Baldwin our athletic director and me we're sharing 19 students we have an all-boy group so I don't know what they set us up with but we're ready to go and have my EpiPen training the other day so well I'm back in the saddle and ready to go so we're really looking forward to it and that's all I have I don't know if you folks have any questions um question with the security task force sure obviously we can't put it on the agenda today because it is a special meeting but will this be something that we'll want to see next week or are you not quite there yet no I think we could bring it up next week and we could talk about perhaps making an ad-hoc committee of the board or you know a separate goal for administration to pursue so however the board would like to pursue it I'm open to determining how we put that on the agenda for next week okay absolutely yeah I think we ought to have at least one board member whether its board sponsored or superintendent sponsored I think we have one of us absolutely so dr. Brahma in terms of the snow day update yes I understand the process where are we on the days now so we have seven total days lost where our last day of school now is Monday June 25th the scheduled graduation at this point is remains on Saturday June 23rd looking at the weather the impending forecasts for tomorrow we have to figure that out but this is a possibility that we could be closing tomorrow which would put us to Tuesday people need to remember we go our students go to school 182 days the state statute is that they go to school for 180 days so are even if it went out a little bit further there's some caveats and some buildings there but graduation at this point mr.
Burlando and he's certainly looking at the plans and the reservations at West kana as well as the grad party and so forth and we are planning on June 23rd for the graduation and we certainly will let anybody know if there's a change in that thank you you got it thank you any other questions for dr.
brill okay then we'll move on to subcommittee reports first we have the policy communications yep um so I kind of updated you guys at our last meeting because we had just met that right before our last meeting but um so we're still working on the 3000 series and one of the things we're working on right now is I had mentioned before that we were trying to take a look at the cave policies that we technically already pay for so we're gonna have to go through the fine-tooth comb review the ones are policies to cave policy to see how well they match up and see where we can go from there one of the first things that we're doing is taking a look at some policies that cave has that are recommending it or even require that we do not have so our first sort of plan is to go through those and you know if they look good the committee will bring them to the board fairly soon so look out for that one thank you hmm any questions for Rosa okay moving on to our Cape okay we met on February 27th and there are four things that we discussed and reviewed the first was the socialized curriculum at the middle school to teachers presented a proposed sequence of study changes for the grade five through eight social studies curriculum the changes proposed were to ensure alignment with the Kanaka State social age framework as well as vertical alignment with the elementary and high school social studies curriculum it's being revised to increase focus on inquiry and his historical thinking skills teachers shared sample instructional lessons and projects that demonstrate inquiry into the curriculum which puts student at the center of their learning these revisions shift the primary and sole focus away from content to larger conceptual understanding and skill acquisition these changes will help to make the social studies more meaningful to our students and vertically aligned in social studies curriculum we also discussed an elementary team teaching pilot proposal so dr. ruby provided background information to support this team teaching pilot in the elementary grades so this would involve two elementary teachers serving as a team for Humanities in stem supporting two classes of students one teacher would teach reading in ela and the other pencil studies and another section would do the math and science both teachers would teach writing which would be an interdisciplinary unit the intent is to develop expertise in our faculty increase efficiency and effectiveness of professional learning opportunities and be more fiscally responsible and better serve the differentiated needs of our students this model is successfully implemented in other districts we truly supported this concept of implementing this pilot in September dr.
Ruby gave an update on the next generation accountability report she provided a PowerPoint document and briefly discussed how the state reviews and holds districts accountable in accordance with state and federal requirements this information was presented to the board over the past three years as it was rolled out by the state and no state assessments and procedures for reporting on subgroups were implemented data that were previously presented at the regular schedule Board of Ed meetings in 2015 2016 and 2017 were reviewed and dr. ruby also gave us an update on emotional intelligence work that the district is doing with the Yale Center for emotional intelligence the training of adults at was skinnier middle school's ongoing dr. Cipolla has provided training on the development of the Charter a ruler angle to anchor tool at CES huckleberry and the Administrative Council Dean Rhonda and when ruby attended the conference at Yale on February 27th and the work will continue to be implemented within the district great thank you so will we be seeing the vote on the social studies curricular sequence of study changes soon eye doctor rubies smash here yeah I think she was just finishing up a meeting actually with dr.
