say one just let me know yesterday that five registration packets were picked up so she anticipates that those children will be registering so we're assuming close to 150 if not 150 but that gives us I believe six sections of ranking in two sections of 18 which would mean we actually don't need we have eight sections total we don't need the extra section that we had planned for working with the Board of Finance and I know the Board of Finance based on some contingency we're not going to be recommending that we need an additional teacher so we're ready to go with our eight sections thank you very well I communicate that to all or to finance a tomorrow I'd appreciate it if you did okay it is a reminder to everyone um the range is 17 to 20 with the target of 19 correct so we're actually a below target at or below target yes exactly any consistent only the women we have a few more registration so yes anticipate that the first few weeks of school there's always some students who maybe move in late and I figured that by the time we got to August 15th we wouldn't be making a decision to add a yet another section it's a little late really are for getting to that later I wanna make that official so you know that that's going on in pod thank you for communicating that to the Board of Finance Gruber in terms of communication yesterday I sent out my welcome back letter not only to faculty and staff but also to parents welcoming everybody back and highlighting some of the priorities and initiatives and things were looking forward to for the beginning of the year and we really want to jump right into a segue of the commissioners back to screaming our state education commissioner has an annual back to school being filled with superintendents and does some state board members and legislators come to that meeting and so forth and unfortunately with all the great news I just shared it was really a somber occasion the commissioner representative who represents the superintendent the Alan Taylor the Board of Education chair for the state really talked about the budget situation that we're in and we actually will put a press conference talking about the budget situation the fact that we don't have a budget as a state and the ECS cuts that are that are possibly impending you know that are out there and leaving us in a situation where all the districts in the state really don't know what kind of monies that are going to have coming in in both creatively move forward as as a other boards talked back in in the spring as we were kind of winding down the budget development process but then we had the news from the governor and his proposal we were working together and we talked about contingency we talked about options and you know we all decided to no fail because we want to do what's best for the town what's best for the students but he notes that I do want to share regarding the budget situation and just kind of to set a context and talk about some really pretty frankly conservative actions we've taken as an administrative team going forward with the summers work and really that you know the possibility of a 1.4 million dollar cut to Brookfield is out there could really put the town and the school district in the work in terms of funds back in the spring Bob and Steve and Steve Don and Rob gina's and myself we developed the joint letter we sent to the state I know some of you have sent individual letters to the state and to the governor trying to help and give suggestions at this point it appears that things are falling on deaf ears to be very frank we didn't have a lot of that in our budget we've had a little bit of iterations including the board making cuts to the superintendent's recommendation borstal echoing having to make some adjustments and also the Board of Finance totaling almost $500,000 from the original proposal going forward there isn't a lot of places to go find it the folks at home watching folks in the audience the board needs to know we are very responsible with our budget if the Ukrainian cuts come through they're going to hurt it is inaudible painful we did everything as spring we could to avoid anything to do with direct instruction for students on direct materials and equipment for students furniture etc but the reality is if this comes through we're going to be a situation we're gonna have to make some very serious decisions so it's important to prepare and go back to the Board adopted strategic coherence plan which spans over the next five years and all the work making in focus student support focus and extended course of course offerings and the like all the things we're working on we need to stay the course having said that I want to highlight some of the things we're working on for this year this is just to highlight rich overview summary maintain class size maintaining class size means teachers there's a people and you can't maintain sort of that class size guidelines and keep them at a reasonable level if you don't have the bodies to do them supporting program improvements with the pairing of a whisk and your reading teacher a high school reading teacher and at whisking Eric a sixth grade teacher to manage not only our increases in social studies instructional time but also that happens to be one of those bubble groups a lot of kids in that grade so again King class size at a man to vote manageable level and fiscally we worked to manage our headcount we actually are down to 18 - Caze we reduced for paraprofessionals we reduced our athletic trainer and traded that in for athletic training services which saved us money and we also reduce the half the stadium throughout the whole process of developing the budget so we're down to only half positions over it even with between a hiring hirings of those those positions we of course replace we had a tremendous amount of teachers retire this year many I anticipated some great people who need through a place as well as those folks who decide to resign over the summer and so we've worked on that by being the best we've actually we'll brought in veteran teachers and you'll see on the consent agenda there there are people with a lot of experience some brand new students and mid-career folks so it's a nice employ all over the state people moving in this direction and wanting to come to Brookfield we also restructured leadership let's not forget about there that was really some budget savings in there when we talk about the special education department chairs it was naturally when we worked on the humanities department chair position and the world language English language learning of the purple chair position says a lot of pieces they're working on vertically aligned for curriculum instruction and assessment in social studies tearing rebalancing social studies instructional time in fifth and sixth grade with Spanish and a lot of work in the middle school Raquel 72 the middle school schedule and working with mr.
Rendon his team is making sure that's implemented with absolute fidelity this year to working on financial controls in transparency implementing new modules in PowerSchool which is our student database for assessment analytics and si instituting the payment limitation of the world language lab which was years in the making since a lot of great things going on that's the core of our program we need to stay the course having said that wait riddle for helping Spring web hoping a budget and facing the governor's proposals we exercise some really prudent actions review a few of those with you so one of the things the board was a part of with administration was not emailing our non-tenured teachers we weren't sure where the budget was going to go we had to be conservative and there was 66 people that we had to non-renew that scares off some people and I'll be very frank with you I think there's there's three teachers that resign in summer because of the budget conditions in Connecticut they're scared of it and they they live over the line there in New York and so they went they wouldn't have looked otherwise but that really scared them and they moved on and it's tough when we put a lot of time energy and resources into training new people we held off on hiring and entering into contracts I'm telling you how to local budget once we had our local budget we then receded those oils of non-tenured teachers and and and rigging the contracts with them for the coming year we will be doing a full budget over the summer to replace as I said early replace the resigning teachers and replace our retiring teachers as well as adding those the two leading in the end of one social studies position we reduce the headcount we also as I said earlier we're not asking for another female teacher we really meant you know been very careful in ke- regarding that we've set aside funds and we'll talk about that a little bit later in terms of these savings from hiring more teachers that are replacing some of those retiring teachers there's some savings beyond what we already had put into the budget however that's kinda based a little bit itself leave of absences that we already know are going to occur where where I can't tell you who but we anticipate having three leave of absences for maternity leave and so our average on leave of absences for the paternity leave is most people have enough sick time where it's a 10-week payout so you're paying a salary and for your person who's out as well as paying for a substitute teacher so that really is cuts into that with savings seeing the current actions were taking is I want to show you the family tonight at the meeting is I'm recommending as a superintendent they're working with the cabinet and had some meetings with the principals already is now that we're in a position relative most of the hiring done I really think it's time to put on a temporary hiring freeze in positions where we have some resignations or things like that in our instructional areas you know first grade teacher happens to leave us that that's that's a priority position we would have to obviously replace that person but I think that's something we have to do specifically we've already acted in two areas many of you know Tom too though our facility director had retired and so Dan clad well our maintenance and he also serves as our plumber has done an incredible job this summer as our internal facilities directors done a really nice job we haven't replaced Dan as the plumber so we're having savings there and that's a essentially at this point in a summer we're calling that a freeze right now and we'll leave it as an interim and until we decide what we want to do again temporary we also have a clerical position that recently resigned at TSO and that's a full-time position we're looking at what is the critical components of that particular job and we're looking to hire just very sad part-time hours to cover shown resources and some of the things we need in that particular department I viewed gate when I talk about hiring freezes not blanket across the board there are some priorities that that we can't ignore there are I'm a PE or special education driven plans and like I said at the outset when I was talking about hiring we do have a couple of positions that we still need to fill the BCBA and the speech and language position that would have to be exceptions those are state and federally mandated we can't just not hire people for those positions so we will be very conservative and we're in a pretty good position but we need to act responsibly to do is attempt we purchased the necessary technology for the for the coming year there and some other supplies and equipment for temporary freeze for the next few weeks we'll watch our dollars see where the legislature goes with the budget if we can get a budget in place or if the inevitable cut does come down in some form or another and be very careful about that and like when we did a freeze in the middle of the year last year purchases I'll talk to the principal's purchases would have to go through Ken I mean there are certain things you do have to purchase you can just absolutely freeze everything but they will really filter through King and if he has questions certainly walk through me and doctor will be the other pants is a working with mr.
