Moran a few years back and it was presented at a professional day workshop and it just took off from there if you walk into a lot of our classrooms again K to 12 throughout the district and you look on the walls in many of the rooms you see this questioning chart and what we love about the questioning chart is it enforces the idea of asking higher or higher level type of questions to again get away from the either you know it or you don't type of responses that we found we were getting from kids because those were the types of questions that we were asking them it also gets our students to learn how to ask these more complex questions so if you see here on the top left-hand corner the area in purple who is who did what is what did a lot of our teachers refer to those as Siri questions or Google questions okay what they do with their students is they've done this is a great exercise they say okay take out your phone it's an interesting question take out your phone and if Siri can answer that question right that's what it is it's a basic question right it's an either you know it or you don't type of question but there are questions that Siri can answer and as you charts a transition into the orange zone they become a little bit more complex right when would when did when can how might yeah yeah and then you go into the green and then they're really more challenging I've been in classrooms where a teacher or better yet a student will pose one of these questions in the Green Zone and then it becomes the next 20 25 minutes of the class as students start to kind of build on their responses to those types of questions and this is a really important skill to be able to teach our students to be able to ask these questions so this is something that again is a kind of anchors a lot of what we do in social studies and it's a great reminder for our teachers but also it's a great skill for our students and a lot of our students their binders in their notebooks they have this questioning chart like in there on the first day of school a lot of our teachers give it out and they have the students kind of color it in and they explain exactly what the significance of it is and then they have it in their notebook and it's something that you know has used to them throughout the school year I was in a classroom last week and I saw the teacher all the students had this taped to their desk so every student had the question chart taped to the desk it's it's everywhere if you go through the district right and again like Tom said you know the the the best thing is is to get kids thinking about higher level questions and that fuels their research that fuels class discussion as opposed to just reading a bunch of facts so what we want to do now is we want to take you back through those original questions and kind of show you what we expect now from our teachers our from our students and the kind of conversations we have in our classes so here's the first one right it what year was Rome sacked by the Visigoths anyone l-410 that's right but so that's a basic question right you could know that but this is a better question what led to the fall of the Roman Empire and are there any similarities between Rome and the United States like that's a much higher level question we think that's a question much more interesting that you get a lot more mileage out of that of his story in a real historian would ask okay name the three European leaders present in Austria at the time of the Congress of Vienna in 1814 anybody know okay see a principal Merrow dick from Austria you have and tell you by the way here's my cheat sheet okay because I had to look it up myself all right so you have a Tsar Alexander the 1st from Russia Frederick Vilhelm the 3rd from Prussia and Lord Castle ray from Great Britain again this was this was a question that was once on one of our on one of our exams so what might be a better question what challenges do leaders face after a war right this is something that applies really to any conflict in human history it's a great great question that she could ask kids okay what are the most significant differences between the presidencies of Millard Fillmore in Zachary Taylor and this one okay so Taylor dies in office Millard Fillmore takes his place and Taylor was ardent that he was not going to compromise and so the compromise of 1850 sat on his desk and he refused to sign it and when Millard Fillmore took office after Taylor's untimely death he signed the compromise of 18 50 we all learned it in high school but you know it's one of those things that we forget so what might a better question be to what degree does a president influence domestic policies right this is a question if you teach American history that you can go in in any time during history the American presidency and ask that type of question apply certainly to a class if you're doing on modern American politics but certainly if you're going back all the way to the time of George Washington our next one how many municipalities are there in New Jersey I don't want to shout at a number or take a guess for this one how many municipalities are there in New Jersey five hundred and sixty-five all right that's a lot right so so you could know that but the even the follow up is so what this is a better question what role does local government play in the lives of citizens that's a big focus we talked about in grades four and grade five right and at a higher level you can actually have a student a high school student ask why are there so many municipalities in New Jersey and if a student asks that I can guarantee one of our teachers would say that's a great question right and then they would kind of pursue that and look it up right and the lesson what's the 4th amendment to the Constitution you know this one even know what that protects you against unreasonable search and seizure right ok so that comes up something a lot in our classes the Constitution but a better question is you know how and why does it limit the power of law enforcement right I was in a class last week where the conversations were all about why would the Bill of Rights limit the power of the government instead of extend the power of the government why the Bill of Rights all about what the government can't do instead of what it can do and when you ask students that they're kind of pause and they're like yeah why is that and that's that's a great teaching moment that's much more valuable than just memorizing the Bill of Rights anyone could do that but knowing why they're there and how the Constitution is written in such a way to restrain power that's a much more interesting topic we think and finally our our token map question which region tree named remain free of European domination by defeating an Italian invasion force anybody you got a one-in-seven take guess never know the country no one it's very close you're close the right half of number five oh sorry six okay no no it's similar size so that's good guys I know Ethiopia is number five but again it was another one that Dan and I as we were kind of putting this together all right let's just double check on this way Ethiopia is landlocked yet no it's definitely it's definitely number five okay so what made a better question be what are some of the long-term effects of European imperialism on African nations right what are some of those effects are still felt today inside of Africa why does sub-saharan Africa struggle so mightily can we connect some of that back to imperialism that took place you know in the in the 19th in the 19th century so the next thing that was the first skill as historians ask questions another skill and this is something we're really really devoted to really passionate about that we started talking about the day we met and sort of work it together is that historians read you really can't say you love history unless you love to read you can love the History Channel and things like that but real historians read all the time and that's all we want students to do yes they read textbooks but you they read so much more we're going next slide sure all of those books on this on your tables these are just a sample of the kind of books that students read in all of our classes from the time they're in kindergarten all the way up until they're seniors and start taking elective class and stuff like that so we do have the giant textbooks but we also have all kinds of other things that kids read and kids read a lot in our district right and they read more and more every year right yeah and it's not just reading for the sake of reading it's what are they doing with that that's something that's that's really really important when we first kind of started this initiative it started with this one book on the Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis and when Dan and I at first met you know III really wanted him sell him on this book like I thought it was really important that our kids were reading in class and at that point all students were exposed to in a class and socialized classroom was just the textbook and students tend not to love to read the textbook but I knew that they would really fall in love with this book if we just gave it a shot so in one of our first meetings I had this whole big pitch ready for Ford and I was you know I'm gonna saw him on this book and within three seconds I sold them on the book and I had like 50 other reasons why we needed to do the books now let's just do what you're right this is you know Gaddis is a great writer and we should be reading the books and then this one book has grown into if you look around the tables there's well over thirty five books that are now in the hands of our kids across you know grades K to twelve and that's a great great thing in eighth grade alone the average student is gonna read four books this year for books beyond the textbook four books in class one a quarter that's a great great thing because when they do that they're not only getting a different perspective sometimes on history they're not getting just exposed to different types of writings some some of its historical fictions of its pre true nonfiction that's really really challenging but it's also what we do with it that's really important so here you can see on the screen this is from an eighth grade classroom where they're taking part and something called a fish bowl and a fish bowl activity is where students kind of come together around a common theme in a book and they have a conversation with each other one of the cool things about this picture this picture even in this picture right you know where's the teacher right where is it it's the kids that are doing the teachers are putting the students in the position where they could do these great things and where the teacher is standing right next to me as I'm taking as I'm taking the picture right and this the teacher is there helping to kind of push the dialog when they need to jump in but it's really the students that are doing it's the students that are reading it at home and coming in having these opinions about a book the teacher giving them the prompting them with particular questions and then the students having this free-flowing dialogue with each other and we do in a lot of different formats so oftentimes we use spaces kind of just like what we're in today you can see here a teacher in the media center that's actually at Churchill junior high school but doing an activity that again is tied to reading where students are having that conversation about what they read and the picture there on the bottom right hand corner because is it a ninth grade classroom okay so we're doing it in all types of ways it's not just reading for the sake of reading it's actually having a purpose reading with a purpose and using it in the classroom and all those titles are tied into our curriculum as well another thing we do is that our adults in the district read a lot as well we started something about four years ago called the nonfiction book club and these are the titles we've done so far we've run it eight times and these are books that we get teachers from all across the departments and all across the district to come and we meet three times a semester and we read some books and we talk about them and sometimes those books trickled to their class like this is a classic example was one of the first books we read was about somebody was scaped from North Korea from a prison camp and this book is now taught in our world history class but not all of them are but it's it gives you a sense of the kind of culture we're building here where the teachers are readers and and they don't read enough and things that they've read we've brought in to our curriculum and a teacher will bring in a book and say you know I read this I'm this graphic novel and I think it's gonna be really good and we'll go that and we'll pile it at that with the kids so it's something that that work we have this whole reading culture in the department that we're really proud of and that the teachers and the students have kind of embraced as well yeah one of the cool things too about this is it's inspired a lot of our teachers to then use these books with their students in class so beyond escape from camp 14 Cemetery John you see there on the top that's about the Lindbergh kidnapping a great piece of New Jersey issue and you'll see in a slide a little bit later on in our presentation the author of that Robert Zorn actually got to come in and meet with our students after they had read the book which was fantastic and the day's about the Kennedy assassinations another book that we use with our students in class Janesville closing down of the General Motors facility in Wisconsin is another book that teachers are using in class so it's great that this has kind of inspired a lot of our teachers to then be able to use some of these in class okay so our next skill historians right right and that's one of the things I what historians do that's one of the things that we talk to our students about right from day one right right from you know those early grade levels what do historians do that's what we're gonna focus on in our class and one of those things that historians do as historians right they write all the time they research and then they write about it that's a really really really important skill it's something that again transcends social studies no matter what area a child emerges from each bronzer goes into they're going to have to be able to write okay so it's really really important and it shouldn't just fall on you know the language arts department it's our responsibility as well so we do a lot of writing in social studies one example and you'll see a couple out there on each of the tables I believe and if you don't have one I could certainly pass one to you but we have our students work with these quite often it's a document based question