Board of Education Meeting

0017:00 and we'd like to call to order our call to order our regular Brookfield uh board of education meeting. Would you please join me in the pledge of allegiance, please? >> I pledge algiance 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 everyone. So, roll call. We are missing Dr. Younglood tonight. Um the rest of us are here. Um, good to see everyone. Uh, for public comment, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. We switched up public comment a little bit. Um, I'm sorry. Before I do the public comment, I just want to give a quick shout out to the football team, to the parents, to the everybody involved. We had

002a great season this year. Unfortunately, we did come up short for all of those that did watch, but a special shout out to the coaches, to all the families that came down, the cheerleaders, the bomb squad, all the fans, all the students. I was at pretty much every single game except for two, unfortunately. and uh it was just a great support and a great season. So, I just want to give a quick shout out. Um, as for public comment, we got rid of the second public comment and we decided to have uh open up the first public comment to open the floor to any topic uh the public like to speak about. We received some emails and it's a good idea like uh one of the emails suggested that maybe students might want to come

003down and speak early in the evening. So, uh the floor is open. Um the the board we do welcome public comment. be uh each speaker will have up to three minutes to provide input to the board and again it's on any topic you guys want. Uh you'll have we'll have 20 minutes aotted it uh for the public comment as a whole and um and again it's on any uh any item you want and discuss uh discussion of school personnel individualized students or of individual members of the board is prohibited. So on that note we open the floor to Mr. Moes. Good evening sir. So, I just want to start by saying thank you for opening up the initial public comment section to any topic. I know there are students out there. I know there are

004parents who can't give up. Okay, trying this again. Oh, I can hear myself now. Um, want to start by saying thank you for opening the public comment section up to any topic. I know there are students who do want to come out and speak. I know there are parents who want to come out and speak and can't wait until 910 and as budget season rolls around 11, midnight, 1:00 a.m. So, thank you. Um, it's a good first step in trying to change what is the perception of not being heard or listened to. And I appreciate that and I think it's worth stating that. Um, it's worth noting also that the board bylaws do state that it can be any topic. So, I appreciate that we're coming in line with the bylaws that we have in

005place as opposed to randomly making rules that do not line up with the bylaws. I think it's important. We talk about making regulations for our students and we want them to follow them. And I've been up here many times talking about 5144 and the student discipline policy. And I want to believe that we can have rules and regulations and policies in place and come to a respect where they're followed without having to have 41 versions of suspension and expulsion punishment. Because when it comes to the adults on the board of education or the adults in the administration of the board of education, it's really important that given that there really are no punishments other than, you know, not being reelected, that our students see that the rules the adults make for themselves are also being

006followed. Um, it's really interesting to read through the bylaws and the regulations of the board. Um, I've mentioned it before, the idea that both regulations and policy are in the handbook of having to go through the board. And I hope that will continue. I hope that the language of policy and regulation will get to members of the public. I hope that committee meetings will become filmed, videoed, streamed, whatever, so that that information can get to the public. I hope that the emails that lots of people send in become a part of the minutes so that folks can know what their neighbors are concerned about. Lots of things. So for anyone watching at home, everyone who told me that you really really want our elementary school kids to have 30 minutes of recess, you need to

007come out to board meetings and speak. For everyone who wants our kids at the middle school to have more than 15 minutes for lunch, you need to come out and speak. Please come out and speak. And if we get 50 people out here and it's going to overrun the 20 minutes, anybody on the board has the ability to make a motion to suspend the rules and let everybody be heard at night. So, I'm asking you to keep that in mind. You have the ability, I understand the 20-minute limit, but you also have the ability at any point in time to give us the space to speak. Again, thank you for opening up public comment to any topic. And there's a bunch of people here to speak, so I'm going to be quiet now. Thank you.

008Thank you, Mr. Mars. Appreciate that. Okay. Um Pam Krauss. >> Good evening. >> Uh my name is Pam Krauss, Tuk Cove Road, Brookfield. Thank you for the opportunity to give these comments tonight. I'm an attorney, retired teacher, local grandmother. I've been working with a group of residents for two and a half years with Sierra Club, Save the Sound, and the BOS to oppose the proposal for Irakcoy, a pipeline and gas company to construct two more additional gas compressors behind Wiskanir Middle School. I offer you a copy tonight of a study called Potential Impacts of the Expanded Airquy Compressor Station in Brookfield, Connecticut. This was presented to the town with invites, including the school board, in July of 2024. There have been other occasions for outreach on this issue to the school board. Today, I'm here

009to inform you that on January 8th, 2026 at 5:00 pm, the state of Connecticut Deep will hold anformational hearing via Zoom. The public will have the opportunity to comment on this project and submit comment letters to CTD Deep until January 15th. Although the BOS, Save the Sound, and local residents have petitioned for a full evidentiary hearing, to date, thisformational hearing is the last opportunity that we know of to comment and object to the proposal, which can present health and safety issues to the students, staff, and residents near WMS. The VOS has opposed the project as as has opposed the project as proposed and is in the litigation right now with DEP. The school board has not opposed the project nor has acknowledged the risk so far as we know. This presents a problem when an

010elected body and leadership ignores what they either know or should know. Should there be a safety incident, which may, can, and does happen with gas facilities, the school board will have to answer to our parents and the community. So, I urge you to consider this report that I'm going to give you. And finally, do your due diligence on the matter to participate in the January 8th hearing to show that the safety and health risks of Brookfield students is a concern of this board. There is a preparation meeting for the January 8th hearing on January 5th at town hall. Here's the report. I don't know who to >> Thank you. >> What's that? >> Yeah, that's Thank you. >> I don't know. Yeah, for sure. All right. Um, Miss Swift, Carrie Swift. >> Carrie Swift, 25

011Pocono Ridge Road. I'm um here to piggyback on what Pam said. I've actually been opposing these compressors for 20 years. And uh so there's already two there polluting compressors. The board at that time, the board of ed did stand up and oppose these compressors and we're asking you to do the same. It's very important we speak out. Fortunately, our uh board of selectmen has and our state and representatives. However, this they have a lot of acreage up there. They're trying to buy more. And there's also Pam should have mentioned there's 1900 ft.org is our website. Please go to that for information. The reason it's 1900 ft is because it's 1900 feet from the middle school. And this is a danger safety. uh our rate of asthma in Brookfield in our children and my children have

012my son had asthma so I fought this hard on the asthma front and now we know that this type of pollution causes asthma at that time there was a little uncertainty in the science now we know so we are now doubling what those kids will be breathing we in uh Fairfield County are in a severe nonattainment zone as far as the clean air act we in Connecticut have some of the worst air in the country due to our the um winds coming in from the west, the traffic, the pollution. We have literally some of the worst air in the country. In Brookfield, we have a rate of our children have 11.5% asthma. The Connecticut has an 8.2%. So, we're higher than the state of Connecticut. What is the national average? 6.2%. So, we already have

013a big problem. Um, and now we're going to have pumping pollution into the air 247. These are ga natural gas turbines, methane, uh, uh, particulate matter, 2.5, all kinds of carcinogens. We don't know. We don't even know because they will do no ambient air testing. We've been asking for ambient air testing for over two years up there. There's never any ambient air testing required. So, we're really asking everyone, I have a um, flyer for you people. It is a way to get into the Zoom for the hearing and we'd ask people to go to the website and look because parents from my generation stood up and we spoke out and unfortunately we did not succeed but it's really important for parents with children in the school. I mean I was horrified at the time and