diamond we talked about the hold on on Capitol projects at this at this time so there's there's a number of actions we've taken you know so give a little history that we did in the spring that down the summer and then the other piece is thinking about next steps say we've made as a cabinet and had discussions about frankly what we call worst-case scenario you know if the parent doesn't get 11.5 million dollars what are some things we're going to have to do and we'll talk about some specifics well we're not in any position to talk about any any ideas technically yet but know that what we're thinking about things the other pieces we had a conversation really in August with principals about the same thing in a big question for the principal's was into it are there things that can be phrased and held off another year been thinking about that because we're gonna have to come back together and have that conversation I'm having a conversation this evening I'm initiating it with a full board BAMF can you be business and Facilities Committee meets on Monday night will be having failure conversation about that that's next week and you know that can't that will continue and if we have to have a special meaning that committee will meet there's no doubt about it some of the things I've been talking about this evening gonna change based on conversations you know there's we don't know exactly where we're going to go with this but we have a process in place the other thing you have to think about is that we can identify savings on the replacement for retiring teachers in the neighborhood of the $200,000 range we have to look at impacts and I'm thinking we probably want to look at $200,000 what does that mean $400,000 what might that look like you know kind of case scenarios $600,000 what does that look like you know have those conversations and available painful decisions the last thing I would say when I know I've been a little long-winded this evening is well it's not gonna be easy I think it will work together we will find a way through this and I remain optimistic and talking to Steve Hardy was our rep that's up there at the state that you know if the cuts come through and well or any cut in excess funding will be significant perhaps it won't be the full amount and having scenarios in place will put us in a and at least a manageable place where we will be responding rather than reacting responding calmly and rationally I would like to have to be in a meeting or at the Vienna meeting next week maybe talk about setting up a special meeting at some point because we really should probably come back to the board for the first meeting in September with some ideas which is September 6th and then need to late September again usually coming in from the state from her foot so lamelle share with the board of fineness kind of where we're happening and you know all of us working together so I apologize for being wrong but I'm going to contextualize where we're at in what we're doing what darling what we're doing and where we think we're going in preparation for for really drastic drastic reductions that will hold us in the state let's hope we don't get there let's hope questions Steve as our state lab in addition to being a member great to have you on board to tell you the truth because usually did get great insights on what's happening up and running good would you like to take a little and up and just kind of share with everyone what's our yes John's wrap-up is is so boring but it's true it's what we're dealing with her at the moment this is exactly peace in public while we need to budget now but that's the topic for another day I don't want to get too political here I there are budgets out there which one of them I support wholeheartedly and those leadership in the house representatives for whatever reason won't call it for political reasons and we need to get something done now and we need to provide our communities with the proper funding to go forward on a school year and any any cut that is made to educational cost-sharing funding is going to do nothing but hurt the students of this district and districts throughout the state of Connecticut and it's wrong it's just wrong I mean you heard from John what some of these cuts would mean and we can be tried we could try to be as non-instructional as possible but unfortunately everything leads back to the students whether it's maintenance or whether it's something at ESO it eventually trickles down to impacting the students and so we and John and this team will do whatever can I know I know they will and I have full trust in them but unfortunately no matter what we're dealing with in regards to cuts it's gonna eventually trickle down to the students in its wrong we should be getting full fully funding the fact that I don't know if we use that book for this underfunded ECS and so if we get one point five million dollars for one point for which we usually get it should be more money and I'm still not satisfied but nevertheless that's what we're budgeting for regard to see what's going on you know the governor proposed back in February these drastic cuts no they were even worse than what we're discussing now what in addition to the 1.4 million dollars was the teacher pension obligation which would have cost the town I think a couple million dollars - yeah so you can add two point two million dollars to one point four so you're now you're dealing with three point six million dollars in educational cuts so thankfully that really seems to be off the table even from the governor's perspective the problem is is that since we do not have a budget enacted by July 1st the governor now has taken on the role to make executive decisions to cut certain areas when you're facing a five billion dollar deficit if you continue on the revenue excuse me but can few on the expense path that you're on from the prior year you're going to end up five billion dollars in the hole at the end so there's cuts being made we need like state parks you've heard about in the news but some of these when discussing going back to what his ECS plan was now if you look at his NCS plan and something called the ten ones which what those ECS cuts would be to each particular town book field is one of those when you suburban communities throughout the state that completely loses their ECS funding so when we would get one dime from the state that's why John we're forcing 1.4 million dollars cut we get one point four million dollars in DCs so we would effectively have no ECS with with that said I was hopeful despite you know my frustrations that I know it at the beginning of my speech here that there would be something done in August or or September but you know trying to get updated yesterday mean that we're gonna have a board meeting tonight discussing this and and speaking with leadership that I have connected you know discussions with it doesn't seem like this is there seems to be a lot of gray area slow there and it seems like the leadership in the house still is not willing and ready to to call for a budget and I don't know when that's that time is going to be I you know I keep continuing during September but then prior and I'll be honest part is I was hearing July and July has come and gone now August is almost coming down so I would already hope that legislators that you know maybe supporting the effort of the leadership to not call certain budgets would realize you know specifically the impacts on their towns like we're having on our towns and would encourage their leadership to to get a budget done because you know this is this is hurtful to everyone throughout the state this is not just Brookfield but also is it time for us to write another joint letter do you think yeah I think all about advocacy and but as John said I don't know you know I think he may be now instead of the governor which I think we made our initial letter to I think it would behoove us to write a letter to the the Speaker of the House who has the to call us in for a vote we need to vote we need to discuss a budget now because if we dance can impact the children so I'd be more than happy to sign a joint letter and an assistant draft and letter with John and yourself anyone else on the board sending it to the school of the same people we did yeah I'm sure mr.