swallow so okay I'm sorry they're a little late there oh that's a problem we should be seeing them no no not this evening but I'm sometime and then you're oh yes oh you found for the 21st 21st yeah I was gonna say hot seat immediately popular be the ladies this off suppose sequence of study changes we'll see that next week at our board meeting for the full vote okay some video it's okay any other questions for joy we've recorded you're not ok um strategic facilities during committee update first I apologize for being late I went to the wrong place I was at a town hall so hi my apologies anyway not much has changed since last month on March 19th we have another committee meeting with sectin associates we are going to be going through the slide presentation with input from committee members for our March 27th meeting which is a public forum I encourage everyone who lives in Brookfield to come please come please attend March 27th 7 o'clock Brookfield High School Auditorium what we are going to be doing is we are going to be showing a slide presentation and discuss our initial findings on all four schools in Brookfield that is it thank you thank you any questions for either so it's not a question for Eve as much as for for Lisa [Music] they are we are we posting that meeting on the 27th on the school the notice of Terrence we should make sure we do that multiple time yeah oh you send out three updates already I was at home and could we thank you about you're reading my mind you're good school calendar you know how we have it online could we somehow put the March 27th meeting on that I'm sorry I apologize the district calendar the district calendar that's online could we add that I'm pleased and also the school Facebook page could we add an on yeah it's not on the Facebook page actually the last update I could find on the Facebook page was from November I think the school reach that you sent out didn't make it to the Facebook page yeah okay yeah yes oh and it is in Brookfield matters for everyone this month I'm wondering if for the people the residents who don't have children in the schools and it's worth doing a small blurb in the news times about it I'm actually in the process of writing up a small blurb and submitting it for the calendar section because people tend to read that so yes I'm good idea I'm on top of it great minds think alike because then it might be over large yeah I just woke I woke up I woke up thinking about I'm holding a big meeting and having no one show up in the wrong spot when I came in thank you okay next we have the consent agenda recommend a motion that the board approved the items listed on the consent agenda as recommended resignations the resignation is the one any discussion sir but I'd like to just publicly congratulate mrs.
Mannon Cheryl ma'am and who you see a resignation here I think seven years she's been with the district as one of our special ed teacher department chairs mostly at center school this year really helped with the transition to center and huckleberry just a wonderful employee and really just just a wonderful person she actually were really excited for her she's been looking for an administrative job for quite a local quite a while and she is the special education director of Woodbridge now and she actually just started today so we were going back and forth on text I was teasing her so you have time to text me what's going on I'm sure she had justed well and transitioned them and said hi to the principal over there who I know quite well so just really very happy for her and excited for her new her new adventure and thank her for all her service congratulations - yeah okay any other discussion all in favor host okay moving on to new business the robotic strip recommend a motion that the board approve a trip for robotics to attend the robotics New England championship in Boston Massachusetts from Wednesday April 11 2008 een to Saturday April 14 2018 as requested by BHS robotics advisor Scott Zuka now I just so the board knows I was under the impression mr.
Blaine and I were both under the impression that mr. Zuka would be here so I'm just wondering he may think the meeting starts at 7 o'clock because that's the typical time we start so I'm wondering could we it unless I was ready to a premised I read through the write-up it was very clear to be a comfortable anybody else ISM this is what we do here ok yes it's if they make it to the championship another meeting exactly and this will be the Wednesday and Wednesday through Friday prior to its spring break yes yes most ok and if he walks in we'll tell them you did a great concealer I think starting a half-hour away they're thrown some people off I think so it's the light up not quite dark yet that's true all right next on new business is the Secretary's contract recommend a motion that the board approved the terms of the three-year agreement between the Brookfield Board of Education and the both field secretaries Association from July 1st 2017 through June 30th 2020 second I'm sorry okay any discussion on this at all um I just want to ask a question just somebody who was on who was in that negotiations maybe what were the big changes no there was a lot of specific wording changes the it's a 2% increase it's got you know we had debates about almost every topic that's normally in these things whether it's longevity or the medical plan and the like there's there's there's 2% increase there's slight increases in the contribution rates each year of the contract toward the medical benefits there is this and accepted the new pension plan with a caveat that it's as presented because of course the Board of Selectmen haven't started implementing it yet but it was we had lots of presentations on on discussions on each of those as we went through it there were a number of other small items I didn't come prepared with a laundry list on one button but there were there was a good discussion between the secretaries and the the board and the administration I think it was very productive it was a very productive and I could say by the way the nurses contract very similar so if I answer that question in advance which language that was in the contract every time we have a contract negotiation we try although we we have to keep trying to make the language clearer so that it means the same thing to both sides of the of the contract so if you were to look through the documents which we have here you'd see a lot of that and just as mr.