okay and we start these all the way the very younger levels my daughter is a third grader at Memorial and she's doing these document based questions where they're looking at nonfiction texts they're looking at images and graphs and charts and things of that sort okay and they're kind of breaking it down right this is what a historian does so if you look this is actually an example from eighth grade and there should be two on your table one is about the American Revolution and one is a document based question a titled leadership in the nation's early years but these are activities again that we're doing all the time with our students and some of this text if you go into you really take a look at it it's pretty complex it's challenging but again it's this skill set that we think is really really important all right it's one thing to be able to read history to be able to analyze history but it's another thing to be able to write about it and that's a really really important thing in this again it's something that we emphasize all the time the assessment questions that we you know ran through before those are the ones that you would have seen in our social studies classes maybe 15 20 years ago but this is what a common assessment really looks like now in fact this is I'm showing you a common assessment at the eighth grade level this is what they look like now okay and when we started we started doing this you know sometimes the students would complain to their teachers it's what is this English why are you making us write so much this isn't English and the teachers would say well you got it you know you have to learn how to write and if you want to think about history you know it's much easier for the students to just memorize stuff you know they would you know that's that's a slam dunk it's a lot harder to form an opinion all right about a number of documents or about a bunch of data you're handed and say what do you make of this and form an argument about this or do some research and really write all the time and not just one research paper during the course of the year and your assessments become writing based as opposed to just um true/false or fill on the blank that's much more demanding of the students but we've seen how much how much more pays off yeah and and the other thing too is it's important to understand that the contents still really important I think it's really important that the students emerge from their experience in East Brunswick schools consumers of the content so for example you know a student is gonna read this book on Paul Revere Paul Revere and I but also write about it as they're doing the document based question on the American Revolution that's how they're learning the content so as opposed to you know the you're just kind of standing at the front and just you know taking it from their head and putting it into the students head for a very short period of time they're becoming owners of that content as they read through as they write about it and what we found is it's much more a longer lasting experience for the students to learn history in that way so we're always writing and going along with writing two of the things that our district subscribes to which we think are really really terrific and powerful are Turnitin and newsela turn it in if anyone knows what that is it's a program it's it's sold as an anti plagiarism detection service where if a student writes a paper it gets submitted to turn it in Turnitin compares that paper against its bank of papers that it grows every day and against things on the internet it lets you know if somebody's plagiarized but the real value of Turnitin we found is that teachers can give electronic feedback so so many of our teachers and this starts in grade six we have six graders doing this students will submit papers or writing assignments and the teacher can make all their comments right online on the stream so there's no more handwritten stuff they get back their comments much more quickly they can write much more there's no illegible marks for when people's arms get tired and students can respond to them it's really really powerful and that's something that college students across the country use as well so we have students here at hammer sholde already using Turnitin the second thing is that newsela is a service where we always want students to do current events right it's not just about the Congress of again and we want them to read what's going on now right but especially what younger students they're all learning to read at different levels newsela is a service where it will take the same article about the same topic right and it will level it so that some students at one level can read the article some students at a different reading level can read the same article but maybe with different vocabulary may be more challenging sentence structure and they can also have a conversation about it right it's been wonderful teachers can teachers can have students respond on newsela I've seen lessons where students have learned how to annotate online electronically using newsela so that's a really really powerful thing and again what are the kids doing their reading and their writing like that's what history should be that's what historians do and then the last thing is this year was the first year we're very excited about this was that in grades four and five the ILA teacher is now also the social studies teacher right so that's very very seamless and when we transition to that it was not a big it wasn't a you know you know a big deal at all because we were doing so much of that in social studies already so in ila when the kids do historical fiction that will tie in with what they're doing in social studies sometimes so it really makes everything much more natural and organic okay and historians celebrate now what do we might celebrate not just class parties with cupcakes and things like that right but we mean that if you're a historian and you've learned things you want to share it right now if you're a professor you want to try to publishing and so you get tenure somewhere right but historians love to share what they've they've learned right and we encourage that in all of our students right um we want students to think about their research to get it together and then to present it to people and not to present it like a class report where somebody stands out like this like I learned about Patrick Henry and Patrick Henry was we want them to be able to talk to strangers in a public place like we're doing now actually right and sell their research and get other people excited about it as well so from the time they're in first and second grade we want them to work on those speaking and listening skills yeah one of the things that I would always tell parents when I was a teacher back in the classroom when we'd have back-to-school night was I would say part of my job is to prepare your child for the midterm afore the final exam so for example I could tell you right now there's gonna be a question on the Atlantic Charter on the midterm exam where they're gonna need to know what provision number two of the Atlantic Charter is I promise you that I'm gonna do that part of my job I'm gonna prepare them for that common assessment even though my bones I didn't like that common assessment but those old school kind of questions they were still around but what's really important is that your child is able to emerge from my classroom as a more confident public speaker as somebody who can research who knows how to research as somebody who is a talented writer because these are the things that they're gonna need to do as they get on in life and the thing that scared them the most was this was the public speaking part right they knew like anytime it was right who wants to volunteer to go first to come up in front of the room and speak nobody volunteer right it was always like I had a you know like I pulled the old popsicle sticks all right Jimmy you're first here we go it was something that was a real challenge for them but it was so important let me think about it right in life everybody's going to present an idea you have to present yourself in an interview to try to win that job everybody has to use that skill it's so important and it's something that we really need to be doing in our classrooms and again like dr.
Brandt said it's something we really focus on K to 12 one of the things that we're really really proud of is it hammer shield every student engages in presenting his or her research to the public so we have different forums one of the things we do is our famous folks festival right and another one is something called history con these are both started by teachers we have wonderful wonderful teachers in this district right and this is a place kind of like an old school science fair where students first research a person and even how they get to that person even how they decide to who to research that's a whole process but they research somebody they learn a lot about that person and then they present that person we open up the cavity red hammer sholde there's different time schedules and people come in and they interact with the students and the great thing when you go and say these are just two of the many many students who do it the great thing is that when you go up to a student they don't give a canned speech so you don't go up to somebody and say you know Jackie Robinson play for the Dodgers and Betty Wright it's you they can interact you could say tell me about Jackie Robinson tell me why he was so important and the student will do it you could ask those students really hard questions we've done it we'll ask kids really really hard questions and they're there right there because they become authorities on this and they've invested a lot of time in it so we have a thing called the famous folks festival where the students research of a person of their choice and it could be somebody really famous maybe somebody not that famous but somebody worth the research we do a thing called a history con where students might take a historical idea right like say like you know um the Roman army or on you know on the original the first Olympics or things like that right and their research that we have a lot of different forums like that we have a thing called an in-class museum we do things like this for the little kids they have a thing called Night at the Museum but we want the kids to learn how to speak and we've learned that you don't teach kids how to become better public speakers by just saying like just go in the front the room and start talking or go prepare an or rapport with some index cards so there's actual speaking and listening skills in the New Jersey standards that our teachers address the they use in their plans that they do lessons on if you want people to become better writers you have to do writing lessons you can't just hope good writing happens and it's the same thing with speaking and listening so by the time the students are ready to do this their authorities and one of the great things about this is the first time we did this the first time the famous focus festival ran I think it was three years ago the last question any student asked in sixth grade to their teacher was like by the way like what how many points is this worth like they really weren't concerned about how many they were very excited that there are a lot of people come and we get a huge huge turnout for this and every year what it has to stop after the first hour and they have to go back to class like oh and you know it's really really affirming and it's really really incredible what these kids are able to do and one of the cool things about this too is they're researching about people and topics that they're really interested in that's one of the things that we have found when students are doing that when they feel more invested in it it becomes a much better product they dig deeper into that research I remember talking to this young man about Jackie Robinson remember asking him because I love baseball I love Jackie Robinson so I gotta ask you so why Jackie Robinson why did you pick him as your topic he said to me he said you know what because I love to play baseball I always heard about this guy Jackie Robinson but I had no idea who he was I didn't know why it was important I just knew he was important he was like a name in a textbook to this kid right and I did all this research and here's what I kind of he was so excited to tell me about who Jackie Robinson was and why it was so significant and that was great that was great because back in the old days right oftentimes you were given your research subject you know alright you know tell me about you know President Jimmy Carter and his domestic policies or something along those lines we're in this case these students got to experience and research something that was interesting to them and that was the skill that we really wanted the student to focus on right that's another example recently this year we teachers did a thing of a class museum about inventions so this young man over here did the electric guitar he plays the guitar and I spoke to him and he was really really eloquent about about about the creation of the other electric guitar Les Paul and things again cuz again he was really interested in it um he could have picked whatever you wanted to within reason right but the point is that the subject that the students pick is almost beside the point the point is using those skills so that was great this here the poise eventually we want them to be able to do this when they're older right and that's an example of our high school kids talking at the innovations Expo about what he was doing in his history class right being very eloquent you noticed like you know he has a little thing in his hands but he's looking right at the people these kids get a lot of confidence as they get older and it all starts when they're little it's amazing to watch maybe I don't know if anybody had a chance to go to go to this last year but the confidence that with which these kids speak is incredible it really is I think back when I watch these kids and I think back to when I was in high school and how nervous I ever was you know to actually speak in front of an audience of 20 kids forget about you know being somewhere like this where you have people from the community who you don't even know who are kind of coming up to you and you're happy to talk to them about what you're doing in your class the confidence is really really incredible and we'd like to think that part of it is because it's something again as a skill that we enforce all the way up and the last example of celebration this is something new we're doing this year at hammer sholde right again started but started by one of our great teachers is the National History bee it's a obviously national contest about knowledge