Donald will be more than happy to sign a letter as well and miss Slater I'm looking at her she's nodding her head so I think it's approved yeah and I think that we're taking your irrational step I think that you know this and at the end of the day and I spoke about that I want to because I know John and I have discussed this for a little bit but it's important as you never was we discussed earlier that you know the governor's proposals you know there's not really legislative appetite for what the governor proposed and I still think that remains true but nevertheless I think you know the the continued throughout this entire process what I have learned is you know listen I'm done speaking with my first elections superintendents they're all asking me why we budget Steve what are we and what I continue to hear back from everybody is pretty much the same ballpark maybe some you know some small cuts now obviously as I said before every cut means something but not certain at the level that you know the one-point floor would be and that's what I mean told but beginning to we have a budget there's no country it's all the things I attend uncertainty and it's very difficult for all of us and and we you know we have to be smart in doing something prepared has to be prepared so that's what we stand honest and I know tonight tomorrow I'll be giving an update to the Board of Finance who also will be addressing this issue all right any discussion questions for for mr Boyle actually not on the budget but just going back up with the communication to the parents yeah normally on on those boorda cc'd and I didn't get into mind or simplicity we get better to the world okay thanks absolutely you did tweet it out it's on I believe the letters on Facebook so there's not planning to see if I we can definitely get you copies of lighter all right so it's a sobering situation we're in I'm I'm gonna be bouncing some of what John's implemented on to the Board of Finance tomorrow I talked on mr.
Jinnah's at one point we said we should have a joint meeting with the two boards we decided that it's too early for that we should do it when we actually have some of the case worked on talked about and something we can actually have some meaty discussion and maybe have a little bit more insight to what's going on at the state so he and he has a special meeting this month because he did he's not on his regular schedule so he's not unfortunately a lot of stuff he wants to do so he actually suggested and I agreed that we not go into full to board sessions and uh so I'll pass on some of this to him as Douglass liaison role I play but I everybody's welcome right I just I don't want it to be it's not it's not like we're trying to keep people away it's just a question of the complexities of putting two full boards into session and how all that has to work at for example I said yeah you're really gonna be able to do that at Town Hall or should we move it over here you know because all of a sudden yeah how do you deal with seats at the table and he started saying no no no no I'm not not this meaning though so so come tomorrow if you can I listen I'm John may have noticed he was leading from it because I'd asked him to kind of take his notes and put it in writing so I had something to work from so it I say the exact same things and I was listening very carefully you see how good I do well I think it's more pop to wait until we have better information from the state because the implications of if the full ECS funding is cut goes far beyond this year oh because we have two and a half percent limit on a budgetary increase that's about three percent of our budget and we have amended one budget requirement so if we have that easiest whatever put it back we can never put it back it's going to be a slow rebuild over two or three years given the constraints the state has but yeah that's not a lot that needs to be well that I proposed this year thing and I did just read something that the governor was asking all the municipalities to submit their rainy day funds what which is almost double which is at least punishing punishing the communities who yeah we've done a good job and also you know we're not there for I think as exceedingly high number in the rainy day fund the reason they do is because they're constructing two new schools so if some of these communities are doing it because they're planning to do things not because they just have this money sitting around for whatever well I know central sent around that article yesterday that was in the back of the news times unless encrusted reading some of the other districts who are dealing with exactly the same things really some of the districts have huge cuts I think about your hometown Jonathan Milford I think it was in double-digit millions forty million dollars can you imagine what fourteen million less funding would do the would know about it we know it's like ten million I think methyl was like three or four yeah so and now one point four we know how hard that is I mean what that would do and we'll have more meat on those bones but something that the implications of this are on some of it communities is dressed or aegis its catastrophic and that's not being dramatic that really is if this goes throw all the way so okay all right so good no further questions Thank You mr.
bro you're welcome thank you very informative update I think next on our agenda subcommittee reports so BNF is up first okay I gave most of this the last month because a regular board meeting was after yet are being approval there's only and we haven't had our meeting this month so between will have Monday the roof project as we know is moving a wall with a capital project that being paused can does that come into play with the water projects as well what was that contract signed it was not so that that's been paused as well so things we have like huckleberry portables rustle renovation we have the border project which went up to bulb and contracts were initiated those are all being paused at this point so we have nothing to report there the good thing is these projects proceeded it's going to be done very soon it's been an easy there's been a well-managed process and a nice chap and give our accolades to fellow D'Angelo as or watski associates there's been very professional meeting minutes everything has been presented quite well and outside of that really we have nothing moving forward so we have an X PNM ok house - implementation don can't just a quick update so far it's been pretty smooth he actually got a session today with munis about accounting for the grants using their of the unis project accounting module so and we got most of that that was set up today - so that should be really helpful for us it helps us to manage the grants and use a minimal number of accounts and as a good reporting so did we go through a end of July accounting close with the town and was a different term that were both on the same system not yet not yet so okay I know it's a hill I'd be really interested in hearing and how that process of every month closing changes right because that's been a you know as we know in audit you know getting all it's done the the crisp of them each month closes the better on it will be and I've been hopeful that one more on the same system that almost becomes automatic right because you can't not beings like right you know there's one with one ledger so like database one day because they can see everything that he decided to the 1679 yeah we over actually got a lot of stuff done for ready for the 1617 order we had to be done the large checklist from the town controller and we've sent I think almost everything on that list over to her already Joan our accounting supervisor has been working with them and we've got a general thought actually all of the funds reconciled and Overton I'm so glad we're in light years ahead of where we were at this time last year excellent and they've acknowledged that was something I think I've never written correspondence back and forth and I think that's going to be key yeah here it responds to your request we are providing you with and that we all have now before every issue last year things getting lost so if we've been emailing everything and typically we get an email back you know thanking us for it okay good good good good good yeah I'm so glad to hear we're all reconciled to so that that moves things along yes it very well we're on the portables yes said space necessary for purpleberry at this time are we are we cramped without it no we are where we want the portables are being used as a full flow over storage right now the working with mrs.
diamond in her team she has classrooms for all the teachers there are they're all a couple of rooms that are regular classrooms that have partitions for some of the special education and tutorial services the kids receive but just like last year we are in the main building and that's that's a-- and mrs. diamond i think last at some point last week that was at the week before yeah at the end of last week she put a an update regular update that she sends out to her parent community and she actually talked about the portables and letting everybody know that we're not going to need the portables and because I know the project's been out there and people wondering what's going on with the project and we will be meeting with portables and so at this point you know put things on hold as you're talking about Paul and that kind of a thing we'll move along with the portable project as appropriate but we don't need the portables at this point it's just one play note we were working with one less classroom last year we had firing a unit that's later my classroom was offline that you know ventilator was replaced that classroom came back online so they says well we are a little bit better place than we were last year and I also think the big bubble classes have moved up to whisk in here and the high school even size and it's great classes are now rolling through young huckleberries yeah about 140 150 kid classes okay next up is ad hoc and I had asked on my desk Eve to give me some notes so we need to all do that and then Paul does ask if you'll add a little thing - what so I'm just going to read verbatim what mrs.