014now we're putting even more. So, it's really important for us to speak out because there are we've offered alternatives if this does have to be built that it could be an electric compressor. There's no reason they have to pump pollution into our air 24/7. They already have two up there. And just the lack of caring and this is deep. That is our Department of Environmental Protection. They're supposed to be protecting us and they are not. And we need to really speak out. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. All right. Deb case. >> Okay. >> Good evening. Deborah Case, Brookfield resident. I stand before you today to address an issue that deserves our immediate attention. the absence of an active school security task force. On paper, we have a subcommittee security task force, but it

015is not active. It is everything other. It's it's almost pretty much defunct. If you go on and you look at the minutes and you look at the agenda, there's never any any detailed new business, old business. It is pretty much all but defunct. It's a shame. I want to start out giving you a little bit of background history. In Brookfield, the security task force was started by a small group of parents. Okay? We are the primary stakeholders in our children's education. To attend a subcommittee meeting and not be able to talk because their public comment doesn't allow a parent because it's not on the agenda to speak at a security task force meeting is disgusting. Okay? when you have nothing even of any value. If you look at the minutes, there's nothing on there. There

016is an allhazard plan for our schools, all districts in Connecticut. That there's standards that we need to be following. It is enough to keep us busy with a meeting once a month. The security task force subcommittee is the most important subcommittee that the Brookfield or any district has for their board of education. Okay? So, there's a lot of legalities in it. Um, a lot of what I brought up in the past the last couple of meetings, um, what the responses that I got back were was just really honestly a bunch of Okay? There were not truths. They were not adhering to the state mandates, the state statutes. Um, we heard from the the past chair that solely and I have it in writing that the administrators are in charge of security planning. That is not

017true. our security task force in conjunction with our um climate coordinators should be meeting together acting on appropriate planning. I can go on and on about this. Our security task force is pretty much defunct and I'd like to see that resurrected. I was the whistleblower during UVADI. Uh we had a town meeting and then it was defunct. Okay. and we bought it back. Um I want to say it was 2021 maybe. Um we were doing some good work then and then it went to the side. Um, it just concerns me that when we have somebody arrested on the 18th of September, a minute away from Wiskanir school and we don't have a security safety plan in place for that year and we're not working together and our kids are playing on the front lawn of

018that school and we have somebody that a year-long investigation was was had on that person. Not saying that that person was going to come and I don't want to accuse anyone of coming to do any harm to our school. But when we have somebody that we know is h is was arrested for a ghost gun a minute away from our schools with high velocity powered magazines in their car. I'm concerned. I'm concerned about that. That we had nothing going into the school year. Extra security at that school that we had no training at that school. I I'm sorry, but the Alice training needs to be consistent. It needs to go on. >> Thank you, Mrs. Yes, I appreciate you. Thank you. >> Andy. >> All right. Can you hear me? >> Yes, sir. >> Andy

019Korea. Um, I'm speaking tonight to address uh serious failure regarding our security plan compliance. Um, specifically, board review was deliberately eliminated, likely to cover for being unprepared, and justified by a demonstr demonstrabably false legal interpretation. administration is claiming that the board approval was not required. This is just simply wrong. State statute explicitly states the responsibility of these security standards um lie with the board, not solely on the administration. The signatory page declares that the of the plan is BOE policy. Redefining this obligation to exclude the board violates the law. It is yet another unilateral action in violation of BOE policy. Why does this matter? We are neighbors to New Town. The Sandy Hook anniversary was just this last weekend. We know why these laws exist. They were strengthened in the wake of Sandy Hook [laughter]

020to act, you know, to drive this level of compliance. Investigations into Yuvaldi showed that the plans failed. They had these plans, but they failed because of a culture of non-compliance where administration took convenience um where convenience replaced strict adherence to policy. By eliminating board review here, you create that same culture. You are removing the only oversight mechanism designed to ensure the plans are not just paper tigers. Given our history, this isn't just negligence. It's an insult to the victims these laws are designed to protect. If we look at the credibility and timing, this plan was approved with a flurry uh in a flurry near the end of the near the deadline after years of non-compliance after a community member, Mr. Cassace, started asking questions in midepptember. The timeline suggests that administration was caught flat-footed. His

021sudden legal interpretation appears to be nothing more than a desperate desperate attempt to back into a justification for not following the correct process. The board and administration lack credibility that the all hazards plan is a quality plan that has been appropriately reviewed and exercised. All we get is it's confidential, but trust us. We cannot accept trust us when the administration is consistently caught in contradictions and gives us every reason to distrust them. I previously notified the board of my intent to file an ethics violation for a board member lying under oath in an ethics hearing, no less, where the defense was, "The lawyer gave me permission to violate board policy," citing legal legal advice to justify violating policy is an ethics violation itself. You cannot use counsel to legitimize an unauthorized removal of checks and

022balances. And in Connecticut, perjury and making false written statements to a public agency is a crime. So um I expected the board to immediately remedy this by reviewing and reertifying the all hers hazards plan and improve it if necessary. I will be filing the ethics complaints regarding the perjury and false written statements to public agency. And if you don't, however, uh if you don't immediately admit the elimination of the board review and take steps to fix the record, I will also file a complaint with the state's attorney requesting an investigation and prosecution against the relevant administrator and board member. And um sorry, it's been three minutes, sir. I'm sorry. Thank you for your time, sir. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you everyone who participated in public comment. Um and again, like

023uh Mr. Mora said, it's open for everyone. So, please come down, share your thoughts. We'd love to hear from you. Okay. Um, written correspondents. >> The following people have written to the board of education since the last meeting. Heather Payne, Juan Okalar, Andy Korea, three emails. Deborah Casease, two emails, and Kelly Greenwood. >> Thank you. All right, we're moving on to approval of board minutes. I move that the board approve the minutes listed as recommended. Regular meeting 123 2025 and special meeting 1211 2025. >> Second. >> Okay. Any discussion from moving right along. All those in favor of approving board minutes say I. >> I. I. >> Any nays? >> No nays. Unanimous. Thank you. All right. >> Vonda superintendent update. >> Thank you. will be brief. I'm going to defer the time to the

024budget, sorry, budget presentation. However, I wanted to also acknowledge the football. Um, I was rooting for Brookfield. I live in Berlin, >> but I truly was rooting for Brookfield and as was my husband. Um, cold game, tight game. I was really proud of of all >> the kids that played. And I I did just want to recognize Suparency, high school English teacher, who is resigning and taking a job much closer to home in Chester. Cheshure is very lucky to to have her. Um, you know, we had some very kind words from a lot of staff, the high school principal, just on her impact with the learners, her ability to develop critical thinking and connecting with humans. And so, um, we just we would really like to wish her well. It's a loss. We're >> 20

025years a loss. Thank you. >> Uh superintendent search committee update. >> Go for it. >> Um the update is that we are we have uh completed the first round of interviews and in January we will have the second round of interviews. Um and then who knows from there. [laughter] That was where we're at currently. >> All right. Thank you. Sounds good. All right. Subcommittee reports [clears throat] finance. Okay. >> Oh, you can. >> That's me today. >> You're good. >> Do I push it on? >> No, you're good. You're good. >> Okay. Um, we met uh last Thursday, December 11th, um, at 6:30. There was no public public comment at that time. Uh, we reviewed the check registers over $1,000 report. Uh, and the November year-to-date financial report. No significant questions for either one of