Feldman was talking most of the critical changes were in the insurance benefits percentages and and working with the final contract increase yeah just to give you examples you know is it acceptable to have a copy of the contract that has to be delivered to the employees it acceptable to for them to get it from the website or does it have to be him I handed out hard copy I mean it's a kind of thing that it's good clarity it's just good clarity but sometimes they get confusing oh you know do you need to notify the president of the Association when a employee and an employer actions taken right that was an item we discussed and so you know we had all those sorts of things the term of the contract the term of the contract three years four years three years four years uppercase and lowercase letter changes it really did get cleaned up a lot yeah and the pension plan was a larger change and that was something that the entire town is rolling over to well the town side in the suicide thank you all good questions yep any other discussion okay all in favor aye opposed okay moving on to the nurses contract recommend a motion that the board approved the terms of the three-year agreement between the both field Board of Education and the both field nurses association from July 1st 2017 through July June thirtieth two thousand twenty second same comments all right all in favor aye opposed I would at this time like to thank the nurses association and secretaries association or and the committee's here in the board for all of their hard work in reaching resolution of reaching contracts and I'd like to thank mr.
Beldon for giving us that pension presentation I don't know how many times more than once more than once and I think that really helped us because it was it's risky to have something presented that's new where none of us are as employees our pension experts and I think that the amount of time that you put into that was excessive and well worth it because I think people were comfortable yeah well thank you it's you know as you recall on the board's representative on the what they call the are back committee the retirement benefits Advisory Committee and that's what this project of town and schools have been working on to actually have a enhanced plan it's actually better for the town and better for the employees and you don't get to say that too often so and we're excited about it but of course it needs to go through it's change right now let's change for everybody and I think everybody that we've presented to has responded positively to the changes that we're trying to incorporate into it it's bringing in some flavors of some options for to find contributions with some matching contribution plans some changes to the pension that helped to in that a little bit and it's a it's something that's long overdue I think because it will help us with attracting and retaining our employees now for the schools it's important to remember it only applies to the non teachers not administrators because they are in the in the state plan so this is really hits the secretaries the custodians the nurses and the unaffiliated on the schools having been on both of these negotiation teams there was a lot of very productive dialogue on both sides with both of these units and I think it was very helpful in reaching resolution and reaching a contract okay one more to go next we have leave of absence requests recommend a motion that the board approve the leave request of Sarah Bengston as recommended by the superintendent of schools for the 2018-2019 school year consistent with the provisions of article 12 section 1 of the July 1st 2017 through June 30th 2020 collective bargaining agreement between the Brophy Board of Education and a book field Education Association all right do we have any discussion on this really the reason we're seeing this right now is different changes in the contract language that happened has leave of absence requests coming to full board approval now whereas before we might have seen them in our consent agenda and now we see them as a separate item so that's why we're seeing it here why couldn't it be in consent agenda because consent agenda we are essentially approving something that's already happened whereas this doesn't happen unless we approve it right now the simplistic language that I kind of got from that was per council with the new contract that when these leave of absence requests that I am recommending to the board go to the board for approval and on the consent agenda there are many many leave of absence requests that are denied by me that don't even make it to the Board of Education understand but we do hiring approvals through the consent agenda we do you know people who likes it you know we just have to bless it but but hires are usually the waiting on us to approve it I just I don't see it as any difference yeah there's some specific new language is not mine at our front yeah it is so we will be seeing down the leave of absence requests okay no further discussion all in favor aye aye opposed okay thank you next we have the five-year strategic planner recommend an action that the board received a five-year strategic planner is presented by superintendent dr.
John Breaux all right does everybody have the chart about the other chart all right so what you have in front of you is a its I think there's nine total pages it's a it's a chart that will be posted on our website and share with the community and especially through budget on the season here shared with the Board of Selectmen of our clients but I wanted to present it to the Board of Education first this is a document that has been in place that you know I've had kind of a rough copy on my computer as I've been planning things out and working through with the team over the past couple of years specifically since we adopted the strategic plan back in February of 2016 and as you can see it starts with the year 1617 and goes through the year 2021 these are all the different things or programs or staff that we need to implement to fulfill our vision that's in the strategic plan so I'd like to just briefly walkies that night it's a lot of language on here I'm not going to walk you through every detail of it and certainly we have discussions of any particular part but just if you could if you get humor me and just flip through for a second what I'd like to do is get you a little familiar with the document as you can see on page one programs talks about the different programs we've been putting in place and plan to put in place things for 1819 for you new board members will look very familiar that we've been talking about in our 1819 plan if you go to the next page there's a section that says school improvement grant and there's an addendum on the very back that's a memo actually an update memo from mr.
