need to be across the board with whatever we do and i think that our students deserve to have the same done for both schools and not to change one name and then change not change another because i i don't think that that will create a good feel in the community that's all i have thank you gail and sir cameraman thank you very much for being flexible thank you next we will hear from claire hi so um i've read hundreds of letters articles and listened with an open mind to both perspectives i want to expressly thank the students who took time to write comments to write letters and to speak in front of the board over the last two months it's been a

109big focus of mine there's not a day but gone by where i haven't read multiple pieces and researched i come from a little different background i'm from northern michigan the only minority we had in my town was native american i grew up with that minority being prevalent in my town i also noticed that over the years our town is changing we currently have 40 percent of our more than 40 percent of our student body is a minority where our town is only 20 percent so our schools themselves are more diverse than they have been and they keep getting more diverse we have over 70 languages spoken in our schools about 13 well in 2013 i had the honor of representing the state of connecticut in washington dc to learn about culturally relevant pedagogy i was

110there with one teacher from every state and we went to brazil we learned about other cultures and we learned how as teachers to be responsive over the past 10 15 years i've gone through many professional development trainings west hartford has extensive professional development for teachers and i currently have it in my new position so putting that all together i am in favor of changing both school mascot names my decision is based on the negative impact that ethnicities as mascots have on citizens and our perception and treatment of cultures this move aligns with the newly adopted connecticut department of education position statement on culturally responsive education and it aligns with west hartford's vision for equity and anti-racism we can all agree that the two names have meaning outside the original meaning but we know what kind

111of warrior chieftain our teams were named after according to our students native american references remain seven years after the logo change discontinuing the mascot does not erase history there will always be proud hall warriors and proud connor chieftains west hartford students will continue to aspire to represent our schools and fans will cheer our amazing athletes a mascot change would allow future generations to rally for a name everyone can embrace and symbols more inspiring than the connored c and the hall hw i believe our kids deserve a team name that positively reflects our west hartford values and allows for creativity and fun i was surprised when i first heard the hartford yard goat's name my family now loves going to the baseball games and rallies for the team's silly logo goat races and cheers i believe

112we need a mascots that don't divide the community and make some people very uncomfortable new mascot names and images will provide the opportunity to build upon our values and create an environment that we can all be proud of thank you next we'll hear from deb thank you we were partially nudged to bring this issue up because of state legislation this past june however another perhaps more important reason we've been discussing and deliberating on the continued use of the warriors and chieftains names is our equity policy as some of my colleagues have already referenced the policy states in part we make a solemn promise to identify and dismantle all elements of systemic racism and historical inequities i'm confident that all of us here at this table in this room and in our town would agree that

113we must work to dismantle elements of systemic racism and so here we are working to determine whether the terms chieftains and warriors are elements of systemic racism and or contribute to race-based stereotypes that's the question before us does the continued use of these names without the imagery previously associated with them further our mission and goals towards equity for all of our students or do the names hurt any person or any group of people if they are hurtful we have an obvious choice before us and so we reached out to those who might be most hurt our five federally recognized tribes and we asked them to give us some feedback after reading the letters we received from the tribes as well as those from students and community members i'm not convinced that we are faced with

114an obvious choice we heard from many people who reference the various meanings of the words warrior and chieftain the meanings they've had historically the meanings they have in the dictionary today and the meanings they've taken on at our high schools most particularly over the past seven years some say that we cannot divorce these names from their original meaning i'm not sure about that words do change meaning over time their etymology is often lost or misconstrued but i think one of the barriers we have right now is while we know what we do not mean by chieftain and warrior we haven't put a picture on what we do mean we never really replace those native american images while well-intentioned the elimination of that imagery without replacing it with new imagery has allowed the connection to native

115americans to persist so if we're going to keep the names we certainly need new imagery to reflect what we do mean by chieftain and warrior that would help to set the tone for the schools to move forward by honoring the history of the names themselves and also setting a new path personally i am convinced that warrior has many meetings that are not tied to native americans however i have not been convinced that chieftain can be affiliated with anything other than its native american connotation and so i will be voting to reflect those opinions if we do move on from the names that presents us with an exciting opportunity for broad community input and creative collaboration for new names and mascots and for all of us to look forward together to the next chapter of west