Sturdivant sent me this is a report of the August 16th meeting the meeting of the ad hoc committee took place on July 19 so this is a report not of the meeting but that's what she said to me of John July 19th members presently stoven and Josh flowers both shot go because it was a wide range of pricing the initial RFP was hazy and open to a wide range of interpretation so-called josh offered to rewrite the an amend an addendum to the proposal clarifying sections of concern the addendum was given to the purchasing director who added this information recontacting firms of submitted proposals and the deadline for response was August 9th according to the purchase in the clarifications document to which the committee needs to review the next meeting the add our committee is scheduled for August 21st at 6:30 p.m. they'll be a advance will be to nail down our choices set up interviews and discuss any other actions necessary the long term objective of the ad hoc committee the purpose of the committee is to hire fund to complete this comprehensive study of the four schools once that study has been done the committee will review and discuss the reports contents reporting back to the board with all recommendations there's been a great deal and media chatter regarding the committee's lack of progress for which I apologize I understand that many people are anxious for progress especially concerning coffee-berry health school I too share those concerns and it committed to positive and timely change so that's each report well anything you'd like that it's generally employ um my question though is for John with I'm sort of pausing anything involving capital will they have the opportunity to move this forward I think that's going to be for frank discussion as time goes on and we'd have to work with even capital is approved through the town that is not through a Board of Education so again we're gonna have to work together collaboratively the boys are gonna have to work you know as a team to talk about where we want to go as a community I mean there's lots of projects out there we've talked police station and library for corners and all the projects that are out there and what do we want to do from overall plan for the town I think that's a big part of this discussion as well thanks Steve one question for you is you know the school capital funding is usually a different part of the state budget or and what's been proposed are they cutting that back as well or is still relatively stable no it's still well he'll be saved from what I understand the the problem is is that das I think has the unilateral ability to decide how to reimburse and what to reimburse so you know they they may have orders from the governor's office to be a little more strict in their reimbursements of school construction okay and this has been asked obviously because I'm fortunate to represent part of Bethel as well and I just as I just said they're going through to to project right now so this is obviously seriously serious concern of theirs as well but my understanding is that if there's no changes budgetarily to the school construction to the school construction projects but I think des is vulnerable and a process where they're a little more strict with what they approve and how much they reimburse for okay because that will actually even be bigger than lower doing our own so we're done right yeah because the state could put the brakes on school construction throughout the state well rather quickly because nobody can almost nobody can afford a 50 plus million dollar project if it was it's available yeah anyway I just said for the board members to understand and for folks at home to know what feels accustomed to about a 30% reimbursement rate so there was to go away or be significantly reduced it puts that much more of a burden on the local taxpayer yep okay anything else you'd like to add okay so the third one is policy and we just discussed in our camp policy was to bring it out tonight so it's under new business okay good so that's a subcommittee report so intense agenda is next recommend a motion that the board approve the items on the consent agenda is recommended page on it so just for clarity for those of you who don't listen in all the time the consent agenda is where we do the board actually is getting its official approval on hires on resignations on retiring Hanson and so forth and we do it through what we call the consent agenda so we don't go through each and every one of them but there's got to be one new hires and you know which is what we would expect this time of year and a couple of resignations anything mr.
bro you would like to make any comments on any of them before we go I'll have a second okay I'm sorry no get the second before we end the discussion would you like the second huh we said what he noted it all right I will do Bennington sector with Michael I would like to share that we actually hired today the Spanish teacher at center school every year that's great I'm excited about that right so superstar superstar we have high hopes we say about all our new people great things from them great okay any comments from the board on the consent agenda there's there's intentionally and Kelly Moore and my wife sought name is Kelly Morin she's also a teacher so it's time to do some introductions ago yeah I guess so okay so all in favor the consent agenda so we have some business policy related matter recommend a motion that the board approve new policy number 51 41:13 emergency administration of naloxone for first reading as recommended by the policy subcommittee second we have moved and seconded so I think you want to just give a brief overview this is just for clarity this is for a first reading which we receive we had a brief overdue to with you tonight we get a month to review it as a board and we bring it back for the second reading and approval at 30 days or more so I'm not sure what the timing of the meeting sensible either be I think aware are you'll be the second to second please remember to take about 74 days okay so this has been a discussion for for a little while now and I'm very excited that this is going forward this is something that we're trying to be proactive as opposed to reactive and address in this particular issue it's not only a crisis throughout the state it's a crisis throughout the country right now that we're dealing with and we have a lot of great things about naloxone and the impact that has in saving lives truly that's that's what it does so we want to create a policy to make it clear that we want our nurses here to be able to stay that and have it readily accessible to the properly trained individuals to treat and anyone who unfortunately to be going through and overdosed to save their life and to give them a second chance at this our nation there's an avi administration of medic medication policy that we do already have and there was a few papers that approached me when we were talking about the naloxone policy and some of their concerns that you know there are other food allergies and other things where there might be emergency of Medicine they want to make sure that was covered as well and fortunately we did review that in the policy subcommittee my a super also bringing forward along with Lisa the policies in regards to epi pens and other emergency medication and so we as I said there's a there's an avi administration medication policy that we have there's also currently a within our policy a separate epi pen policy within the administration of medication policy we had a discussion about adding another supplement which would dis the relaxed on policy and administration medication but after discussing with that we will consult and also reviewing some of the policies that have already been enacted throughout the state who have been proactive about this it seems to be a continuously a separate policy so we thought it would be best if it would be kept as a separate policy we we want to highlight the importance of this and to to really let everyone know in the community that were being proactive this particular effort but but just a very quick general and this is only a first reading so I want to have the board data read if alien give their Corrections or questions that they may have it it directs the school Nestle director to create standing orders in regards to the administration of relaxing giving requires also nurses to stare you have sufficient support I and in the US is when were definitions and other general directions from the board but that but that's a first reading tonight and I look forward to any questions and concerns and maybe parents and maybe additions from the board members at our next meeting or the next meeting we can bring this up when is your next policy meeting is it just before the 20th meeting yeah that's all just urge the board members as we've had in the past it's useful if you have any