Blandon that talks about the high school school improvement grant so that's there for you also on page two begins all of the professional development we've engaged in and we're moving forward on in 18 19 19 20 and then 2021 and that goes through page three going to page for all of the work we've done not only goals for learning and teaching for learning but we talked about measures for learning in our strategic plan we have assessment and all the different things we've done an assessment that you've worked on to put in place to have those formative assessments in place for our students going forward okay there's also a section for curriculum and you can see the different grade level curricula that are being worked on and that are planned to be worked on all the curriculum work that's upcoming and that goes actually on to page five there's a staffing section when we're doing our planning obviously any any new programs or reorganizations or anything that we have going on involves staffing so you can see all the different staffing decisions that have been made and need to be made going forward that goes all the way on to page six there's a lot of different things going on with staffing as you can see plans actually the page 7 excuse me we have a section on finance and operations at the bottom of page 7 all the things we've done the things work going forward with and then the last section is page 8 which is on technology and the plans we have going forward so there's a number of different sections and and the reason I wanted to share this is there were there is public discourse there was people asking you know if we knew where you were going in two years and you know more concretely I think the board knows this but those who are decision-makers are some of those in the public and obviously our constituents it would be more helpful for us to kind of visualize what we we need to do in a very concrete way so I've more formalized this more than just sitting on my computer you know my desktop and put this together for you and certainly open for any kind of questions or discussion everything is aligned to the our strategic coherence plan and you can see everything we've been talking about for 1819 is germane and the things we've already in the last two years are there as well and certainly through the remainder of I'm sure the budget process we'll be talking about these things as well and I know it's your first glance at the document so so a couple questions - sure obviously it's a lot to look at but there's a lot a couple things just pop out at me what's the increased kindergarten instructional time in this this year number of Mondays the students with dismiss early I've had they're in for a full day now I'd love this that's what I'm doing to garden we actually saved on transportation with that as well and the established handwriting protocol kata - and then I see the hammering program k23 so uh this is son we were not consistently teaching handwriting right and we created we worked over the summer created a protocol using what teachers had been used to when they were teaching handwriting and aligned it with the open court handwriting instruction and that was rolled out Kay - we're going to move to k3 next year because as you know as a Elementary person if children can't print and form their letters properly it's almost impossible to teach them script and so we're gonna move to to that third grade next what the intention is for next year so that we we get a lot of emails from grandparents saying that their graduation I can't sign their checks because they don't know how to sign their names more than you would think so we we couldn't go into the third grade this year until we had worked with those second graders you have a handwriting protocol that you're desperate for this night of curiosities that you see that it's a lot of exciting things going on in the coming years that I'm looking forward to you know I think some intuition I'm I take a lot when I'm looking forward to is sharing this out with the faculty tomorrow an email to me really to compliment them for all they are doing it's I mean this is this this is the the staff our faculty it's an incredible amount of work that's happened over the last couple of years and the planning going forward for 1819 and as you can see for the subsequent two years after that there's a lot of incredible work it's exciting and it doesn't happen without people making it happen so you say you'll be on the website yeah we'll get everything out tomorrow morning cuz it's good for parents to see we said I was a school message as well so they make sure they know it's there can you tell us a little bit about the Brookfield University concept for 2019-20 which are you want to program development isn't professional under under professional oh that's that's one thing I do want to talk to well when we talk with the personnel negotiations committee we have a meeting set up for the end of the month I'd like to talk to them as a goal for me for next year is really to set up some seminars and some aligned programming for our parents and it's a big undertaking something that would go on probably this time of year next year there's something I can try to get together for that we can't get together in the first year working on you know really doing a lot of sharing with our parents whether it's on how we teach mathematics how we teach reading how we teach writing handwriting I mean to all these different things that parents aren't familiar with exactly what we're doing how we can go about that the we had an incredible meeting that mr.
