Board of Education Meeting

001the um meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education uh tonight is uh Wednesday December 4th and would you please join me in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance and after that please stay standing as we will um have the national anthem 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 [Music] oh can you see by the was so proudly we at the Twilight last who stripes and bright stars through the fight the we we're so gly streaming and the [Music] [Applause] rocket night that our flag was still there oh s do that star spangled way for the land of the [Applause] free the of [Music] and thank you to choir director um John L Mandola and

002the special course you guys are so good thank you um we'd like to do one more for you before I turn it over to uh our wonderful Jaz Ensemble joha uh proud Coral director at Brookfield High uh our concert uh combined Winter concert with band choir is Tuesday night December 17th at 700 p.m. right here at the auditorium so we hope to see you all there we're going to give you just a little taste uh of the concert and to get us into the holiday spirit with Carol the Bells [Music] everywhere [Music] [Applause] [Music] ofwhere [Music] now I shall hand it over to my wonderful friend and fabulous colleague Mr Stephen St George uh our band director here at VHS and he's going to introduce his jazz on song uh thanks Mr L um as

003Mr L mentioned this is a preview of our concert which is a little less than two weeks from now December 17th Tuesday at 700 p.m. here at BHS and uh this is our chance Ensemble we're going to um perform one t for you uh Poli now we hope you enjoy [Music] la [Music] la n [Music] la [Music] la oh [Applause] you so much for having us please join us for our concert Tu December 17th at thank you students thank thank you everyone great job tonight and as a reminder December 17th is the Winter concert here at the high school 7 p.m. guys are already so busy already okay so um with uh everyone in attendance um we don't really need a roll call we're all here um and so we've got we've got um four

004folks signed up for public com ment um but some of the um agenda items require a little bit of uh clarification so um I think it's too loud for the it might be too loud oh wait a second okay so um before we before we begin public comment I just wanted to ask a clarifying question and it's to you Mrs C because you signed up um and I didn't get a chance to ask you before the meeting it it says um under agenda item it says public comment does that mean you want to speak to this okay okay thank you so when the dust settles we'll start with Mrs suender she'll wait for the second yeah and I Mrs CER is here yeah she could hurdle drum sets yeah she'd have to So for anybody

005watching at home we are just waiting a second oh for anybody watching at home for anybody watching at home we are just waiting a second for um the Jazz Band to um clear out the tremendous amount of gear that they have to Lug around um and public comment will start in just a second oh oh yeah oh so Mrs sinder it's up to it's all you uh you sign up to speak about the budget and the board yeah awesome thank you hello my name is Logan sinder 46 of two Road South and I'm here today to talk about the budget and the board I spoke about the budget during public comment a few meetings ago and I appreciate the response I received from Dr Young Blood the board and the administration having a thoughtful budget

006that passes on the first vote is important to me but after attending and watching Board of Ed meetings recently I am concerned about this board's ability to work together collaborate compromise and produce such a budget I've watched this board unravel attack each other argue yell and conduct yourselves in a far from professional manner the main priorities of the board include the budget student achievement policy and climate Dr man's presentation about achievement should concern you class sizes are over the limit perhaps that's influencing achievement the middle and high schools have 10-year plans to manage to improve the buildings you have many policies to review and yet more of your time is taken up with arguing over the calendar or minutes climate has been a big topic of conversation and the teachers union president spoke here during

007public comment with more than 50 teachers president in present in support he called out certain behaviors including inappropriate requests by board members for protected emails and asked the board for a strong positive respectful change instead of hearing his message and responding with change you sunk deeper into battle and argued over who should have been in a meeting you missed the point what they asked for was to lead by example and set a positive tone for the district teachers and staff have their channels of communication through Administration and the union for that many teachers to come to a board of ed meeting was a statement to try to get across to you that your behavior has an impact on the entire District your personal and political battles trickle down and impact all of us Community included

008you may think you are fighting for our schools and our children but really you are just fighting I have been to convocation and seen the camaraderie of our BPS staff I talked to the keynote speaker afterwards and he marveled at the enthusiasm and team spirit he saw it is not the norm in other districts are there things that need to be improved of course but I volunteered to support education in this town for over 10 years and what I see is that people are generally positive and willing to work together on the things that they need that need to be fixed except in this room discussions and votes frequently fall into a DTC versus RTC battle or a personal Grudge C has a great document called so you want to be a school board member

009in it it says board members should view themselves as team members able to work harmoniously with other members should represent impartially all the people of the district rather than any political social or special interest group it uses words like professionalism respect trust civility strive to reach consensus on difficult issues and work out interpersonal conflicts appropriately at open house Mark Banda encourages parents to be serous not judgmental and that really stuck with me and I ask you to do the same it's a matter of perspective and attitude please reset to create and pass an appropriate budget to improve our student achievement to be role models for this District to do your job as board member I beg of you figure out a way to work together and focus on moving our district forward thank you thank

010you um Mrs Korea is going to talk about U meeting minutes Irene Korea 45 West whis Road I request that the board do not approve the 1120 2024 meeting minutes without the following edits under complaint 1312 on the vote to End discussion on the complaint the minutes state that the board voted uh 3 to three the vote count has the three board members listed as a and four board members listed as no one board member is listed on both a and no votes on the vote to dismiss the complaint the board voted 3 to three the vote count as three board members voted as a and four board members listed as no one board member is listed as both a and no votes for the last motion a board member asked the board chair to

011step down the acting chair stated that the motion was to remove the chair the member restated asking the chair sorry asking the board chair to step down the minute should not state that the acting board chair clarified because once the acting board chair asked the question she did not repeat the words stated by the board member for the motion she used her own words for the motion this can be verified on the YouTube video at timestamp 2 hour 0 minutes and 55 seconds remember words are important the minutes in video should be a transcript of what actually occurred also the WMS student Spotlight the seventh grade teacher's name is spelled incorrectly it is not spelled like the candy spelled differently you can look it up on the website thank you thank you Mrs Korea okay