thoughts as you've been reading it to send a note to Steve and copy Lisa on any edits or changes you might last that policy committee just to consider and then what will be more productive at our meeting if they've had a chance to look at all those before we come to our neck cracks and we can sleep here on the board on the blood any recommended changes absolutely yeah say that yet so the only and I think xx would be the next that would be the first elde eligible date to bring this forward for a second reason okay just a factual question was the admit with the nurses in a meeting back in early July or late general and some of them mentioned that they are actually trained already yes they have a supply already so this plc we've actually got it on in the schools right now yeah and we've trained one generator here's another but we didn't have an actual we just have a policy so so factual under this is I think of an interest to our our listeners it's not that we don't have it available today this isn't sailing us down from having it is just now caught up on eyeing our policy about it correct okay is it in every school or is it as low overcast yes and this goes well okay that's all right okay any discussion on this take hang on it's been accepted for a while all in favor of accepting it for first reading say aye alright we're off the first reading there all right that's it for business tonight we max on our agendas upcoming events where the school starting up there are many many upcoming events we have Monday August 21st freshman orientation at Brookfield high school at 9 o'clock huckleberry miss clearing of orientation for families need a Brookfield huckleberries is 9 to 10 whisking airs is 10:30 to 11:30 Monday August 28th several events at center school first graders new to Brookfield have an orientation 232 225 225 is the magnet for our first graders and they can also find their classroom that's in the center elementary school courtyard and after that there is a Center School PTO and 8a kids came down for all center school the students 3:30 to 5:30 Tector August 29th is the huckleberry PTO family social 3 to 4 and the spear the open at that time so the students can find their classes as well where is it on the 30th first day of school for all but kindergartners it is a full day so parents please I'll send the lunches or lunch money with those students Thursday August 31st first day of school for kindergartners and it is the preschool open house at 9:30 and at 1:30 Monday September there is no school in observance of Labor Day Tuesday September 5th is kindergarten open house 6:30 p.m.
at Center School and Wednesday September 6th is our next Board of Ed meeting several p.m. here at the media center okay thank you we do have an executive session scheduled for this evening and just before we go make the motion on that I'll just for the public oh you won't see us adjourn the meeting because we go into executive session and then we adjourn when we come out of the executive session so so with that motion on the executive session regular motion that the board enter to executive session to discuss personnel and negotiations [Music] your designated secretary all right moving into executive session and thank you everybody for tuning in this evening and thank you audience for coming [Music]
[Music] [Applause] as many Nepal we had to retire flat there were a number of photos to resign everybody and so in his total we have [Music] so and now mr. Myers well [Music] who is [Music] are we great Sophia Simone we have who is a health we need armor William thank you and it is displaying information already from the high school all right but we have Melissa Lee who is one of our two new teachers we have led Hale who is a teacher mr. riah a teacher we have k12 yellow world language departmental and then we do a little building we borrowed know we're from a mean I was energy teachers now a cruel and greedy who is a college class or a certification so join in as well [Applause] we're gonna introduce our leader for a deposition so we just met and I think that you've met and we have so we want to thank you for giving us that position because we really appreciate it and I think it's gonna help move the strategic plan forward and really be an asset with the development of curriculum and instruction this year well I met many of you at convocation and as I said at that and that first event that our favorite time of these board meetings is this introductory session where we get to meet people and and and see what is going on in our schools we hope to see you again with students in tow you know showing some of the cool things that you're doing and we all just want to welcome you to Brookfield and congratulations on those of you in new positions so I know the principals have already told the teachers that yes you have lots of work to do tonight and get ready for tomorrow so you're able to leave when I'm ready so you're comfortable and feel it's appropriate you guys are welcome to move on with your evening thank you for coming tonight all right and the crowd thins out why don't we just give up one session where we continue you know I know okay why don't we continue next up on our agenda is an opening day report it was an emotion something it's just an action that's okay so not sure so the the four principles actually have talked and they were going to present a bit differently I think they're all coming up to the podium together this year to do an overview of how the first week went so principles and I think dr.
shealynn is going to introduce things good evening we decided we realized that year after year we companies already done and see to our reports we all say thank you to all the same people so we decided that I would represent the team initially to do our round of thank yous and each one of us will do our own individual report so on behalf of the administrative the building administrative team I would like to take a moment to acknowledge our gratitude to the following individuals and organizations for their help in getting our schools ready to welcome our students for the 2017-18 school year to superintendent Burrell and assistant superintendent Ruby for their support in preparing for the start of the school year to each school office staff and library staff for their enormous help over the summer to our assistant principals and curriculum resource teachers who scheduled plan and find ways to make our schools work in the very best ways for our children to are custodians who spend the summer refreshing and revitalizing our schools and making ways for the building to shine everywhere - Mr Dan Caldwell and his staff for all of their help in making repairs and updates to our buildings - Deb Jones for her help with bus changes routes and organization of the safe transportation of our students to the teachers and parents who came out many days this summer to make up our interview teams in helping us to find the very talented staff that you met this evening - the teams of teachers who spent many days this summer working on curriculum writing teams that helped us to envision a stronger more integrated learning plan for our students in Brookfield so the park and recreation and PTO for their beautification of our school grounds to the PTO for their opening school social events that helped our students and staff ease into the new year and finally to the teachers and staff at each one of our schools who made this a wonderful school opening ok so now for my school report I already introduced my new teachers so we were asked to give you our report as we usually do for my enrollment report this year we opened our doors to a hundred and forty-eight kindergartens that kindergartners with four classes of 19 and four of 18 we opened the door to a hundred and seventy-one first graders with students classes of 19 and 20 and so far we have 39 pre-k and that number obviously continues to grow as we get students in out of birth to 3 so for the back to school professional development this year the grade one students went I mean teachers hussar I went to huckleberry and met with the teachers in the second third and fourth grade to do training and the new star math assessment and spent a very productive day they're learning about the assessment that they will be giving soon the kindergarten teachers spent a split day working first in the morning to use data that we gained through our kindergarten this is the first year we've done this we gained good data in our kindergarten screening and they use that data to begin to plan for the school year in our open court how they're going to use the open court program that now that we're more used to with you know we're better able to use that data to plan and in the afternoon they went math standard by a math standard to get a cohesive assessment plan how they would use data from the inside the classroom through performance assessments