026those. Under old business, we reviewed uh a teacher turnover update and we decided to also move that into reoccurring business right every week. Uh as as well as the spe special education out of district update will be reviewed uh at every meeting. Uh under new business uh the the board not board the committee did decide to move our meeting to the first the second Tuesday of each month. So that'll be published and given notice to the public. Correct. >> At 6 p.m. >> uh at 6 p.m. correct going forward. Um and then there was just one piece of miscellaneous discussion. Uh we discussed the uh policy around gym usage fees for the Brookfield Basketball Association uh and are in communication um with the the leaders of that organization. >> Yes. >> And then we adjourned

027at 7:29. >> Excellent. >> Thank you. >> Youth Commission Sarah, >> this will be super brief. Um very importantly, Ernesto Dila did join as an alternate member of the youth commission which is great. And then they're in the middle of they're in the beginning stages of planning for the career fair >> for March. So that's a huge deal that's coming up. Um stay tuned. >> Very nice. Excellent. Can't wait to hear about that. That's awesome. All right. I believe we're missing someone, although I'm not sure where she is. So, uh we'll have to skip over that one for Emily tonight. Um consent agenda. Move on to consent agenda. >> Yeah. I just uh I just realized that we left Mike Einig off of uh communication. He did write in. Oh, yes. That's right. From the

028BBA. That's right. That was That's right. That's right. >> I didn't catch it. I'm sorry. >> So, thank you. >> No. Um, I move uh that the board approve the items listed on the consent agenda as follows. Transfers and resignations. >> Second. >> And November financials. >> End November financials. >> Second. >> All right. Uh, any discussion? >> All those in favor of approving consent agenda say I. I. >> Any nays? Anonymous. Thank you, ladies. and new business. >> Oh, yes. Say yeah. Um, next generation accountability update performance index from Deb. >> Thank you, Deb. Floor is yours. >> Okay. Press the right button. See if it works. someone else. >> Here comes Zack. >> Press the button for sure. Make me look bad. >> Mic is on. >> Thank you. All righty. Well, let

029me go back one because we answered. >> Okay. So, thank you very much. I have the privilege of uh presenting the next generation accountability report for the 2024 2025 um school year for both the uh Brookfield School District as a whole as well as each of the individual schools. All right. So, first and foremost, I included this slide again as I did in the October um uh data uh presentation. Oh, hi Emily. Um this is the demographic snapshot of the um learning community. Who are our learners? I think it's really important to always start with um the the students, right? So, this is basically um slightly updated from our October um one snapshot. uh our total student population right now in enrollment is I believe I think we did add a student even went before

030even after I did uh this slide so we have a total of 15% of our students uh with disabilities students with a 504 it's 10% uh students that are eligible for free and reduced price lunch is 26% and students who are multilingual learners uh prov are 6% of our student population um so all compris prize. We have about 20 uh 26% of students that will be I'll talk a little bit more about them as our high need students as uh reflected by the uh state of Connecticut. Um, and in terms of numbers of students, percentages of students that require um, additional accommodations or instructional supports um, in order to have equitable access of curriculum, we're talking about at least 20 uh, 25, excuse me, 31% of our students. So, I think that's important information to

031note. Okay. So, what do the accountability systems do for educators? um they focus really on a broader set of indicators that are providing a more uh complete picture of a school district, right? Um the model that the state developed was to provide a greater emphasis on academic growth and expands the ownership of the accountability to more uh staff guarding really against the narrowing of the curriculum to just the tested subjects. So, you'll notice as I continue with the presentation that in this accountability report, our high needs populations, which include our free uh students that are eligible for free and reduced lunch, students with disabilities and multilingual learners, um are included both in the all student population data as well as in the standalone u highne student population. So, it's important to note that in the

032accountability systems, um, those student populations are included twice on purpose to be able to make sure to hold schools accountable, uh, for this population to ensure equitable access to curriculum for, uh, historically marginalized populations. All right, these are the 12 indicators um that are included in the accountability uh, reports. So um you'll note that both the academic as achievement data um is part of this report as well as the um growth data um and it uses the average achievement of all students and students with high needs across all statewide assessments in ELA math and science. And um you can see that there is a broad spectrums of indicators included. So it goes really above and beyond just test scores. Okay. So this slide shows the district accountability data from the first two indicators reflecting academic

033performance and academic growth for the last two testing years. I want to note first of all the arrows that I put there as visuals. Um, just to let you know that I used two percentage points as an indicator of growth or decline um, in the overall scores because most of the scores were kind of relatively flat. So I just used the 2% as um, as a criteria for that. Um, you can see that our student science and math performance for all students again all students are inclusive of high need students is um, has declined. Our math and science performance for high need students reflects some of the lowest scores in our overall data. And uh on the positive, our ELA academic growth for our highnee students is up by three percentage points. Um and all

034else is relatively flat from last year. Okay. So here you can see the remainder of the 12 indicators uh included in this report. You'll note a 10 percentage point decrease in our multilingual student uh performance in our English language proficiency for literacy, which is reading and writing as measured by our lost links with a slight increase in their performance on the oral the speaking and listening portion. You'll note that our chronic absenteeism for our high needs population is up by about 3 percentage points. an almost eight percentage point decrease in the number of students taking at least two college and career readiness courses in grades 11 and 12 and a 7% uh point increase in the number of students passing those college and career readiness exams in 11th and 12th grade or earning college credit

035fitness went up by five percentage points however it remains an area of opportunity uh for growth I understand that the push-ups are quite difficult for us students [laughter] um on track to graduation. Students earning at least six course credits by the end of nth grade is slightly down and arts access is down nine percentage points. Um and overall accountability index which is basically like um the report card uh grade if you will is 81.9 which is relatively flat from last year which was 81.8. All right continuing on. So this slide is showing you participation rates and you'll note that the participation rates in all content areas for our highne student population is under the minimum participation standard of 95%. With science really lagging behind. So um educational equity um by accurately reflecting all student groups

036again including the uh historically marginalized populations was the uh impetus for the state to um have these minimum standard participation rates. Okay. The state considers a district as having an outlier gap if the rate between the non- highnee students and the high need students exceeds the state gap by at least one standard deviation. We do not have any gaps in any of our contact areas overall as a district for the 2024 2025 um school year which was great. Last year, the the previous year in 2023 2024, um we did have a gap in our science performance as a district. Um you'll note as I continue with the presentation that we do have some gaps at the individual school levels. So overall, our DUR rank comparison going from 2022 to the 24 uh 25 school year

037remained relatively flat. Uh Brookfield's ranks uh 12 out of 21 districts in Derby B putting us about in the middle of the pack, right? A little bit of a different story than the October presentation in which our academic achievement was on the lower the lowest right in the DUR. So again with the 12 indicators giving a more holistic um view of the school district and the um individual schools um paints a different picture for u for Brookfield. So, this is just a link if um you choose to do a little bit more of a deeper dive into the individual school results um after I present them. Um there's a lot of information there. So, you may choose to go and um look a little bit deeper. All right. So, with that, let me talk a

