Board of Education Meeting

001go to our regular board of event meeting for this evening. It is now 7 p.m. Would you please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance? >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right, thank you. With that, we have roll call. Everyone seems to be here. Yes, we are. We're all present. Good to see everyone this evening. Happy Wednesday. Uh and we will start off with public comment. Um the board of education welcomes public comment. Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak. Uh it be it can be on any topic at the start of uh at the start of each regular meeting. A maximum

002of 20 minutes is allotted for comment on any item included in any item at all. Um discussion of school personnel, individual students or individual members of the board is prohibited. So with that, I will welcome Mr. Mark Moresh. Good evening, sir. >> Good evening. I >> think by now I know which way this button has to be for this to be on, but I have >> I think I'd learned >> um Okay. First, welcome Superintendent Freezy. I'm glad you've chosen our little town of Brookfield to bring your experience, guidance, and vision. Secondly, before we get started, a thank you is in order for the assistance and kindness of so many from the previous meeting. I wanted to have a stack of paper and joke that I was going to pass out a thank you letter,

003but as the kids say, too soon. But that kindness is a good theme for a public comment that underneath it all, we have the seeds of a culture that in moments that are important, people can come together with care and concern. That's the culture we need to foster in our schools. We're neck deep in budget season, and that's important. It too often though overshadows what it is to create an environment in which kids not only learn but want to learn. Kids don't care about where the adults spend the dollars only that it gets spent wisely. More money does not equate to higher test scores. Higher test scores is a metric but it doesn't define the value of learning. Maybe while we reexamine how our spending needs to be reallocated, we need to remember that how

004we reallocate time and care needs some mention on the agenda. Thank you, superintendent, for immediately tackling a problem that had festered for years, that of the bathrooms in the high school. How do we expect kids to learn when they're worried about having to choose between going to the bathroom or being late for a class? A comment we often hear is building level decision. But something being left to a building level decision is why we find the bathroom issues on agendas as far back as 2018. They're discussed, they don't go on old business, they disappear from the agenda, and then the conversations disappear as well. When I was knocking doors, a common question from parents was, "Can you do something about only 20 minutes of recess?" I don't know. Can we? It's like the middle school.

005On the schedule, it says they get 30 minutes for lunch. But really, it's only 15 because after 15 minutes, they're forced into recess. The CDC recommends 20 minutes of seat time. With 15 minutes of lunch, if you wait in line to get food, how much seat time? 7 minutes. Maybe if kids had 20 minutes to see their friends, you'd find kids have less of a need to text their friends during the school day. We need to make an environment in which kids are a able to learn, where their voices are valued, and it's not just a metric because maybe the metrics will then show us something that cannot otherwise be measured. Want respect from kids? Meet them with respect. Maybe a new superintendent fixing a bathroom problem can do more for test scores than anything

006else we do. Please vote on a bathroom policy and regulation that ensures that there will be enough open bathrooms. Vote on a recess policy and regulation that our kids get at least 30 minutes to play like we did. Vote on a lunch policy and regulation that everybody gets 30 minutes of sea time. Can the couple of minutes shaved off the other classes really make our test scores any lower? When I read that to my kids, they told me I was spitting bars. That's high praise. Nobody is going to hand a pass out and excuse all that has gone on over the past 10 years. But with that care and concern and kindness for our students and the culture in which they learn, I'm pretty sure that we can get our district back up off the

007floor. >> Thank you, sir. Andy, >> uh, Andy Korea, Brookfield resident. Um, when I saw the, um, school improvement plan on the agenda, I plan to send out an email in terms of what I think uh, you should hear from the building principles. I just didn't get to it. Um, what we hadn't heard in the past several years is actual connection to the past plans. um what you know what they committed to what they saw what they committed to what they did how it worked. So just the general management uh system perspective if you are not hearing that then I would expect this board to ask a lot of tough questions um and send them back and maybe come back uh and there should be metrics. Um, if board members ask tough questions, I would

008expect them to get direct and clear answers, not euphemisms like safety. Um, I also would expect um other board members to not interfere with board members asking direct and uh clear tough questions because that happened um a couple of years ago in the 2024 climate. Um, so please ask the questions. I can tell you you should have metrics like uh numbers of bullying incidences. If you look at this up at the ed site, the number of bullying instances over the past several years are all asterisks with the exception of one year at the high school uh which was seven. Asterisk means less than six. I can tell you a year where my kid had three verified uh incidents of a victim of bullying and several that were like a kid yelling at her down the

009hall, I'm going to effing kill you. And that wasn't a verified uh instance of bullying as well as a stick figure drawing with her name labeled as the victim uh was not a verified uh instance of bullying. So the data that's being reported does not meet actually what has occurred. If you're not getting the data and the principles cannot tie their plans to the data and their underlying data to the data that's being reported, there's a problem. And if what they reported to the state isn't true, that is a big problem. So I ask you please ask questions. Um if you don't, I will follow regardless. I will follow up to with the what I expect this school improvement plan to be and if we don't have another meeting to go over it. There's a

010provision in law that 1% of the electorate you get signatures that citizens can u put drive a meeting where the board of ed will have three weeks to answer. So please um with due deep diligence un work on climate and fix it in two months or less and on the whether or not you have to vote um on the budget to discuss the budget to go back to the super uh to the first selectman if you answer the questions as first selectman as opposed to decide not to you have to have a vote Mr. Fetto cannot talk to the board of selectmen on any issue that the board thinks unless it's a settled matter. He can't say well the vibe at the meeting was I think we might do this right particularly if he wants

011consensus. So you have the discussion if you're going to come up with the plan all you can do is say what we talked about. You can't say what we agreed. If you agree, if there's is if there's going to be a communication that the board agrees the following, there has to be a vote. >> Thank you, Mr. K. >> All right. Moving right along to uh written correspondents. >> The following people have written to the board of education since the last meeting. Andy Korea, five emails. Mark Morash, four emails. Steve Dunn, two emails. Alexandra Okalar. John Leandola. Irene Korea, four emails. Carrie Columbo, two emails. Glenn Rooney, Jennifer Austo, and Deborah Casease. >> All right. Thank you. >> All right. Uh, we'll move to the approval of board minutes. >> I move that the board

012approve the minutes listed below as recommended. Public budget hearing 12126, regular meeting 12126, special meeting 12426, special meeting 12926, and special trio board meeting 2426. >> Second. >> All right. Um, all any discussion on that on the meeting minutes? >> All right. All those in favor, please indicate by saying I. >> I. Any nays? >> One nay. Okay. All right. And now we welcome for the first time Mr. uh first superintendent update from Mr. Steven Fesy. Welcome aboard, sir. It's been a pleasure working with you thus far, I've got to say, and I'm looking forward to what we have uh going forward. So, for you, >> thank you so much. And uh I'd first open with uh just thank you all for such a great warm welcome. It's been a wonderful sixth day. and um

013and and I can't thank you enough from everything the board has done to be welcoming and uh collaborative and communicative uh to all the folks in the buildings. Um, I've gotten to meet some nice staff. Uh, our great administration. Um, the folks next to me, uh, who have been wonderful, uh, some community members, and most of all, in the best part, some students. Uh, I still have many more to meet, and I can't wait to do that. Um, and really continue to get to learn Brookfield as best I can. So, with that, um, I have some updates that I'd like to share with you on the adventures that have happened over the past six days. Um so in the area of teaching and learning I had the opportunity to sit in uh on my very

014first day when visiting all the schools in the morning uh last Monday. Uh CLES invited me to join their curriculum meeting uh after a wonderful tour of the school. It was a great opportunity just to hear how uh they are grappling with improvement efforts uh some of which that you'll hear later this evening. So that was just a fantastic opportunity. So, I thank them very much for uh inviting me in and letting me uh hear a little bit about what's going on there. Um, equally, I've been working um with Deb right here uh to more deeply understand our current efforts in the areas of teaching and learning. Uh Deb does an amazing job of really focusing uh on what we are doing to help support our students uh in the classroom and all of our

015teachers be able to engage uh in effective instruction. So, it's been a wonderful opportunity to to get to learn a little bit there. I will say that's a a person I need to meet more with uh because I've been out in the schools and out in the buildings and having a wonderful time, but I'm eagerly looking forward to to meeting uh more with Deb and learning more about them. Um I've also met with um Deb and Mr. Banda and we met uh today with a representative from the uh New England Association of College Accreditation. uh and so NASNC to really uh look at what it might be like to have all of our schools accredited by that institution. So our high school is accredited. Uh some districts uh throughout the state of Connecticut are looking

016at getting accreditation for all schools and engaging in that reflective improvement process uh to be able to help support uh students and teachers. So, we went on a call today just to learn a little bit more about it and see what it it could uh provide to us. And I think we're still in that learning and factf finding phase. So, uh we will continue to do that. Um we also had an opportunity today uh Deb and I to meet with uh Lisa Bowden from Ed Advance and our local uh regional um educational service center and learn more about how they can support our continuous improvement efforts. So, we want to always really try to take advantage of the professionals that are out there that can offer support and guidance uh through the reflective process of

017us really taking a deep dive look at what we currently do and how we might be able to evolve those practices, right? Celebrate the successes on where we are, but be able to engage in practices that will promote us to continue to move forward. Um, so that's what we want for Brookfield. And so uh we're engaging with folks who can offer that and uh today we had a great opportunity to do that twice. So um I keep looking forward to those efforts and keep looking forward to hearing uh the ways in which we can engage in that those processes. Uh and I share a little bit more in in the writeup. So please uh you know enjoy reading that on your own. um for business and operations. Um we uh I was fortunate enough to

018be a part of the tri board meeting where you all submitted your budget on February 4th, right? Uh to the tri board uh to the other two boards. Um and on February 10th, uh the board finance committee, we met and to further discuss the proposed budget that was submitted. Um, and then the board had received a letter uh back from our first selectman, Steve Dunn, and uh inquiring just about the types of changes uh that would need to be made um to the submitted budget should um there be a reduction of.5% 1% or an increase of.5%. And so, um, the board members, uh, various board members I know have been looking deeper into that, um, administration, um, and, uh, the my two colleagues here at the table, um, to really look carefully and identify ways