116hartford's story i do have a message for the students who have continued to include a feather or feathers on t-shirts and signage this action clearly goes against the wishes of the tribes you now know it's offensive to native american people i suspect some will try to continue this practice even with a new name that has never had affiliation with native american in history and i'm asking you to please be sensitive to this simple request and to stop using that imagery regardless of the vote tonight we all will continue to support our hall encountered students both on and off the fields thank you now we'll hear from ari thank you um i would say that my comments will probably echo much of what my colleagues have expressed but my the purpose of my statement is really

117to just provide some insight to the public uh regarding the factors that have guided and influenced my decision process on this vote so first and foremost and i'm going to read the quote as well because part of the quote that i think is most important has not been shared the first and foremost is the alignment with our newly adopted equity policy that was um voted on unanimously um and it quotes um that we have solemn promise to identify and dismantle all elements of systemic racism and historical inequities we vow to clear paths with a relentless duty to those in traditionally marginalized groups in my opinion our actions need to align with the values that are expressed in our policy that we voted on and in my opinion keeping the current names the current team names

118will continue to perpetuate the racism and abuse that our equity policy was designed to eliminate second i think you know it's important to assess and evaluate kind of the historical foundations and connections with our current high school names despite the removal of the imagery that had been voted on in 2015 the truth is it's not about we've gotten many letters that define both terms for us um but the truth is it's not about the definition of the word we will all have different definitions of the word based on our own personal experience but it's about the impact that it is having on native american people they are telling us that the use of these terms are offensive and disrespectful to them and that that's where my heart wants to follow um i want to just

119uh andrew had shared an email from a student and he didn't read the whole letter but this is the key for me this is a student who walks in every morning to school with the word chieftain plastered i think her her choice of words is very important plastered over my head she doesn't have a say she goes into a school with a name that she does not feel comfortable with as an indigenous student it is hurtful to be called a chieftain because because it is prompting harmful racial stereotypes that misinterpret my culture and i have to be honest according to our equity policy if the terms that we're choosing to use hurts even one student we are not doing our job we are not doing our due diligence so the terms chieftain and warrior originated

120and were intertwined with native american within the west hartford public schools there's no denying that so we can look at other cultures and we can look at other definitions of the word but here in west hartford it is very apparent that the historical connotations exist despite the fact that we removed the imagery we're here again today having this very discussion and i think that actually further supports the idea that the connection and associations continue to exist despite the efforts that were made in 2015. lastly i think it's really important and i think it's hard to do with emotionally charged topics and this after receiving numerous emails is a very emotionally sentimental charged issue within our town and i respect that i think the piece that's missing is it's hard for me and i think for

121everyone the ability to balance and leverage separate realities and look outside of our own personal lens and our own personal experience and be able to be sensitive and open to the ideas and values of other people um so with that being said i also you know i know that there's a compelling the percentages on the the thank you for doing all of that for us um so yes the majority of high school students 60 percent say they want to maintain the team name there is 32 percent i think was that they're correct 32 percent of our students who do not want to continue the name and they have given us reasons why and then we have our undecideds my thought is if we have a school name that is causing so in contrary to gail

122i do think in terms of unity of community if we have team names that are divisive and there is controversy over them and there are students that want it and students that don't that actually is more divisive than starting anew and getting behind a new team name that everybody feels comfortable with and that everybody feels is inclusive of who they are as an individual and as a school so my decision will be to change both names so thank you ari and thank you all uh colleagues for sharing your thoughts um have been absorbing them all certainly have been absorbing the emails certainly have been absorbing the comments that have been raised and taking all of this and synthesizing it into excuse me i'm please going to ask please be respectful thank you synthesizing all of

123it into where we are at this point in time and so one of the things i think that is a notable positive from this experience is boy how engaged the community has been i don't know about you all but i have not received that many emails in such a period of time so that shows that you're paying attention and that's good and we are part of the board of education you are the community we want to hear from you and appreciate the level of civic engagement that has happened and so thinking about the purpose of the vote for tonight i think back to these two high schools hall and connor and we know that hall high school was named after william hall and connor was named after frederick underwood connor now hall high school was

124first built in 1924 actually this used to be hall high school this building that we're in right now town hall used to be the original hall high school and it was not until 1970 that the current location for hull high school became into existence so hall has long history certainly so and we know with that history we know the thousands that have graduated each year from hall high school have gone on to do wonderful things but more importantly formed wonderful memories while they were at hull high school we certainly know the same applies to connor high school which first was built in 1957 and we know the thousands that have graduated from connor high school and the memories that they formed while there and the accomplishments that they are achieving since they have graduated we