038little bit about the categories. So, um, the state provides each school with an accountability category that's based on their accountability index scores. Schools that are initially categorized as a category 1 or a category 2 um will be dropped one category if there is um an outlier gap um or if there is a participation rate that is less than the 95% minimum standard. And um unfortunately uh you'll see as I continue that each of our three schools did in fact have either um an outlier gap andor um the parti the participation minimum standard under 95%. So all three schools did unfortunately bump down a category. So let's start with Kindle Lake Elementary School. As a reminder, the state converts scaled scores from the state assessment data into an index rate um score for each indicator. They

039assign a target and maximum points that can be earned for each indicator. So the amount of points earned for each indicator is prorated based on the percentage of the target that was achieved. So let me give you an example really quickly. If you look at the ELA performance index for all students, the index rate was 72.8, the target, as I said, the state makes these targets for all of these indicators. So the target for that particular indicator is 75, right? So 72.8, not bad, right? With target of 75. Um the maximum points you can um earn is 50 points and um we earned CLES earned 48.5 of those 50 points. So therefore they earned 97% of the total amount of points that could be earned. Okay. So just giving you some reference in terms of

040how you can interpret these these scores. So with that said, um the overall accountability index, which is the number down here, right, the 76.3, that's kind of like the report card score. Um that score is equal to the average of the total percentage of points that are earned. So when we look at CLES data, we can see that areas of opportunity for improvement, right, for us to further review would be the math performance for high needs as well as math academic growth for all students and our high need students and physical fitness. Uh remember that our high need students count in both the all students as well as the standalone high needs categories, right? So areas of success relative to the scoring are the ELA ELA performance for all students as well as um the

041ELA growth for our high need students and our progress towards English language proficiency in literacy reading and writing for our ML students as measured by last links. So we want to note um that as I think I previously mentioned that the state gives more emphasis on growth in the accountability reports than um over achievement and you can see that the targets for growth right so if you look over here the targets um for growth are 100% and the targets for achievement are 75 right with a maximum point aotment of 50 for achievement and 100 for growth. So again just really showing the emphasis on growth. Um and finally we see that in the prior year the accountability index was 74.4. The school was categorized as a category 3. And we can see that for the

0422425 school year u the report card score was a 76.3 right? The accountability index is 76.3. So a slight increase um from the prior year. And um as I said, some some really good successes with the scoring in ELA at CLES. All right, we continue with CLES in terms of looking for gap uh indicators. And as you can see um in the 2023 2024 school year, there was a gap in the science performance index um but the participation rates in all areas were at least 95%. So in the 2024 2025 um you can see that we did not have any gaps any outlier gaps in CLES. However, the participation rates um for the math highnee student population and the science high need student population unfortunately was below the minimum participation standard of 95%. Oops. So

043unfortunately, right, they could have been categorized as a category 2 school based on their um ratings, but bumped down to a category 3. All right, so let's talk about Whiskanir. Areas of opportunity to further explore, right, for Whiskanir are the math and science performance for high needs, ELA growth for our high need student population and all students, and math growth for high needs uh student population. and again physical fitness. Um also progress towards English language proficiency for our ML students. Um it's important to note that we have currently 78 multilingual uh learners at uh CLES where we have three staff members, one Tissole teacher, one bilingual Spanish um teacher and one bilingual Portuguese um teacher. We currently have now uh 35 um multilingual learners at Whiskanir and 25 multilingual learners at Brookville High School, which

044has a total between those two schools, 60 multilingual learners that are being serviced by one TE-OL teacher who has to um move between both schools. So, we'll talk a little bit more about that when we do our budget presentation. Um let's see. Uh areas of success in this scoring include ELA performance for all students and math performance um for all students, chronic absenteeism, and the overall takeaways really for um Whiskanir uh really um looks at having to do some further examination of our high needs population services including our multilingual supports. you'll see that the accountability index score was 73.3 um in this current um scoring of the 2024 2025 school year. Um down slightly from the 76.6 in the 23 24 school year. um was a category three in the 23 24 school year based

045on participation rates um and gap and yet again is a category three um as well for the same reason because here we can see that last year whiskier did have one gap in science between the high needs and the non- high needs student population again the reminder that the gap is considered an outlier when there is a gap between the non- high need student population and the high need stu student population that's at least one standard deviation um more than the state. So, while Wiskinire also um has a participation rate in science for their high needs population that's below the minimum 95% standard, I have to say this is really a huge improvement from last year in which all of their participation rates were under the minimum standard of 95%. Um and Whiskin Air administration

046and teachers really worked hard at helping um families to understand the importance of having their students engage in these um testing situations as they consider really their long-term educational trajectories and experiences um and the need to persevere and um engage in high stakes um testing. So uh I I hope they'll continue those efforts um this year as well. All right, we'll move on to Brookville High School. So for the high school, you'll note that the maximum points points are higher than the K8 points and there are no growth indicators as the state testing data is from grade 11. Um it's based on the SAT school day, uh the NGSS uh testing and alternate um assessments as well. Um the areas of opportunity for Brookfield High School to um look at would be ELA performance for

047high need student population, math performance uh index for all students as well as especially for our high needs um student populations with only a 48.2 at that index rate and science performance um for high needs and yes physical fitness. Um areas of success uh relative to the scoring scoring is uh chronic um absenteeism uh preparation for college and career readiness uh percent taking courses on track to graduation four-year graduation um for all students six-year graduation for a high need student population and post-secary entrance and arts access. All of those areas received 100% of the total points um that were able to be earned. Um so the overall accountability index score was pretty consistent with last year. Uh we had 83.8 as our um report card score. The accountability index score for 2425. Um and in

048the previous year of 23 24 it was 83.5 relatively flat. Um in the 23 24 school year it was also a category two and a school of distinction because it rated at the top 10% of the high schools in the state. Um this year it would have also been a category 2. Um but unfortunately there um they did take a hit as you can see in the participation rate of our science highnee students. So they too classified as a category three. So you can see that there are no gaps um no outlier gaps between their highne population and their non- highnee population but again under that 95% minimum standard for the uh participation rate. Okay. So I'm not going to read everything on this slide. A lot of this was already covered in the October

049presentation both on the presentation that I did in terms of the student performance data but also on the principal school improvement plans. Um we expect them to perhaps come back and present on progress relative to those school improvement plans perhaps in uh February. Um but just of some notes um you know looking at enhancement of the MTSS practices data informed processes right to help identify areas of focus and effectiveness of instruction. Um and just to go to other slide there continued implementation of the special education strategic plan. right? When you talk about our highnee student population, um and also um going back to this slide, I think it was the Oh, it's on this one, I think. Anyway, the multilingual learner um professional learning. I thought it was on one of these slides, but now

050I can't find it. but basically professional um learning opportunities for um really providing equitable access to curriculum for um all of our students including our multilingual uh learner um population and that is that so I included this also in the same as my ending in this slide presentation as well right um together we have the opportunity to um do great things >> thank Thank you very much. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any questions? >> I have one. Hey Deb, with um our high need students, are these parents opting their children out of testing or you know, is there something that we're doing? Say we have a nonverbal child um expected to take a test. Is there anything for that or are they counted in this gene? >> Yeah, so great question. Thank you. Um