of history we had every student at hammer she'll take the qualifying test everyone took it we had 91 students qualify for the regional finals and they're actually gonna be held at hammer sholde in April I think it's April 17th so it's just another way that we make history kind of like you know what a big part of their day and and when the students found out they were really really excited about this so this is our first time through it historians listen to experts right whether you're a student of history a student in one of our classrooms or whether you're a teacher right and you want to grow professionally to develop professionally you're listening to experts a big key of what we do here in our social studies program so for example here we're trying to always bring folks in from the larger community who could help us with that so on the left hand side is the director of the county of freeholders Ronald Rios and he came in to speak with our Churchill junior high school students last year about the importance of civic education and what a freeholder does you know it's one of those things that you know sometimes students see we have a friller students enter know what a mayor does but what does a freeholder do right so we kind of inform them of what his job was and how they can kind of play a role in being part of that that's civic duty was it was a great presentation the picture on the right was Robert Zorn robertson was one of the the writers of the books that we use about the Lindbergh kidnapping and he came in and he met with our our students and it was great you sat there for an hour and answered questions what was interesting was the questions that the students were asking was a blend of tell us more about the Lindbergh kidnapping you know but a lot of it was how did you do your research how did you actually sit and write a book they got wrapped up in the skills part of it as well as they were asking the questions and I remember him commented to us the first time he presented to our students well those were great question he was like well usually I just get asked about you know the kidnapping but they wanted to know what the skill of being a writer that's a really really really important thing and why do you have that up there yeah like you know we've done this with a lot of writers too this is avi famous famous author avi did a Skype session with our kids at Churchill Candace Maillard there were this book destiny of the Republic students were tweeting it sending her questions on Twitter as she was answering so we want the kids to engage with the writers they read and and we and the writers always say that the students you know show up really well yeah the Candice Marlins a funny story are we read that in ninth grade and the teacher Mike Smith asked me one day says you know what do you what do you think Tommy I'd love to get Candice more she's a huge name and what cost us thousands of dollars to bring her in so we couldn't bring her in live in person to speak with our students but our students have read this book loved the book and she has you know our own Twitter account and he said what do you think should we should we just start tweeting her questions yeah why not yeah you have nothing to lose right so go for it start tweeting her questions and after day she started responding and was having kind of like a back-and-forth with the teacher but the teacher was kind of presenting the the student questions and it was a really really powerful powerful thing we've had Skype sessions with authors as well so students being able to interact in that in that fashion it's really really been great okay yeah yeah okay have a good flight one of the other things that we do in terms of bringing the community in as each year we do a Veterans Day celebration at the high school so in this case we bring in members from all the branches from the Marines the Navy Air Force and Army uh so we do a nice celebration there but then we bring them into our classrooms so they can interact with students they could talk about kind of their experiences many of them are veterans of our of our current wars in the Middle East so they talk about that and what it's like to be you know somebody who's relative close an age to them what it's like to be an active active service so that's been a very very powerful experience for our students as well and finally this one was was very recently we had a Holocaust Remembrance Day that we honored at Churchill Junior High School and we were very lucky we were able to get a survivor of the Holocaust to come in and speak with our students okay so this is a generation of folks who are you know rapidly you know passing away and so he's a 93 year old gentleman lives in Monroe is a Holocaust survivor and he came in and he spoke with our students and it was so powerful in the opening moment of his presentation to our students we held up he rolled up his sleeve we're at a tomb once had been which had you know signified what his number was in one of the concentration camps and he talked to our students about how for two or three years camera what it was that that was who he was he was a number he wasn't a name it was an identity to the Nazis he was just a number and then he went in and he spoke about his life during the camps and then you know transitioning after the war and how it shaped the rest of his life it was such a powerful experience but anytime that we could bring the community into our schools whether it's a politician whether it's you know someone like this can be anybody that our students can become immersed in history that's one of the things we really want the students to leave our program with this this feeling of immersion to make them part of history part of the experience it's so so important to us and that was a very very impactful presentation that he made another way you make history alive is you go places right so we bring people in but then we send the kids out so for the first thing you know if you if you have children the district you know that everyone goes to the farm we do different kinds of community the kids get the apples the old seat get to see the horse that's very exciting right we bring kids to the Municipal Center all right and when I talk to kids how was it like oh we want to see the jail they all want to see the jail but they get to go to the Municipal Center and see the court and see what that's like even though it's right across from the library as they all know they get to go inside they could see like how their community worked communities is a big big part of our elementary curriculum as they get older they're going other trips to like on the left there is the stock exchange before the stock exchange on the right is the 9/11 museum right so we want the kids to go out we want the kids to have these appearances yeah they want on the floor of the stock exchange there's a great trip that was one our economics teacher of the high school led the students into a competition which we won and it was really cool because it was a regular academic level economics class and we defeated a bunch of AP level students at different schools and we won this competition so we got to send our students to the floor of the stock exchange and they were blown away by the experience because it was so digital you know I think sometimes you know we study the history of the exchange we think of ticker tape flying all around and papers everywhere but they couldn't believe how digital it was it was a really really great experience for them to see what it's like to be a stockbroker and then also to a doctrine I mentioned the 9/11 museum that's becoming really a staple of what we do at the high school we do that trip each year now and it is so powerful to hear the students and some of the things that they have to say after they come back from that experience is is really really a great thing it's a great experience that we provide for for our students and then another way we do both the field trip out and bringing people in is we've started doing virtual field trips right again engineered by the teachers they did the research on this we thought this was a great idea so we'll have a bunch of students to gathered in the media center at the library and here on the left is Ford's Theater so we can't bring the students to Ford's Theater right we can bring forward theater to the students and this is all alive you have people from the National Park Service talking live to the students answering their questions and the one on the right is Edison's labs all right so Thomas Edison's lab that's another National Historic Site and students learn about Thomas Edison ninth grade they could post questions to the Rangers there it's really really interesting and really really great yeah and finally historian's collaborate right so they take all these skills that they've been able to develop and they work with other people who are also working to refine those same skills so that's again a big piece of what we do in our social studies program we share out so for example here are the picture on the top left hand corner that's from one of our criminal justice classes at the high school and what our teacher does is he bring students outside and they kind of get to experience we asked you that question before on the 4th amendment they get to have a conversation with the police officers about the Fourth Amendment and how it applies during traffic stops and things of that sort so again learning from the community it's a big piece this a great collaboration example on the top right hand corner as its students from our mock trial program which is a very successful Club here at East Brunswick High School going to hammer shawl to talk students through a court a simulation exercise it was really really great it was it was a two-hour long activity that they ran with the hammer Schultz students and it was it was really really powerful and then finally one of the the great experiences that we have as part of our social studies department is our a people team or the We the People team so this is a group of seniors two years ago actually this picture was taken in Washington DC after we had won a state championship we got to represent New Jersey at the national championship and here we were at the the Sam Rayburn building at Congress and it was so impactful as our students got to testify and talk about congressional issues and they got to apply so much of the research and the knowledge that they had one of the cool things for me as a history nerd was we found out right before we walked in the room that this was one of the rooms where they had the Maine Laura gate hearings back during the time of Richard Nixon's ultimate resignation so it was just a really really powerful experience and I'm happy to say that just a couple weeks ago we won the state championship again so in late April we'll be going back down to Washington representing New Jersey in the national championship and it's it's a really really great program and what this program does is it gives back it works with students and the We the People Club in eighth grade where we hold each spring a kind of a contest for them where they come to the high school and they compete in an afternoon long presentation in front of our seniors it's a really really good experience so what we tried to show you is that you know what historians do is what we want students to do that though those two categories aren't exclusive right and this is something that the teachers talked to students about all the time it's kind of in the air we breathe now in the history department and we're really really excited about that and that's if you talk to your students just saying it's a skill based curriculum and they'll be the first ones to tell you so thank you for coming and we'll certainly be around we invite you to look around at some of the books that are on the tables so you could see the kind of things that students read and we'll be around to take questions if you want to talk to thanks for coming out tonight thank you very much we appreciate it thanks [Applause] you
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[Music] good evening good evening everybody you'll see good evening today is Wednesday February 21st 2018 and I'd like to call the regular Board of Education meeting to order if we could all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance with justice for all can we hear from full board seated tonight and welcome back everyone it's been a month since we've been here first on our agenda we have a cave award for excellence in communications and to present that we have Michelle qu from Kate welcome Michelle good evening superintendent Brielle cherish term and members of the Brookfield Board of Education and Michelle Embry ku and I'm the board chair in Newtown but I'm also the cabe Area Director so Connecticut Association of Boards of Education and I know notwithstanding the weather today it's winter I know you're looking forward to not having to make too many more calls and setting the graduation date but it's also budget season and it's around this time that we often get the observation that school is not like it used to be and as Boards of Education we try to explain during the budget season often times the value of school being different than how it used to be but cabe likes to recognize Boards of Education and districts that do a good job of explaining that to the public and to their students and staff why it is that education is so important and how we're serving our students in a different way then maybe we used to sew cables to celebrate the schools and districts that do a good job of telling parents and communities what schools are doing throughout the year so I'm pleased to present the cave Bonnie B Kearney Award of Excellence for educational communications for three of your districts endeavors that's a great number three awards is very impressive the entries had to meet specific criteria first there had to be clarity of message and consistency second the presentation was evaluated for readability graphics presentation design and value of expenditure so I'm pleased to present the award in excellence for educational communications for the assistant superintendents presentation on the four types of assessment for helping meeting participants meeting participants learn more about student assessments and that's this award the second one is for the 10th annual recycling poster contest and it's being recognized for excellence for educational communications and promoting awareness about recycling and finally the Brookfield broadcast newsletters being awarded for excellence for educational communications for promoting the highlights of the school district and student accomplishments Thank You Michelle and I'd like to give a big thank you to Lisa Grambling for the recycling contest efforts that was with hers dr.