125all have heard the accolades but we know that conrad hall high school continuously rank high rankings not only statewide but nationally they rank not only for athletics but academics they go on professionally to make name for themselves and it's those actions that make us all proud the students of hall the students of connor the graduates of hall the graduates of connor that is what speaks volumes that is where the legacy is established that is where the legacy is maintained that is what we know we know that that is a fact what we also know is that in regard to the mascot name and imagery associated with those schools we also know that that is offensive to the native american population we know that in 2015 there was a letter that was received by jacqueline potter

126the executive director of the national congress of american indians and in that letter it starts off by saying as the oldest largest and most representative american indian organization in the united states the national congress of american indians condemns the use of indian and indian inspired names mascots and other stereotypical imagery for sports teams and school names that's how the letter starts off it then goes on to say national congress of american indians condemns the use of indian and indian inspired names mascots and other stereotypical imagery for sports teams and school names and then it also goes on to say this is important because we know that we did reach out to the five national nation tribes here in connecticut and form from those letters that we receive some have questioned well they weren't too specific

127in saying if they're foreign or not for it let's be clear and those of you are privy to reading them because it is on our website they clearly acknowledge the offense to the terms they give exceptions they give conditions of how to use and that's unfortunate that it takes the exceptions for it to be something to receive by others but i want to read here with the letter that i started off with where it says quote while i and many others recognize that the vast majority of individuals who support the continued use of indian references names and imagery do so with good intentions i want to assure you that i and countless other tribal nation leaders are not honored when schools perpetuate indian inspired names and mascots such as the hull warriors or the connor

128chieftains that is what we know what we also know is that we have the honor of being board members on the board of education and we know in doing so our primary role yes is for the budget yes it is to oversee our superintendent but it also is in regard to policy policy that we are to issue and to uphold when each of us was sworn into office we took an oath and with that oath that is what we vowed to do what we do know is that we currently have an educational equity policy policy 1800 that has been quoted several times tonight already that is what we do know and because of that policy it is incongruent with what we are talking about now in terms of continuing the use of the current mascot

129names and so with that i'm thinking of a quote and i'm going to share this quote it's from dr martin luther king jr who once said there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor political nor popular but he must take it because conscious tells him it is right and so for that synthesizing all that has been shared and presented i am choosing to vote to change both of the names so with that charlotte we need motions if we can yes just preparing that's all right we are going to do the roll call for the vote however to formally introduce the motions as they are the board of education to consider two options to discontinue the use of chieftains names the connor high school principal in consultation with the

130assistant superintendent will appoint a committee at their school composed of school administrators teachers non-certified employees students parents and other members of the school community to develop a new name by june the 7th all reasonable efforts will be made to begin to replace non-conforming names starting at the beginning of the 2022-2023 year do we have a motion i make a motion to discontinue the use of the connor chieftain's name do we have a second second is there discussion all of those in favor say aye pardon me pardon me we will do the roll call excuse me charlotte please call the names okay dr chang aye mr goldman no dr harris no ms nazarella i miss poland i dr steinberg i dr thomas farquharson i any abstentions any opposed rather any abstentions well you pose yes to

131opposed five eyes the eyes have it the motion passes moving on to the next motion and with this one it is to discontinue the use of warrior name the hall high school principal in consultation with the assistant superintendent will appoint a committee at their school composed of school administrators teachers non-certified employees students parents and other members of the school community to develop a new name by june 7 2022 all reasonable efforts will be made to begin to replace non-conforming names starting at the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year is there a motion i would like to raise the motion to discontinue the use of the warrior name is there a second i second any discussion i just had one comment it's not to change anything my hope is in this committee that you're appointing that

132will include people who were against the change just i think that's important to bring people together so i don't know how you reach out but based on the emails based on location i would hope you would include them as well as people who you would normally import so just a request thank you all right yes avery yes may i respond to that briefly yes in the poll there were i'm not sure if it's statistically significant but there were a few responses from people who had voted to keep the name of potential new names and wanting to be involved in that process if it does happen thank you other discussion charlotte may please go through the roll call for the vote dr chang aye mr goldman no dr harris no ms nazarella yes miss poland no

133dr steinberg yes dr thomas farquharson yes we have four yeses and three no's the motion carries so with that recognizing that the vote has been to change both school high school names want to share the process that we are looking to have and we certainly will follow the leading guidance rather of dr murrow and our superintendent of that process so the the end date that we are hoping to have a new name by is by june the 7th however we certainly want the input and contribution of our students and staff and faculty and those that were named in the motion to be a part of that so the first phase would be the school body coming up with names for them to for names that they would like for the new mascot that's every school