019that we can potentially meet those scenarios uh, that were presented to us. Um, I think that if we were, what I would share is that we would have to take a very close look at staffing. um at possible reductions in sections potentially as well as uh program cuts if needed uh to meet any of those decreases. But equally to meet those increases, we would want to look in the same areas. Um so our goal would be maintain a strong foundational educational program for our students while really remaining uh maintaining that fiscal responsibility uh for the community. So, um, we received the letter. We are taking a very close look at it and we can be responsive should those cuts come to fruition. Okay. I also had an opportunity to review uh bathroom accessibility at uh

020BHS here at BHS. Um, that was in the first week we had an opportunity to to take a look at that, but uh earlier today um Casey and Mr. Vanda and I had an opportunity to walk uh the whole high school and really check out each bathroom and the condition of each bathroom uh go in and out of each one, test everything in them. Um and look at opportunities that we might have. Um so upon doing so um as you can imagine uh well very first and foremost I would say that the bathrooms that are closed are absolutely for security purposes. There is nothing wrong with the bathrooms that they are functional. So mechanically we can manage with them but we also want to ensure the safety of our students. Um, so we do have

021certain ones that are not accessible through either technology like uh camera visibility or uh enough uh staff in the area to be able to ensure the safety of students and uh what may or may not also be going on in the bathroom. So uh those are locked at this time. Um, we did take a very close look at some of those and to see is there a possibility to open um gradually start opening some back up and have a plan for the remainder of the ones that we wouldn't be opening up immediately. And that would be due to um reasons such as um we we can't see clearly uh through cameras right now kind of visibility those bathrooms um and or um you know there wouldn't be staff in the proximity or the area for

022us to be able to you know maintain security in those areas. So we will look to solutions for that. But in the meantime we have identified some bathrooms that once cleaned because they've been closed for a long while. So you have to understand we want to make sure that they're prepared right for students to begin to use them again. Uh we have identified and I've put in the report uh some bathrooms that we are able to reopen. Uh those would include uh two bathrooms outside of the culinary and music room area. Uh a boys bathroom in the mathematics area as well as uh two bathrooms on the third floor. So once those are appropriately cleaned, we will have those reopened uh in addition to the ones that are already available to students. Um we are

023working on a plan to continue those improvements uh for full accessibility if practical. Um but we do want to do it in a methodical and strategic way so that way we can ensure that you know there is student safety, there is enough accessibility to bathrooms with student safety in mind. And so we have to keep going down uh the pathway in that direction um so that we do this uh thoughtfully. The last day of school is now 6:22. Just want to make sure that we're all aware of that. >> Okay. >> And it's a half day, correct? >> Correct. Mhm. Um we've had four snow days. Uh and we've just listed those for you. And uh in the area of climate and uh engagement, I had the opportunity to meet with many high school students

024uh especially throughout last week uh and it was a great opportunity uh and met a new one this evening which is fantastic. Um including an introductory uh new superintendent video. So, I had the good fortune of having Leah, who is a senior here at uh you know, Brookfield High School, um interview me yesterday and or I'm sorry, uh yeah, on Friday and we put together an introduction to the superintendent video. Uh we are still in the process. I am not but they are editing it editing it and um and once that is fully edited uh that will be distributed to all the students for viewing and uh the families as well so I can introduce myself to the Brookfield High School community. I am looking to do the same thing uh at both our middle

025school and our elementary school and we're in the process of accomplishing that. Um, as much as I like to get around to meet everyone in person, and I am trying, um, I can't get to everyone in an introductory video, I thought would be a nice way to to still introduce myself and still try to get around to everyone personally. Um, with that, I would also like to um, give a shout out to Mr. Wa, our technology education teacher, who really helped to organize that whole thing along with Mr. Banda. So, uh, right from the start, before I even began, uh, that was the first thing we started organizing and, uh, they both, uh, took that and ran with it and helped me out a great deal. So, I'm thankful to them. Uh, and obviously Leah

026for her work in it. Um, principles tonight from BHS, WMS, and CLES will be presenting uh, their school improvement plans, which also includes uh, efforts with our school climate. Uh so their plans will contain both of those and we're really looking forward to those presentations this evening so you can hear more about uh what is happening in our schools uh and be able to ask any questions that you might have. And lastly, I received a warm welcome from so many. But I did put a couple of pictures. CLES was so kind. Uh they created some wonderful banners. So that first day when I went around um I will be honest, the tour of that beautiful building uh really didn't allow me to capture all the banners as I walked by. Um so I was able

027to uh receive these via an email as well to to get them as in picture format. But these banners are just impressive. And we couldn't end uh this report without giving a shout out to our gymnastics team who we found out late last week won the SWC conference. uh the Fab Five I'd call them and they did an amazing job. So, um I'm sure there are more shout outs to be had and I don't have them all yet, but um that has been my six days of a thrilling thrilling ride and I'm look forward to more and uh to continue to give you updates on the great things that are happening here in Brookfield Public Schools. >> Absolutely. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. Um okay, move on to the uh subcommittee reports.

028Sorry. >> That's okay. Fine. >> That's okay. >> Great. Him up first then. >> Yep. You want to summarize both? >> Yeah. All three. Yeah. >> All three. I should say >> since uh since the last uh board of ed meeting, we came together as a finance committee uh on the 27th. Um and we came together on the 10th for our regular meeting. Uh on the 27th, we did have uh additional budget conversations before the formal submission. That was the point um in the agenda on that. And then at the regular finance committee meeting last week, we went through all our normal reports. There was no um nothing significant that came out of that discussion, but we did have time also in that meeting to talk about the request from the um first selectman Steve

029Dunn. So we chatted about that um some potential opportunities. I think the opportunities that were discussed were ones that we reviewed in previous subcommittee meetings around the different scenarios that we had asked the administration to put together. Um and then I also attended the board of finance meeting on the 11th I believe um the next day and reported out from our committee and our budget discussions to to that group. So >> any other questions? >> Any discussions? >> Sorry, chair. >> That's okay. Any questions for Caroline? All right. Um, youth commission up here. >> All right. >> Um, really fast before before I go on off script a little bit, um, Mr. Renda, I want to give you a shout out because um, my school went to Whiskaner for the unified sports basketball game a

030couple weeks ago and their the classroom's right next to mine. So, they were very nervous and they came back the next day. They said it was like the best day of their lives. They got medals. I saw the pictures and the my colleague said it couldn't have gone better. So, I just want to give you a shout out for that. Um, youth commission. Thank you Aaron for going in my absence. Um first or um they were ve all the high school students were very concerned about the bathroom situation. Um that was the crux of the meeting and it is definitely something that has been ongoing. I remember when I was first an adviser of the youth commission. The bathrooms were brought up then. So this is definitely something that I'm glad is finally being addressed.

031I appreciate that. Um, second, they're hoping that um they can make some sort of forum or um the way that that Mr. Dunn and several town employees had talked about um getting together youth commission, board of education and me and having a forum to discuss um some of the conditions and things that they want to do to improve upon the schools. So that's something if we can I mean I'll talk to you and figure out. >> Absolutely. they did express that. >> Yeah. So, and definitely um get representation from us and figure out some dates in the near future. >> Sure. >> Um that would be important, very important to them. And last but not least, the career fair is on for March 24th >> and there are flyers all over social media. If they're

032still looking for presenters, so if anyone is interested, please reach out. Um it's 9:30 to 11:30 at the high school. >> All right. Thank you, Sarah. >> All right, Emily. Oh, I'm sorry. question. Yes. >> Uh, not a question. Um, I didn't know if I could I attended a CARES meeting and I don't I didn't know if that's not on the agenda here because I was just going to give a quick >> Yeah, that's >> how does that work? Can we formally add that to the agenda? Do I make a motion? >> Just make a motion. Yeah, this one. >> Okay. Uh, I make a motion to just add an update from the CARES meeting to the agenda. >> Second. All in favor? All right. Anything back. Sorry. >> So, uh I attended the uh

033executive session of the CARES Club meeting today and um I'm just I'm reading from my phone because I want to make sure I got the notes correct. Um I did want to share um they're going to be reaching out to u Mr. Banda about an idea uh for a youth version of the Narcan and the QPR training. I believe they offered this previously at the library um as a community event. um but they want to do a specialized training for for those students that it's appropriate for um and want that opportunity. So, there'll be more to come on that. Um I believe the date is likely going to be uh around late April, early May. So, just a heads up there. >> Cool. Thank you. >> Y >> Emily, good evening. >> Good evening. All

034right. Sorry, I don't have too many updates, but um first off, the student government started planning the spring pep rally and March Madness tournaments that are coming up soon. And they're also preparing for elections that are supposed to be in April. And as mentioned, gymnastics won their conference championships, which everyone is very proud of them for. And I know I mentioned this um at a board meeting, I think like two times ago, but um I'd like to say it again and emphasize how the grad party really needs volunteers and donations from families and communities in order to keep it running this year. and the years following. So, if anyone who can, please consider helping out the grad party so we can keep it going. And that's kind of that's all I have for you today.

035>> What's uh with the March Madness? What are you guys doing? >> Um last year they redid Bad Mitten. I think there was cornhole. There's like just some little >> different tournament type things. >> Yeah. I don't know what they do what they're going to do this year, but I think it's like more of like a surprise thing going on. But I'm excited. >> In case don't answer my question. Emily, did you see during ILT today the presentation for the grad party? >> Oh, yes, I did. >> Do you think it was well received or were kids scanning the QR code? >> Yes, at least at the ILT that I was in, I was in Miss Young's IT, everyone had their phone out scanning the QR code and was trying to get people cuz I

036mean, I was in a senior obviously, so all these seniors like really want it to work out. So, yeah. >> Juniors and seniors juniors know for next year I hope. >> Oh, yes, definitely. >> Yeah, we got to get them on board. All right. Thank you. All right, moving on to consent agenda. >> I move that the board approve the following items. New hires resignations. >> I secondary financials. >> January financials. >> Oh, January financial. >> Yeah, you want to second. >> I second. >> Um, any discussion on that? >> All those in favor of consent agenda say I. >> I. I any nays? All right, it's unanimous. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, Emily. >> Okay, >> enjoy the game. Go Brookford. New business, school improvement update. >> Do I get to pick

037who goes first or you guys want to decide? >> Okay, we'll start at the top. Mr. Belinda, >> work our way down. Thank you, sir. and help you. >> Oh, there it is. >> I like went on and off. >> Thank you. >> Try to Turn on projector >> seemed fine. But >> all right, give it a second to come up. >> No, wrong one. Sorry. >> Does that help at all? >> No. >> Is that better? Can we still see? >> No, that's better. >> That's better. >> Okay. >> All right. Well, thank you. Um, forced me to set the standard here, Mr. Fetto, in terms of length. We had a conversation about keeping it short. I have a tendency to go a little long, and Mr. Pepsoski uh continually reminds me of that.