012so we're going to um move to um Melissa Baines with the uh student with the student report hello um I hope you guys all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break um first in um terms of Athletics I mentioned that we had a powderpuff game last week um against bethl Brookfield um seniors and juniors did in fact win that um in overtime um in the the field goal kicks so that was really exciting um uh in addition to this football won their Thanksgiving game against bethl um and won their first round of States yesterday um against Jonathan Law maintaining their undefeated season um and their next game is this Sunday at 12:30 um athletic advisory is hosting a holiday toy drive and are accepting donations um from all students um and staff and then under classmen from

013athletic advisory and student government are attending a student leadership conference um this Friday um will they'll attend like seminars um and learn like lessons to Aid them in their future leadership Endeavors when they become seniors um in addition to this field trip student government is also going on another field trip on December 17th to Hartford for a mock legislative session um and it's like a seminar with other Student Government associations um in Connecticut uh class of 2026 student officers are hosting a candy grams fundraiser where students can purchase like a treat bag to be delivered to family and and Friends during the holiday season um then also in partnership with Mr Banda Student Government helped install wallmounted trash cans in the girls math bathrooms um and then something to look forward to which is exciting

014um for the elementary schoolers um National Honor Society is hosting a winter Workshop um after school where students can participate in different holiday themed kind of stations and activities like crafts and games um so that's really exciting and I'm looking forward to sharing more about that when it happens so thank you any questions for Melissa thanks always good to see you thank you Melissa okay um now for written correspondence uh Miss sakur the following people have emailed the board of EDS since the November 20th meeting Bob Belton voting locations Ellen O Connell General board Behavior concerns Shannon Riley in Praise of seventh grade literacy teacher Irene Korea 11:20 meeting 1312 discussion and review Andy Korea Boe minutes and Boe policy the Bea contract and Brookfield ethics roles Brian McGovern thank you Board of Ed Eve

015St devant November 20th meeting Jillian Dyer letter of support of the Boe chair great let's move uh now to the board minutes you tonight if you want to if you don't mind that would probably be good I'm just gonna like do this for thank you prise I'm not to no it's okay um I move that the board approve the minutes listed below as recommended regular meeting from 11:20 do we have a second I'll second it's been seconded okay so uh we have a motion on the floor that the board approved the minutes from the 11:20 meeting um it has been seconded is there any discussion of this do we have to CU some uh email came in the comments are made about the minute so is that something that we should discuss I don't think

016so I think we can vote I mean if everyone read the email if there Ed to be made then make them Wendy I thought you had emailed us that we would be making a revision I don't think so but it is possible that I forget entirey this I don't think so um but at this point we have no amended minutes for the bo the board can make a motion to amend the minutes a board member and then that could be discussed right now to to do the minutes change them um the one thing we can that t I did I messaged um okay so it's on so will you guys um look at your November 20th minutes please which page page page the third page the third page right so is that the only one

017okay further so Stephanie um are you moving that we amend them um I will move that we amend the minutes Rob's on their to reflect on page three of the minut minutes okay um where Rob fetta was listed twice um are we on the um the last page of the page three the second motion third third motion down so right here where it says the third motion down so we're we're removing um we just need to take his name off of the voting no correct correct so would you would you just clarify that 1812 complaint that anything spoke about no that well hold on point of order like let's let's just I don't know vote on that Amendment first the third one down I thought it was all amended I thought we were changing them

018all once I we're just taking it was just an ER like it was just an error I got you let see mistakes happen I got you I didn't catch [Music] everything that's the only one that I know of that's me like so we made a motion and seconded for that Amendment yeah yeah are there are there other um amendments to be are there other changes to be made at this time so we could just do them all yeah we could add them want just add them that's fine did you have one well one was the complaint on the bottom Andy career speaking about the 1312 complaint and what would he like that change too uh that he didn't he didn't actually he didn't yeah that was the thing yes okay okay okay okay fine thank

019you very much and to strike that thing that statement did he speak yes he did he spoke about um uh [Music] climate just don't know if we're ready to to make all the corrections I don't we have all the information correct well he didn't speak about this that's what I know and he don't remember what he spoke about um I'm pretty sure it was the climate um um maybe even the climate survey I think it was that like the the responses for the climate survey um and I mean if you if you're not feeling certain that's important for us to to do I think we could however um vot because it we so let's just summarize the amendment right we're striking Rob fetto from the no on that third motion we are uh amending the

020um the public comment portion where it says K spoke about 1312 we're going to have that instead say I believe it's climate survey climate survey the shadow is listed twice it's both of them sorry okay so so the second and third motion and the thing about Andy Korea and what he spoke about yes okay those three items there did you get those Lisa just a second um Sarah found something else there's in the first public comment there's an ed that needs to be made and then the second [Music] one can you bring our attention specific I don't believe have I don't believe oh that's it that's it the 1312 was not talked about the first public comment and then the teacher parent thing I don't know what that is just it's just an error it's

021just a typo right no mistakes I just think we can yeah just take it out do it later okay so we're taking out your parent cuz that was just correct there there okay yeah and the spelling of Mrs Ro's name too yep [Music] awesome but you're right I'm not sure what that second public comment was now um Miss rambling Lisa do you happen to have the records from last week's last meeting's public comment or the the um just the record of public comment in the that would have come from the book The Sign and Sheet the sign and sheet for the yeah can you can you tell us what Mr Korea spoke about in the second comment please it's a second public comment okay he spoke about what the presentation of the climate um the