and through the assessments that come with program to have a solidified Pro assessment plan that they could use for kindergarten the specialist teachers worked in their departments these special education teachers worked in their departments and also over the two days every teacher met with people from the special education and the related services feels to be up to date on the students that were coming to into their classrooms so for the upcoming year we have focused for ongoing professional development in the in our building and we're trying to keep that down to a Co a small amount of big goals that we can really focus well on so our biggest school this year is really focusing on meeting the diverse needs of our learners and engaging our learners in ways that will help them access the curriculum using our data to process collaboratively to solve our learners needs and finally to apply the lessons that we learned last year as we were implementing all of our new programs and our new assessment tools this is our year to take a breath and really look at what we learned last year and to apply it deeply and to really meet the needs of our learners and finally to really continue to look at how do we communicate with parents everything that we're doing with our students and how do we communicate to them around data in ways that they really can understand what we're doing with their children and what we're learning about their children thank you Chris all right huckleberry we opened our doors to 521 students we have 172 second graders 173 graders and hundred 79 fourth graders we also welcome 30 new students huckleberry this summer 11 in second grade 10 in third grade and 9 in 4th grade we've one more fourth graders registering tomorrow so welcome in a couple weeks I meet students coming to us from his closest new town in Norwalk from as far away Utah Jamaica Sweden in South Korea so we had a quite a wide variety of students joining us this year and our class sizes are ranged between 19 and 21 depending on the class and that kind of thing so we're in really good shape the teachers are thrilled and this classes are gelling well and it's just it's been a really nice start to the year our focus for PD the beginning of the year was again as Chris mentioned our star math assessment so all of our 2nd 3rd and 4th grade teachers were together collaborating around that and learning more about star math and how the standards will be assessed using the star math assessments and kind of getting a handle on what that would mean for our students and in that data that we'll be getting from those resettlements our special teachers are unified arts teachers work together around curriculum and put together a lot of curriculum documents our related service providers we're meeting as well as I said all of our teachers meet with and related serves and specialized teachers over the course of those 2 days to make sure that they are aware of students plans any particular needs that are in place that kind of thing and make sure they're well prepared to start day one with those plans I've been running our focus for this year also is is really the theme is collaboration so how are we working together as the adults to use the data that we have and the resources that we have to best meet the needs of students and we're really focusing on that through the idea of a cycle of inquiry so we spent a lot of time last year in the year before building our assessment literacy so we understand that what the data that we're getting is telling us about student learning not only that's our learning but also about our teaching and then forming questions and trying to understand how we can better meet those needs looking at the resources that we have and connecting our resources with the needs that we've identified and then designing an instruction that will be I can dress those needs then coming back and reflecting and doing the same thing so in order for that to really work we need to have good collaborative practices in place for staff to work together across classes across not you know not quite a general classroom with special education with reading teachers with our power educator so that's really going to be a focus for us this year and another structure we're trying to put in place is called it's called a wind block and a lot of school districts do it but when stands for what I need now and the idea is that each grade level has an hour day where we are doing looking at using that data and that cycle inquiry in order to target our instruction not only for remediation bills also for enrichment so we're really looking again across the gamut across the spectrum of student needs to make sure that we are meeting those needs with our instruction and best utilizing our resources not only the resources and programs we have but also our staffing to make sure that we are optimizing and maximizing staff skills and the programs and resources that we have in place in additionally continuing to focus on our politics education for students practicing kindness acting responsibly working hard and showing respect our climate team is fantastic they put together they selected three books for each grade level that reinforce these concepts and also kind of focus on some issues that typically come up in each of the grade levels and we design lessons and questions along with those books they'll be read in each of the classrooms as a read aloud our PTO has purchased the books for us and then each student will take the book home with them over the course of a month or several months to be read with their families as well so we're really again Chris mentioned partnering with families and helping them understand our assessments which is also part of our focus but we're also looking at from a climate perspective how we're building that citizenship as well don't we're excited for the year thank you thanks very much good evening Dean man depends what was scary middle school we opened our doors to 885 students although today we have 888 students is the last day they've had three new students move in we have the number sometimes I think we have 47 new students have come over the summer but we all obviously had other students that have left the biggest thing to think of it is that the grades that we have from fifth grade last year the end of the year they were 190 students in fourth grade right now in fifth grade we have 205 so were up 15 there were up 17 she would be five students in 6th grade up to 245 students seventh grade we were down one 206 an eighth grade we are down to 231 so if you look at it's about a + 18 from the end of last year those current classes - to the current the ones from last year to this year we attunes come from obviously that the neighboring town theater in Fairfield Bethel Brewster we had some from different parts of New York New Jersey Kansas Florida but the farthest for us was crema Italy which is north of Milan the cutest kid the first day he's walking and he's just walking we're already calling the bosses oh my hey come on let's go pick it up pick it up and he's easygoing slow zombie and picked up so I said he said his name and it just I like this gotta be Italian I knew we had a student government so we said he started talking to me and I thought the funny story for that was you know Georgia stabile who was our Spanish teacher but his Italian and just you know what up to him and says listen if you need anything I'm I'll being that you know back in class if you need anything in the kid said to her the student said to her don't worry buddy to learn English so he was fine that was pretty pretty fantastic the PD what we worked on a little bit around the Atlas Rubicon in our curriculum and bundling the standards and curriculum that's going to be going into that we had done some work over the summer but we continued that work some of our specialist teachers were working on as you know from last year our schedule change it was skinnier that there's there's 20 more minutes added to that so figuring out the curriculum and how that will work for that time obviously similar to the other two schools with special ed and our guidance department in special services talking with all the teachers and making sure they're up to date students that they have was definitely you know some good work that we obviously needed to do before the first day of school the one thing that our focus is going to be again working at working with data and our results from our dibbles and our star math and our star reading and the different assessments that we have in figuring out what we need to do differently well number one for interventions for students but then at the same time thinking about what we need to do maybe differently instructionally as Mary Rose had mentioned also so it's our are learning at the same time but one thing I'm very excited about and I think some of you know that dr.