038Um, so I'm going to do my best to provide uh the uh an update. Uh, you'll see a couple different things here. There's two different sections. The first couple slides are going to be about the school improvement plan as a whole. Uh the next >> the second set of slides will be about uh the specific school climate improvement plan which is a much longer plan um but that there's just two slides each um for each of these sections. So broke the school improvement plan into a couple different sections. The first being educational outcomes. one of the things that this board uh has certainly asked a lot about and we've taken to heart the conversations about data and looking at those scores. Um so we recently gave to the 9th, 10th, and 11th graders in the

039fall of uh 2025. We gave the PSAT something we've been giving for years. Uh we had the ability to look back uh and compare scores amongst cohorts and grades to really look at um in specific individual like for example uh a cohort of students progressing through the PSAT what did they score traditionally over the course of the years and then you look uh from a real curriculum perspective in an individual uh grade level. So look at all nth grade the last few years. You look at all these and we started to identify areas that um are of importance and areas that we're strong at and some areas that we uh need to improve in. Um and so we looked at smallest growth in terms of different score bands that are there. And you can see

040highest growth in areas of craft and structure, geometry and trig. Uh and the smallest growth in the area of expression of ideas and problem solving and data analysis. Um, so those are just bigger overarching topics and categories that then go back to our teachers, uh, who when they work in their PLC's and their CLTs, so we call them CLTs here. It's professional learning communities. Um, they can look to develop, um, some assessments, right, and some teaching and specific strategies that can help them work on these particular skills with students to show improvements. We believe as a school district and as most schools do, um, we're not teaching to the test. The SAT foundationally is a test that does measure important skills that kids need to have to be successful. So, this is not like the

041captive many many many years ago for those of us that remember that. Um, some people don't know, but we'll share that educator test bank that's on uh college board. Uh, Mr. Hill has come to Cape a couple different times and talked about some of the tests he's doing. Doing the same thing in the English language department, right? And so this educator uh testing bank allows they can pick by different score bands, level of difficulty, topic, and it gives sample. Um you can actually send it right off to a PDF. And so they're giving these particularly um as we get closer and closer to the SAT in April, which is April 8th for the 11th graders. Gives us leveled on demand assessments for areas that kids are weak in. Um additionally, as part of that, so

042we have this academic that's a that's a bigger higher piece. Um, MTSS, the multi-tered systems of support is also a process that looks at both academics and behavior for those students that are struggling. Uh, I'm thankful to have Miss Bianca Nello uh who chairs my MTSS committee uh and she has gone out and started looking at different resources and supports in a district our size. It's always nice to be able to communicate and work with other uh agencies. And she found a grant, the Connect Four grant. It is called the Connect Four Grant. That is not a typo. It's hard to say every time I say it. I just picture it. Um but connect four grant that we were awarded that allows us to partner with a couple different agencies locally that provide will provide

043some parent support uh as well as training for staff. So we're in the process of doing surveys for that uh with the faculty that is coming up at the faculty meeting next week on the 25th. And so these are all things that are moving forward that we can better provide um identify kids earlier, provide the right interventions that are going to be helpful to support them. And then uh the S CSD sent out rigorous course letter works um letters recently the last last month um our school counseling team has really taken it upon themselves as a um as a department to really focus on getting the the right the kids in the right class that they need to be in. So they've done they've hosted a parent event. Uh we've done they just did today

044because of the snow day last week they did the counselors did a presentation to 9th 10th and 11th grade IT um where they talked about the course selection process. teachers are currently working on the recommendations at this point and having conversations individual kids to really place them where they need to be and also understand that students can actually override and go to a class at a higher level if they'd like to. Right. Uh moving on, uh the next section is professional learning, right? We continue to focus on professional learning here at the high school. We have multiple opportunities provided by the board, not just our PD days that are in the beginning of the school year, but also several half-day PLC days that throughout the year. And then we're also utilizing our admin directed meetings

045that are part of the the pea contract that happen on Wednesdays uh as well as our faculty meetings to use those more as a a leverage to have some of these in-depth professional learning conversations rather than just um sharing information about let me tell you these 15 things need to do in the next couple weeks, right? And so those conversations like the have some robust conversations about uh artificial intelligence and where the different teachers feel and fit is really an appropriate use of AI. Um it's there's a I think it's great. I think it's completely wrong. And then there's a whole section about gray area, right? And so the conversations have started and we're having these conversations between departments and within within departments about the use of AI. We'll be working to hopefully develop a

046a district AI policy uh eventually. But the big piece we're working on is our core values and beliefs, right? And so they we're leading them through some exercises where they get a chance to reflect on the things that they value. Uh what we have here as uh building as our core values and beliefs and then in addition uh what might have changed since the last time we'd spent time really looking at that. That's something that NAS does talk about certainly but it's something that we hold to be really important particularly as the ever changing world in the 10 years that I've been here um that things continue to change and the world continues to evolve. So the staff has been engaged in that and then the next step for that process is to really look

047at our portraits of a learner uh and do some crosswalks between those to identify okay what are our air core values and how do they align with our ports of a learner that we've been developing for the last couple years. School climate section is smaller. I'll talk more about school climate later. This is kind of a hold over a placeholder. Uh we'll talk more about it later. Um but this just talks about the school climate committee meetings that happen monthly. We had our school climate meeting committee meeting today. Uh and then link crew is like a big thing that I'm really excited about in terms of climate and culture and building that sense of belonging and connection to the to the school. Linkrew is ready to go uh moving forward with our class adviserss and

048from that perspective uh student and family engagement. So we're still using parent square weekly communications um in the moment. I sent another Deb reminded me today could you remind everybody to to work on the school climate um surveys. So was able to send that out this afternoon. continue to use that. I think the one that's been the most helpful has been our um ILT connections program on Wednesdays. So, we've changed from what we used to be a mentor Monday to now a connections Wednesday. And so, uh what happens in those like today I said you heard from the 9th 10th and 11th graders heard from school counselors. We utilized for the time with 12th graders to talk about um the grad party which was a big piece that um was important. It was an important

049message to get out and so we're able to communicate that same thing at the same time to everybody builds community and the concept of grad party and community is important. Um so we're hoping that we can continue to use things like that. We have a newscast run by Bobcat Bobcat Media. We have a women's history month um presentation that's coming up in March. So we've got a couple different things that are going on and continue to go on. We use for education as well. Um we hosted a club fair in the fall. Um, I know there's a lot some questions uh from the board side, I think, in that original budget document asking about the different clubs and activities and participation. You can see that we have a ton of clubs and activities beyond just

050the stipen positions. A lot of teachers volunteer to do these things and so we have a ton and so we're always looking for new clubs and activities and they continue to um to build. So that's been a fantastic thing for our students. Um Sarah, thank you mentioned about the youth commission. Uh the club fair is coming up, not club fair, the career fair is coming up in late March, which is another great thing that they've done for the last couple years. It's been a great partnership. We're able to bring in and kids get a chance to select three different sections of sessions to attend uh to get some more career exposure. Uh we're doing a freshman, we did the freshman forum in the fall. Uh and we're also looking uh PTO, we've been working with

051PTO uh to talk and have conversations about uh community service in particular and how we can do better to partner with the PTO to help um organize, create and promote different opportunities for community service as well as some things we did with them um from the other side of um what I'm thinking of PTO grad party and then something else too. So, so that is um essentially that part of the school improvement midyear update. Um I don't know if you want me to continue to roll into what would be the school climate improvement plan. Um um I defer to >> the team. >> Yes. Okay. Uh school climate improvement plan. So this was uh part of the state mandate that said uh we have to put together a specific school climate uh improvement plan. So

052we took a look at a lot of different indicators. We looked at our school our our data. We looked at our um our survey data um from multiple years and developed a plan. You'll see something similar. The format will look fairly similar, I think, for all three of us tonight. So, you'll see some of those things. Apologize for the size, but I really tried to keep it to two slides uh to give you a general overview of the things that we're doing. Uh physical safety and security uh is an important piece of what we do here every day. Um we're working so far, we've done Alice training with staff. We've done SRP, which is standard response protocol training with both students and staff. Talked about emergency response protocols. Some of those next steps are going

053to be working on Alice training with students in particular. Um, what has been most impressive and continues to be uh I think is our partnership with our local uh law enforcement and emergency management systems. They are fantastic. Um, the fact that I I say over and over again, our SRO is always here to support. I know Steve got a chance to meet him today. Um, and then our youth officer Mitch Heler always comes up over time and it's been great to have those partnerships and Mike Connors as our fire marshall will come over and observe fire drills and give suggestions. So, that's been great. Um, and we're trying to develop these beforehand before we do emergency drills. We're trying to develop the uh communications beforehand. Um, and also have a set of of communications uh

054which also come with the standard response protocol. When there is an emergency or a need to go to a secure or a hold, we're working to draft those. We have some templates we're working on to make sure that gets out a little bit quicker and a little more um information to parents and families and students as they need it. Restorative practices is a big conversation that's part of the state legislation in terms of what we should be doing. Um when we work on restorative practices, I think it'd be really important for me to highlight um the concept of restorative practices and it's different than what uh some people assume, which has to be restorative circle. Oftentimes people hear this term restorative practice and they think we're getting everybody in a circle all the time. That

055is the most formal version of a restorative practice. We talk about the need to develop relationships and we've done training with staff in the fall. It is important to have these effective statements and effective questions. I feel I do. What are you thinking? Engaging with kids. We know that we need to have relationships first in order to restore them. Right? So a lot of this stuff has been frontloaded with staff about building relationships, right? That is the important part of step one is building relationships and then once you have that relationship then you can work to restore it through a couple different avenues and different ventures. Um so you see all those things and we have a ton of interventions. We have the support room downstairs that continues to be utilized. Uh we have great