022Bing climate policy okay the new the thing that John Dr okay okay so we say climate we identify the topic awesome all right so should we summarize the changes again yes you feel comfortable doing that sure okay um okay so we are amending the first public comment section correct Mrs ree's spelling all right we're we're amending Mrs Reese's uh spelling um the the first part of the the first public comment to remove the 1312 complaint M and in that's where he spoke about climate no no okay and teacher parents going to be okay so we're just striking the 1312 and the teacher and we're also striking the teacher parent yes and then on page three we are removing Rob fetto from the no votes on the second and third motions and are there any changes

023on that last public Sumit so then that so then we're changing the 1312 complaint in that last public comment section to The [Music] Climate the the other one was my motion mhm believe my words were for the board chair to step down that's I believe that was so to change it says that Joy greenin recommended the board chair step down the chair Fernandez clarified that Joy Greenstein was making a motion to move the chair that if you watch the video that's exactly what was said you made the motion for the chair to St down oh so Rosa clarified that you were asking her to make a motion Rosa clarified that you were asking for a motion to remove the chair you affirmed and then we voted on that okay okay all right so I think

024that summarizes it then okay um so we have a the motion on the floor about the spelling the changes in both the first and second public comment and then we have changed um Rob's votes to reflect what actually happened they were just right um the motion has been made and seconded all in favor please by saying I I all opposed and Aon did you vote and you're abstaining okay so we have um five yes one no and one abstention all right moving on to the uh superintendent's update okay thank you Wendy good evening everybody um season greetings and I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break um what an example of visual and well visual a little bit but really Performing Arts tonight I mean my goodness the kids are incredible and uh it's

025such an honor to be working with John and Stephen and watching the kids grow and develop over the last 10 years it's uh my 10th board meeting where we've done this and it's just incredible so um absolute joy and pride um did want to share a little bit about um um Athletics I know Melissa talked briefly about it but fall Athletics um after talking about Performing Arts needs a little shout out um from the superintendent uh the girls soccer team won the S swc Championship League Championship boy soccer for the first time second time in the last couple of years won the state championship um multiple athletes in uh Swim getting into the state champions it was five thank you yeah five exactly swim and die five All State um and football winning in the

026first round uh last night we all the ride home it took the ride home for my feet to warm up after the game but it was great it was it was so much fun and they're playing at 12:30 on Sunday here um and I believe it's against Berlin so very excited about that a lot of great things that yeah a lot of great things going on uh here at the high school I do want to give a a brief shout out it'll get discussed more when Dr man talks about uh the next gen report which is that holistic re report we do it's kind of the second half of the achievement report the high school really has some great results um there's 12 indicators again it's a very holistic more comprehensive view of the school

027itself and our student performance it's not just reading writing and math scores um and so Mr Blanda his leadership and uh faculty staff students parents everybody should be very proud um not only is Brookfield High School uh achieved at the level of a school of Distinction for high performance and great Improvement um uh the way this the the score uh I don't know exactly what it is Mark but it's in the ' 8s plus 80th percentile somewhere um and and it no no but the score is in the 80s but we are actually in the top 10% of schools on the uh high schools uh in the performance index in the state so we are just thrilled with that uh Dr man and I are looking forward to going to uh the faculty meeting next

028week and congratulating the staff so really exciting stuff there um that's kind of where I wanted to start in terms of uh the teaching and learning report um the other thing under teaching and learning class siiz subcommittee we've got a lot going on next week really truncated between now and the winter recess so I just want to make sure everybody's on board with dates class size ad hoc committee meets on the 11th which is next Wednesday at 5:00 and then um right after that is the cape subcommittee meeting at 6 pm. so just to let everybody know that I'm going to skip over business and operations and then come back question just to clarify for the class siiz ad hoc committee there are two members right right okay so Mr Vin so far a pause

029there but we we have a third seat if there's you know interest but right now we're two okay okay I all right very good um under School climate just wanted to let everybody know um talked about in the climate presentation from a couple legislation presentation from two weeks ago but we've been talking about um the fact that we won't have Panorama going forward as our survey tool we're moving to thought exchange that's free it's new uh Ed Advance is supporting us with developing the the survey uh uh through thought Exchange uh there will be three spec we're going to move this to a two times a year uh climate survey so we're looking at the week just so everybody knows uh generally speaking the week of January 13th for that to to go out to

030everyone and we'll probably hold it open for about a week um there will be a student survey all the way from grades 3 to 12 there's a Elementary a middle and a high school version uh there will be a parent uh thought exchange as well as faculty and staff so just want everybody to know that in terms of community engagement um it's important to know that the brook Brookfield cares has approached uh Dr man and I the asset inventory survey um we are scheduling that for the week of February 10th we do that every couple of years um we'll make sure uh that we give lots of times for parents uh to for the principes to notify parents right after the winter recess to inspect the survey to have the opportunity to opt out things

031we've talked about in the development of the policy for quite a long time that's the week of February 10th just so everybody knows that upcoming Brookfield Craft Center Mr Lasser um has reached out uh once again which we're really excited about to Anna and me to talk about uh possible after school programming and grant opportunities we had some programs for a couple of years um funding ran out a lot with Transportation was was the big concern there so um we're going to meet this Friday pretty excited about that uh the speaks uh advisory committee will be meeting on uh January 16th at 10:00 a.m. and listening tours with human resources Dr man and I uh going around to the different buildings we're going to try to start those this month before uh winter recess and

032get at least one or two two of those uh uh opportunities in to meet with staff and then the the the final good news under engagement that I really excited about I'm going to turn it over to Anna um is we found out last night that three grants were approved by the bef and um they are substantive I'll just leave it at that and let you talk about a little bit about it there so um thank you very much so we um I have the amazing Fortune of being able to partner with the bef um it's such an it really is a unique uh and wonderful um organization that Brookfield is blessed with um so the there have been we've actually had I you know I serve as a um a non- voting member of