051we do have alternate assessments. you have to um you know qualify for that. So there's an you know something that you complete and you send it into the state in order to get approval um for Connecticut alternate assessments. We do have um you know students that do participate in that. But yes um we do have parents that are opting their students out of the testing. >> Okay. Thank you. Can you speak more to why we allow the opt outs? Um, well, I we can't really force people. I mean, you they're supposed to be um testing, but if they opt their student out, there's really not much we can do. We we have, as I said, Whiskiner really did have an exerted effort to really help families understand the importance. And I even presented to Septto

052um last year um to help families to see all of the various accommodations and designated supports that are offered not even just through the test through the testing but that are you know good instructional um practices to um to help students. Um so we'll continue I think with more of that going into the you know the the springtime to help families understand what's available um to the students and the importance of you know um having students to persevere and and engage in highstake testings right um because there's going to be a lot of other opportunities throughout their life that they're going to have to do such things right >> cool thank you >> hi Deb that's Okay. No, it's fine. >> Um, I did write an email. I know it was today. Um, I was

053wondering how we monitor attendance at all levels. >> It's like when I hear monitor, I think of like, oh, Susie was absent, you know, two times this week and just kind of tracking. Um, but I'm wondering if if we're thinking more on the lines of outreach, right? How do we improve outreach to improve attendance, >> you Yeah, I know that at each of the schools they do have like um I'll call it help teams. I'm not really sure what each school calls them, but there are teams where they're actually looking at um student attendance. Um and I know um you know guidance counselors, social workers, um assistant principles do engage in making contact um with families where they're starting to you know get up to that uh you know higher number of of attendance um

054you know unexcused absences. Um so that is happening um at the schools. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah, if we could just get me a little bit more information about that cuz as far as an improvement approach right on your slide. Um I would want to see it improve not monitoring the monitoring modern monitor aspect of it but how are we really reaching out providing an outreach because it's not just about the right be proactive >> um engaging with families students not just >> where's your note you were absent today where is it >> or discip you know >> not having that discipline approach being that really that outreach that engaging too because we want children in the seats. Absolutely. >> To improve instruction, too. >> And I do know that there was um a great effort

055made at the high school, I believe last year. I see Emily going, "Yes." Um and I believe um Jules Shidy was very involved with that um because I think in the previous year, and I don't recall the exact numbers, but the chronic absenteeism rates were a lot higher and there was a huge reduction in that. Um, in last year's data, uh, we went up slightly this year, but we're still, um, you know, at that 100% of the, uh, percent of, uh, points earned in chronic absenteeism again as compared to the state. Um, but I think the principles can certainly speak to more of that if it's in some of their school improvement plans and some of the efforts that they're making because to your point to be proactive versus reactive. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you.

056Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Thank you for the question. >> Thank you so much. >> Um, can I make a motion? Yeah, I have to make a motion for that. Right. That's what I see. I'm looking. I'd like to make a motion to uh just switch the agenda around to bring welcome [music] Emily because she arrived a little late. Uh, if we can hold pause on B for new business and go back to Emily's part of the agenda. >> Second. >> All in favor of changing the move one. I >> any naysay? No. All >> it's all you. Welcome. >> All right. Thank you. >> Go. 20 push-ups will be in late, but it's you guys. [laughter] >> Oh, don't worry. We won the game, so >> that's all that matters. That's all

057that matters. That's all that matters. >> Um, so yesterday we had our uh winter band and chorus concert. They all they sounded great and it was actually a very good turnout. Like all the seats mostly full. It was pretty great. And during ILT today and tomorrow, certain students like they do like they separate by grades report to the auditorium and we get to hear like a mini concert of what they performed yesterday. And so it gives the students a chance to actually hear their peers who couldn't make it um yesterday because there was a basketball game going on. So a lot of people couldn't make it. But every all the students really appreciated that. And we are actively in our spirit week. So today was holiday cheer day. So we got to like dress up

058as anything related to like a holiday movie or a character in the movie. Tomorrow is ski slope versus ski lodge. And then Friday is color wars. So freshmen wear white, sophomores wear blue, juniors wear green, seniors wear red, and faculty wear black. And we're having a winter pep rally this Friday to honor our winter sports and enhance our pride because a after the pep rallies and after football, the pride really dies down, but we're trying to get it back for some winter sports. So we're all really excited for that. It's the first one in a in a pretty good amount of years. So everyone's excited. and student government yesterday went to the capital building for the mock legislative session. I know I've talked about that, but they really enjoyed that. A good amount of kids

059went and they all thought it was very productive and seeing how the government really runs. And that's all I have for us today. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you, Emily. Great job. Thank you so much. >> All right. Um, back to new business. The floor is yours, Vonda, for our 2627 budget proposal. Good evening. Um before I start, I I would like to take a moment to reassure the community that we are adhering to school safety protocols. Our all hazards plan is developed appropriately. Um we have consulted with legal advice. I've used my 38 years of experience as an educator and even today I spoke with the Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security to confirm that our process is accurate and valid. And I'm sorry if you are receiving conflicting

060information. Um, and we really don't engage with public comment, but if anybody has concerns, they may call me directly. So, I just want to start with that because my integrity is of the utmost importance to me and I would never steer this community wrong when it comes to safety and security. So, I just I just want to remind the community that is my top priority. Learning actually comes second because they need to be safe in order to learn. Okay. So, um I I will say that last year at this time I left my budget presentation and said never again. I really did and here we are. Um I retired and here I am. So I was happy to do this. It was actually a lot of fun. This is a great community. It's a great

061team. This process actually started I began here on September 8th and this process started I believe the following week. So it starts with a lot of discussion, a lot of leg work on the administrative level, the teacher level, the department level, curriculum leader level, a lot of input. Um, some of which you actually never see. Um, you know, to be honest, you know, when we throw everything at the wall and build our utopia dream world, it came out to be maybe 22 full-time positions. It really did, you know, lots of things. And so the first thing I want to say is that the most important resources that we have in this district are ourselves. It is the staff um and their relationships with the learners. And we want to capitalize on that first before we

062go radical. As an interim superintendent, I don't want to add 25 positions to your budget. Um that is a a a full-time permanent superintendent's decision. But we do have some things in here that we do think are important that will advance learning because our bottom line is it's all about student learning. So your mission and vision for the board of education are clear. It's shared. It's collaborative. I believe that it was built with a lot of input. Um and the words if you ever chose to take the time in an administrative retreat with your with yourselves to really operationalize some of those words, you know, like inspire, challenge, and really looked at your curriculum. How does our curriculum challenge all students? Like those are good questions. That's a really good activity for you to do.