Rondeau dr. Stephan dr. Ruby we're facilitating with septa that was last week right two weeks ago these days are crazy but incredible turnout for Sep to talk about social emotional learning and the emotional intelligence work we're doing to talk about engaged parents they didn't want to leave there's 9:30 they started we were like trying to sew people out and they leave yeah and then when I got out to the parking lot it was so exciting cause it was like after a board meeting and all the board members are like in their little corner I mean there were parents that were out in the parking lot that were still engaged it was it was really heartwarming so if we if we can take some of the engaging work we're doing in other areas and share that with parents it's something that's a concept I wanna thank Newtown has a similar University so it's something it's something well you know we should be offering to our parents okay great and the other thing that you know since Newtown does have it and we have you know there are limited resources to spend on these things to be able to partner with other towns and if there are things that we're going to present here let you know it takes a lot of planning and coordinating but instead of duplicating things in different towns if we can offer more things by sharing the wealth and having parents go to other towns and other parents come to us I mean we're all without the same goals so to try to make that the dollars stretch further that's something else that we'd like to do what's that I don't know chaperone I think this would be really great to shared of the community as well you know if nothing else it gives them an idea as to where we're planning absolutely no this is the snapshot of what this our budget request is like this year and the reason is because next year we want to build on that mm-hmm years seat throughout the document where it might say explore XYZ and in the next year it talks about possible implementation of XYZ I mean yes they do the proper research and planning so I think it's important that it not be posted just as a standalone document your cover letter is really important and right setting the tone that we do what when you do a lot more than people see we don't we're not here asking for budget for every one of these items we're doing it with the staff we have and the creative and energetic team that we have okay you know occasionally yes we've actually had relatively small incremental investments in our budgets including this year our incremental investment even though the public who's listening saying wait a minute I thought you had a big percentage increase but that wasn't investment money that was a special ed tuition issue that we're dealing with but all of this with a small amounts of incremental resource that we put on is a tribute to the creativity of the team and I and I laud the work you guys have done Thank You dev everybody engaged and so I think putting that in the context of a cover letter that says it's not always obvious and it takes to make an excellent school district it takes a lot of pieces and this is gifts lists the cover-up you know all the pieces that are out there and it's amazing when you see it all put on a piece of paper is great eight pieces of paper because it takes that many I polished on paper and I assume it's like a work in progress as new ideas come up and new needs are identified it's a living document I mean if we like john was alluding to if we do research into something and it's not the right fit but something else needs to happen and that will be changed during something could be eliminated things could be added I know one of the things that John must ask me about a hundred times is to science teachers and if they're down there is because we're I think I spoke to a couple meetings ago about the vision that we have for really being able to offer our in our high school science opportunities that will really prepare kids for the the work that we don't even know what it is we do know that the physical sciences stem in particular engineering we need to get awesome offerings in engineering in our high school so that's going to take expertise and it's gonna it's gonna need us to be thinking about positions would it be to maybe would only be one but if we don't we don't set our goals where we think that they need to be then people are caught off guard when all sudden you say oh we need this so we'd rather be real you know be as realistic and transparent as we can and then work off of that but it's a dynamic living document you know that's that's a great point Murray you know and for example it actually says and it will always say up in the corner working your ass say that we talk about non-core four down down the road another year the research going in well that what that means is those are our humanities classes and our tech classes that we we've been in you know our core foundation our curriculum rewrite has been going on and continues on but we're gonna start looking into the to that next level now to get into you know looking our arts programs are looking at our music programs and you know obviously within stem the technology department and so forth right and get in there and but you start with an assessment where are we at with the order these programs first and then you look at okay what are we going to need and so you don't know that until you really roll up your sleeves and dig in and study it first so dr.
Brooke could I make one suggestion for an enhancement to the sheriff document for the next term of it I think you need a section on facilities it's a big topic in our town especially with you know getting a 10 year updated facility and protective well we do the point we built a 10 year plan yeah we yeah we've done I think people also under appreciate all the things we have been doing inabilities yes because because some of its not obviously you know putting a new roof on a whole wing of a high school is a very significant undertaking for example and what we can do is in just like these two years Bob like you're saying 16 17 and 17 18 we could put in all those projects we I think the big capital probably Orion projects and all those things and then going forward what people are looking for expectations on when should I expect to see things happening from facilities work and that this is a chance to signal that so I just think it's like section next on your next meeting I have a huge announcement oh yeah okay okay okay you have to tune in announcement a lot of people will be very happy will have a better idea they're updating a ten year plan and that's the I mean talk about a study that's why we hire them to really they're into the to the bones of the schools and really seeing what we need great I have a question on the last page that the purchase programs the highlights of the five-year plan is that part of the grant all those programs were you looking at the it was kind of it it says overview this one from ingrain yeah yeah that's mr.