033the bef committee um along with Stephanie as a member of the Boe a representative of the Boe and this year we've had a Hu a Resurgence in interest from our faculty so it's really exciting to see um and it's been a really nice partnership we've been working really um closely with the teachers you know they come with ideas um the members of the uh the executive board have been going to each school um they went today to WMS last month they were at BHS and earlier in the fall they were at clees teachers are coming and asking for feedback and getting you know kind of working on their on workshopping their ideas so um with that with that kind of work and focus um last week last night they had three grants that they reviewed

034all from WMS one was for a wellness room to enhance uh social learning and school climate um which was approved another one was for video daily announcements um so that they can start doing daily announcements um digitally for the entire school and that was also approved and the third which is actually the single largest grant that bef has ever awarded by almost double um was a something called a midi um digital music lab and so it's to totally kind of retrofit one of the uh rooms in the music hallway um so that kids can begin to uh create their own unique music um via uh digital um and so total those three grants um is over $74,000 from the bef so it's pretty amazing and um and it's been a a really nice and beautiful

035collaboration not only between the bef and the school um and each of the each of the teachers but also because the teachers have to come and and kind of it's it's a little one of the teachers one of the groups came and said it feels a little bit like being on Shark Tank you you pitch your pitch your idea to the group um but we but yeah we're we we're nice sharks we try to be nice sharks we're School teachers anyway um and so uh but it's also been a really nice opportunity for the district to get kind of an alignment and uh make sure that there's there's good collaboration between for example with the digital music lab Eric hungin and um Dan Caldwell because there's going to be some technology uh aspects and some

036kind of you know retrofitting of the of the room so it's just been a really great opportunity so we can't thank the bef enough it's awesome thank you very much for your support thank you Anna appreciate that summary great job on just a second before you start while we're still on the topic of the bef um it's really important to recognize that those funds come from community members is that correct so to the community members who have contributed thank you very much and if somebody were feeling in the Christmas spirit and wanted to extend another donation to The bef what's the best way to do that uh Logan uh you can um basically contact the bef email or Logan to Linder directly um we take cash donations as well as uh there's lots of fundraising

037efforts that we're that we organize all year they organize all year round so and you can always check out the website as well and the website thank you opport donation awesome thank you all right thanks for that for just to clarify BF is the Brookfield Education Foundation thank you for that that's great um so on top of that good news and the high school great news of of uh achievement and accomplishment um I do want to remind everybody kind of going back to nextg uh report card that presentation will be at our next board meeting on the 18th um so now switching to business and operations that that portion of my report um ESS substitute service they will be here to give a presentation as well on the 18th so those will be the two

038big items for that agenda uh Healthy Start times ad hoc committee um we just actually sent it out to the uh members we have a December 9th meeting it'll be virtual at 6 p.m. security task force also meets next week at 10:00 a.m. over at CES and the midyear um kind of first semester teacher attendance update will be coming to you we're looking to get that ready for you in February that would be a followup from the July uh discussion we had uh and then finally under business and operations and the final uh opportunity here for my superintendent report uh we had a um an issue with uh the start of school on Monday with heat at Brookfield High School so I wanted to bring that up um it was very frustrating that that occurred

039uh facilities Committee just actually met today and talked about it a little bit before this meeting um and I'm going to turn it over to Casey our uh Director of Business and operation who also works directly with facilities uh supervisor and talk a little bit about that for us sure um so uh thank you Dr BR um sorry to end the superintendent update on uh this this cold note um but uh it was a situation uh where our heads custodian arrived at the the building Monday morning after the long weekend um and found uh the building to be at lower than acceptable temperatures um in the the mid to Upper 50s is what the um the classrooms were reading at that time um I was alerted about 7:30 on my I was already on my

040way in here I did come to BHS first thing so I was here about 7:45 um and I I can report that the hallways were certainly colder than the classrooms that I went in I did not go into every single classroom but I did go in most wings of the building um and the hallways were colder than the classrooms um it was it was not um freezing certainly it was not the most comfortable um and and and it never should have happened I will just say that um so uh as we uh debriefed in the facilities committee meeting um and Mr Caldwell uh reported um it was a manual ual error that that uh had this occur it was not a it was not an issue with the boiler itself there was no mechanical failure

041of the system um I think we've we've talked about these boilers at the high school in the past and how um you know at certain times of the year when the out outdoor temperatures um fluctuate uh drastically we do turn the the boilers manually on and off um at different times during the day at this point in the season with the temperatures being cold all all day and all night um the boilers should have been on 24 hours a day um at some point before the break the boilers were turned off um and so that's problem number one and and problem number two is the fact that um they the temperatures of the classrooms and the building in general were not verified prior to Monday morning um so two two issues there that I will

042continue to investigate and look into um on a positive note um with that happening um uh Mr Caldwell did meet with abs who um is a vendor that looks at our the BMS the building management system that the investment that the Board of Ed made um into the heating system and monitoring the controls um and um alarms have been set now in place to ensure that if something like this were to happen again we would be alerted before it becomes the problem that it was Monday morning two such alarms are um and not to get too technical but I do I just want you to understand you know that we're covering all the bases here um two one one alarm if is if the building is calling for heat but the pressure is not building

043up in the system itself an alarm will sound to Mr Caldwell and his team that there's an issue another another instance is if the hot water tank uh temperature drops below a certain temperature um another alarm will sound and be alerted right to their um you know to their personal devices um to come in and and check and see what's going on so um so those are those are now in place and we will continue to investigate um again how we got here but moving forward um I'm confident that we'll be in a better place so I just have a question um so is it standard practice for that to be turned off not at this time in the year okay um so what exactly does a manual error mean it means somebody turned the

044boilers off that's what I want to make sure yeah okay um enjoy one of the things that was explained to me uh by Dan um Casey I'm sure you guys talked about it at facilities is with some of the lack of control of the boilers as you've heard for years the um building gets too hot in certain areas so one of the answers is to manually go and turn them off for a while to let the building cool down um so that's all technical pieces We are continuing to work on there and so that that is that's an issue with the system itself but again even as Mr Caldwell reported at the facilities committee meeting at this point in the season it's cold all day and all night the boilers really there's no real need