ruby for the assessments and dr. Borel in the Communications Committee for the newsletter it's fabulous job thank you and Michelle I'd like to add Colette thank you very much we really appreciate it and you're right next door so you don't have a long ride home so that's good we also had two areas where we had an honorable mention and I wanted to pass these around we received these a little bit earlier well they're not formally presented by our area Kay representative they certainly are something to be thoughtful thoughtful about and to think about and we thank technology department so Eric Conklin and all that work with our social media and our website we recognize for both of those as well as honorable mentions so pass those around big THANK YOU to Eric for those as well thank you thanks to the Board of Ed for all their support thank you okay and next on to continue in a spotlight we have spudley with the central office for all their phenomenal work that they've been doing well thank you mrs.
Sturm so really two years in the making we talked a lot about it we've had updates almost monthly for the last couple of years with a real turnaround in our community over the last four years and especially over the last two years with the actual work and implementation in the transition to the newest financial platform and working together collaboratively with the town really Brookfield went through some difficult days a few years back and I'm proud to say with the support of the board to have Board of Education the community and our tremendous employees were in a we're really in a new world and a new world I didn't need to be from a girl leave it at that and to turn over Campos director of business and operations Ken please folks could on the team could stand up please I'll give a little background the immunised convergent project began in early 2016 phase one included migrating the general ledger accounting purchasing and accounts payable functions to munis the project was made more challenging by the fact that we were also converting to the state uniform chart of accounts at the same time we went live with these functions July 1st 2017 pretty much seamlessly phase 2 included migrating the human resources and payroll functions Tim unison this phase began in August of 2017 and we went live on January 1st 2018 this was a very aggressive timeline but the team pulled it off we ran our first paper on january 9th and the only thing that went wrong was one direct deposit that had an incorrect account number the project leader from Yunus said that he knew of only one HR Payroll implementation that was successful in such a short timeline and that client had only 14 employees so it was quite an accomplishment for this group Wow from personal experience I've been through a number of system conversions in my career and I've never seen one go as well as this one ever and I've never seen such an implementation team work so well together and put in so much careful planning and in configuring the system so my thanks to to the team Joan Reynolds our accounting supervisor and back when our technology director were the leaders in both things subscribers without their hard work and leadership we would not have been so successful Hawaii our accounts payable coordinator and our purchase a shared purchasing agent with the town were critical to the success in phase one in addition to Joan and Eric the phase two team included Cindy pneumatically our payroll coordinator Perry and our angelou our accounting clerk Terry Cavanagh our human resource specialists and the Falcons Ben our benefits coordinator who is not with us this evening I'd like to also mention that we had great cooperation from the town finance and IT offices as you know or may not know we are how to combine database with them so there were a lot of conversations we had to have about settings that affect both both entities and making sure we're on the same page with all of them so they worked very well with us and I'm proud to say that this team did a wonderful job thank you thank you our deepest thanks to all of you guys you really are the unsung heroes throughout this entire munis conversion and we couldn't have done it without each and every one of you so thank you so much on behalf of the whole board okay now we have public comment for us on the other this is a Wiseman and the decision to ease my concern is the decision while Cheryl is Marylander 381 ATP's and a beautiful force when students require a transversal at organizations to get on your knees the several educators should all be concerned with violet invited and a little oppressed is required at each meeting police follow me cause I'm always says the world needs must be rescheduled this is no real time if you fail it is solely out of comprise the so all students receiving special education services secular education celebratory manages the community to tell us in addition to sharing the 18 bones testicles files between the soils transitions and with us for the work that has been required for the length cabbage and new employees eliminating the dismissal edition will not make the movie alienated the report run under the human scale ruling documentation halation and coordination disappear with it these solutions shouldn't lead suffered a staff resulting on a very inconvenient and in chaos or at the very least the possibility mattered and an inefficient in elderly there were six and emissions that will open the door to the prospect of a state's engines and an aggressive push back from a set of cameras in the before the fire advocates and losses education stability school is the heart and soul of a well-organized department there are the primary means that at a low stool citizen is however that a try esteem consideration and responsibilities I believe that as a social education studies deliver essential and invaluable service to power tools and they are well worth the sixteen dollar set of incentives power they take on our own thank you I also have some letters from special education teachers we're gonna send in email and thank you all I know it was difficult thank you okay next we have the doctor Japan Murli [Music] thank you maybe it went on a secret unit be my wife rides and currently we had everybody I understand it's really unclear the eighties what did this in letters by message is and is directed to just feel off the news this is more of a political message which I needed soon to endorse a circle you very angry for two now and they and but as a national issue and what about today are they digging that out are they gonna feel that they're not part of it and then forward so you know it's something I think of and in a particular political view I think that's a danger for this to go down so thank you thank you okay was there anybody else present day there will be no in on the decision remember under good Gina senior prom and is project when you provide clean water for the world countries that's like if I was beating officers in our tools again sorry in addition we discuss enemies and purposes whereas while community and compassion with interested body thank you thank you um question do have in the nation yep [Music] I was going to have any later so this is the promise or last year so you had a year for next year you raised $20,000 and where the fines in town maybe cut my hair themselves so sorry that actually your eye with you no no okay we had it I mean Korea it budget budget set up you connect Kristine Zimmerman did it great recovery ronnapee budget and Cheryl's Laura or general Glen Rooney Rooney regarding Medicaid can earn money Matthew G school facilities I need you okay next we have approval of Auburn internists Redmond and emotion at the world approve of the man is listed below was recommended special meeting on 117 117 all right okay first one is doctors Haleh mr.
Renner I got a meeting tomorrow a ruler program have a parent there also update the Berryhill from this whole search committee has picked amenities three member representing the word on the community and the majority of external applications and we have two days where we do the initial phase interviews next week on February 28th and the following week on March 7th two days and set up some interviews and the final interviews so we're in the process they're pretty apply moving on to current enrollment an octaver everyone we talked about any original education 67 poll students less next year we're down to only having 34 students less next year had an opt-in enrollment so this was the net is down it's spread out throughout all the races not impacting class sizes to negative or just keeping an eye on as we all do know is it is living visits or all walkthroughs of the ironing when we implement our compassion teachers our final responsibility model and please share that we can 175 it's been really great I'm about halfway through and our meeting of Monday afternoon it's a spiritual we're at you know the data we collected how's it going if you kind of admitted many points and we'll end up over the next month more slowly and gradually responsibility from there we'll share our data not only discussion among share with teachers and also where the regional navy ringing army learning even a meeting to talk about services Minister post in the last two meetings and and I think maybe is technology purchases and special occasions be able to know that the the always going to be third and on from in front of the vegan Eric and all alone with Australia they work on getting the GM cameras at a VHS in place their motivating sensitive and after two hours there's a final for the beams so or practices we want well on and Jim and anyone in watch be service and just whole host of things that we in place and wonderful very clear and mark can people accidentally okay season winding down but uh you know it's uh we can get one for so exciting hello update I know they're different people different people major losses where we compared your city and a nation he needs told is this point we've had 35 cases that we were aware of that is not an official health report they're gonna be more but we know it's long down so [Music] yeah I'd be useful to see if we absolutely definite I know I mean those are it's not anything from all right right and then I want to give us a security light of damage to the door and secure summary now that everybody yesterday Harling in response to obviously the horrific events in Florida but also want to share the many effective practices for security in our that her starting five years and meeting with cheaper some regular basis and we have today really all the different things we had Evan plays and asking questions about you know axes we have in place but also vulnerabilities and where is it time and practically need one it is the tipping point I think we've had enough of these situations where we need to again reflect we can come a long way since a year ago but can we alter the very real security that we do have as well so anyway what's the response to it I think we heard that we have a lot of things like lockout and pain buttons and signing refused that have been a minute this year throws and you know we lost with anything in place but a tenth people are concerned people are concerned with you know current context and that first of all and you know I think we need starter plug things in team and team and the police and his team as to maybe there's some areas we didn't so I don't know that's it you know that I have seen certainly questions well after school so I know there's some of the schools time but you know when he hits cumber that's ball or whatever the for 20 minute is doesn't come in and can't deny that we want to further the resume for example has hobbies and then there's even longer and there's a school employee that stage that is monitoring at that applicator school the middle is their abilities and vegetables are as secure you know again as hypothesis if I may there situations be very I don't want to give away too much to those who might harm so don't care how am I do you live but definitely consider and you know with with place those particular doors directly a little particular introduces that as personnel budget as well would be almost any organizations in school they do have to you know but I'm sure direct exactly and so that's where you dance we because the community but the schools always charge when we look at the current security plan in place we evolved the planet has all those years so we do take a I call it I think now this is frankly in a deeper look in an oral over the long term you know it anyone do we have to completely look for potential [Music] in one of the cases and they have so we done that as an interesting scenario and in each human ability and I that specifically but the regular retail or the secret shopper in the case of the icy world is someone trying to post and the action I think and I don't know that had been anything any secret [Music] we have an event here's our cleaning procedures things here some recommendations little more the next we definitely come back with thinking we're updating change thinking that involved an investment but again part of security planning is also [Music] when you see to the students I'm not sure which school you planning to visit with are you going to be seeing with with a senior we so little suggestion I know that we teacher students that I follow and kind and help each other they should perhaps sink twice before old many door door strangers good kids are being kind and but it's that I would be something that you know someone else you know we know tragedies like hook and the shooting in Florida are sort of multifaceted issues and we're talking about security but I'm curious to know what's being done what we can do on in a minute to help front and didn't touch on a little bit with the walkout tension courage compassion but you know what are we doing to facilitate more conversation among the kids what are we doing to encourage them to seek educators or a teacher or a friend is something at an ordinary you know it's very question we have a lot of those kind of things anywhere students are encouraged to find that all Cheryl in the dull kind of in a mansion yesterday or with it we let's not forget we training and now they all be trained and we're working on charge so just program for Katie to be disappointing it's just planning and his team they're working on systems different programs ideas we passion and also doxologies it in your old sitcoms taking a look at some things we have is that we you know we share eventually we'll be bored