056statistics on that. Our school counselors uh monitor there. Um we have a couple different wellness spaces. We do have uh the support room where students can go uh during the day which is different than the wellness room. They're two different spaces. Kids can get some support as well. Um so we're looking to find those times and spaces where kids can get the support they need to then go back to class and be successful. Um MTSS I talked about briefly before that process continues to be uh an ongoing work in progress. Um but it's Bianca's done a fantastic job coming on board and really uh revamping and improving some of the things that we're doing. Um, like I said, mental health and and and uh other outside schoolbased ser services. We work with um Civic, which

057is our school-based health center. They continue to be in here a couple days a week, and they are jam-packed full every day. When Sam comes in, she is here working all day. It'd be great if we can get her even more. Um, but then also the connection with Connect 4 is going to put us into communication with other local um community based services. They're going to help support our students as well. Um the link crew piece we've already talked about a little bit. Um working on some additional stakeholder forums. Um and then the co-curricular programming, student recognition opportunities. We've changed some of those things. We last year we brought the Latin honor system back on. Um we continue to do um other things here uh and continue to do some orientations and you'll see some

058of those things moving forward. Um the climate uh prevention proactive climate systems. Like I said, you see that last section of the first bullet talks about focus on classroom relationships being the most important piece in that restorative practices piece. Our connection stuff is also going very well. That program um and then working on explicit teaching of behavioral uh skills and conflict resolution. Our school counselors, our school social workers, our school psychologists uh oftentimes work with kids, right, uh after an issue occurs to help them process and talk through what a logical next step could have been. Where could you have gone differently? Um again this is a lot of um there is some overlap with some of the things we're talking about here. Um working on um structured referral process for escalating behaviors. Uh staff

059do have a official form that they can complete and fill out uh for behavioral referrals. There's also a tiered response of what would be considered a classroom issue versus sensitive administration versus um you know requires immediate attention right now in the moment. Um so we've worked on that significantly. Um and then also with the school climate legislation that has come through over the summer and is now in effect uh as we go through some of our investigation, questioning and those sorts of things. Those communications are there. Um the survey is going I will tell you um students are going to be taking it um on the 25th which is next week during ILT. Uh we did that so that students have the opportunity families to have the opportunity to preview the survey itself and make

060the decision if they want their students to take it or not. And so I've received probably 10 to 12 um optouts uh at this point. You know, we'll take those up until the day of or even in the midst of student starts taking says I don't want to take it. They don't have to, but we will do that next Wednesday during ILT. It's the last day there. Um staff are also going to have time uh during the faculty meeting. Uh we're going to provide them a little bit of time of faculty meeting on the 25th as well. And then parents, I sent that reminder out as Deb has reminded me today of 30 have started it, 21 have finished it at the high school. So that's to date, but we have about another week for

061that to go and so we'll keep pushing that. That'll go out again this week later on. Um, you know, data monitoring, like I said, we're going to continue to look like I can look right now. The reason I got those numbers, right, and I'm able to share that with you is because the nice part about the thought exchange that I get the numbers in the moment, right, and that data. So I don't have to wait for Panorama to disagregate the data. I have it right now. We'll bring it back to the school climate committee and take a look at those things. Um the monthly school climate progress monitoring. We do that every month. We talk about our plan. Um and then we're always looking for feedback. Um you know uh open door policy. Lots of

062students do come and talk to me. I have staff members that come to talk to me as well that say, "Hey, listen. Have you thought about this?" Things come up. We do celebrations and areas of concern at the beginning of every school climate meeting. Um, and so there it's been it's been a a busy fall. I guess it's really you can't say fall. It's almost winter. It's almost over. Um, but we're well on our way. Um, you know, was it was an interesting uh timeline having the school climate improvement plans not due till December was a was a different weird thing. Usually it's due at the beginning of the year, but um, we'll certainly have more to update you on. Um, but this was a high level overview for you and any questions? Anyone have

063any >> I just wanted to say thanks for that. I appreciate it. >> So, >> anyone have any questions? >> Yeah, I just have one. >> Sorry. >> Yeah. >> So, I'm looking back on um the one from the original school improvement plan. Um the student advisory council is that where is that referenced in there? that >> the student advisory council is not referenced in here. I didn't do every bullet point. Um so the student advisory council has been really uh it has not been really very well established or maintained quite frankly. Uh I had a couple kids that were student leaders as part of student government and um I'm finding hard times getting kids all kids are pulled 17 different directions. So trying to find the way for them to actually come and commit.

064So like ILT is the best time for that to happen. As you heard with uh connections, we have not a lot of opportunity because we have such a busy schedule and then kids are always constantly going to other teachers for help or they're going to clubs and activities with pretty rigorous. So that has not got off the ground the way id hoped it. So right now it's the student government really is who I talked to in terms of it's not an official student advisory council. Um but that is something that is an area of improvement for sure. >> Do we have the the schoolwide no place for hate activities that Yeah. So schoolwide no place for hate uh is another good question. Um so student participation we had last year we had about uh 10

065kids that participate in it. This year we we're down to three. Um so it's not the participation that we needed. Um we will likely not be able to consider ourselves a no place for hate school. Um because the student involvement has not been there from the two adviserss. Right now our adviserss are uh Dr. Spencer uh Miss Necllo uh and then the third person is Miss Hajnoski. Those are the three adviserss that are there. They're working to brainstorm and try to come up with some ideas of the kids that are able to that want to actually push this forward. Um, so that has not been that's an area that I did not include on there because it has not really gotten off the ground yet. >> And when will we get the PSAT data? >>

066Which stuff in particular? >> That the one that they took in the fall. >> We have the PSAT so the parents can access that PSAT data. I have that PSAT data. That's a it's a very high level um from those departments like I have all that information broken down by score band areas of improve I have that stuff I can I have not shared that with cape yet but something typically going to >> ask if that is that's going to be it >> I'd be I'd be happy to share that with cape uh we are planning for the first time ever thanks to board support also get the PSAT in the spring as well so we'll actually have some apples to apples benchmarks to talk about we'll know when >> April 1st right April >>

067well actually no it's actually April last year was April 1st though you remember that um it's April 8th this year is going to be the test. But yeah, we are going to have some apples to apples data which would be great and then be able to share here's where we saw the growth. That's going to be probably the we haven't had that because we have even when you go PSAT for juniors to SAT for juniors, it's still a different test and the scale does shift. This is the first time we're going to have the exact same scale just given months later. So it's actually the true like first real time we're able to do that. So thank you to the board for that and we hopefully continue that practice next couple years. >> Great. Just

068really quickly, the PTO um collaborating for the volunteer opportunities. Is there a way to incorporate the youth commission because I know in the January absolutely January meeting, they were talking about revamping rake and bake and things like that. So, I wonder if we can >> we really we like one of the conversations that's come out of like school climate and a little bit of PTO is like a a day of service for our kids across the board. >> Yeah. Trying to identify what that day looks like and when and how that happens is a whole another thing and that's going to require a pretty heavy lift working with the superintendent of the board. Um but I think the power that that is for this community to do a day of service would be awesome. Absolutely.

069So yeah, I will connect with PTO. The PTO meeting is coming up and then um yeah, we'll work with the youth commission as well. >> Perfect. Awesome. Great. Great idea. >> Thank you. And Carolyn. >> Yeah, I just had one quick question. Sure. Can you explain the the link crew? Um >> yeah, that's a good question. Right. So, uh thanks to Dean. Uh I've actually seen it. I've worked in other schools that's had that have had link crew. Uh Dean at the middle school they have a program called web right which is basically students mentoring um the incoming so eighth graders mentoring the incoming sixth graders. Link crew is the high school version of that. So it's really juniors and seniors mentoring uh incoming nth graders. So they do everything. So our we've had two

070teachers that have been gone off to uh full like I think it's a two or three day training um about how to facilitate this. Local schools in the area some have it. Amity, Pompog, a couple other schools like that. Um, and they went out to this training and they come back and right now we're in the process of collecting um, names for students who want to be a link leaders, right? So, we're looking at sophomores and juniors who are interested in doing that from all diverse backgrounds. One of the great things about this program, I can't do it with two people. I can't do it with 10. I need a lot. And the staff have recommended a bunch. Kids have put their applications in. So, we're looking at like 60 different link leaders, right, that

071we're going to be able to incorporate. do a two-day training in the summer. >> And then we have um when it comes to freshman orientation, which typically was done um by the administration and those things, the stuff for the students will be run entirely by link crew. Then there's events throughout the course of the year. And that's the part that's that always falls down for me is that there's the follow-up doesn't happen, right? So it's great to have that initial time we meet with you, but then the next month there's nothing there. But there's a plan. They have a plan in their process for what are you what event you going to do September? What are you going to do in October? What are you going to do November. So the link leaders continue to

072connect with those incoming nth graders. Um and they stay with them and become their resource. They get t-shirts. It's a it's a whole it's a whole vibe. >> And this is a like a rinse and repeat for every year, right? Every >> So yeah. So then what's going to happen is those seniors will graduate. So those juniors that were that are next year's juniors, right, will then have the opportunity they can continue or and we'll just keep We'll just shift it up and Yep. And once we once we really pay for the training, right, which has happened for our two link crew leaders right now, the staff members that are going to do it. Um, you know, we're talking things like uh littleundry things, t-shirts for link crew, right, for those people who are the

073link leaders. Um, some activities. They do some activities with like balloons and they'll do some activities like like we'll work at we'll do a barbecue, like a grill, like they do um they do like a homecoming. So imagine like the ninth grade kid, right? come to the high school and here at Brookfield the biggest event typically is the first home football game right you can imagine what it's like as a ninth grade kid who wants to be part of the school from that perspective and what do I do who do I go with >> they pair them up with the link leaders and they meet we have a barbecue a whole sort of thing and then they go together to the game so talk about fostering climate and engagement like that's one of the ways

074to get these kids involved and feel like they're a part of the school right away >> that's great >> and this will kick off in this coming correct Okay. >> Yep. So, right now we're in the planning phase setting up all those trainings and then we'll be ready to start for August. So, the the link leaders will run the student orientation in August for the class of 20 >> 30. Yeah. >> Just putting that out there. >> Great. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mark. That was excellent. Thank you. Sorry. I was >> Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. We have one more. >> No, I don't. >> Oh, did you see? >> No, I was just saying I have one graduating from graduating on >> right around the corner. But we know it's