045for them to you know to be turned off at all um and so that's why it is a manual error and one of the other human error I should say ER yeah and one of the other practices that Casey and I talked about and Ken and I instituted uh years ago and we follow this with Casey is that there is there is um absolute Authority for Mr Caldwell for himself or to have a a custodian do a walkthrough of a building on a Sunday evening or an extended break he wants some check-ins we will you know obviously we have overtime built into the budget and things like that for a custodian to walk the building to ensure that things aren't cold in the building or that there isn't a burst pipe or something like that

046when we get these really especially these extreme temperatures so um like I said we were very frustrated with this on Monday morning and um we don't anticipate this happening again is at any point do wouldn't you call like that's it's not appropriate for the kids to be in school cuz it's so cold so or is that never a question so the the we actually uh collaborated with the health department and they went out and when they took the temperature a little later in the morning it was 58 degrees in the cafeteria um so while it wasn't one of these things where they felt at all it wasn't even close to we should evacuate or you know call school early or something like that uh the optimal temperature is the 65 to I think 72 degrees

047is what you're looking to have the school be at on a consistent basis yeah to follow up on that there were two um calls placed into the town health department and so that does prompt them by law to come out and and look and so they did come and they walked through the building and and measured classroom temperatures hallway temperatures um and um yeah the coolest temperature was 58 degrees at that time about mid morning so um like I said I was here at 745 as students and staff were arriving um and it it it was it was chilly it it's not something to where I was now if I had a preschooler sitting in in in a in the hallway you know for that extended time maybe I I would be concerned um you

048know as I said as a parent um but um but I will I I can confirm that going through the building it was it was nothing that you know if I had a concern about it I would have you know called Dr BR right away and said this building is way way too cold for anybody to be in here well you called me right away well I didn't call you right away I would have said that but but there was no recommendation for that but again there's no it's it's a problem so and the last thing would you would be safe to say that moving forward that would warrant communication to parents or or no I mean I know communication did go out to the students to staff and students um I mean I I

049suppose I mean it wasn't it wasn't extreme cold we weren't canceling school or early dismissal so um but if we you can't you can't underc communicate so it it wouldn't hurt you know that kind of thing okay I have a question on a different topic if we're ready to move on um about the um Healthy Start times with the ad hoc subcommittee because it's going to be virtual where can people find the link if they want to tune in we're going to post the meeting agenda on Friday and the zoom link will be in the posting great thanks okay so um excuse me it's a Google meet not a zoom link right all right um so let's go to subcommittee reports let's hear from policy okay the policy Communications committee members when went through each

050of the 9,000 Series policies that were submitted for a first read at the meeting on October 30th each policy was reviewed a few minor changes were Incorporated based on feedback from board members and you saw those changes highlighted on that chart that I made that Lisa sent out to help make things clear um then the committee made the recommendation for the following bylaws to be put on the consent agenda tonight for a final read and adoption those policies are 9010 9011 912 9030 9100 9114 9115 9130 9160 9200 99230 9251 9311 9312 93 25.1 9327 9360 and 9400 additionally there were a few policies that we pulled out due to either major changes or errors and how they were submitted for the first read so you'll see those on a few of those on the

051consent agenda for the first read tonight if you guys could give me feedback on those first read policies by December Friday December 13th that'll give me enough time to get everything together for our December 18th policy meeting and then hopefully we can have those submitted in January for a final read and adoption and then we will have completed our first series of updates the 3,000 series excuse me the 3,000 policy series is up next for review and will be the committee's priority at the December policy meeting uh we're going to focus on the shipment and Goodwin legally required and recommended policies at that meeting we received the 5,000 policy book series and we will make that a priority after the 3,000 legally required and recommended updates are complete as always Aaron Joy and I continue

052to be deeply invested in updating as many legally required and recommended shipment and goodwi policies as possible and as quickly as were able uh Communications as you know from our oh no this is still a policy sorry as you know from our last board meeting Dr Burl informed the committee that there is new legislation and mandates around the school climate and bull bullying policy that will go into effect July 1st 2025 um the committee will work to adopt that policy by March in order to implement any changes that need to be made by July 1st 2025 and as we know this is evolving um and as Dr BR gets more information information he will inform us and we will keep um the board and the public informed and Communications lastly the weekly budget Blast has

053given the public an opportunity to receive and digest the budget in smaller easier to understand pieces um this is also attribute to the influence that the public has on our um the way we operate and how we look to improve our communication with the community um it's posted in parent Square currently and we talked about Dr brell um maybe expanding that post to the Facebook page the Brookfield Public School Facebook page so that we're able to share that info in as many places as possible to help keep the public informed are there any questions about any of that big props to you guys for your continued good work and that the only the only question I have if um shipping a good does come out with um that I know that they don't currently have

054that policy but if they do absolutely Oh I thought I heard the the door click I did ask um Pete and Rebecca about that and at this point they they still don't have one so we'll keep an eye I think that's why we don't have to rush you know we we have it early enough and so I figured March gives us more than plenty and if it takes till April and if by then they have one that'll give us a little pause and we can do that no thank you yeah and then one last thing on Communications if I might add uh Stephanie a couple things so um in terms of the the parents Square budget blast or anything else that's on parents square and getting it to Facebook um if you're not a member

055or logged in or have the app for parent Square putting that link just by itself up there uh becomes problematic so we're working with Eric on how we can interface that the other thing Eric is doing with Communications which kind of links to this just thinking about the weather for tomorrow I have my 4:30 conference call looking forward to that um the the um there will be a parents SAR blast that goes out about if we have to do do a delay or something like that obviously no news is regular schedule um but if there is a delay and Eric is trying to the test tomorrow to set it up if one post will also link to Facebook and also link to the website we're just trying to you know make everybody's life a little