about developing system or therapeutic programming for our students not only in some of these programs we have a create new programs frankly we think a little bit differently that has a piece I think that we really consider so there's there is a big big push for looking at our sort of emotional experiences how they are doing not only how fine and know that we have students to give you hardly reach out help one of the things were known of the student third students that was talked about was as meteors replication increase in spending are in a social situation to be able to provide program you not only where you know throat okay Mises and government erection but we need like they'll provide tours to students back and also for I need to do situation do we support those are you know we have a lot going on one suggestion for I know you talk about taking any part or look at school security I know that right now we have a little in the middle school and currently our elementary schools don't have any real I mean in personal security I just a little around in a new town doesn't have many schools but there are ways where we can I think Smith looking at personnel and he ad early city take a look at adding someone at the elementary schools it can usually done from one here pretty easily they have but you can get more part-time when sorrows civic training they didn't be coverage and sort of move them around but it doesn't really see because they're a like a police state but they were sophomores they concealed so there's not good children nervous I would kind of like you know and you know he said he happier in here thinking where's some use the difference you're not confusing at all but we're some of you people in the yard and you know sometimes here yards are harmed and some are aren't and their arm their or and entire police officers I believe the other under the point of the least art there's lots we need about that that's something the workers to do we take a look at that just as variegated it's just that resource they're not a security guard standing post or has they need to check whether there are not going through the building and they're monitoring and sharing information whereas resource officer while they do that they're resource officer not only community policing students relationships they're they're helping their industry so there's a big difference between SRO we want to make sure we don't continue that unions conversation but there's definitely room for the conversation and you know an indicator on the train we start and you know our Police Department for very real and in more than happy Connor hold forum he said have a conversation meaning will the presentation whatever you can do to help foster conversation any questions Awards J's definitely someone that'll be there thank you thank you okay next we gotta set up community reports and first is easy surgical facilities okay on our committee we now have a member from the board who's joined us and one from the Arab word on working with us as we go through here to be a part of our excited to have her is yes next month we will be having a public forum that a public is invited I encourage you to come I encourage you to attend come with your questions come with your concerns come in just with your listening have fun in here what we have to say we at this point so there seems to be some information and we do want to make this process that were working on transparent open and being a community type wordy atmosphere so on Tuesday March 27 at 7 o'clock in the borough field high school auditorium Texan and associates architect will be coming they will be giving us their preliminary findings of what they see in the schools it's not going to be a final report is not going to be something of what we are going to be doing or what they are suggesting that we're going to be doing it's going to be a preliminary report of what they see with some ideas of the direction that they're going to be pursuing so that's very and I would encourage everyone to come to that our next committee meeting is going to be March 19th at 6 o'clock again that's an open meeting and the committee is going just to be reviewing what we're going to be doing at that public forum on March 27th I did have a question for the the board though I know we have a communications committee but I would like to start a Facebook page if I could with just factual basis of what we're doing along the way with tech 10 associates concerning this endeavor of looking at the four schools just to keep everyone involved I know that dr.
Brill sends out letters and communications but for the rest of the people that love to be on Facebook and they just wonder what's happening it would be an avenue for them to see the letters that dr.
Birol post and also to announce this happening and I wanted to get you know the board's input how how would we like to handle that do we would we do a separate Facebook page or could we just piggyback that onto our brookfield that's public schools Facebook that's kind of open to a discussion for for here really I mean I I kind of personally like the idea of having a separate page so that you can put almost as much information as you want without allowing all the other information that might be on ours you know our general page okay but yeah I thought of it both ways to Rosa and I was like well you know could we put it with that and then I thought well maybe it would the message would get lost and then if we just had one page just dedicated to this it might be easier because this actually affects the whole town you know you know the tax base the the it would it encompasses everyone just not the school parents yeah but I'm open to were you thinking Facebook page because you want some interaction on there or do we want to just post you know the minutes and those things in one place and we could you know call it school project and have a you know one button on the website to that's something we can do you know it depends on what we're trying I'm hoping to two suggestions I'd like to do we have to make it I would like to see the factual information get out so people completely understand what we're doing what phase were at community involvement I don't want anyone to ever feel that they're not getting any information from this committee that they don't know what's going on and then one day they say oh they're springing the vote on us that that's that's not the situation I want everyone to know when the meetings are so they feel free to comment and and give their input so it's yeah I was kind of hoping we could have a discussion and and come up with how we would like to handle it as a board I do that I like it being separate I do kind of like however it just being the type of page where there is an interaction just because then you just start you know people go on tangents yeah discussing online yeah because you know we're building a brand new school in the cornfield yeah that was a shocker to me so you know and it is funny I do understand what you're you're saying yeah thank you both ways though I think it's a great idea but we have to keep in mind also that a very small percentage of the population is on Facebook so maybe building off our school webpage I mean we could talk to the town and they could put a link to a link on the webpage so people go to the town they can you know you maybe there's a way I'm just being a way to link those things I know I'm just thinking that maybe somebody wouldn't think to go - how about if we go have I'm sorry yeah how about if we have the link on the on the webpage but then post the link to our Facebook as well so then we have it and then we get it that way and if you do that you could almost even post it to other other Facebook pages that are in existence if we're not looking for interaction then we could just set it up as a repository for the information that goes in there that people could go in at their leisure everything if we don't want the interaction because people may interpret it as being old I can give my input right but this is just more factual way to get exactly as I can't they're more than welcome to come to the meetings and get their input there are more than welcome to send us a note in email they're always open to that I'm actually wondering if in conjunction when they I know the town puts out Brookfield matters if we gave it up to what do you guys think of that if you gave an update once a month to that - I want to hit everybody because I want everyone to understand what we're doing because it's going to be the community that were we're asking to support yeah that's double being like a website instead of a Facebook event I'm an event like the Facebook page like having like an actual website instead there's like people some people aren't on Facebook and then they could still access the information or if we had just a page with our existing website then I am then it's there and it's available and then we can really readily share it from others you know the other thing we can do is is Rosa being the chair of the communications committee and being chair of facilities and strategic school committee we can set up a meeting with Eric to see what are some of the things we can do yeah that's a good idea yeah that would be great yeah you know yeah and I'm not sure I just want to get the message out clear I want and everyone informed I want people to be involved just I don't want to step on any toes and I want to make sure that I have your support somebody thank you so March 27th 7 o'clock Brookfield High School Auditorium please come thank you thank you eat okay policy communications okay so we have met twice since our last regular meeting that the most recently was just tonight before for this meeting so what we have decided to do the last the last board had gone through the bylaws and updated them we still have a lot of really outdated policies that some are some are as old as me so we've decided to go through the three thousands that series which is business and non-instructional operations first and what we what we have decided to do is so cave also has policies already written they get updated we already pay for them with our membership to cave so what we're gonna do is we're gonna see how much are already written policies match up to theirs and if we can just make a nice easy conversion we'll just adopt there's this way we can it'll make it much easier to to update them year after year so that's what we're gonna do first we actually Bob had it had electronically seen what they look like next to each other and the wording is just I'm hardly any of the words ever so we will have to go through them all by hand and there are 80s some nod policies just that we're looking at so so will will start chipping away at the three thousands if any come up with you know important emergency sort of policy initiations or legislation that comes down we will obviously look at those right away and just that you know like when we bring them to the board for a first read they'll be sort of trickling and it won't be like lots because it'll take some time we did review the naloxone regulation wasn't any issue that seemed like in line with the policy and there wasn't any issues with that and the biggest part that comes out of the communications aspect of this committee was talking points so we it's obviously clear that we need to communicate not only this budget but really like the happenings of this board there's a lot of miscommunication that we all know is out there so we think that if we can create sort of talking points the major parts of our meetings that go on and sort of make them available to all of us then this way we can we can speak on behalf of the board but only with our obviously agreed upon points this way we're not sort of new on the subjects that we really should be communicating to the public but that was that was basically it we're gonna start working on the budget flyer so John's gonna work on that and we're gonna we've actually already started a lot of the the major points on that so it'll be start our first draft pretty soon and we'll work together with that it's a lot of great work thank you any questions for Rosa okay next we have the finance report okay so the Finance Committee met on February 13th and he was it was a brief meeting because we did it before the town meeting and quite frankly some of this is either stuff that's already happened or is on the agenda tonight so I'll try to be brief but I do want to touch on all the things that we talked about we went through the January financial report and the check registers which we always start our meeting with there was nothing out of the ordinary other than the budget changes we're already talking about and are on the agenda tonight what Ken reported was if we accept the budget changes rate and pace of our spending through the year is about right on with what you would have expected on the budgets so but as it stood since there's as such we have not approved the budget changes for a special education in particular where it looks like we're way over you've probably saw that in the reports that we received as part of the package the package that we've got so this budget the budget adjustments that we will see tonight are important to get us on firmer ground being able to report and see our rate pace nothing out of the ordinary and the check registers we talked about the munis payroll update and it has gone as I said earlier extraordinarily smoothly I've done a payroll update and I just have to echo some of the stuff that said I have never seen a payroll implementation that went this movement this is simply amazing to me so well done well done well done we talked about the the budget items on the agenda later tonight we'll be talking about the board of finances request for ideas for additional items so I'm not going to go through that our general advice to dr. Burrell was stay focused on project oriented things as opposed to I just want to have more more more more teachers more in a staff it really you know we got it we want to bring forward this project system the capital plan or this is one we may have deferred and it could be on that list so it's easier for a Board of Finance to digest them we did go quickly through the capital project update and those seem to be going along well and if you remember our discussion was a 2015-16 approved projects have to be finished by this summer and so those seems to be going well and we hear about that in addition to the Facilities Committee so we get to both get reports on those now a new business dr.