134body and we want school body from the 8th grade until the 12th grade because our current eighth graders will soon be at the high schools so that would be the first phase the second phase would be within each respective school a school committee of students to narrow down that list the third phase would be within each respective school for the list to be narrowed down further of the student school committee and all of those that were named in the motion staff administration the fourth phase then would be to con to bring it back to the student body at large to vote on what name they think is good and also want to ensure that each respective school is in communication with one another with whatever the name may be just in case they both happen

135to come up with the same name and the fifth phase then the fifth phase would be whichever name is voted on from each respective school those names would be brought to the board and at our june 7th meeting we would vote on the name so thank you all so very much for your contribution to this process we we know that some are disappointed with this and we know that some are pleased with this but we hope the process of coming up with the new name will help to form more unity more consistent unity with the students because we know the students are our current and future leaders and as we say clear paths bright future no limits so with that we will continue on and moving to new business and now we will have staff

136communication and reports we will defer to our superintendent's report please thank you very much um i'd like people um to take a moment and remember a colleague from connored that we lost in january kim hoffman was a talk about a fighter kim hoffman the giulio's in the room um julia and i had the good pleasure of being being principal of connor with kim as one of our partners in mental health for our kids and boy you talk about and advocate enough so that immediately before her death an article appeared actually by george will um in the washington post about kim and her advocacy continuing i testified at the state house numerous times with kim next to me about different educational issues she was passionate she was a fighter she was all about kids she represented

137everything um that is good about conor and staff and we are very sad to have lost her after a long battle with cancer um but it's it's appropriate for us to remember her a um a just a significant part of connor's history who we will miss dearly speaking of connor and hall connor and hall are both in the top five high schools in the state with hall third and connored fifth separated by four total students in the schools the most students enrolled in uconn's early college experience courses 248 at hall 244 at connard when combined with our students successfully completing advanced placement courses that means there is no community in in connecticut with more students graduating from high school with college credit than our students in west hartford it's tremendous it speaks to our partnership

138with the university of connecticut the variety of courses that we offer and the efforts of our students and and while this is great because it brings challenge to students in high school and a wide variety of courses the other benefit is there is a real financial benefit to ha if you go on to uconn a time a benefit of you may have be able to graduate early in some cases the other benefit is the time benefit a perhaps of being done with introductory courses so you're moving into your major sooner and perhaps getting double majors but the other time benefit of this semester i'm taking this really hard course and this really hard course i can graduate still if i only take four cores instead of five um or i need to work or something

139else so um really a good piece for our two high schools which we're very proud of and um lastly on this day that begins black history month i want to share our commitment to justice and assert that we stand with our friends in the many hbcus today that had bomb threats come in we in west hartford stand by all of these students whose sense of safety was threatened and his education was interrupted by those who promote fear and hate robust teaching learning engagement will happen this month in all of our schools in honor of these students these institutions and those that would seek to quiet to threaten and to make people feel less safe in educational endeavors and we partner with all of our teachers and our community and our commitment to making this month

140special for our students and with that open to any questions thank you so much questions at all regarding our superintendent's report thank you and i thank you for your comments regarding the events from today being a proud alumna of an hbcu spelman college certainly it's an unfortunate circumstance so thank you for speaking on that and as we know as we're celebrating black history month we certainly know we can celebrate that year round and so fortunate to intentionally be acknowledging that at this time so thank you so much with that we will move on to routine matters and now we will have our financial report approval of the financial report for the period ending in december 31st 2021 and so we'll have liz come to us and i believe today deb is going to be presenting

141thank you i am thank you and it's just such a surprise to me that the room has cleared out because this is really the most exciting part of the meeting and thank you to liz and ethan my fellow financial examiner this is the report for the period ending december 31st which gets us um five months into our fiscal year but really only a couple of months because most of our expenses occur after the school year starts so there's nothing terribly unusual here um you'll see we do have an estimated surplus of ninety five thousand dollars at fiscal year end which is um a change from last month from um which was fifty thousand last month uh some of the items i'd like to highlight this evening include um that we are you'll see that we