075going to be here. >> Good evening. Um, I'm here to do the Whiskaners school improvement plan, our midyear update. And like Mark said, um, we I try I'll try to be brief. You, as you know, we always say when you're doing a presentation, you could read what's up here. I will try to summarize um if I do start to get uh a little lengthy, you know, Deb could give me the hook if need be. Um similar to what uh the high school um talk what Mark talked about and also what Dave will talk about is one of our educational outcomes that we talked about is our consistent use of the MTSS process and protocols that we have within the district. I know Debb and um our curriculum people have done a lot of work with

076that and our interventionists but I did speak about we have a um math literacy we also have a social emotional executive functioning MTSS this year which is was the for the first time something we've we've uh started to work with and they meet once a month reviewing student data could be beginning of the year now we're doing our midyear data and then also students that are currently in an intervention how they're doing what strategies have worked um things like that that they could pass on to specific teachers so that they'll be able to utilize those during um during the class time. >> Excuse me, Dean. >> Press. >> Yeah. Can you can you enlarge it so we can see the slideshow? >> Oh, up top. That >> Thank you. >> No, >> where my go

077to the right. >> Oh, I was going to go right. >> You got it right there. >> Oh, you wanted the big big. All right. >> That does look better. Um I know I've and again when I say this I know I've spoken about the interimm assessment blocks which are questions and things about the standards that go along with the smarter balance testing andor the um NGSS testing. Um we had that math literacy and science we use those uh staff or teachers will use those maybe uh take questions from those and incorporate depending on what they're learning in the content at that time with students. It could be like a problem of the day for math is something that they're working on. It could be um something that they may be working currently on in

078science, but it doesn't have to be. Again, just getting kids used to the questions, the type of um the way they're worded, uh the verbiage, things like that. Um one of the things I know that we've been talking about is when they do give them, it's going to help them plan their instruction going forward. And I know some of the areas, I mean, for for anybody in in middle school, they know central idea is a big thing. And you guys can't believe this, but speaking and listening, listening skills. And that's an area that also our social studies, science, and even our world language have um are helping us as we talk about across the content areas of getting kids to be able to something as simple as maybe an ed puzzle, listening to videos, taking

079notes maybe, and or then answering questions. Again, the uh different skills that they have to do when they are in um in the the uh testing that we take. Shout out to Nikki Galves who you know is our department chair of rural language and MLL. She was able to uh secure along with um Miss Ferious a bilingual tutor through Title One grant funding that um will be starting next week. We're very excited. Uh all the paperwork is in and we are going to be utilizing that person. It's 15 hours a week and we're going to be utilizing that person for um instruction for some of our ML students pushin to classes. some of the areas we're noticing math is a little bit has been a little bit uh more difficult for or challenging for those

080students and just being able to push into those classes but then also do small group during our ELT time. Um even pre-eaching concepts that might be coming up to be able to help those students um is something we are very excited to to start starting next week. professional learning. We have our PLC and uh PD that we've done um already just helping our staff um along with their PLPS with their individual growth and support plans that we have for them and obviously our observations and feedback. Another shout out to Nikki um G. She has done different professional learning with specific teams that we have of teams that have a larger number of our ML students. Other staff have also been um incorporated into those areas and talking to them uh how they how these students

081can better access the curriculum based on where they are as a last in the last link scores and then also giving strategy and ways and the teachers are coming with a lesson plan or an assessment and they're having they're having conversations about it and and helping them to build those blocks and scaffold their instruction to be able to help out those students. um which has been very bad. The the teachers that I have spoken with, she has also asked for feedback. Um but the teachers I have spoken to felt that it was very you know it was veryformational for them and and helpful for them. Obviously we'd love to have more you be able to do more and as you know the budget this year we've asked uh for for uh more resources there um

082in that area. Uh multiple we've had multiple PD sessions from the beginning of the year on artificial intelligence. We've talked a little bit about as a resource, the acceptable use of it obviously for our students, but also to different differentiate instruction for our diverse learners and how you could utilize that to be more efficient in your lesson planning and also just to be able to help those students um or help all students, not just the diverse learners, but all students in their learning. The benefits of it, school climate, uh the web, every where everyone belongs is our sixth grade orientation. Again, we talked about eighth grade student leaders. They are the ones who teach the lessons. They do the actual lessons with the students. There's an adult in the room, but they do the lessons.

083It's worked out fabulous. Last year, we had started our unplugged hour for the sixth graders. We got some feedback from them and they wanted to just instead of having the lessons taught to them, they wanted a piece of the unplugged hour to the sixth graders. So, this year, uh, starting in January, we started it now where the seventh and eighth grade have had it all year. And last year, um, the sixth graders now are starting it, uh, up. We have 40, I think we're at like 42 different activities. Crochet, bedazzling, uh, we have sport things, we have, you know, music appreciation. There's all different things that our staff, I would say, are passionate about and the kids can are able to see. And it could be a teacher that they they don't have never had

084or never will have, but it's just another connection um, with a staff member in the building, which again to me is so important in the middle school years. uh say something app and also um I didn't put out here but now I think about is also securely two areas that we have to help us and the Sandy Hook is the um promise is the anonymous reporting system so we have that uh up to this point right now this year we've had 13 um of those uh this year so far and um then we also have securely which I think we've had up to this point now we're at five and again these are just areas these are things that help us to reach out to certain students that are, you know, struggling. It could be

085with bullying, could be with crisis intervention, depression, etc., whatever it may be that it's uh it's an area that we are able to then engage and uh intervene, you know, for those students. And then restorative practices um just and and kind of like what when Mark said made me laugh like I think when people hear that sometimes they think, oh, there's no discipline involved. they think that it's oh everyone's getting together you know and in in a circle we're going to kumbaya type thing that's not the case we've done some of those and we and I know at the lower level Dave I'm sure we'll talk about what they do for their morning meeting and things we don't do that per se but we do a lot of you know in in my eyes it's

086those opportunities to repair relationships for them for students to really understand especially if it's between two students themselves is finding out what the other person's perspective on it is and it is very tricky because as we know sometimes when we're emotional and we don't do it right away by the way we we wait a little time because when we're emotional we don't want to hear anything right and it's it's it's able to be a to be able to hear the other person's perspective and we talk about doesn't mean they're right or wrong it's their perspective and we have to understand that people will have different perspectives than us so that has been and we've done this for years but I think we're doing more we're trying to do more and more of that and even

087with our teachers at the beginning of the year we had uh Rich Napoli our dean of students and our assistant principal Ed Bernard did some of the work around the new school climate and state laws around restorative practices also which was professional development for our staff family engagement having uh informative workshops on uh topics of interest. We are in process we had someone and they they kind of backed out on us so we're working on uh some other things for that area. Um the parent volunteers we do our best to it's different a little different than elementary school but we have um as you can see the areas up here that uh PTO parents PTO members but also any obviously parent volunteer can come in and I know um Sarah had talked about the career

088fair for the high school. We have a career fair also and I and I think we're already booked with the number of people that we have and and many of them are either parents and or alumni of Brookfield schools which is really always the the best. We also do I put in there junior achievement for local businesses. We've done that for probably about 10 years at least uh now. So we have local businesses come into our social studies classes in seventh grade. So that's uh communication from uh Brookfield um and also in Danbury businesses and then any of our newsletters uh posts um teacher posts and power school and I try to keep up with my WS Instagram. I'm over a thousand followers by the way. I did have a party. any uh let me

089go back. Any questions on that? >> Those two areas. >> Just one quick question. Yeah, go. Um on the the first bullet on the family engagement, that was an idea that didn't end up coming to fruition. >> Well, we thought they thought we had somebody for to coming to come in. It was about social media. >> Okay. >> And it didn't didn't happen. So, we're working on I think we're we have someone uh else that's going to be able to come in. We try to get different people like not the same person every year. >> Sure. >> Um >> is it just a once a year thing or >> um it depends on I've done we've done multiples over the years. It depends on uh you know what um who we can get in how

090much it costs sometimes. um that you know we've had some that have been fantastic and others I honestly part of that problem sometimes is also we even put a survey out when would people what would people like and or like to see >> and or times of day sure >> that they do it and we we got a decent uh amount of responses back but it was no like overwhelming say like oh we all want them at night. Last year we did one or the year before and we had at one time we had two parents show up. So again, it's those hard things, you know, you offer and then that person we they wouldn't let us videotape it to be able to share, right, with other families. That's sometimes the hard thing, too. >>

091Okay. >> But >> okay, >> different areas. >> Thank you. >> D, which AI platform are you guys using? Just out of curiosity. You said that they were using it for it's not you're not using a platform or anything. The >> not specific >> Gemini or any of those? >> Well, some staff do. >> Yeah, that's what I was. >> Some staff do. It depends on what it is they um that they're working on. I think it's it's more about understanding it the process of it how do we use it >> um you know like even in their writing you know for having kids instead of kids >> putting something in like um >> so it gives them the whole all the answer it's like maybe we had in seventh grade they were doing things

092how to make their writing better based on feedback from the teacher how can we make this better for whatever you know whatever the feedback was that type of way because we know they're going to utilize it um and it's interesting I could say here, you know, some of the staff we as we talk about um and and a staff member actually showed me an article. They're talking about getting back to paper and pencil because it's frustrating in certain areas. An example like with math, we if we use they have to write the workout, but then they're like, well, you know what, if they go to do a problem in math, as we know, our math teachers that they could Google, they they could uh you know, do that also in AI and it could show

093them the steps that they would do, >> right? >> And just copy it. Obviously, we want them to understand it, not just to come up with an answer, right? >> So, really, it's just using it appropriately, right? I got you >> is more and helpful also lesson planning and being, you know, more efficient in in things that you may need as a teacher. >> Absolutely. >> To help you out. >> Any other questions? >> All right. for the um as we talk about the school climate plan. These were some of the areas that we had for prevention and intervention strategies that we're talking and some of this again you'll see is similar to what we talked about before. But really just evidence-based practices um and being proactive in any of these uh different things that