Birol talked about the the regional efficiencies group and we heard his report this evening so I'm not going to spend any more time on that but they are actively looking at places where we could operate across the districts for efficiencies we did hear on an update on the audit of the on it's going extraordinarily smoothly no issues still no issues can here a week later don't know still no issues and and so and I've seen that audit team they've been camped out in the conference room on the second floor and so if there were issues I know we would be here tonight um so we talked about the town meeting that has now happened and I went through that presentation that went very very smoothly for those of you who are listening in who didn't get a chance to see that Town Meeting it was a it was a good discussion on budget changes and why we were asking for them we talked briefly on Student Activity Council and agreed that in the upcoming meeting or meetings we will start going through a review of the specific accounts in the Student Activity fun we had you recall we had teed that up with the with the principal in each school to go through those accounts so it's now time for them to them to be coming back around with here's their findings and the actions that they would be taking on that whole area we did talk a little bit about approval levels on that and because there's always been a concern about could you could somebody write a check out of this account that happened to us as a district and we do have two multiple layers of signatures and both mr.
post and dr. Birol need to sign every check they come out of that account so it's a second and third set of eyes that will that help bring a business control there and and at the next meeting we will be talking about the balance sheet accounts and if remember the Board of Finance wanted to make sure we were focusing in on our talent sheet reporting not just our expense reporting and now that the payroll has been successfully completed it's time to circle back on that so that's we talked about a lot of things as a it was it for a 45 minute meeting we covered a lot of ground don't that's it for time any questions thank you okay I just dumped speaking about the Town Meeting I did want to on behalf of the Board of Education thank the community for their attendance and their support at the Town Meeting for the special appropriations it is the support of the community was greatly greatly appreciated it was awesome incredible I'm sorry did you have a question no I just saw that we're gonna discuss it later okay okay no further questions we'll move on to consent agenda recommending motion that the board approved the items listed below on the consent agenda as recommended new hires transfers degree changes the December 2017 financials and the January 2018 financials second any discussion or questions No all in favor aye opposed okay moving on to new business we have the revision permission recommend emotion that the Brookfield Board of Education authorized dr.
John Burrell super tentative schools to provide written authorization on behalf of the board to revision learning partnership incorporated to reference the Brookfield public schools in its publication tentatively titled feedback to feed forward leading learning through observation and feedback to the published by Corwin in June 2018 in the substantive form as presented to the board in January 2018 with non-exclusive distribution rights okay dr.
Brill did you want to just very briefly I sent the excerpt that you know is intended to be published and it really just references the excellent work that our administrative team has been engaged in with revision learning regarding providing you know they've been working on enhancing their supervision and feedback skills to teachers really digging in and examining instruction and how you provide feedback to staff actionable feedback so that's what it's referenced if yeah I hope you had a chance to read through it it's pretty exciting that that someone thinks that highly of Brookfield and actually the Vernon school district is mentioned parallel to us some of the great work that's going on so that's really the essence of it and it's just really a formal approved from the board at the port so chooses to have our name mentioned in that in their publication that's great any questions or discussions in regards to that okay then all in favor aye opposed okay sounds great it's exciting really is alright next we have a motion to approve the building project recommend a motion that the board approved the project number zero one eight dash zero zero five five Brookfield High School roofing project and direct the superintendent to assist the town in filing documents to complete the reimbursement second so as you know part of we had the young high school roof project was done this past summer and part of the process for getting reimbursement from the state is that the Board of Education has to vote formally to approve and accept the project as complete and then I have to send the there are five minutes along with the invoices up to the state and an application for reimbursement okay any questions and we've we're absolutely comfortable that all the steps have been done all the punch lists are finished and is complete Bryce okay I had the house yes okay all in favor I proposed all right Thank You Kim next we have a budget transfer recommend a motion that the board approved budget transfers in the amount of 1 million one hundred ninety six thousand eight hundred sixty five dollars related to special education Tecton funding curriculum administration and insurance as explained by director of business and operations can post second as mr. Beldon mentioned earlier tonight I'm asking the board to approve several budget adjustments similar to the one the board approved in December they are all summarized very well by mr.
Beldon on the last page of section three of our budget book and I handed out a copy of that page to everyone prior to the meeting tonight the first column on the left is the adjustment that the board has approved in December the second column is a budget adjustment of eight hundred seventy thousand dollars to account for the overages in the special education transportation and tuition this adjustment will increase the budgets for transportation and tuition and reduce the budgets for the other accounts listed the net effect is no change to the total budget this includes the four hundred and seventy thousand five hundred dollar revenue transfer approved at the town meeting last week we've identified savings and health benefits and a projected revenue from Medicaid reimbursement additionally through a spending freeze we have saved one hundred sixty thousand dollars in various supplies conferences furniture and equipment accounts again all listed there do you want to discuss each one as we go artists have me go through them them all please go through them once you go through them all and then it has questions they can bring them all in the third column is a budget adjustment of one hundred and twenty thousand seven hundred ninety two dollars to the XX cost grant line item this was a supplemental appropriation approved by the port finance in January and will show as a reduction of the revenue budget that's once approved the fourth column is a budget adjustment of seventy two thousand five hundred dollars to account for the board's approval to use savings in the teacher salary account to pay for the Tecton facility study the fifth column is a budget adjustment of $115,000 to account for the addition of the director of instruction position and the removal of one of the curriculum specialists positions this budget this adjustment will increase the budget for administrator salaries and decrease the teacher salary and curriculum leader stipend budgets the last column is a budget adjustment of eighteen thousand five hundred seventy three dollars to account for the over budget condition in our workers compensation account the budget for workers compensation will be increased and the budget for clerical salaries will be decreased to recognize savings from a temporary vacancy so essentially this is all moving items and the only difference in it is one hundred and twenty thousand dollars correctly an adjustment for the excess cost Graham correct so the totality of all these changes our total budget one hundred twenty thousand seven hundred ninety two dollars and and I'll just add all of these are items we've talked about at different times like the the curriculum administrator if you were a member or we made that decision after the budget last year but we never moved the budget so we've just been dealing with it as a plus or a minus the Tecton funding we made that decision but we never moved the budget we the two in the second or third columns are the ones that we just had a town meetings on so these aren't new oops there's just giving the formal approval to adjust our project right with the exception of that eighteen thousand I can add it covered out of one of the accounts any other questions all right all in favor aye opposed thank you for all your work on that campus thank you thanks for laying it out so clearly I really like this that was mr.