mark racket from the Yale social-emotional center for emotional intelligence came to speak at our convocation of our staff and I went along with John Maureen and Christine over the summer to the training and it was just to the ruler training and when I spoke to my staff and I know even at other buildings that we talked about there were a lot of staff that were very excited about it and what's neat about it is that the first year is just about training adults right and then the second year is then putting you know perform into the class and I had staff that already had conversations with the mood meter I don't know if any of you have seen the movie yet but google it and it goes through the different types of moves that you could have in a day but I have staff that I've already started talking about it with their kids which is great they don't have to do that but it's just again it's an excitement that going forward and just for people that don't know out there as a ruler is to recognize understand label Express and then being able to regulate their emotions something that we see I think we see in society with adults and students but people being able to find those the way to regulate the emotions you can be sad you can be frustrated but there's a that you have to be able to pick the right time when to express those emotions and and I think it'll be something at least I know at the middle school that we've been talking about and it's something I think the verbage that you're going to start we're going to start to use and use some of these tools they call anchor tools that they have I think is going to be very very official for students because obviously we always talk about academics academics but we always go back to we all have to be there emotionally emotionally inside for us to be able to perform at our best so we're very excited about that adults and students and then just lastly you know the first day I always love the the big smiles and the wide eyes by the fifth graders as they're walking in to school but just a couple have many new students as I said you know how you doing it what do you think about WMS one of the students said you know everyone is so nice here and then the other student had to be next to him it says this clueless this school is better than my old one and of course you know me I said there's no doubt in my mind it was so all right there no specific feedback per se I think with obvious that students don't have as many teachers to be going to I think it makes a little bit in that transition it was it was interesting in the scheduling part of it because I think as we went through it last year it's not as easy as just the way it goes because I have a math teacher a science teacher that are in the cluster if we can what would call it but they're really on the same team if you want to put it so it was a little bit difficult with that but in the end everything it all worked out the first core of the day didn't work out perfectly but the first score of the day is the core that students that they have homeroom so what it does it just makes it easier we talked about not worry about taking the attendance and we have to take attendance but not worry about the transition going from homeroom to there they're already in their first score other day so that you know gives us a little bit more time and that is not as many transitions obviously going back and forth so yeah sure no problem thank you thank you all right welcome back everyone I say if I have to measure my mood meter right now the United same I'm humbled to follow Dean Renda so what I'm feeling right now I'm any great but I'm humbled a little little nervous so beginning enrollment numbers total enrollment for the first day of school was 866 students there was 220 we have 223 ninth graders 214 tenth graders 217 11th graders and 212 oh craters pleased to announce them some great numbers in athletics after working with Steve Walden I've got some numbers here for our different sports for participation and we have 98 students participating in football boys soccer we have 56 boys girls soccer we've got 43 field hockey is at 54 girls swimming and diving is at 24 boys cross-country is at 43 girls cross-country at 24 I think possibly the most impressive is girls volleyball is the second most 66 girls playing volleyball and which is an amazing number and thanks to all the work this summer we actually have standards in the large and a small gym now so that they can actually split up practice which is great so I'm trying to crowd all those girls on one court so that was some great work over the summer dance we have 25 students and Cheer 28 so that brings us to 461 athletes which represents 53 percent of the student body participated in athletics in the fall which is an unbelievable number that you know stays that size and has been that way for the three years I've been here and our first games really start this Friday we have football soccer try things anything else to you and volleyball as well on Friday our PE time is beginning kicking off the school year we're fortunate enough to have a lot of different pockets of the high school and departments that have experienced different levels of some of this training and I know some some of the board members were able to meet with dr.
Alcock wood and training this summer so we have various levels of where faculty are and so talking about standards-based instruction curriculum assessment and we spent a lot of time and that PD trying to get some common definitions for those people that hadn't had the opportunity where I was like to say the cloud parting experience when you have this PD to really understand the importance of standards-based instruction curriculum and assessment so it's it's been at we had a lot of time getting on the same page it really was for me that cloud parting experience really because I've been talking about this with staff last spring we've had these conversations about proficiency break base grades and let's integrate what is the meaning of a B what does it really look like this is what I was missing now I have those components to bring it together and the staff is energized and excited to really start talking having those conversations about what we can do to transform to really get aligned with the standards based system and high school so I'm really confident as we move forward we look at our our timeline we'll be able to do this in the next couple of years it's very exciting so the staffs not bored with that and then we've set the stage for their work and they're CLTS every four days to continue that work looking at standards connected to assessments so that we can really see what we're measuring as we move forward we've also launched in the knee ask self-study and the ask visiting committee will come in December 2018 today was another meeting where we started looking at our standards break tup broken up into committees so he spent some time doing that and that'll be a year long all the way through the fall really exercise we've got a couple committees we're looking at starting to look at our schedule to take a look is that the best option for us I think in in collaboration with the work we're doing with standards it's important to take a look at that and see what we're doing from a proficiency based standpoint I'm looking at community service options we're looking continue to look at the senior project options things that the board is then on board with we're excited to have an additional reading teacher which is fantastic really looking forward to using some diagnostic data and really provide the best interventions for students as possible combining that with a school improvement grant we had a very successful summer pilot program with Kaia kayaks and talking to some too mr.
Beldon over the summer we're talking about the possibility maybe there might be a board retreat with kayaks in the future just throwing that out there so we also did we're gonna continue training with English language learners our teachers and continuing the reading program you know our open house is tomorrow night at six o'clock one last thing I'd say don't have necessarily a funny story about the opening of school but the focus has been about standards and academic conversations and we talked about our core values and beliefs aren't just academic there's also civic and social expectations and I went to something just today's I'm trying to come up with this what am I going to say that's gonna be funny and make people laugh and it's not funny it's heartwarming as I'm in the hallway after school after our faculty meeting then our new Marine recruiter was here in the hallway he was hoping to catch up with me instead of time us for us to meet and he brought with him a former student of mine from New Milford who is in the reserves and now is doing recruiting and so we I got to catch up and about two minutes during that two or three minute conversation in the hallway two different students two different grades at completely different times walked by stopped turn to those two Marines and said thank you for your service that was unprompted it was unexpected it wasn't because I was there because they you know I don't like to admit it but they could really sometimes care less I'm there it wasn't about me it really was about the Marines it was it was a heartwarming to see their faces and say you've got some good kids here and we really do and so I can't take credit for that and say that's the school's job that what we've done but it is nice to know that those the students that we have and we continue to reinforce that respectful sort of behavior for people that deserve the respect so thank you Mark everyone quick questions right the girls volleyball is at three teams yes that's three teams freshmen JV and varsity huh one question a couple questions Anderson um community service starts with the incoming freshmen correct the acquirement have you decided yet how that is going to be reportable or what we have we have a community service warm that students can actually submit and will be completed through the school counseling department and they'll be keeping track of the 50 hours required for graduation and one more pet project well language there yep I've been I've been working with Kevin Holly who's there doing some training I believe it starts beginning of next week so to have kind of a grand unveiling ribbon-cutting you know I would like to have it sooner but come in really and I want our teachers to be trained so they can really show off for you what the world language is what the investment from the community was so we're going to wait a little bit for that grand unveiling but we hope to have to do is there in the next couple weeks rotating a regular basis absolutely I want to be able to do that for you okay thank you thanks mark okay thank you thank you sounds like a great shock all right so next on the agenda is public comment do we have written correspondence from Ron Jaffe regarding social and emotional factors impacting student motivation education in a digital age and opioid editorial from raid to Stephon regarding Cape from Christina Zimmerman regarding huckleberry hill elementary school mold from Dorian and re regarding reading action program Jessica Mitchell regarding air quality heather Buckley regarding huckleberry hill elementary school mold and Cheryl vartholomio regarding mold in huckleberry mr.
land is working on that and yes the individual will be with us next next time am I correct on that mark for later in September recommend a motion that the board approved the minutes listed below is recommended the regular meeting of the 16th of August the kites moved and seconded any comments on the minutes okay all in favor any opposed all right so mister berola you're up next to the superintendent's report all right Thank You mr. Belden before I I have three distinct areas I want to speak to this evening but I'd like to first turn it over to mr. Poe so just give a very brief update on how we're doing with the audit and reconciliation process with town so thank you we spent the focus in the last few weeks really has been on filing the EO 1 with the state which we did at the end of last week and for those of you who don't know that's the very complex and comprehensive year-end financial report that we have to fly over the state and we got that done successfully we've sent Kimberly the town controller a lot of documentation I don't know that she has had a chance to review it all yet we met with her and mr.