094are up here with challenging behaviors, MTSS, restorative practices, so on and so forth. We want to be able to promote that positive uh climate. Um again, you will see the different um things that we have here, the processes that we have, the assemblies. I just put a couple in there that we've talked about uh that we've had, excuse me, that will obviously uh bring up about positive school climate and then the restorative practices which I just spoke about uh before. >> Go ahead. >> Sorry, quick question. >> You want question? Yeah, that's fine. So on the last side, the the discipline assemblies, the those are all things that have happened so far. >> Uh we had one in the fall. We will have one again. It's right usually we joke it's right around spring break

095when they're coming back and you know we got to that the last the ending is we could see it but it's seems far. um you know just again I think it's just more of just going back over what those expectations are and this this is not this is different like we have teachers will do that when they come back from say even the the holiday break they'll do that everyone's a little bit different but this is specific with our Dina students and our assistant principal they go in there again just more or and or the second one in the spring sometimes we'll cover some areas that we have heard and have gone through even with our data for our referrals of things that we need to make sure we reiterate with students. >> And that's

096a schoolwide assembly. >> That would be Yep. By grade level. >> By grade. Yeah. >> Yeah. And and I say assembly, it's not really it's the we actually do it by team. So we have a 7A team will go in in a seminar room then 7B. So it's a little bit smaller, but they all get the same message across in the uh center for empowerment since that maybe is not something. >> I was just going to ask what >> those are those are lessons that we have. It it it there's different uh areas around um just it could be around relationships. It could be around behaviors. Um um >> social media use. Yeah, there's different ones that we have. We've had we'll have it. I think it's going to be there's already happened in sixth

097and seventh. I'm not sure about eth right now, but that's something our counselors put together uh where we have someone and these are lessons that dovetail or or go off of also lessons that they have in our health classes. Okay, >> they could be very similar. So, it's kind of reiterating again the message of appropriate social media use. So, you know, appropriate behaviors, relationship behaviors, >> um things like that. >> Okay. Thank you. around the high-risisk behaviors. Um, again, we our whole idea behind anything is really trying to get it as early as possible, intervening uh with the students and then also the families of of of these of the families of the students that may be the victim um and also the bullying themselves andor with the challenging behaviors. And then really uh in

098our mind like we we have a behavior referral that students have to write a reflection form. Now I I'm not naive to think that every single form is very very reflective because sometimes they're doing that reflection form when they've just been given a consequence. So but we have them reflect on what happened, what would you do differently, you know, what did you do? What was your your responsibility in it? What would you do differently next time? and what is it that maybe we could help you with in situ different situations that you have. And again, the whole idea is that kids understand what the behavior was and where they could change the next time. Like don't where did you go wrong? Where did you steer the the wrong way? And again, I could tell you

099during the years I've been doing this, students know their behaviors. The big the hard part for them is to be able to control that behavior when this student when student said this to them andor they're upset about things that you know we all know they these are things that could be bringing from the outside things that happened at their home like I had a student today found out something about that student's his behavior was a little off today found out that something happened I'm like there you go this weekend you know was something that was really tough on this student but being able to help them get through times and situations like that is a we look at and then our obviously our mental health staff and how we're going to move forward, you know,

100they they they'll sit with students and we any student that goes into our suspension detention sometimes, but any students with more of a serious suspension, our mental health staff, one of our mental health staff meet with that student and they do they actually they will talk about the reflection. They'll get get a little more deeper with that. Um and then obviously meeting with families and helping them to because there are families that help that need that help. You know, they'll say to us, "It's happening at home too. can you help me? You know, how should I how should I do this at home? You know, and again, that's what our job is to be able to help the student, not just at obviously at school, but on the outside. Um, oh, I said that the

101tiered responses. I'll just again we'll talk about the different classroom based um things that could happen. Our administrative support and the times that our assistant principal, myself andor our Dina students are meeting with with our teams and helping them uh through through different or difficult situations sometimes challenging behaviors. the data we have. Um we we go over that in the the um school climate committee and then the behavioral form that we um that we we have had this behavioral form for years up uh incident reporting and then maintaining all the data from that and we share that data with our school climate committee. Um and then the new the use of the new form. >> I actually have a question about that. So I know when we were talking um about the Dina student specifically

102um there is a pretty significant number of you know reported incidents to you. So >> I just wonder is reporting being done differently. Um are you looking at different behaviors or behaviors just escalating? >> What >> I mean I was just shocked when it was like 500 and something referrals so far. You know what I mean? So is that typical? I think that was at the end of last year up to this point. I think it was 200 something. Maybe I said it the wrong way. >> Okay. Cuz I heard five something and I was like >> that was from the year before total I think that we had. >> Okay. >> So, but no, that's a good point though. I think at this point we're still at like two something and one of the

103areas in the summary uh for the school climate we talked about is many of those are happening in the classroom. And again, that's not always the case. A lot of it is on un many many times it's unstructured time more like um we happen to notice that this one's a lot more in the classroom. So one of the things we were supposed to have our PD in February that got snowed out um our BCBA is going I think I even put that in here um was going to do a professional development with our staff on the four functions of behaviors and why people behave the way they behave and how to handle those type of situations. Obviously, they're doing that with certain students that are already on the radar, if you want to say, but

104it's also helping our staff understand, you know, or or help them with different strategies because kids are different, you know, uh, you know, from one, it depends on the type of kid. And there's still things today, I've been here doing this for 30 years, there's still kids today, I'm like, I can't believe I just I'm having this conversation right now. So, we don't have all the answers. You know, what worked for you may not work for Robbie. We we don't know. So that's also our mental health staff and um our BCBA who's again specific to students but she was going to do this professional dem for all staff strategy. >> Thank you. I just it was just something that >> Good question. >> Our bus numbers have been down though >> which is our bus

105referrals have been down >> and we joke because we did meet with the bus drivers at the beginning of this year >> and we did say you know like listen if if we were I'm laughing because we did actually have this conversation. He said, "If there's a student and they're fooling around and you ask them to stop or whatever it may be, obviously it's a safe thing. If you need to pull over and say if I need to make have another conversation with you, we're going to call the school." I said, "You could throw my name around, Mr. Napoli or Mr. We're going to stop and and if we" and we told kids, if we have to drive to that bus to get you off that bus and your parent meet us there to pick

106you up, they're not going to be happy. And whether that really did or not, I'm not sure. But it was good I think for the bus drivers to be able like all of us as teachers we want to hear that you know the administrators have your back type thing and the bus drivers I think felt a little bit more confident to be sit listen you tell them sit down means sit down you need to sit down because your job is to make sure it's a safe ride home not easy we all know that so but that was one area family community engagement again uh just it's the same things I just talked about before with different uh involvement areas that we could have uh involvement from the parents the uh workshop and then also just

107making sure we're communicating whether it's through our newsletters parent square and or I didn't put any power school you know um with the parents data collection last analysis is really just any of the things I just been talking about our school climate surveys which we're going to be doing similar to what Mark was talking about um next week the dis discip disc discipline behavior things that I spoke about and just anything for um our last uh meeting we had talked about students with D's and Fs but then also with attendance issues are they correlating you know is it is it certain students that that are struggling um and some that do correlate that have a correlation the kids that aren't here are are not doing well but then there are ones that it didn't correlate

108so what we're doing is we did was we go in and we see does that student whether it's attendance and or D's and have some type of before. Have we talked to the parents? Have we sent letters home? Have we had meetings with the parents? Um things to that nature. Does that student is it are they an intervention? Are they um are they on a plan? You know, depending on what it is. So, these are all things that when it says relevant support would be it could be any of those areas. Um, and then just our school climate committee identifying those patterns and things of that nature and with along with our MTSS process which has been has I think if you ask our staff has gone much better this year than it has in

109the past. Any questions? >> I have a quick question. Um, so first of all, thank you for this. Um you've covered a broad range of initiatives that you guys are um in the middle of and many of these are the same every year, right? A couple are newer. >> Um do you have from where you are here in February, do you do you have the staff that you need to bring the goals in the SIP um to fruition, do you think? I mean honestly the again the budgeted for our uh bilingual tutor is is an area that we noticed is is a big big need. We were lucky to have the the second math intervention last interventionist last year with you guys that you know you were able to to move that forward has been

110very helpful because we're able to see more kids get more kids involved in the intervention and also through one of our title grants we also have tutors that come in >> that have been helpful. So, I mean, we could always, you know, if we had more, there'd be you'd be able to spread it out more, but obviously, you know, it's something I feel that um we have the mental health staff, we have um you know, the areas for intervention and it's and like I said, even the the social emotional one this year, it's just getting off the ground and we're learning, you know, and we're we're we're going along, but it's definitely been helpful. >> Good. Thank you. >> Um I just have a suggestion or a Yeah. Would you think it would be valuable

111for like the career college counselor at the high school to spend some time at the middle school doing like a transition period for the students who transition? Would that be something that would be valuable? You see it as beneficial? >> So that person coming. So we do the career fair actually we actually do it in the seventh grade. That's part of it and then I know they do it again when they get up here. I mean, I could talk to Mark about >> not as far as a career fair, but um having that person in that position being a link to from the middle school to the high school being a good connection, building the supports and the um relationships with students who are will be transitioning to the high school. >> So, they >>

112because I don't see a lot I would like to see something in an improvement plan that helps the students transition from middle school and high school because we did target that as a need. >> Okay. >> Um for students, right? And we've had this discussion in the past in years past >> um that students aren't always prepared um academically, socially to move from middle school to high school. That's a big transition >> um and mindset and things like that as they you know. So the so the counselors do come in along with the college and career counselor come down and they meet with all our eighth grade students >> and they talk about um >> they talk about like the daily the daily schedule. They'll talk about the >> Yeah. No, I remember that. I

113remember them talking about scheduling and these are the classes, this is what's recommended for you, but more like a >> a global vision of building those connections throughout the year, not just in a one single visit when they're talking about scheduling. And >> I mean, absolutely. We could we could talk if they would be willing to to give that, you know, time if they have the time to come down. And >> yeah, it's just something to think about. >> Yeah. No, kind of. >> And it's good when those kids come. I got to tell you that it is a highlight for those kids because they are very nervous. And you know, again, they're the big fish in eighth grade, but then as they start to talk about that, you see a lot of the kids