Belden very nice I had to put it there so many moving parts what it did the budget for can see those board appointments would say yeah I know I got that's because that's is this good and the biggest confuse er and the entire budget process okay next we have a Board of Finance request so a recommended action that the Board of Education discussed the board of finances request for the Board of Education to provide additional budget investments this item is on here and again it's not to move in to vote on but just to discuss and it's relating to our joint session with the Board of Finance and the Board of Selectmen we had and the Board of Finance asked us if you remember to come up with they called it a wish list of items that should we have other things in that we would like to see go to fruition that would help us move along so I asked to put this on here just so we can facilitate the discussion so we can actually submit this item in this list to the Board of Finance I'm confused by their request to be quite honest our job as a board of education is to come up with a budget or I'm sorry is to accept the recommendations made by superintendent Braille to go through ask the questions of the budget to accept it make changes and then as a board to vote on it I I guess I don't understand and it's not clear to me why we go through that process to have the Board of Finance come back to us and say well what's your wish list what else can you add on what is the purpose of having two separate boards if it just doesn't make sense to me I mean to me at that meeting they were saying to us just take what superintendent grill um suggest out on the kitchen sink and then you know propose it to us why do we go through what we go through to have them come back and ask for more I don't understand I don't understand either you were the chairman of the board of Finance have a BA do you find this extremely unusual or is it just me I liked I liked to look at it as a very positive step forward I think that maybe with a new Board of Finance and mostly new Board of Education maybe they just thought of it saw it as an opportunity to give us one more shot at real looking you know revisiting the budget in case we felt somewhat restrained by previous [Music] expectations that may have you know that we not we but previous board events felt but that's not up to them that is not up to the Board of Finance to decide for us whether they feel that we did our job correctly or not that's up to us through the vote excuse me through the vote that we took as the board I don't that the intention is to question yeah our our ability and what we're doing I honestly don't I just think it was a question if you could add something else to this budget and one would it be I think it was as simple as that I think it's as simple as them putting the contingency last year for the kindergarten teacher who should we need a kindergarten teacher that wasn't in our budget we didn't vote in that in our budget and yet that was it's year before that they added a capital project for removing the portables exactly so I so it's not I mean it-it's not unheard of it's not unusual I just think the question was asked you know there was something you could add to to you know increase instruction and improve what would it be so Eve one of the things we talked about in the Finance Committee cuz we chatted about this I knew we were going to talk about it here it's a little hard at this point to go back and say we've rethought our budget on the instructional items that we had carefully crafted into the right right it's there's a there's there are items however out there that could be in this category that makes us and they tend to be capital items more than anything we made a decision to defer the affordable world language lab at the middle school that was a decision we took yeah ideally if if the town had more money that might be high on our list we have in we heard I'm not sure you probably heard the Facilities Committee as well that in the 2015-16 capital projects we have enough to pave I think one quarter of the risk in year I met last week with with there with Skinner for that we have money in our future years in the capital budget so if we had a if they had money would we say sorry let's not do that for low you know we'd love to do that project now we just didn't put it in our budget because we're trying to be fiscally responsible with money we're asking the taxpayers for and so I think we've made our decision but they're probably in the area of capital or areas that said if you had if you had money and you think you could craft it in that's one way it's we can see it a year or two from now maybe you know we'd be willing to pull it in right that would be the odds I would see as possible then my question is say we come up with this wish list then we have to redo our budget and revote on it and represent it to them no not at all they're just they are just asking for lists anarchists of that if they're not going to add it to our budget this year is what well we don't know if they're gonna add it to the budget it all depends if they have room we don't know planning what we want this district to look like the hand with the Board of Finance supporting so yeah but yeah so I think like ultimately it's a good thing to speak in an open forum about about those things that we're all in the same page oh no no no there's no question we're not on the same page I'm just saying what was the purpose I don't understand for us going through everything we did and then giving a wish list now bob has said he's never heard of that before I've never heard of it before and it just it seems odd to make it is it's an interesting and open discussion however I just as a board I can't see us on the basics of our budget right how many teachers we want to have how many what's our what's our school program going back and saying we've rethought about that we want a different budget right that doesn't make sense to me it doesn't make sense where the capital projects I can see it because capital projects tend to be fluid over a period of right now no I disagree with that as well though because I think that a key capital projects tend to be stuff and I think they're honestly looking for what programs what projects what Western can we do to I and I think the the actual thing was what could you do to drive forward an excellence but sister we have a lot in our budget to drive fully on actually almost so much that the the staff is having a hard time implementing it at faster rate and pace I don't know what we put in there I think this is a good exercise to discuss I mean that's what we're here to discuss let's see what we could do I do think it helps initiate the conversation of thinking more long term rather than and I'm not saying you don't do that but I think like as a board we need to sort of not just hear like suggestions like year-to-year but sort of like you know as parents as members of this community sort of envision like something you know five ten years down the road and talk about these wish lists sort of things with the Board of Finance so that we can you know sort of but this should have happened a while ago it should not be happening now once we've gone through all of these steps I understand what you're saying but it's it's late in the game and when is this going out to vote I don't think this is going to change the budget though right I don't think it's gonna change the budget one iota then it's going to be hard enough for the town to deal with the budget Center I am one I for one am just grateful for the collaborative communication and the ability and the communication that we that we have going forth in between the Board of Finance and Board of Selectmen and Board of Education I think it's better to be asked now than to not have been asked at all I mean I just find it it is a difficult position now to be asked now if they're asking us now for next year I could understand that but to ask us now for this year once we voted on our budget and we've done our formal presentation to the Board of Selectmen Board of Finance it just doesn't make sense I just think it sends up conflicting signal to the community John did mention at one of our meetings that you are working on a update on the five or ten year plan too so I mean those are like things like that would really help us thank you bigger and longer yeah so a couple things I mean you you know that you know the term wish list that's something I you know that isn't in my vernacular I would never come up with just a wish list and my things that I you know that we want and we just pour money into things it would be very it's very strategic and that's why we have a strategic coherence plan and that's actually I think next on the agenda you know things that come to mind it's in both realms its program and its capital for me I mean I think the things if just for people to want to know I mean things that we had to make difficult decisions on if we were able to you know we still we've funded we in our budget we adopted one more bol teacher for example so to have to across the district for approximately 100 students wouldn't it be great if we were able to get a third so that's something I'm sure the Board of Finance wants to know right you know that kind of things I get that the research tells us that adolescents need more sleep we want to take a look at the start time consultant that's something we eliminated to be fiscally responsible go through that process the right the the lab we talked about from wrong language at the middle school we always can continue to put more money into the instructional supply areas specifically I know we talked about it's from classroom library like crack classroom libraries those have kind of we have them in the budget for this year in each principals budget but those it's not a not a great deal and it's something we haven't had a great deal in the budget because if we've had to come in and find numbers and work through the front that's the last couple of years that was one that was we had the spending freeze on correct - all right so we do those have to be aligned books with our curriculum so here there's not willy-nilly buying you know it's very true again very strategic and intentional so those are some things going back to the Whiskey near paving I think I think about that the original money that was put in for that project is not sufficient for the kind of project we want to do I mean even went on the walkthrough with the team and it's great to have a board member actually part of that discussion but when we talk about security and we think about things you know an area that the police chief and I talked about is you know vehicles crashing and storing the schools right we don't have security against that so as part of a paving project if we had more money in it maybe the Ballards or the big heavy planters that would stop a vehicle would be a good idea to think about at a school maybe start with one another idea in my former district in terms of a capital project is something that we can think about again new context taking a harder look at security the first floor of the entire building ballistic film put on all the class are on the first floor of all the buildings tinted so you can't see in see how so some things like that again those are discussion points but if we were going to do some investing those could be areas that we can share with the Board of Finance know sharing them publicly right now talking to the Board of Finance and the board selectmen with Park and recs department with the ball field schedule of replacing the different athletic fields maybe those can be moved up and be done faster and not over the four-year period but over a year to remind me their capital for that's in our budget of Parks and Rec sites and PartsDirect but again we're all working together right so I mean these are just off very straightforward things that we've talked about that again help us move toward improve safety improved safety our non-athletic fields with lights and updated turf handicap accessibility etc as well as our programs that I mentioned earlier so those are some things we can do there one thing what we're ready to move on to the next agenda I do have a strategic plan update in the last two years how it's going what's in progress what's completed and that's that's a brief for tonight's we're receiving the report tight but it could be a launch place for adjustments we want to make going forward but we also have been working on and I have to thank none of the input former principals but missus various and certainly the team up here we have we're into planning the third year of the five-year strategic plan and so we have a matrix of the accomplishments and what's happened over the last two years and we're where we're going on specific hard look next year and into the that fourth year you know it gets a little more ambiguous the fifth year out because you have to look at student achievement data and you know there's where you need to put your your resources but that's something I'm prepared to share in a couple of weeks at the March 7th meeting and I think that might help once we have something public like that that's support documentary if you plan maybe that'll help with more longer-term planning or medium-term planning I don't know so those are some things wasn't happy to do says you are talking through that list of items and I kind of put in a couple of categories one was just informing them of things we took out of our budget doesn't it doesn't change our budget but we took these out to be fiscally responsible these were a decision we took but let's inform them of that right that's that's we give you without compromise in our larger right as the decisions we took us aboard they might come say hey we got we have $15,000 extra go put that consult you know if you guys are willing you know we'll find the money to help you with that consultant for any four start times right something like our thirty thousand whatever the number one so I'd be willing to have that discussion with them the discovery you know put aside some money for security that we might as we go through this whole process might be a might be a good discussion to have right so none of those things scared me you tell just talking for I think these were all ones that we reluctant or the ones that we reluctantly took out of the budget when we discussed Andry discuss the extra ALL instructor as well I think these are all very valid items but if that we talked about them in terms I'm sorry - if we talked about him in the context of the decisions we took I'd be happier than just saying it's a wish list and that's how we discussed that that that we would that's why it's even on here as additional budget investments versus a wish list because I think that's probably what yeah that's what what he that was the morning that was used in to me again not to beat up the point why did we go through all that work to suit maybe as Bob put it what are the things that you took out you know could could you enlighten us more and what what are your future plans that maybe we could be a partner with you that that makes sense I think it's just about that so yeah the way it was worded in the meeting like what are they talking about yeah it was mostly semantics I think is what would be in tension I think that yeah that wasn't clear because when I went to ask a question I was like now wait a minute it's gonna be I'll explain it and you know and it was never explained and it just it makes me feel like all that hard work we did was like it who cares you know it's just a feeling yeah but I like Bob site to get better and I'm open to that Josh just was kind of building out the way John talked about all those I well I can't give him all the credit because he is not shaving his hair this year so I'm sorry I'm sorry sorry I'm sorry dr.