063Um because it does drive our thinking and your vision to create a world-class school district that cultivates learning and growth. Like that's an ongoing process. These are great pieces that we think about. I think about um everything that we put into the budget. We did bounce back to your vision, your mission, and your strategic plan and your four C's. um you know what piece of this fits into communication and collaboration and personalized instruction? What piece of what we're looking for puts it into social change makers and independent thinkers. So those prongs of your strategic plan again of which I had no part in developing are solid. Um and [clears throat] we have that strategic plan, excuse me, because it allows everybody to have the same conversation with the same vocabulary and the same vision. And

064it's our benchmark. When we consider our use of resources, we benchmark it against those prongs. God bless you. And it helps us keep education at the center and learning of everything that we do. Okay. Before you had to flip through anything, I wanted the community, I wanted the board to know that very first page really is our bottom line. And so the first thing that I'll say is that our bottom line is going to change multiple times. So we start this process early. Um, some districts are later, some districts are even a little bit earlier. And in December, when you're trying to throw your dart at your target, your target is very far away because this this budget is finalized and approved, I believe in May. As the months progress, we take more and more

065steps closer to the target. So, it's easier to be a little bit more accurate. So, right now in November, on November 26th, we had a 4.9% increase over last year's budget, which was an increase of about $2.7 million. December 10th, Casey comes with a devastating update, um, bad news, and she said, you know, our insurance increase came in at 16% and we and the town together had collaboratively planned on a much lower percent. So, we in the town now have to adjust our budgets to accept this potential increase. And so, that 16% adds another 1.06% pushing our percent ask to a 6.0. This is not a a a final ask. This is what we are putting in front of you. we will work with you to try to, you know, figure out where you want

066to land, but this is exactly where we are right now. And it's actually changed since then. And so when Casey gets up here, I asked Deb and Casey to take a few slides of this presentation. Um, their eyes kind of went like this. They indicated that that was not common practice. I said, I think it's important because I am an interimm superintendent. You might find your marvelous superintendent within the next month or two. and then that person would finish out the budget process. It is important that the community knows that we have administrators who are well-versed and can fluidly step in and address what's here. So, we are working on this together. Um, but Casey has additional information on how it's actually dropped back down a little bit. Okay. The budget, and again, you can

067read through this. The binder that you have has lots of information. This is a broad overview tonight, but the budget we we have actually tries to maintain class sizes. So, we'll talk a little bit about that shortly. We're not looking to decrease a bunch of class sizes or increase a bunch of class sizes by cutting positions. You know, it is working to support the needs of academic growth with our multil- language learners. It's looking to advance programming through our strategic plan. It's looking to advance access with our digital onetoone devices. It addresses some increasing costs of supplies and equipment. Maintains some funds. We have some lines that are maintaining um funds to help address our aging buildings, which is a problem across the country and definitely in Connecticut. There are so many buildings that are,

068you know, 60, 70, 80, 100 years old. It's it's hard. And it addresses unanticipated an increase in insurance costs. These drivers, every district has these drivers. They're the same drivers in every district. If you work in a different school district, they're these are the things that affect your budget. um predictable salary increases that are based on contracts that are negotiated, benefits that are at the mercy of insurance companies, transportation costs go up. All of these pieces are things that we work with. Very few of them are flexible. So enrollment, one of the things that really wanted to work on was looking at our enrollment to make sure that we did not need extra staff to actually keep our class sizes where they needed to be. So, we looked at our enrollment trends and if you

069look over the last, I don't know, sixish years, you know, the enrollment has dropped about a hundred children. Um, that's common in a lot of towns in Connecticut. Very few are increasing. I think Wood Bridges, Madison is there's a few that are, but so our our but it's fairly stable at about 2500. So, that's that's good for us to know. We use our projections based on Peter Praa. It's a very common um resource that a lot of people in Connecticut rely on for an enrollment projection. And our out of district statements, our out of district students are projected as well. Class size. I was told I think last year you tweaked your class size parameters. These are guidelines. This is not policy. So your class size guidelines are in gray. Um the youngest levels have

070the lowest numbers. That's very common in education. Those learners are very needy and not very independent. So you can see in red in 22 23 and 2425 there were two grade levels that had a little bit that didn't have part of a child. Some of the rooms had maybe one child over. So the numbers for next year based on our staffing look good. And and what this doesn't show is that the individual principal may have to decide I need to move a fifth grade teacher to like a fourth grade classroom. They might have to do some of that shuffling to make these numbers work, but the actual numbers are fine. Special education prevalence rate. This is something that we watch and the state watches very carefully. The state average is 18% and again there are

071some districts with a lower percent and some districts with a much higher percent. we have hovered pretty consistently at around 14% give or take. Um so that's important for us to know. If you saw that number shoot up, you might expect that the request in the budget for additional special education personnel would also be commensurate. We don't really see that number shooting up too much. Um and so you you won't see huge requests in that area at this time. These numbers are escalating and you will see that we are asking for an additional um T-OL teacher and I'm going to have Debbie talk to that so that you can again feel comfortable that more than one person knows what's going on. Okay, so as you can see here um the numbers of our multilingual learner

072population has increased. Um we're currently at 138. So that adds an additional uh 19 uh students this year uh to that population uh with the highest increase at Whiskanir where we welcomed an additional 10 students um this year. And as I shared with you in the previous presentation um just since October 1, we've welcomed an additional 10 um multilingual learner students to the district. four of whom we welcomed at Whiskanire, four at Brookville High School and excuse me, four at CLS and two um at the high school. And as you can see, we have nine primary languages that are spoken um by our students. Um and I'm going to just flip to the next uh slide if I may, Rhonda. >> Yeah, just Yep. Yep. Perfect. >> So on this slide, we're talking about proposed

073budget staffing changes. Um and as I shared, we had 10 additional students that we welcomed since October 1st snapshot. Um and in conjunction right with the data that was just presented uh from the nextgen accountability right we can we notice that um our high needs populations and our English language proficiency in literacy specifically in terms of the scoring um at our Wiskanir location knowing also that we have currently 60 students being serviced by one T-ole teacher who has to go between two buildings um and that we have 19 um Spanish-sp speakaking multilingual learners at Wiskinia presently. So that's inching up to the end of 20 where we would be required to um hire a bilingual Spanish um teacher. Obviously that can change as students are moving up to the high school coming from CLES next

074year, right? Um but nonetheless um we really do feel the need at this point to be able to um hire um an additional T-OLE teacher to support our multilingual learners at Wiskin Air. >> And we actually um if you think about the data that we just saw in the next generation accountability reports, the middle school multil- language learner data was the lowest possible pocket. it really does confirm um and support this request. So, we also have so that's our one big personnel full-time equivalent request that's in here. Um we feel like it's justified. We hope that the board would consider supporting that. Um it does address a variety of learners, curriculum, and coaching support for the staff. The other request as we looked at our parent educators and we very carefully worked with Bill multiple

075times to roll over okay how many pairs are in each grade level this year kind of who are they servicing where will those children be next year you know whether or not it's the same parah rolling the numbers to try to see what we needed how many are leaving at the end of the high school career do we you know do we gain any open positions so best estimate that we can have based on that data, we would need one to two full-time PAR educators to support special education learner needs next year. And I say one to two because we do have shifting enrollment and the one thing that we don't know is the enrollment in prek. So, you know, we can certainly confidently say that we need one for sure. Um, and we have

076pairs in pre-K, but we're not sure based on the population. and you can kind of look at some of the young ones coming in, what what they might need. Personnel history. This is a new series of charts that you can take some time to look at. I asked Casey to develop this. This is something that I've used in my career in the past. Um, it wasn't something that was easily readily available in this district. So, Casey worked very hard to accommodate my request and I appreciate it. I do think that this is a resource that your your board and um your administrators will use planning. So what this does is show historically. So Casey went back, you can see um you know, six columns. So she went back to 2021. How many of each type