056easier uh at all times with disseminating this information to the different uh platforms that we have so thank you all awesome let's move to consent agenda thank you Stephan was my talking save your voice um okay I recommend that the board approve the items listed on the consent agenda as recommended resignations bylaws for a final reading where the first reading was on October 30th 2024 and bylaws for a first reading second um are there particular uh pieces of discussion or are we ready to move to a vote great um so all in favor of approving the items on the consent agenda uh please say I I I um any oppos say nay all right so uh motion carries 70 thank you very much everybody let's go into new business then um so the first item

057is well take it away all right I move that the board discuss and approve its subcommittee structure and other board representation Magnet School bef Education Connection Brookfield cares rbac rbac yes and MBC from January through June 2025 [Music] great any discussion on this just had to yeah we have to actually discuss oh yeah um wa take your name for the um is everyone G to stay oh you're doing I'm not sure I don't know that is I guess keep my name there I don't know it's this it's the very last so it sounds like we are going to have a little discussion okay um so let's go through so we're we're we're good on our um committees up at the top yeah okay so um let's just use this moment to to like confirm um

058I'm going to stay as AIS rep unless anybody else is burning to do it I mean it's okay um education Advance rep Rob that's you okay um bef is Stephanie Brookfield cares Aaron that's you it's not me cuz they meet when I'm working that's right that's right we had that discussion and then we asked um who could maybe uh take that space in now it's unfilled um 10 o' in the morning know what I don't okay available in the morning I just need to know what day all right I'll check into that and circle back to you I'd be um I'd be okay taking that spot if okay there's no one else available I'll be happy to for you you the email that I have but I can't make it work thanks guys okay so

059the rbac that's me um NBC is Robert are you good with that sure okay and um sah for the Youth commission all right and then um the interface with the State Rep yes okay Town facil Robert you are popular um the so the Jo another ad hog I do I do actually um and then the town arpa ad hoc is does that committee exist anymore yeah is I have no idea that that was the town arpa funds that came in but with all that ending I don't even know if that's still right I I was on that but that's a different one this is Town facilities as separate underneath right next one that's kind of done but Town facilities at is there a town fac I was on and then you were on is that

060the capital oh no that's the capital's also down here at the bottom that's the one I'm on now I thought it was too and then I was like no the capital's down here right so got space on class I I could follow up why don't I follow up with Mr Dunn to see if if there's such a committee still in existence and we'll take it from there I'll let Wendy know pass it we're going to be asking about the town facilities ad hoc that's one to ask about right and then um just gone yeah the arpa is gone and then the 10year capital is now's that's that was when we just went and um um are you okay so the B the board of Finance do you what do you want to do about that

061do you want I I can take over I just yeah I mean I can still go with you to like I would really like that a lot yes what you like okay last one Wendy just on the last one it says it meets through January of 2024 oh yeah you can just take that out awesome also so it's it still exists but just the meets part we can take it yes it just meets kind of yearly um it's it should be meeting like all year but it really doesn't so like it'll meet through budget season yeah in talking with Mr when Casey and I met with Marsha and Mr Dunn on Monday afternoon there was there was some changes in other membership you know not just board representation but other Town Department representation but they're

062really trying to get that on a more regular schedule for the winter all right so um that's really outstanding thanks everybody we have um cleaned this up a bit and now that we um have it largely set um can we can we vote to approve it and we may have to vote to amend um to add Stephanie's name Wendy yes she's willing to take over the NBC rep wonderful great Aon so you're you're sure that that's a time that works for you yeah it's at night that's fine okay gosh Rob Christmas coming early I might give it back okay so um I got more to offer by the way the gift that keeps on giving so let's just let's just go ahead and pencil Stephanie in for the Brookfield cares and if it works out

063then we don't have to come back in and amend this again okay all right and then you're also in for the 10year capital plan which will'll meet at some in the future we talked about that last night all right it sounds like we're it sounds like we're good to go okay so we could you could you make your so actually I don't think we need to amend anything because really motion was to Chang we just call it all right so um all in favor of um approving the subcommittee structure and other board representation um for the next six months please say I I I any opposed all right so the motion carries uh 70 great so now let's go to the star of the show the superintendent's budget proposal Dr bril the floor is yours

064[Music] all right good evening everybody um good to be back on the mic again uh it's that time of year I cannot believe it um mentioning about the pride in seeing the kids um perform tonight just cannot believe this is the 10th budget we've been through we've been doing this uh together and I know this board um uh their very first meeting last year you might recall uh they were hit with a 6.2% increase and so I think there was more shell shock and not a lot of questions at that point uh given arpa uh roll in and things like that we're not in a position like that for this year I think you know that uh just as a reminder for everybody uh um in the public the board received the Wednesday before Thanksgiving

065uh a high level budget summary of exactly what we've got going on um with notes that kind of explain the big investments in the status quo budget which is our big piece from the the timeline um in addition to that um I'm the uh budget binders you have in front of you the board of selectman board of Finance uh the town Treasurer and town finance um uh manager all received those as well this afternoon so that's that's out there um and then the final piece on this is uh yesterday I sent an email to you with a slight just a little update on that highlevel piece which is reflected in the actual presentation and in your your binders today um I'd be remiss if I didn't thank all of you uh specifically the finance committee

066uh for the the early support in this and and in advance thank you for the work you're going to do this month and in January meeting on many of the off weeks uh for special meetings to make sure things happen also thanking department heads um uh various teacher leaders um uh especially our principals Casey uh Dr man Eric uh Bill uh Lisa for putting the binders together Joan all the people that that really take the time to put this together it is a uh there's there's a lot of work that goes into it and I'll start to explain that as we go um like any good presentation I'm going to start with kind of our big frame of what we stand for and why we're here and the value um that we put into finances