114kind of like, okay, you know, it's it's and I won't say it gets more serious as you go up, but it does in a sense we try to tell the kids, but they but thank you, you brought that up, too, is thank you um to TSO was giving us the time for our eighth grade teachers all to meet with the ninth grade teachers. And I was just talking to one of our eighth grade teachers um last week about expectations. Uh Kobe Fitzer was talking um with Jen Shusha, our curriculum person who who had spoke to Liz Spencer about expectations and things that they need to make sure what are those areas that you want as they come in as a as a freshman. So we've we've had those conversations. We've been able to meet cross

115those grade levels which makes a big deal. >> Yeah. >> Dean, do you know what your um data is as far as parents filling out your survey? >> So far I have honestly I have not looked yet. when I last time I looked when I it was that first day I looked when I made that there was a problem with people getting on I think I was at 10 >> I haven't looked since >> okay >> any other questions >> thank you sir thank you >> Dr. P Just a quick shout out to AI who took my photograph of class and made it into a beautiful sketch. >> Use the right way. Yes. Uh so uh in accordance alignment we have the four basic areas of our SIP. Uh so first educational outcomes uh we

116reviewed benchmark interimm assessment MOI data. uh we just finished that up in our PLC's. So we are going to celebrate our victories and hope and replicate them for the remain of the years and uh you know areas that need improvement we'll sit with the curriculum coordinator my curriculum specialists and PLC blocks and really just look at that data and make those improvements that we need and give the teachers the supports they need to do that. Our MTSS process definitely strengthened. Uh our progress monitoring meetings have been pretty amazing this year. uh we do it at the tier 1, 2, and three level. Tier one level happens uh during the PLC blocks, and I'll talk a little bit about that. Well, I'll talk about it now. No, I won't. I'll talk about it during PL, a

117professional learning section. Uh but for tier 2 and tier three, we've been more focused uh on those meetings where we have specifically the classroom teacher, the reading or math interventionist, the MTSS coordinator, and an administrator at those meetings reviewing the progress monitoring at the tier 2 and three levels and really honing in on are we sticking are we staying are we on that aim line and are doing what we need to be doing? Do we need to have a little bit more frequency of interventions or do we have to change up the intervention if it's not really working and they're not making the growth they should be making? uh IAB's results are being analyzed during PLC's. We just recently gave one in fourth grade. Uh and I actually had the pleasure of sitting and just

118listening to the conversations of the fourth grade math teachers who with the IABS the data it's instantaneous. So they had the data they know they gave the IAB they all gave the same one and they really took a look at every question and they saw the questions that the kids did great on the questions that they did not do so great on. And then they're able to open up each kid. How do they do on that question? what happened and it was interesting because a lot of the questions uh you know the kids knew the content it's just the format of the question was tricky all of the following are correct except or all of the following are correct meanwhile and you see it right so from those conversations they're now thinking you know if

119we do our exit slips and we use the exit slips in the same type of format that they're going to see on the ESPA then they'll familiar with questions so now we know you know show what you know in the format that they want you to show what they know. So, really show what you know and really doing some close reading uh in those questions. For professional learning, uh like Marcus said, we've dedicated Wednesday meeting time in PLC days. They're used for the teacher growth and support plans. Uh back to the tier one progress monitoring. The instructional improvement cycles uh have been amazing and that's huge kudos to both Jim and Julie. They're my humanities and STEM curriculum specialists and they've really drilled down the data that the instructional or the uh benchmark and interimm

120assessment data with classroom teachers and they helped organize the small groups and not just helping small groups based on the skills that the student needs. but then going the step further and saying here's what that small group intervention should look like and here's the progress monitoring and really taking four to six of those PLC's and reviewing that data and again back to the aimlines at the tier one because if you had them in tier one and do the effective tier one instruction you keep them out of tier two and three uh we also have our bilingual and T-OLE teacher attend grade level PLC so they're sharing instructional strategies for ML L students and shout out to Nikki who she's also going to come and share some strategies for our classroom teachers in our building so

121she's been a wonderful addition. As far as school climate, our class coins continue to be successful. Uh it's kind of a caught being good where the students get a coin in the cafeteria if they're being respectful or doing what they need to do. And you know, it's funny because I always walk by with my pocket jingling with the coins and students are always like, "Oh, oh, here. Let me pick out that piece of trash." You know, let me have that coin. So each kid gets the coin, they give it to their home room little jars. The little jars get emptied out into our big whole school jar that was completely filled just before the break and we had a PJ stuffy day as the whole school reward. So, kids love that. Uh, our monthly whole

122school pause assemblies that lead into the Cubs clubs continue to be really I mean I love them. We have the K2 and we have the 35 and we really focus on a specific area in the school and just here's the expectation in the cafeteria. Here's what it looks like. We're going to do bathrooms. Here's what it looks like. classrooms, hallways, specials, recess uh in the classrooms, classroom charters, mood meters are visible, common PBIS rewards. Now, not to be confused with PBIS, the PBIS rewards referral system is the data software that we use uh for discipline referrals. So, they can and the nice thing about the PBS PBIS rewards, our teachers track the minor and the major behaviors. So the major behaviors come straight to administration. We see it, it goes right to our emails. Whichever

123one of us handle the situation, we do our due diligence. We do the investigation. We do the parent communication and we complete the close the communication loop because we fill out the PBS rewards. Now the teachers instantly know what happened instead of geez, we sent him there. What happened? Did Did they do anything? What what's happening here? Uh as far as the spiritware, that was part of our survey that our staff wanted some good high quality spiritware. And it's actually a former student who now has this spiritware clothing line. Some nice little class embroidered uh gear that the our staff are wearing and they love it. So we'll have another order coming up. Uh they do once a month they have the volleyball games and most recently we just started our secret pals. There's about

12450 of us involved and for the next two months every Friday we're just going to do something nice for our secret pal. Last Friday I had a peanut butter cup sitting on my desk which was nice. I can't tell you what I did for my secret pal or else they're going to know that I'm their secret pal. For student family engagement, our concerts and classroom celebrations always really well attended. In fact, our band concert, so many kids participate, we had to move it to the gym because it's the only place that can house all short of coming to the high school, but we really want to have it at our school. Uh so our gym housed that. It was an awesome concert uh band. And then our classroom celebrations all week. We've got like 15

12520 parents coming in during the day, which is amazing. other activities. In December, we had the night of lights. We had 250 maybe 300 people. We had 30 plus cars uh decorated by individuals and businesses, hot cocoa serve. So, that was just a great time to be part of class. We have our class variety show coming up. We have our class art show coming up. Uh I highly recommend coming to coming to see both. They're awesome. Uh the class art show, our our school becomes a museum and each wing features grade level artwork. I am in CK home resources uh continue to be shared through the class chronicles uh and parent square communication or there it is consistent communication parent square has been a game changer quite frankly I mean it's just so easy click

126of a button you reach everybody uh class chronicles goes out twice a month one edition the edition just came out today um and then our class connects that's the what I put out every six days for staff uh so they know what's going on in the building so that's Those have all been real game changers I think for communication which was always a a issue at our building especially with a building that's as huge as ours. And then going into the school climate improvement plan and a lot of uh like Mark and Dean said a lot of what we do for our school improvement plan translates into the school climate improvement plan. We looked at all of our survey feedback data from staff, from students, from parents. Uh, and we really created our plan around

127that and aligning with the CSD guidelines, reestablishing and clearly communicating staff expectations annually and increase whole staff community building opportunities. That was the big the staff wants more community building opportunities. And so we're we have our two climate coordinators working hard. they're doing the volleyball or nukem and so they organize some some celebrations outside of school. Uh and we I mean I'd love to see those numbers increase of the number but I get people are busy. They and I get it. We have our families and we have our lives. So we try to do those things you know at reasonable times. I know uh tomorrow is a staff volleyball game. So I'll be sure to lace up the sneaks and dominate that uh front row for consistent and effective student behavior supports. retaching pause expectations

128throughout the years like we do uh not only at our pause assemblies but admin goes I address the whole cafeteria at lunchtime with expectations uh and then June and Danielle work on smaller groups and do by community not much like the discipline assemblies that dean does at the middle school strengthening the consistency of behavioral expectations and responses this is a big one because you know and and a big frustration is why can't you act when I walk into a cafeteria or with a classroom teacher, it's like, "Oh, we better behave." But we need the same behavior for our lunch monitors as well. So, it's really getting that consistency with the expectations and the responses, getting it to the point where, you know, your par educators and your secretaries and your custodians and your administrators and

129your teachers all have these conversations with behaviors and have our expectations with the students and our responses are all consistent. We have our PBIS rewards data not to be confused with PBIS. PBIS rewards is a software system uh to monitor trends and the equity for instructional clarity, engagement and inclusion. PD is going to be focused on differentiation, engagement and the progress monitoring such as we've already done this year. Increased use. This is this is a great feedback from students. They want to see more hands-on and project based learning. Uh so really creating those opportunities not only in specialist classes but also in your math and of course science is always hands-on uh and math and then just the alignment with restor restorative supportive instructional practices. Now when we talk about PBIS the positive behavioral interventions

130and supports uh and that's all-encompassing that's our ruler program that's our uh restorative practices at the tier and it's the tiered level just like MTSS at the tier one level is just having our mood meter in the classroom our classroom charters uh having our morning meetings in all 50 home rooms and then you know into the tier two would be more of your restorative conversations that you have with the kids uh and adults present facilitating or behavior plans or what have As far as prevention and early intervention, again, PBIS, including rule and restorative practices embedded schoolwide, and then explicit instruction in the expectations, self-regulation, conflict resolution. My dream is to walk into a kindergarten classroom and have the kindergarten students say, "Dr. P, I'm a little in the red right now. I just give me

131a meta moment." And for the kindergarten and our kindergarten teachers are great because they are teaching those regulation strategies and and to express your emotions appropriately. We also have the tiered response for high-risisk behaviors. Uh we have the tiered supports. We have an MTSS behavior coordinator who's our one of our school psychologists. So, we have the the tier one classroom interventions for behavior and then the tier 2 pullouts and tier three more intense immediate safety response and parent notification documentation. If if there's a safety issue with when they call the office, boom, we have seven people at the ready on a walkie-talkie that will respond to any crisis at any time during the day, including our mental health staff, our admin, our unarmed security, and our SRO. escalating supports including behavior intervention plans, mental health