Romm well and put that together for us so I'm sorry so I so when you look under purchase programs mm-hmm those were were programs that we were able to identify as being aligned with meeting the needs that were that were found in our data that got us identified as a focus school and so when we wrote our we wrote the grant mark land I myself we put those into the grant and there we have them now and they're being used and they're paid for by the cigarette oh great for for how long for well the it's a five-year grant so some like language alai which is the third bullet we the grants paying for full five years and our intent is that with the work that we're doing in literacy in the elementary schools in the middle school that as children are going through the system with the vertical alignment we'll have fewer and fewer children getting to the high school level that are in need of that and then the number of licenses that are needed to sustain that or any improvement to that program will be minimal and we'll be able to be incorporated into our budget and is with regard is there the online component of it is a minimal cost the subscription it's if you're ever able to come Kevin Holly or myself remark Linda would love to show you that stuff it's pretty impressive the materials sandé is is a purchased material that some of the materials for students don't have to be purchased like notebooks you can use a regular notebook star reading is an online assessment we have star from for reading from seventh grade through twelfth grade we only pay out of our town budget for education for seventh and eighth grade for five years the star for the high school is covered by the grant okay and then the visualizing verbalizing is going to be implemented it has a mini yet it's not on that time rewards is all purchased and then the training and I would invite anybody who wants to be able to come and see any of this training we had letters training all last year and one of the really nice things about this grant is we can only pay for materials for and you know books online serve any of the things the purchase programs or the high school however we're providing an awful lot of training and the training is being paid for out of the grant but if there are seats available we can include anybody so what we've done is out of some of the title to money I've been able to purchase the four letters the the teacher manuals that go with letters for teachers in our other schools and they participate in the training so we're trained every place that we can train when the high school is being trained were training a cadre of either whoever it's appropriate for special ed teachers reading teachers some classroom teachers so that we build capacity throughout the whole district because we really want to not be having kids get to high school and eating this but train our teachers in the lower grade so that we catch kids before they fail right and I'm just gonna say the summer enrichment for those who are new to the boards in this grant one of the requirements was that you not only provide for the interventions that students need during the year but that you have enrichment and that the enrichment component has to be open to all students not just the students who are identified as having these needs in the grant and so what we chose to do is what other people have done in other segments that I've been involved in we've done is build a summer transition Academy so for rising ninth graders so that's open to you know as many seats as there are ninth grader whether they have needs or not kids who have identified literacy needs we provide for programming for them in the summer program we piloted last year and then through for the enrichment we partnered with Ness which is the New England silent Science and sailing which is out of Stonington which is you know by Rhode Island and I worked with them previously in New London they do a lot of saltwater activities they also do kayaking and I said you know we have this big leg up here it would be really a good thing for you guys to come up here and sit so they came they met with mark myself we went and we toured the lakes and they were willing to come in partner with us all the way from Stonington so we have a kayaking program and a stem enrichment program exploring the areas around I'm gonna say it wrong Lily and so we have science teachers from the high school who are working on that and then we have the trained kayak instructors and we were going to rent kayaks and when Mark and I did the math it really worked out better for the federal government if we purchased the kayaks and they approved it so we have a 16 kayaks that the that the school system now has and one of our one of the things that we'd like to do is be able to do when funding becomes available be able to train some of our physical education teachers to become certified kayak instructors because that we could offer since we have the kayaks and the trailer like forever we could we could have a kayaking program as part of PE or on vacations or whatever that's great so it's been really it's been really wonderful and our next board retreat will be and by the way dam called walls not only our facilities director he is the kayak trailer driver so he makes sure he driving for us and get it where it needs to go yeah so we store them I think we we store them at whisk and it was probably the end the garage and that and then and then they on the days that the kayaking takes the kayaking takes place during these the summer so he drives them down drops them off and we bring them back every day and it was it just worked out to be more economical than just trying to store them someplace else that was a good deal for everybody it's love it do want to emphasize though that oh this was purchased through the sea grant correct yes through yes our operating budget you know you I think it's very important for the new board members can you remind be good for the public to the total amount over those five-year periods oh yeah and what is the total amount I think it's like six hundred and sixty eight thousand and the when we got the grant the state everybody who was a folk every school district that had a focus school was eligible to apply and they awarded for grants and so we were very proud that Brookfield High School's application was funded thank you you're welcome thanks Mary any other questions regarding the five-year planner I think with all the suggestions it might not be getting school messaged out tomorrow take me a little adjusting I do appreciate the feedback though okay how about if we move on to the reorganization proposal sure is there it's just an action just a nice okay recommended action that the board receive a reorganization proposal from superintendent dr.