142have a little bit of money left over in our temporary custodial assistance line item and uh that is because uh like many other organizations we're having trouble finding uh custodians and so we are utilizing overtime to cover that and that's kind of a wash as far as that goes um please pardon the pun happy to have been able to use that con i'm gonna i'm gonna try to work another one in there we're also we continue to struggle to fill daily substitute positions so there's some savings there by fiscal year end but again we're using the contractual services to backfill all of these positions and so again um excuse me uh nothing nothing that is gonna provide a huge savings for us or um put any of our children at risk for not getting the

143services that they need um so that is all i really want to say about the general fund we can move on to the state and federal grants fund report excuse me i usually bring water with me but i was afraid that it would be a long meeting and i wouldn't be able to handle that so on our funds report page tip we have the gray line going across the page about 60 of the way down the grants above that line are typically the current year grants the grants below that line are typically the second year of multi-year grants with one exception this time so i do want to highlight um the esser grants and those are the federal grants that are coming in because of covid so the sr1 grant which is 502.062. um 532

144620 we expect to fully expend that by 6 30 22 and that grant actually ends on 9 30 22 so we'll be using that up this school year sr2 which is um the full grant is a little over 3.9 million that ends on 9 30 23 and so we have an extra year to use that and you'll see we're predicted to use some now some next year and finally sr3 um which we kind of believe belongs above the line um because we just got this grant but it did start in 2021 and so that's why it lies below the line uh this is a grant that's about 9.7 million dollars and we have until 9 30 2024 to use that grant so i don't have any questions about those well i thought this loss engine

145thank you all right moving on to special funds there's no news on special funds everything is kind of the same as before and finally nutrition services um i want to call your attention to the daily average student meals which is 4761 for the month of december that's huge that is a lot of students getting a free lunch every day so thank you to our federal government for providing free lunch for all of our students in west hartford every single day this year it's very much appreciated and needed because we're serving so many lunches and getting this reimbursement you'll see that we do have quite a healthy fun balance at the bottom of the page a little over 1.3 million and that presents an opportunity for us and the opportunity is to evaluate the needs of

146our cafeterias across our district and we have lots of cafeterias with lots of equipment and so we will be doing an assessment of the equipment needs and perhaps going out to bid this spring to replace things like refrigerators dishwashers ovens and so forth we do still have six or seven vacancies in our nutrition services department so if you know anyone who's looking for a job with school hours um have them get in touch with our new hr person giulia duarte are there any questions on the financial report um i just wanted to say with with the uh with the purchases i i would love it if there could be an energy efficiency focus so that when you do upgrade your kitchens there's a lot more appliances from what they've had that might make more savings

147yeah there always is everything goes through the town has an educational consultant through bob palmer's department that we actually work with who actually oversees all of our energy saving processes from the lights that we switched over a few years ago if you recall and then all of our solar arrays and any kind of appliances or anything like that we get energy ratings for so there's a focus thanks ethan yes make a motion to approve the financial report let me just see if there are other questions just one moment any other discussion any other questions all right so yes you sure yes make a motion to prove the financial report i second all right any discussion all those in favor aye aye aye any oppose any extensions the eyes have it thank you so very much

148thank you moving on now to approval of the minutes do we have an approval of the minutes from the january 18 2022 regular board of education meeting again the recommendations at the board of education approved the minutes from this meeting is there a motion so moved a second second discussion all those in favor say i did you fix the repetitive yes okay i'll repeat again all of those in favor say aye aye aye aye any all opposed abstentions the eyes have it great thank you moving on now to information and reports board members communication and reports do we have any reports from our board members yeah it's good now this is actually probably an ahri update but um we have started to attend pto meetings and um so i think um ari has been in

149touch with some of the ptos and we have a couple of those scheduled coming up so if you want us to come visit get in touch thank you deb yes ari is that we're fortunate to have you as our representative for the pt council so thank you so much and those of you who have reached out and we already have scheduled to see you thank you and as has been shared we welcome more invitations so thank you any other board reports at all okay and we don't have any other information or discussion so now we will move to non-staff communications reports we're able to hear the reports from our student representatives starting with avery please so thank you mr moore for bringing up black history month um i'm sure that this is something that you

150might have a little knowledge of too um we're gonna have the second series of panels um following up on last year's successful black history month panels this year's theme is health and wellness there will be three panels the medical profession stem and mental health professionals and community leaders will be coming and speaking to students about health in the black community and just celebrating that history and what the current community is doing and you know promoting wellness in our students the panels are february 16th and this year there will be there will be a debrief on february 23rd for students in their regular community meetings midterms were have ended since the last as of last week there is an option for those who were impacted by covid recently um and meet certain conditions to waive midterms