077of bucket of people have we had? And so you know, roughly you would assume that if your enrollment is increasing, you might need more of some things as you go. And as your enrollment decreases, you might need less of some things. And you know, a generalization that you cannot make is we have a hundred less children that we did that many years ago. So, we probably need six less teachers and, you know, two less secretaries. It doesn't work that way unless all of those children happen to have been in the same grade level or two. Um, they're not. They're spread all over as children are. But you can see that the district, this data made me really proud for you as a as a board um and as a community because this data has has

078reflected the shifts that that your population has made. So, I think this is a celebration if you really look at it. Um, and so it talks about administrators and how that's decreased one when you condensed I believe your two elementary schools, your teacher numbers, and then you start to go through your support staff, your full-time FTEES, and then in the next page, it breaks it down a little bit more specifically. The one area, you know, that I said to Casey, you know, as you continue working with this chart, you might want to operationalize out your special areas so you can kind of track how many PE teachers do we have, how many health teachers do we have, how many art teachers, but for now, all of those teachers are combined into a specials area. Um,

079but you can see the teachers at the elementary and then the middle and then at the high school, they're really broken down by department. So this is just information for you to see and think about when you think about our staff. There was some some shifting you can see um in these columns because last year uh you you did some reconfiguring with curriculum support, instructional support, instructional coach, interventionists. So you can see where those numbers shifted. It's good history for you to have to track that technology. This is another piece that is in our budget that is new. Um, it is something that I believe the board has been talking about is moving to a onetoone school managed device to use during classroom instruction. And I know that Eric Conklin, our director of technology, is

080going to talk to um to this again at the policy level and probably even to the whole board if they'd be interested. This is during classroom instruction. It does not mean that a child could not bring their personal laptop in to use during study hall or or whatever time, but there are some real reasons for this that we can continue to talk about. Um, but the fact is that teachers can't tell what students are doing on their own device, nor can they allow the child to use a device that they're very comfortable with to test on because it doesn't allow our standardized platform. There are many reasons that we believe that this is a good move and we're very close. we would need about 400 more Chromebooks. And the math here doesn't add perfectly. I

081have a lot of notes that I can share with you again as we get into the small group discussions. But we we have CLES all set. They have Chromebook carts in every classroom. They have Chromebooks. So everywhere the children go, there is a device. At the middle school and high school, we currently have about 1360 Chromebooks to be able to be used. It seems like it's enough, but what you need to consider is that each year, I think maybe 60ish age out each year, the seniors take them. Um, there are some that are always in repair. So, you know, Eric has compiled those numbers for us. And so with all of that and also having a bank available at the middle school and high school to use if there is a problem and you come

082in and your Chromebook, the keys fell off or whatever, you need to be able to go get the loaner. So those pieces all compiled to a request for 400 Chromebooks that would allow us to provide a Chromebook to every student and a spare for each school, a spare like group. This chart is in every district's budget and this chart is very similar in most districts and it really is the chart that shows that this large blue and this blue over here salaries and benefits are the largest part of any budget and those are contractual. the other pieces of this transportation, utilities, energy, purchase services, special education. There's very little wiggle room in the budget and we will be happy to talk with you at length about what comprises these parts and what we might have

083done with any little wiggle room we had. Okay. And I kind of talked into Casey's chart, but I'm going to let her come up and talk about these. Don't trip over. That's okay. All right. Um this chart um essentially is showing so the pie chart showed you the percentage of our total budget expenditures and where they are allocated. This chart this chart is showing you um where the increases to the budget are being driven from. So 84% of that total increase of the $3.3 million to our budget, the 6% increase is coming from salaries and benefits. Um that's just a little that's over $2.7 million of that total increase. Um of that salaries and benefits, it's almost equal. So salaries are $1.47 million and benefits are $1.3 million. um that as as Vonda shared that

084um additional increase to insurance really sort of tipped us um into some unchartered territories. We've never seen an incre increase at the state partnership um since we've been on it uh that high. So that's a that's a huge driver. Um professional services that accounts for about 6% of the total increase to the budget um almost $22,000. Um that is largely driven by other um other professional services in special education. Um most a lot of um increased uh requests for um testing and evaluations. Um so that's being driven and as well as an increase in our legal fees. Um so and we have been talking about that at the finance committee levels um all year. Um seeing that increase in that um in that account. Special education tuition um is uh expected to increase just under

085$130,000. That's about 4% of our total increase. Uh Vonda talked about the uh investments in technology with the one on one onetoone Chromebooks. Um there is also an investment in upgraded firewall system which is um something that we we really need. So we do have to do that. That's about 3% of our total increase. And then all other um ins and outs of the 600 lines of accounts that we have um add up to about 3% of our total increase. Okay. So this is where I can bring a little bit of sunshine and good news. Um I I ma I in made this slide this morning actually um to to sort of calm the waters a bit and remind us all that this is December 17th and as Vonda said the the end of this

086process is still several months away with lots of areas that will come in with actual information that will um drive our bottom line request. Um the biggest driver as you know is being is insurance. um 1% a 1% change in our insurance costs is about $78,000 to our bottom line which is about.14% of our of our budget. Um and we won't typically know those final numbers until March. So that's well after we have you know the board of ed has adopted the budget. We've passed it down to the first selectman and and and likely it's probably even with the board of finance at that time. So that's a long um long ways away. For reference um changes in our um insurance if our insurance were to be at the low end. So the state partnership

087plan said to uh assume an increase of 13 anywhere from 13 to 15% is the range. But if you're in Fairfield County, you have to add another 1%. So um collaboratively as Bonda said, we are budgeting at that high end to be conservative at that 16%. If it comes in at the low end at 13%, that would be a $313,000 savings to our budget, which would be over a half a percentage to our budget. So, just so you understand the magnitude of numbers that we're sort of waiting on, um it it does have an impact. Some good news, excess cost grant revenue. When I made the slide this morning, I was going with the um again a conservative approach. As you recall last year, our our first um reimbursement payment from the state for our

088excess cost grant revenue. And again, this is related to special education costs. Um it was 10 points lower than we have ever received before and were had budgeted in last year's budget. It came in at around 60%. Um and so I was budgeting, you know, 62.5 uh% reimbursement over a threshold of $98,700. Um, I was uncertain. I wanted to see where our first payment, we typically don't get our first payment until February, again, after the um, the budget goes down to the first selectman's office. However, I did get today, this afternoon, um, a link to the estimates of what we can expect for our excess cost grant revenue, and that is coming in at um, 67.91%. So that is actually a savings of $110,000 to this budget right now. Uh which is 0.12%. Um so

089that is favorable news. Um oil, diesel and gasoline again more good news in the last couple of hours. um our purchasing department who is um uh you know uh a shared uh resource between the town and the board of ed um Jules he has been you know pricing out the different rates because we are locked in for these um oil, diesel and gas until June 30th. the rates he received today all represent a savings. Um, diesel, diesel, oil, and gasoline, even propane, but diesel, oil, and gasoline are all anticipated to come down about 21 cents a gallon. Um, that represents a $67,000 savings to our budget because this budget at 6% contemplates an increase actually of 3%. Um, so we're going to see a savings in those areas. So those two savings area, you know,