John WL possible motion okay so in front of you you have a it's a two-page summary manual for me describing the reorganization the essence of this memo won't be sent home depending on the results of tonight's meeting but I'd like to go to the PowerPoint I have a couple of slides I want to show you who explained the proposed reorganization can you turn the light off thank you function f7 there we go nope something's happening is it all now I'm not quite nothing's moving I mean if it's gonna come off we're not going anywhere are you trying to duplicate the screams I had I turned it on there we go [Music] can you ever see the screen ok is it ok so the I'm gonna be looking at I'm gonna propose a reorganization tonight the purpose of this proposal is fourfold to follow the Board of Education 1819 budget directive we talked about reducing an administrative position is also to meet some changing context that we've encountered this this year currently things we've been working on but actually context it's been quite public we want to make sure we're improving services and programming for our students and we want to provide faculty and staff with enhanced supervision and support so the scope of what I'm going to be talking about the next several slides is very straight forward the first is on speaking of stamens we were just talking about our high school science and math leadership structure and then the second part of reorganization is to talk about for district and school-level is our special education pupil personnel services leadership structure so starting with talking about high school profile high school leadership reorganization the goal like I was just saying is to follow her Board of Education directive to reduce an administrator so the plan eliminate the existing math department head position at the high school also to eliminate the existing science department head at the high school and then we would follow suit like we did last year with our humanities position we would create a new STEM science technology engineering and mathematics leadership department head position and what this would do is bring coherence and alignment to both our science and math programs at the high school we would align to the next generation science standards we would make sure that we were aligned to the strategic coherence plan especially the tenants of creativity innovation communication collaboration critical thinking and problem solving some of the things we just talked about earlier it would really help us make sure in both is that we in math and science that we're keeping up with integration of Technology and certainly provide a foundation for future employment again some things we were just talking about some of the things that you know we have to think about is when you reorganize like this there are valued employees involved in these decisions and so there's personnel matters to consider and very valued employees and people who are really working hard for us and we need to be considerate of that as part of the process and the stem leader will also you know be taking on an additional two departments instead of one department supervising anywhere between 17 to 19 people as part of the new role and so right now our math and science department heads teach one or two classes depending on the year and how things go the stem person will not be able to teach classes the way the schedule will work out so part of that we talked about the budget we're proposing another science teacher and so forth going forward so these are just things to be thinking about and we're it's an it's a really a great opportunity for the district and the next structural reorganization is in special education the goal here is to address two significant anticipated changes that have occurred over the over this year the first is the rise in the need for social-emotional programming to support a K through 12 students as many of you know I really started with this conversation last year which was born the genesis of talking more and more about social-emotional programming was with the individual meetings I conducted with a majority of our teachers over the course of the spring last year we're from you know I've told the story several times but I'll just share it again my first meeting was with kindergarten teachers and the very next day I was meeting with teachers here at the high school and they both talked about a significant need with students presenting with social emotional difficulties in our our need to really support them that led into some of the work we're doing with Yale in the ruler program and social emotional intelligence and so forth but we really also are seeing and you'll remember this quite well this year with our current budget situation is the need for social emotional support and frankly therapeutic programming going forward for many of our needy students many of our students who are experiencing placements outside of our district are doing a large part to that particular area the other change in context is we just talked about mrs.
Mammon we had a resignation of one about a longtime elementary department chairs for special education she's taking on another leadership role and so with the needs for more social emotional support and with one of our department chairs departing we're taking a look at you know who are our current leaders and what is the structure of that current leadership in terms of the teacher level leadership that they share and looking at our high school in the needs of the high school and our department chair and her skill set and what she can offer in terms of moving forward so our plan would be in this reorganization structure is to take the current existing three teacher level department chair positions you'll recall there's a department chair teacher position for special education at Center school that transitions to Grade two at huckleberry then a new department chair to our district mrs.