067to make make sure we have the the support for our students uh and our staff uh to have uh an optimal outstanding education system here uh as evidenced by some of the the work you saw the students today the the Athletics that's been going on this fall talking about Mr Blanda and his team at the high school and some of the great things they've been doing um and uh obviously the collaboration with the community and and the grant work and just everything that goes on and then I'll tell you what I'm going to tell you I'll tell you in detail and then I'll tell you again right at the end that's how we're going to have a little sandwich here it's about 20 slides it'll probably take me about 20 20 5 minutes to go

068through the presentation so to start with everything the board has an approved strategic plan uh we are in year two of that strategic plan and we are working diligently to align all of our efforts with the Strategic plan the mission of the school system is to inspire Challenge and prepare all of our students to live meaningful and productive lives and of course making sure our kids are prepared for success in life uh work and in learning and then our portrait of The Graduate kind of frames that out as we start to really think about the learning experiences in the curriculum what are those big Pieces by the time the students leave 13 years with us that we want them to have we want them to be able to demonstrate that the critical and creative thinkers

069communicator and collaborators caring citizens and change makers all right most of you would be very familiar with this document we call this the one pager this is the Strategic plan 20 25 page document distilled into one page to kind of simplify everything that we do so it's digestible and uh easier to understand so the first thing is kind of visionary statement that we want to have a worldclass school system that cultivates growth and learning and then of course that mission of preparing students for living those meaningful and productive lives and then those Brookfield Seas of collaborators and communicators and critical and creative thinkers social change makers and of course caring citizens the top part of this document never changes but each year in the kind of pink area there are big chunks that we work

070on in adjust each year for the actual action steps and work work dynamics that we want to make sure we accomplish so um and those four pieces are are straightforward two of them are the portrait of The Graduate and working on that and I've highlighted some key things I'm just going to touch on there's a more to it but for the point of the presentation we're making sure that we're working on developing the domains for the p and those are newly established and those descriptors of those C's that I talked about the other piece is the pro portrait of The Graduate look fors um that we identified and we're making sure we explore those and we have an actual portrait of The Graduate team um K through 12 that is is working on this in

071regard to instructional practice and how we incorporate the portra of The Graduate some highlights there are making sure we have professional learning for all of our District staff we are making sure and this was a big emphasis at the beginning of the school year and presenting to the board is getting everybody on board with a new teacher evaluation and administrator evaluation support and growth plan in the purpose-driven work we talked about with Boston College coming in and really helping us with a lot of that and then the um aligned standard based curriculum that we're always fine-tuning and working on and adjusting to the changes and standards and then making sure the most rigorous and research based best practices in uh in instruction and assessment as a matter of fact I actually had a a joyful

072walk through with Mark this morning and we went into a couple of classrooms and really saw some learning Target work that was really best practice topof the line uh and then finally in that area um making sure uh Community connections and we we really want to make sure we're emphasizing that and doing more and more of that with our students supporting uh portra of The Graduate work we also we can't forget we live in a digital world so supporting not only the technology infrastructure but the digital tools for Learning and Investments that we make in digital tools we assess each year the usage the effectiveness Etc and so sometimes we'll change digital tools we'll discard we we'll invest in something new whatever it might be so you see a little bit of that in the

073budget and then of course undergoing everything is a spirit of continuous Improvement and that's really a lot of back office work that goes on and kind of um for lack of a better term kind of that roll up the sleeves a little bit of grunt work here um we just talked about policy and that that's the last one that's highlighted there um toward can you see can you see talk about shipment and goodwind policies it's down toward the bottom the policy work that goes into things merging the Board of Ed and town technology department Eric has the double leadership now that was a big move this year in terms of continuous Improvement and looking at how we could uh have efficiencies in the community focusing on the Student Activity fund those of you on the

074finance uh committee know about the work Casey has done especially with the high school and Student Activities and working with Mr Baldwin so a lot of great work going on there and then of course parent Square in the website so just a lot of incredible work aligned and in the actions as you think of the things we've done this year aligned exactly with the actions for the Strategic plan but you have to focus you know I often say if you try to be everything to all people you're nothing to everyone you have to focus we prioritize a lot lot of initiatives this year continuing on that and capacity building in the areas that we're focusing on focusing strategically for next year working on the portrait of The Graduate and getting that into the portrait of

075The Graduate re really integrated into our curriculum continuing that work is a big Focus area not only this year going into next year work we're doing in achievement as we always talk about Reading Writing math science social study standards but specifically really focusing on math we all saw the presentation early on public comment mentioned it earlier really got to work on math what are we going to do in this budget to work on math we're going to provide or I'm recommending we provide a math interventionist at the elementary school and that we work on adjusting the SK schedule and Dr P and his team are already doing that to make more time for math instruction being as creative as we can with that also at the high school investing not only to create smaller class

076sizes in uh specifically in the math department but integrating that with science and a piece that we need to do with both science and math and trying to make uh not only class sizes smaller but offer uh courses more responsive to student requests so you'll see that and then finally the focus area so it's Port of The Graduate work achievement specifically really focus on math work and then the third piece is the implementation of climate legislation and school climate working on that and we talked a lot two weeks ago about a climate compliance teacher leader to really help the district work on that and be responsive to those needs trying to have an optimal environment for our students but making sure we can comply with this very new uh very um uh overarching law that's

077come in all right I'm going to take a little step back going to budget process where I started to talk about that it's really important to share all of us put a tremendous amount of effort into our budget and it takes a lot of time to put all of this together uh it's a team effort it's a board effort it's a board of selectman and board of Finance effort over the course of the year and obviously hearing from our citizens and the thing that they're interested in and our staff so in October literally this year it happened on October 1 uh Mrs di puts out the memo that explains everything about the various spreadsheets and so forth that we have to put forward to get our our teams ready with uh budget development we get