090those two areas of um favorable news in the last several hours does bring the requested budget down to 5.68%. Um and again, that's in the last four hours. Um so to more to be continued there. Uh this next slide is just a um sort of a summary of the large the biggest budget drivers that that you're seeing. Um, and you can add up all the percents and see what's um, you know, what's being factored the most. Um, contractual salaries and health insurance. That first health insurance number, importantly, I wanted to make sure you you saw how um, how the how the budget gets to that first uh, report that was shared with you prior to Thanksgiving, that 4.94%. So, originally, our health insurance was at 7.7% increase, which was $600,000. Um you'll see down at

091the at the bottom in red the $590,000 that we've had to add since December 10th. Um other professional services for special education is 2/10en of a percent general transportation um which is all the in district transportation contractually. Um that's about 22%. Um we also did have a reduction in our revenues. Um, so we have our budget expenses and then we have revenues that offset those expenses which gets to our um our final requested amount. We did have a like I said a reduction in our excess cost grant revenue um based on that lower budget amount that some of that will come back. So that's good news. uh because we are moving uh you know if approved um if we would move to the onetoone Chromebook um technology uh program I would expect we would probably

092see a drop in our Chromebook fees because not everybody would um likely take that ins that insurance and that rental charge for the Chromebooks um and magnet school transportation when I first got here the number of students attending magnet school I think was in the 40s maybe 41 students we're now down to 17 students and that reimbursement from the state. We have a bus that transports uh Brookfield students, you know, from central office to the magnet school in Danbury. Um that reimbursement is based on a per student um that that that attend. It's not on the cost that we actually, you know, uh spend. So um so that has been decreasing consistently over time. Um again our legal fees as I as I shared um we are going to we did increase that request and

093then all other employee benefits that would be um social security workman's comp liab um uh uh retirement um disability um life insurance all of those electricity oil diesel we have to keep the lights on we have to keep heat in the building I know I shouldn't talk about that that word but uh we do need to we need to do all these things and um there is a there is a cost there of all all of other accounts ins and outs is very minimal. I did highlight the two um new requests the T-OL uh the 1.0 T-OL teacher the 2.0 FTEES for PAR educators and the technology investment so you can see that those are you know we're not trying to hide it those are new requests um and then the new insurance uh numbers

094and brings you to your 6% increase So the s there's it was a one one line correction of $3,200 on a one individual salary line. I just wanted to be totally transparent on how we got got to the the 6%. All right. Okay. And so we're almost at the end. Um and again we really start our work tomorrow. So we'll we'll talk about that. But so we have our current budget for this year which was a 4.81% 81% increase I believe from the previous budget. This year's recommended budget is the 6.0%. When the board makes their adjustments, we will reflect the dollars here and the percent that it then drops to and then we will outline our board of education approved budget and then we will continue to track this. I would continue to track

095this. I'd recommend it so that when it goes to the town, we would then track any reductions that they make so that we then can see the true history of the budget. historical budget trends. I was so sad to have to make this a six because, you know, about a week ago it was pretty level with the others, but you can kind of see um graphically how our budget numbers have come in over the past several years. And then our budget process, this is the last slide. This just reassures you and the community that there are several finance committee reviews. uh we start tomorrow and so those will be where I believe in the past you've started this like list of questions and answers and we make that very public um so we will start

096that at the board level so they can really start to you know dig in and ask your questions and we can get answers there's a round table a public hearing there's a lot of opportunities here and by January 21st we possibly would have a budget that we would adopt and then it becomes the board's budget and then that then becomes part part of our work with the town. So, at that point, I think I would, you know, stop unless somebody has a burning question, but I would recommend that we hold those until tomorrow at the finance committee meeting. >> Thank you so much, Ronda. Now, we will start that document as well, right? We Yeah, tomorrow's finance. >> So, >> I just It's weekly. Now, >> I just have a general question. >> Um I

097just a general question, not budget specific. I don't know if we know the data of what is the average uh in the state of Connecticut for the bud, you know, district budget increases or at least in Fairfield County and state >> starting. So, >> we're we're one of the first. >> So, nobody's numbers are out there. >> Nobody's okay. I'm just curious or historically what has been that rate of increase verbally. >> I was just like other districts when they settled. just more out of my own curiosity and >> comparison. Still have that curiosity and as [clears throat] we learn them, we compile them. >> Yeah. And the other question I have is just Chromebooks. So historically in districts, I mean, we had we started with iPads. I mean, I've been here a long time.

098They just had iPads. They went to this and there was an opportunity for parents in 8th grade that they purchased their child's device and then they owned it, right? And they left with it. Would that offset some of these costs if parents were buying these? >> So, those are good questions and those are the things that I would like to start to compile on that list tomorrow because those are answers that will be informed. We have some of those answers. >> Cool. Sweet. Thank you so much. Yeah, we'll have that document started tomorrow. Yep. Absolutely. >> Sweet. Well, thank you so much. All right. Well, on to that, we move on to old business, which uh unless my agenda's wrong, we don't have any. So, on to three main points. budget. >> I'm thinking the

099budget. >> Yep. >> Uh the next journey. >> I like that. >> Information and the superintendent update. I don't think >> the search update. Yeah. I mean, not too much for the search. >> No. Or even >> what? The superintendent. >> Oh, the search. I'm sorry. I'm missing the super. >> Yeah, the search committee update. >> Yeah, search committee update. I thought that's what you meant. I'm sorry. I thought you meant the search, but we have >> three finalists. >> Gone through the first round and we're on the second round. January, we'll start the second round. Sweet. Thank you. >> And then upcoming events. [laughter] >> So, uh, BHS, uh, tomorrow or the 19th, they have their pep rally. Um, January 14th, they have a booster club meeting. The 20th of January, they have a

100PTO meeting. The 21st through the 26th are midterms. >> I can't even believe we're here. >> I know, right? Isn't >> that crazy? >> Maybe it's because I have a senior. I don't know. Um 12 uh January 27th is the midterm makeup date. Um and January 22nd is a meeting for grad party. W has an ugly sweater contest on Friday. So parents get busy. Um January 13th there's a winter band concert for WMS. It'll be at BHS at 700 p.m. with a snow date of January 15th. On January 20th, WMS has a winter chorus concert at 7 PM at BHS with a snow date of January 22nd. CLES tomorrow. Your kids need festive shirts or sweaters. >> Get them ready, girls. Um, >> thank you. Uh Dece uh festive winter or holiday pajamas and they

101have a PTO meeting on January 21st at 6 p.m. And then I don't know just for the district uh December 23rd is early dismissal. >> Winter break is December 24th through our first day back will be uh Monday, January 5th. And then January 14th is a PLC, early dismissal day. And January 19th, there's no school for Martin Luther King Day. >> All right, >> that's all I got. >> Sounds like a nice well-deserved break for everybody coming up. For sure. >> For sure. Well, thank you for that. Um, do we join first or >> No, make a motion. >> So, I go ahead. >> So, I move that um we move into executive session to discuss safety and security. I >> I'm sorry. Good. Sarah Sarah seconds. All in favor of uh >> All in

102favor we move to executive session discuss safety and security say I. >> I. >> Any nays? All right. >> It's unanimous. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. That concludes the public portion of the meeting. We will adjourn at 8. >> No. >> That's what I just said. After executive session, we'll adjourn. >> Uh thank you very much. >> Did you say >> but I'm not going to session? I'm just going to turn