151junior planning is beginning this wednesday february 2nd for our juniors who will now begin applying to colleges winter sports have lifted the spectator limit masks are still required but i'm sure that everyone will be happy to be together again um and yesterday conor and hall high school theater had sps fest where students were able to write their own original scripts exchange them and perform them in staged readings and next week hull will be putting on the 10 minute play festival where seniors were able to make their directorial debut on thursday there will be five shows friday another five shows at 7 pm thank you avery andrew i think avery did a good job um discussing the black history month panel that connor is also doing and i'll just add um that i know all of

152us at connard especially those who had a part in organizing are very excited because it engages hall and connor and reach and scp so it's a joint program that's being put on and then just to provide a little more detail on the uh debrief you mentioned on the 23rd um the commissioner the connecticut commissioner of education charlene tucker is coming and she'll be an an integral part of that so um that's just looking ahead um as avery noted uh this is the first night that all fans can now attend sports events um so in the next few weeks uh regular season will be wrapping up and then uh winter winter sports will swing into regional and state and some in some cases national competition for connor's students this week orchestra and music is are putting

153on a number of concerts uh so this week i know connor orchestra performed or they live streamed for uh cedric so that will be continuing for the next couple days and just looking ahead to the spring the musical is well underway it's footloose this year so that will be the shows will be starting mid-march so definitely check that out in the next in six weeks thank you andrew thank you both again moving on to future business announcement of future meeting dates on tuesday february the 15th 2022 regular board of education meeting here at the town hall at seven o'clock tuesday march the 1st 2022 regular board of education meeting presentation of the superintendent's budget at seven o'clock here in this room the town hall wednesday march the 9th 2022 budget workshop number one the first

154one at seven o'clock here in this room room 314 at the town hall tuesday march the 15th 2022 regular board of education meeting at seven o'clock here at the town hall in this room 3 14 and then wednesday march the 23rd 2022 board of education public hearing at 7 p.m followed by budget workshop number two the second one here at the town hall room 314. do we have a request for any future agenda items moving on to comments from visitors so if there's anyone here who would like to make a comment i do just want to acknowledge that we did have one person who was on the list before who was not able to speak because we had capped out so if kim hughes is here all right i don't have anyone else signed up

155is there anyone here that would like to make a comment yes if you can please come and please state your name once again in your address for the record thank you and i'll keep to my three minutes thank you so much um so my name is anita kellyan and the comment i want to make is having passed the vote you you do have the opportunity to choose names correct as i said that naga is suing the colorado law for discrimination they do say that their motto is to educate and not eradicate so my request is that you speak with the native american tribes they're willing to speak you would put the letters i took the time to contact the different tribes they want to speak they're willing to speak they have outreach programs i didn't

156hear anyone say that they contacted the native american charts with the phone mind you you did mention the february 10th letter i contacted them they did say that no one contacted from the west harford public school system that being said in 2015 you did not read the back and i will read i have personally found that when students teachers coaches administrators and parents have an opportunity to meet with and listen to american indians they quickly gain an appreciation for why this issue matters and why it is time to replace indian inspired names none of you took the time to do that she she does put in the same paragraph i would be pleased to work with you to create opportunities for your students to interact with native leaders from the national congress of american indians

157and elsewhere the state senator who put forth that act said we want people to hear the stories of the native americans don't eradicate the names that's the biggest story here take the time they fund you they've given twenty seven thousand in 2018 i think they gave 195 thousand out of that money why haven't our children gone to the museums why haven't they gone to the reservations to learn the history from those who have lived it from those who are the descendants all i've heard is my experience but my experience from people in this room how many of you have that native american experience i do not but our children have the opportunity to listen and to learn and they even give money you're getting 27 000 use it to teach the kids that's the least

158we can do for receiving that money and they also have outreach programs where they will come to the town hall to speak to us parents to teach us parents they will come to the schools we have schools we have auditoriums we have classrooms they're willing to do it if we took one name out let's honor them let's put a name because that's all they're asking for to be remembered and that their history doesn't get eradicated we are educators we learn and to end discrimination is when we take the time to meet i haven't heard anyone of you state that you've met with these native american tribes spoken to them directly now it's time to do that and use the opportunity when you're putting the names forth to have spoken with them and to have gotten

159agreement with them so as someone said that we don't go back to the same problem over and over again thank you thank you anyone else would like to make a comment hearing none we do not have an executive session so i will receive a motion to adjourn so moved is there a second second meeting adjourned at 9 25.