Belden was there min or two ago and she had not had a chance to review everything yet so I'm going to be setting something up with her within the next couple of days to just go through I believe we've sent everything that that we need to and can at this point but I want to make sure that what I've sent is what she was expecting to receive so okay so I think we're in a good place she also spent a lot of time with our County Supervisor John Reynolds going through some of the reconciliations just to make sure everything was in order and it was in good shape just for the board like I do attend the Board of Finance meetings as our representative at the last sport of Finance meeting they actually awarded a new contract for a new audit firm so the brookfield will have a new auditor starting this year the only challenge they had is that auditor cannot start the brookdale audit until January so much like last year the audit will be sliding into the beginning of 2018 but it's more because of the auditor availability and I think that Board of Finance gave Kimberly and Kent in the charge to make sure we're completely ready so that can go fast when when the auditor comes in and that's why with such a focus on it right now so hopefully that'll be the last time a lot of that finishes in January earlier because they should be done into somebody absolutely okay thank you can do up all right thanks again so then specific to what mrs.
Stern was just sharing with a couple of parent questions as many of you know that late last week we had a complaint from one of our teachers brought forward a concern that there was mildew or mold on a chair in the reading room so we immediately responded with a visual inspection not only Dan Caldwell facilities director but both Ken and myself went there personally to take a look we immediately arranged for powers environmental to perform an assessment of the room to see where we would be at regarding that particular mold or whatever it was we have the tests first on the samples were taken on Friday and sent to the lab first analysis over the weekend at the same time we arranged for servpro to come in and professionally clean not only the reading room but the room next door so this is rooms 501 and just because of proximity we had those rooms assessed and out of an abundance of caution we assess we excuse me cleaned for other classrooms in that 500 block of classrooms and the hallway so that was done over the weekend we then had those two rooms tested again on Tuesday morning the results came in at 4:30 p.m.
today and there is a comprehensive summary report that was emailed to us but the the highlight is that the air quality is representative of typical indoor conditions so that means it was a negative test levels are where they need to be in the room room is healthy and safe so that's that's very very good news we continue to monitor will also retest in another month and then take a look at addressing heat and humidity and kind of the conditions in the room itself which may be a source of where that came from in the first place powers environmental is the the professionals that did the air quality assessment they are here to help us with communications we plan on working with mary-rose actually so tomorrow she could send home a parent communication explaining exactly what I'm explaining today kind of as closure from the Friday letter that she sent so it'll be a Thursday letter and in addition to that those specific emails we can help the Board of Education answer those specific emails questions that came in from the for parents so we're on top of this I'm actually very proud of mr.
Caldwell our facilities director and the team mary rose and her teachers everybody just handling themselves with such calm and and frankly such aplomb and coming forward handling it and you know getting the professionals in place they could really help us with a situation like this and rectify it make sure it's a safe and healthy and clean for our students so I know if there was any further questions on that well I just we'll start with what I as I read the letters that came in all four of them have said they'd like to do further testing broader testing at the school did you get any input from from powers that's on doing that sort of that's a further conversation I know dan has had that conversation this evening but we are going to have a further conversation with Bill powers from powers environmental tomorrow on that the sense in that regard is where you have complaints or smells odors or visuals of that which what could be that kind of musty concern that's where you might do your testing first or in very close to Jason areas as we did but he doesn't the professionals don't give us the sense that you just rush over to another area and test for testing sake so what we're gonna have some further communication with bill I know all right good any other questions from the board Bob just answer your question a little bit you don't probably let this another district I believe I'm guessing the Department of Health in the state of Connecticut has sort of a guidance document on just that very nice subject you know what does Iook you indoor air quality testing you know is it a good idea is it is there any scientific basis for the for the sampling you get and the general census from the Department of Health is no there's no good litmus for you know do I a Q test really early representative of your actual conditions so anybody who wants more information I would guide them to go into the Department Health website looking at the guidance documents on mold and indoor air quality testing because again we're always lay people here with us I really would depend on powers environmental the state of Connecticut Department of Health really is the one who sets up those guidelines well thank you for saying that you made me think about what we will also put into the letter tomorrow some links to those kinds of resources so it's easy for parents to click right on and take a look for themselves it's important in our teachers because in the end that's it's all about the kids right so we want to make sure our kids are all in that greatest possible environment that we can give them and I mean if we need to do testing if the if power says we ought to do more testing we oughta stand up and do more testing here if but if the professional say it's not going to do us any good it won't help us improve or not improve we ought to follow their guidance I would be interested in hearing the follow-up conversations that powers does have with them that she said they were gonna be discussing their regards we're gonna see how we can make mention of that perhaps in the letter as well tomorrow okay as well reference that a little bit and you had mentioned that possible conditions in that room that may have precipitated you know beyond said of all the heat and humidity is it just unique to that room just unique to that block or to the whole we understand it's unique to that area you know you've got to remember summer time frames are closed off a high humidity high heat that kind of a thing so we believe that's that's what it is that would be the closest we've got to address that humidity exactly and but that's the key with staying on top of it monitoring hearing from your teachers who are in living in those rooms every single day so we know exactly what's going on you do our best to address any you know issues that might arise so it's to that block that the conditions are unique versus the entire ground level okay and I did I hear and if one of the notes that went around that this was it this is environmental type of fungi stuff that you find in dirt and yes it's not black mold and things that our cars are understanding it is environmental mold that could come in on shoes with dirt and that kind of a thing and then again the heat helps it's a environment that it thought grows in and it's on you know organic material that maybe in a classroom it grows that way okay gotcha knocking it down to diminish it but I think that's where the and that's why you need the professionals so that's it and specifically you mentioned kind of mold it's in the report right in the letter so if people want to look it up they see the scientific name for it and you look up themselves okay okay the next one is actually mr.