salvus trainee is takes on grades three four five six and seven so she's a majority of the time between huckleberry and whisk in here and then the other department chair mrs. vogal I is eighth grade through through the high school years and so we're taking a look at those three teacher level positions that work for 10 months a year we want to restructure that to create to eliminate those three positions as they are as teacher level positions and move into to special education supervisor positions which would be administrative positions and those would be 12-month employees they would work all year and they would be broken up by likely pre-k through five in grades 6 through 12 and our transition students 18 to 21 and then what we would also do is take the department share position that I was just referring to at the high school and reallocate that position to a new psychologists position to obviously help with the social-emotional needs of the therapeutic program we were just talking about so let's talk a little bit about the benefits of going from the three teacher level 10-month positions to the to administrative 12-month positions as well as the additional psychologists so the benefits we add value with 12-month employees they will also be responsible for extended school year right now with our teacher leadership positions we spend we really have a large cost for teacher planning that goes on prior to extended u-square and then for the actual hours working in the summer or extended school year so that can be reallocated to support the administrative positions we also will have full administrative capacity and authority for evaluation supervision of faculty and staff being an administrator carries a weight and authority in terms of supervision and evaluation right now a lot of situations teachers are supervising teachers principals are there but they can't be everywhere and we we could use some more administrative support and supporting our PPS and special education folks one thing that was important to me when working with dr.
Cipolla and this plan was the offices of these two administrators will be in the building split between the buildings that are signed they will not be central office employees their district employees but they will not be in central office they will work in the building's providing directs onsite support we also with this plan will maintain transitive transitions from school to school that was a big part as you'll recall gone from last year to this year from the four department share teacher positions to the three department head teacher positions I want to make sure we were transitioning students from school to schools that's an area of continued need which has gotten better of course we're going to meet the student social emotional needs we want to make sure we're doing that in the schools and we want to develop and implement therapeutic programming and the great thing about this its budget neutral now we do anticipate savings in the future because with providing therapeutic programming we could also work to provide in district programming the negative on this some staff at the schools may feel a little less supported without having a department chair assigned exclusively to their school it's so a source of comfort to always have someone there for the you know the 36 hours that the students are in the building to have that one individual there that's been a little bit of a transition for some folks getting used to but otherwise we're really we're actually really excited about this opportunity that we have and we've taken we frankly we've taken what is could have been a difficult situation this year and we're turning it into a positive I do want briefly this is my life I believe this is my last slide I want to just go through why therapeutic program I think this is really important not only for the board to understand but faculty and staff as well as the public that we have talked about this quite a bit over the years that local state national trends more and more students are presenting with significant emotional distress and we are not currently staffed to provide a continuum of those social-emotional supports to our students therapeutic programming here in district our own teachers as I just discussed earlier have articulated the need to support the social emotional needs of our students and the budget overage and specially this year's do a large part to the fact that we just cannot provide we don't provide that at this time providing therapeutic services for students in our schools with significant needs reassigning department chair the department chair as a school psychologists going to give us the capacity to do the following we're going to we plan to restructure the high school alternative program to provide emotional and behavioral supports we're also going to develop therapeutic programming at whisk and year to provide emotional behavioral supports similar to the those envisioned at the high school for years and folks could ask mr.
n do this he's been there a long time for years they've been asking for something similar some kind of alternative program for those students who really have a difficult time adjusting and working within the confines of the regular middle school we also can reorganize elementary special education roles and caseloads to meet these social emotional needs we're going to be working to develop social emotional learning curriculum and behavioral programming in order to improve emotional regulation and social skills for the kids across all grade levels and then the this additional psychologists position will also help us have a district-wide school climate coordinator right now there's a small stipend position and each school for a school climate coordinator we want to have a climate coordinator for the district so this person could function in that role as well as another another piece and that is all I have and so open for discussion questions and like thank you which individual did you say what function is a school climate coordinator well it's not assigned to an actual individual yet okay we you know the part of this reorganization is taking an existing department chair and moving them into a school psychologist position we would then go from the existing for school psychologist to a total of five school psychologists in the district and then dr.
cEPAL will work to figure out you know who's going to be assigned what is having that extra individual and that extra action for expertise and freed up from the department head role and we can we can make this we certainly make this function with that additional person I like the fact that both of the administrators are going to be in the schools there every single day as opposed to central office I think that that would be of great comfort and support to you know the staff the students and to the parents yes because that's nice to know I really like the idea of having another school psychologist on staff with this this added duty because I just I can't see anything but good things for our students that you know could use the extra help with the social-emotional skills that that we're seeing more and more and I think it's better that we take this step now then to wait a year because we'll be ahead of the trend and we will be able to provide you know I think the students better support so I really like both of the those two things specifically but I like the whole idea thank you if the one thing I didn't emphasize is timing the stem reorganization would occur for July one would be the plan and the but the Special Education reorganization would be immediately what exactly the school climate coordinator like just a brief overview of what that would entail like what it's a position that we're required by law to have so currently we have these statement positions that John was talking about that's that's why their role kind of look like responsible for or alright I don't want to rain on e-bay yeah what we have dr.