132services or multi-disiplinary reviews as appropriate. And then for communication review and continuous improvement, we'll do the monthly data review by the school climate committee looking at the PBIS rewards data so we can actually look at the PBS rewards and the incidents. Where are they happening? Where are they happening most frequently? Is it during specialist classes? Is it in the bathroom? Is it in, you know, at lunch, during recess? We'll do the quarterly progress checks where we are literally going line by line on our school improvement uh school climate improvement plan making sure that what we're doing is working mid-year and end of the year climate survey reviews and then our plan will be revised as needed based on the data stakeholder feedback and our emerging needs and that's the snapshot of class. >> Thank you

133very much. >> Just go back the previous slide for a minute. >> Oh, come on. Sorry. I know you might get to presentation mode. Yeah, >> this one. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> For us. Uh, not to kind of um, >> so the now I can't see it. >> The D, so what does the data like look like as far as for PBIS? It's a great, you know, it's a it's a great system, right? That be safe, be responsible, be respectful. Um, and setting those expectations for behavior. So how does that look for as far as collecting data? So do you guys do referrals at the elementary level? Yeah. So >> is that something that you look at and say okay this these certain behaviors are escalating or >> so PBIS rewards is actually the

134name of the software tracking system. So classroom teachers are entering data and if a lunch monitor has a behavior in the cafeteria so both the minor and major behaviors are being documented and tracked. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Great. Um, has anyone at least um maybe the social workers or school psychologists considered like mindfulness as an extension to kind of help with those self-regulation exercises. It's a it's a great it's like been proven to really help assist, you know, kids of all ages really. >> Um, definitely at the elementary level. >> Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Like we our mental health staff very talented group. We have our three social workers and two two school psychologists. Uh so sure. >> Yeah. Have they ever looked into that using mindfulness or looking into bringing that in? >> I

135my and you know I I don't want to say yes it's absolutely happening but I can certainly reach back out to all them because they do a lot of small groups and they do groups and I'm sure they >> to bring up to them if >> to look into. >> Yeah. >> My suggestion. >> Any other questions? Do you have a survey out there now? Did you start your survey? >> Absolutely. And my class chronicle had the link for today's. We have >> I looked about three days ago. We're between 40 and 50 parents who filled it out already. And our staff was over 30. >> That's awesome. >> So, yeah. So, we're looking good. And then our students are upcoming and we'll get, you know, we shut down home room. So, we get we'll

136get, you know, 500 student responses in grade three, four, and five. >> Great. >> Yeah. >> Excellent. >> Thank you. One, sorry, one more. This is more a general question. What's the percent of parents that we look for to fill out the surveys? And this would go across schools. >> Terrible. Terrible. >> What What's our target, I guess. >> 100% is definitely our target. I think for research purposes, I should know this. 25%. Yeah, >> 25%. And >> just research wise that would be >> so out of my 2500 parents we would like to have 25% of >> those raicipation >> numbers. >> Thank you Dr. P and thank you gentlemen for those presentations. Those were excellent. Thank you very much. >> All right moving on to authorization for signature change. I move that the

137board approve Superintendent Steven Faresi as a designated representative authorized to sign the agreement for child nutrition programs and to sign claims for reimbursement for the Connecticut State Department of Education, school health, nutrition, and family services. >> Second. >> All right. I'm assuming there's no discussion on that, but if there is, please let me know. If not, all right. All in favor, please indicate by saying I. I. >> Any nays? >> All right. It's unanimous. Thank you very much. Congratulations, M. All right, moving on to all business uh discussion. Or should I say the adopted budget um for 2627? I know Miss Fesy, you want to speak and say a few things? >> Do I have to read this? >> I did. I Oh. Oh, no. No, you're fine. You're fine. You're good. You're good. >>

138Sure. And I tried Oh, sister. >> Thank you. And uh Yes. And I tried to share some of that. I think in my update as well um >> just the opportunity um to really review uh more carefully uh the budget. Um I know there's been a tremendous amount of of review already uh in opportunities that um have already reduced the budget to where it is tonight or where it was submitted to. Um and so a continuation of that with an ask of looking at what a.5% or a.1% decrease uh the impact that might have on programs. Um as well as a.5% increase right >> and what that might do. Um I believe you know from from our review of it we are at a point right now where um you know when we look at

139what we could potentially reduce further um we have to always think about the impact of that and some of the unknowns that we we aren't certain of as we continue to move forward into next year where we try to anticipate um what the allocations will look like. So we do think there are opportunities to reallocate potentially. Uh we do think there are opportunities to relook at certain areas and um we are open and willing to do so uh and be able to see what we can accomplish through that process. >> Excellent. >> Okay. >> Um I have a quick clarity question. Is did I read the letter from the first elect correctly and he the number was 4.99% in the letter. Is there clarity on if that was correct? And >> it is. >> Thank

140you. We we did gain clarity on that. I I think I too read that and didn't know if that was a typo or what had happened. And I think we learned uh that the SRO is fully in our budget now. Uh and that brought it up to the 4.99. >> The fourth that the SRO the fourth that was asked for was added. >> Right. The fourth the additional. >> Correct. >> The current three are not in our budget. Correct. Correct. >> Was there a >> Yeah, we know why. >> Is there a discussion on why that was added to our budget when the other three were not are not in our budget? >> Is not it would that person remains a police department employee? Correct. >> Not because >> correct. >> Is there a discussion

141that can happen on can we get more clarity on why that decision was made or what the purpose of that is and how that is going to work? >> Absolutely. >> Cool. Thank you. They're gonna give us the other three >> and Caroline. >> Oh, I thought they got something to say. All right. Um, well, I I don't really have much more on the budget. Um, I'll open the floor any other comments, any other discussion. All business. >> Casey, any any positive change? I remember the drip drip drip a couple years ago of health insurance >> that ultimately came out in our favor, but and I'm of course leaning into that hope. Yes. >> Uh this time, uh have you heard anything new? >> It's still we're still anticipating early March, early to mid-March of

142knowing. Um the last update was that uh the numbers remain the same as they were early in the process, which was to estimate between 13 and 15%. We are estimating 16% because the Fairfield County has to add one additional percentage. So, we're estimating on the high side of that range and and as soon as as soon as I know, you'll all know. >> You'll know first. >> Thank you so much, Casey, for all hard work to the team. Thank you guys so much for all the work we've been doing. Really appreciate it. >> Um, anyone else? No. >> All right. All right. Three main points. I don't know. >> I don't know. Maybe updates from the >> It seems like the um superintendent presiding over the meeting um I mean with the chair >> first

143meeting. >> Uh right. Exactly. Um and then I thought I mean maybe everybody knows this but it was sort of a shock to me that the last day is now 22nd. Yeah, that might be a good deal. >> Probably good to highlight. >> Yeah. >> Graduation still the 20th. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Um should we mention the surveys and the grad party >> um donations? >> We can do the superintendent's update. >> I was going to say you can make one of >> I think the superintendence update. I mean we can put that >> that the surveys are Yeah. Just to make sure that people are participating and then the grab party stuff. I don't know. >> Cool. Thank you. All right. Upcoming events. >> I have those upcoming events at CLA. Um February

14419th is a popup art show. Um 220 is Pause Day assembly and Cubs clubs. Um February 25th is a through March 4th is a CL um kids heart challenge which will be happening during their gym classes. Um, February 26th is a second grade field trip to the new Kanan Nature Center and March 3rd um extending um into conferences as a CLA book fair. W >> really quick though, can I clarify that the Thursday and Friday are the fundraiser for the art show, not the actual art show. The art show is in April. >> Oh, that's interesting. >> Yeah. So, February 19th and 28th, Thursday and Friday is a fundraiser pop-up shop. So, there'll be all kinds of fun little things, goodies and stickers on sale. >> Okay. >> For the go get your stickers. >>

145The Ardo is actually in um April. >> They would be really early for that. Thank you. >> Um WMS um on Friday. So, February 20th is the your first payment for the eighth grade DC field trip is due. Um February 27th, BHS Future Teachers of America are visiting the students at WMS. March 3rd is parent conferences. there's early dismissal and March 4th is the seventh grade band and chorus field trip to the Blue Man Group >> and BHS um 224 or is National Honor Society blood drive from 7:30 to 2. Is that only for students? Mark >> uh staff can do it too. >> Okay. >> Students and staff. Great. >> That's a week from yesterday. Yeah, >> I I'll come donate. um >> yesterday, right? >> Yep. 2:24. Um same date, there's a PTO

146meeting at 6 PM. The 20 February 26, the grad party meets at 6:30 p.m. 35 is parent conferences, so half day. Um and then going out a little bit further, um for the high school, the 11th, March 11th is all sports booster club meeting at 6:30. And then the High School Musical is uh March 13th through the 15th. >> So, all right. >> It's early, but it'll get out there. >> Got a lot coming. That's great. >> June 27th >> before we know. >> All right. Well, that concludes our regular session of the board of ed meeting. I can call to um >> No, I'm sorry. >> I'm ending. >> I'm not ending anything. So I move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing safety and security. >> All in

147favor? >> I I >> Any names? >> No. Okay. >> Actually, um I this probably should be on the record because this may be the only >> probably should be on the record because this may be the only time it'll ever happen. Uh but I saw an email from um an audience member reminding us that the um there there are five exemptions to FOIC to go into executive session things that cannot be public right and um whereas security is one of those safety is not >> okay >> so >> okay so I move to um >> we'll just do an amend motion. So I move to amend the motion. >> Huh? >> At school at the public at the EPS school system or school. >> Yes. >> So wait under that umbrella security. Yes, for

148sure. >> That's what I'm saying. >> But safety >> security at BHPS. >> Security at BHS public. >> Yeah, because safety is is typically >> not BHS. >> I I I don't think that falls under the exemption. I don't know. No, just secure. Just security. >> Yeah, >> just security is fine. >> Yeah. >> Okay, great. Thanks. >> So, I move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing security at Brookfield Public Schools. >> Second. >> All right. You got that right. All in favor? Please say I >> I unanimous. Thank you very much. >> You all right? >> You can just Yeah. No. No. >> Thank you very much. Sanger. Thank