Phil I am adding adding adding the pressure where I can absolutely will get the forum done and that will reshape my head what's the timing I'm getting back to them um they'd actually asked at the last Board of Finance meeting but I requested that we wait because I mean we thought we needed to have this discussion amongst ourselves and publicly as well so once we craft something presented to them so do we need to make like a concise list today or we just maybe you are not in all honesty I think we pretty much have right and we we've discussed if everyone thinks I'm adding in what we had very reluctantly taken out of the budget before meaning the mobile world language lab at whisk and year and the school started as consultant the additional AOL instructor all right and then security items some security items yeah as we are ongoing in earnest way but with the paving to only ignore anything I was in here yeah and oh and the classroom library Stillman that we did with the freeze to reach the point I would the principal's really were very conservative in what they put into the budget for classroom libraries this year knowing that you know that that's an area that continually seems to get cut so always does I think it's a real focus area especially with all the curriculum work they were doing and I think any and we've got teachers on the board they can tell you how important having classroom libraries that have titles that are accessible to the students so that they can build their background knowledge and apply the skills that we're teaching them across the the various content areas and anybody that's in our schools can tell you that we really need to shore up each classroom Thanks okay so I mean I think we we have kind of create an illness there if everyone is in agreement with that I'm not sure we need to really vote on it but if we can well let me go let me put emotion in play and it'll be obvious why I do it oh just make life easier I'd like to make a motion that we as a board authorized gem and Sturm to act on behalf to submit something to the Board of Finance of the consistent with the discussion tonight and work out the details with dr.
royal I'm second okay all in favor aye that'll save us from I do think we have a little time because their next Board of Finance meeting is March and our our board of our time with them is I think the day before or day after exactly if they're not gonna be discussing it will actually probably have another one of our meetings before before they meet that I felt though we will and well and it would be nice for them to have that prior to as well thank you everyone all right next we have the report on the strategic plan recommended action that the board receive an update report on the strategic coherence plan as presented by superintendent dr. John Perot thank you so as I alluded to earlier of this report was submitted to everybody on Friday in their hor PACA I hope you all had a chance to review it certainly will be posted for the public online I don't want to belabor at this particular juncture in the meeting being the last agenda item but I also I don't want to be emphasized the importance of this this is really exciting work this is the driving document of our district for everybody's review our strategic plan we had a committee over two years ago together to come up with the areas that we were going to focus on in the very broad high view areas our goals for learning teaching for learning measures of learning and systems alignment and coherence and those are words we've heard a great deal about in the last few years it's all about teaching and learning that is what we are focused on in this strategic plan which is really for me been the most exciting and rewarding part of this work and working with the team our educators is the support the Board of Ed has given it focused on teaching and learning and really the majority of our discussions are always on teaching and learning so what I did in the document I first of all I summer I have an opening summary memo which basically goes to some of the things I'm talking about right now and then on the subsequent pages each of the four goals is highlighted in yellow and then under those goals talks about the actions we have taken over the last few years and what it would look like in the particular action if it was achieved and then there's a timeline and in blue and mark things is in progress and in green and mark things as completed the majority a large majority of the work and the strategic plan has been completed what you'll notice and again I I could always go into more detail tonight was more for receiving the report so if you're on page 2 for example you'll see completed some curriculum work like the year-long progress and the English language arts and math K through 8 you'll see completed outcome to scriptures descriptors preparing for nee asked at the high school level many areas where you'll see in progress is our curriculum work that we've been talking about is a major investment in our budget for 1819 it's a major investment this year we're working with dr.
Alcock and really we are doing some incredible curriculum work and whatever godly teachers who are bringing it back to the buildings and it's also serving as integrated professional learning so those are areas that are considered in progress and you'll see that throughout the document because that's another - there's another two years of that work to continue so that'll be in progress for the next two years but as you can see through the document if you for example turn to page three and you're enough under teaching for learning you'll see where we just talked about revision learning tonight collegial calibrations the work and engagement professional development for our administrators the feedback work that's completed there are other things in progress that are going on in that particular area so again I can answer questions probably a little bit more easily about this document otherwise I'd be reading from it and I think that would for a lot of people but certainly will be available online tomorrow for everybody who's interested in review and we can do different pieces of this or a holistic presentation as the board would like to say there's any questions for tonight or people want to take from some time to digest this dr.
group could we take the strategic points plan here and then move it forward to the five-year map that we had talked about and now that we had discussed before it just just start our vision looking forward as far as where we're concrete details in there and so forth exactly me give you another another couple of weeks to look through this because it's I think gotta give Lisa credit she formatted this so it's now seven pages Lisa it was originally eleven so she was able to get it down the amount of reading didn't change though so I just just feels lighter but it's dense there's a lot of information in there take time to digest it so happy under age three yesterday I step one in progress so train train your personal learning mapping are those were those all workshops or and has engaged in those okay so going into yes so let me just go back through here yeah this is all that revision work that's going on so the train the trainer is actually new work that's going on and what you want to okay so we've met with what we're trying to do is build capacity oh sorry okay build capacity so that we can wean ourselves off of the you know the PD that's being provided by a revision learning so you can see that we completed the Clio calibrations and student engagement PD with the administration team now we're engaging in and we we did the groundwork with Patrick Flynn of revision learning for training admins a team of admins in the district who will then be taking over the work that the folks from revision learning we're actually doing with admins so that we will no longer need them and that we we're just firming up the dates that's gonna happen in April and May it will be completed by the end of this year so that moving forward we'll have our own in-house expertise and those trainer of trainers will obviously train more people under the personal learning mapping is an online system that revision learning uses in our administrators were trained in that so that no no that's personal learning Maps for themselves for their penguin personal learning as an administrator so based on a survey that all the administrators did which was based on the work that we did last year it highlighted where the air at personal areas of strengths and challenges are so everybody has a different it's differentiated PD for administrators so they're not all getting like your typical sit and get that you have to get in the beginning of a PD now they can didn't focus on the areas that they individually need to work on data team support is we're looking to we've been working on this all year and it's ongoing looking to align the data teaming process throughout the districts of vertical alignment and we found that there were areas and and groupings grade levels that needed more support than others and so those are the grade levels that are getting external support through revision learning and the next stage that we're going into is working with one of the PD providers that works under Patrick my name is Kerry to come in and and focus specifically on I don't want to get into individual schools here but specific areas of need that we've seen to build capacity so that internal teacher leaders can take that over and that's really what the summary statement is develop internal capacity to sustain all this so basically what we've been doing with every professional learning opportunity or what our goal is is to find the professional developers who are the best at you know available that for working with us but to have it set up so that we're building internal capacity because we don't want to be dependent upon outside people coming in and telling us what to do so that's really what that's about thank you so I was just um I had like sort of a big picture question so if you think about the past three years in the strategic plan what would you say just to kind of help the parents and community understand how how would you say our schools are really different now than they were three years ago I gotta tell ya I would I would say we are aligning curriculum instruction and assessment we're developing administrator capacity for supervision and evaluation and we're developing teacher capacity to respond to student learning based on assessments with matched instruction I said I mean if that was a an elevator pitch there it is I mean those are the things we've really improved on and I think I think our our staff would would speak to that as well Thanks and then just a just to highlight just to go to page four there's you start to see the measures of learning and again their assessment is not a four-letter word if we can't measure what we're doing we can't then report on how we're doing on it and you can see there's a lot of work in assessment as we know has been done and it's completed you can see a lot of green there again I don't want to go through a detail for detail a lot of great work going on in the measures for learning area and then toward the end on page five we talk about our vision for standard basis reporting talked about that there's gonna be a great deal of work that goes into that and that is dependent on the great work that gets done in the curriculum I'm making sure we have you know we can't have we don't have aligned curriculum we can align assessments I can't report on it in an online standards aligned fashion so we've got that and then the final area page of page six and seven is the system alignment and coherence there's a lot there we talk about munis we talk about the policies they're all the things that are kind of the back-office support and push that Tecton and the facilities project is in there and the work we're doing there so please you know happy to go over this if anybody has individual questions wants to send an email for some clarity on this again it would be posted and I think parlaying it was some conversation further conversation on at the next meeting talking about that other planning document I think it'll all really mesh together play nice Thank You dr.
Brule next we have upcoming events so this Friday is the 11th annual recycling billboard poster contest the posters due this Friday center school kindergarten registration is Monday February 26th from 1:00 to 3:00 the huckleberry PTO game night is in the upper gym this Friday February 23rd from 5:30 to 8 the middle school spelling bee is on Tuesday February 27th from 6:30 to 8:00 and in the middle school 7th grade student leadership field trip to Maloney high school in Meriden is on Friday March 2nd from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and the middle school PSAT makeups for 8th graders is on Tuesday February 27th from 8:30 to 9:30 this was mentioned earlier the septa meeting at the middle schools tomorrow from 6:45 to 9:15 and the Sadie Hawkins dance of high school is on Friday February 23rd from 7 to 10 in the cafeteria I can remember to mention that thank you okay and now we have an executive session anticipated recommend a motion that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing strategy and negotiations as it relates to collective bargaining and superintendent mid-year goal update all in favor aye okay this concludes the video portion of our meeting thank you everyone for staying with us for it [Music]