078in input from the departments at the school level uh we get input from staff um and we start to develop the budgets the principles bring those budgets forward um and we discuss it at central office and we look at what are our priorities what are the things we're focused on and and how are we going to make our resources match that in November and this year it happened to be October 31st um the assumptions and priorities document that I shared with the board was presented and that really starts to lay out not only the the key assumptions we all need to be focused on but what are those priorities going to be and we start to have early discussion on that and I noted to the board in my email last Wednesday that a couple

079of things that I was putting in as prioritize while important Concepts as we continue to fine-tune and prioritize they didn't make this final recommendation for you or this recommendation at this time Casey and I then really work hard to put the budget together there's a lot of work that goes into it and then the status quo budget is presented to you as it was last week tonight we the superintendent puts the recommendation forward and then what's going to happen over the next two months the board begins to submit questions the Board of Ed the finance committee continues to fine-tune inspect work on it divide the budget up really get into the nitty-gritty of the budget ask a lot of questions and really inspect the budget the um board will facilitate before the regular meeting on

080the 18th a budget Roundtable for the public uh to not only have public comment like they do at a regular board but actually interact with the board and have conversation and administration comes as well January um there will be a budget hearing shortly after the winter break uh I think it's might be the 15th but I don't know someone could check the the date on that and then the the board continues deliberations with the admin team through the month of January um finance committee continues its inspection there's a lot of work there we make any adjustments during January is when we start to really make adjustments you know John this looks a little M can you go back can you bring we're interested in this do you have some data on that how's this program

081really working there's a lot of those good questions and we come back with that material and the principles jump in and really uh uh respond and help us um so we get that feedback and then by the end of January the board has to adopt the budget we need to give ourselves some time because the charter it's January 31st we have to submit it um uh whatever weekday it falls on I have to bring it over to the and present it literally to the first selectman and so that has to happen that way which means if the board has any changes mid late January that they're looking for that I need to come back with and have actually adopted by the board we need a little bit of lead time to then the next day

082or two actually do the calculations and put a coherent budget together so there's a lot there then in February we uh We've uh probably the last seven or eight years had a a wonderful joint board meeting with Board of finance and board of Selectmen where all in the Board of Ed all three boards get together and really go through um the board's adopted budget at that point a lot of give and take there and then the board of finance and board of select the board of selectman recommends forward to the board of Finance Board of Finance takes over from there and then we're back and forth as we need to all the way to uh usually the second Tuesday in May when we finally have a budget Town budget in Board of Ed budget out

083there for referendum so it's a it's a drawn out process here in town eight months of the year is spent on developing the budget for the next [Music] year before I get into the details of the budget recommendation it's important to make this note about recent positions eliminated there's a notion out there that the the school system uh or the town government is always adding positions I can tell you on the board side that isn't necessarily the case but I could understand people on thinking of it that way because with the ARP eser funds there was the rolling plan over the three years there was a lot going on and a lot that puts and takes so in 23 24 which was last year can't forget we had the consolidate part of the consolidation plan

084was to eliminate uh for going to the elementary school as eliminated administrator and we actually eliminated the CES principal position now to be intellectually honest we have to remind everybody that as part of the consolidation plan we introduced a teacher leader position which was the dean of students at the middle school because the assistant one of the assistant principal positions was brought down from the Middle School to the elementary school so so that was there but specifically in this year's budget uh we eliminated a grade five counseling position um we eliminated the technology integration coach we eliminated a secretary we didn't feel after the consolidation that we we want to see how things kind of played out we didn't need four secretaries at the the large Elementary School three would suffice and so that's what

085we have now especially with having the security monitors in place that helps with the the visitor entry and so forth a half a nurse uh as we continue to consolidate and prioritize needs and actually A8 HR coordinator was was uh eliminated when we Consolidated HR last year um and went from 2. FTS and that department down to two we're actually operating quite efficiently and it's going quite well in HR right now all right so here's the budget and this is a familiar document for the the board this is the document you've you received last Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I'm just going to walk through this and again I'm going to tell you this high level and then I'll get into details of five particular budget goals so so in terms of the status quo budget

086that's business as usual to maintain Services going forward um and keep all the same programs that we have we're looking at a a 3.44% increase over last year so that starts with really looking at salaries salaries accounts of that 3.44% increase salaries account for almost $800,000 or one a. half% for the the increases to the collectively bargained contracts that we have we're holding a line and we work with finance committee on this this a little different than we've done in years past is a negotiation salary line we don't have a par educator contract we're going I should say we have one we're going into negotiations for next year so rather than list all you know 60 plus par Educators and a particular number increased by their name we're putting a kind of a bucket of

087um uh funding in there uh and then see where that negotiation goes and then the the money there would be allocated for that and that also accounts for the 20 or so unaffiliated uh staff that we have in the district unaffiliated means they're not in any of the six unions then you're going to see this and I'll talk about this in more detail uh one of the things um the team and I have been working on and we actually worked with the instructional coaches on this um we are going to eliminate the instructional coach model um from um Brookfield Public Schools that's my recommendation going forward and um that currently we have six instructional coaches so we're going to eliminate those positions and not have that anymore not that we don't believe in the model

088um but given um tightening of resources tightening our belt uh the survey uh that staff has taken where they're really actually focusing more on needing the coaches to help them with curriculum development and curriculum implementation uh not so much on the coaching in terms of how they utilize the coaches um it's something that we find um needs to be done so we're going to eliminate the um six uh instructional coach positions and also just by natural EB and flow of enrollment in class sizes and so forth at the elementary school one Elementary section at the uh at CS however um we're going to replace those those seven eliminated positions with seven created positions um so this is a status quo again there's no new position created here and that is four curriculum Specialists um two

089at CES and two at WMS I'll explain it a little bit later in the presentation what that's going to look like and with the curriculum specialist going back to kind of an older model that we've had here and the faculty has really been interested in that particular area of having that teacher leader support um so six coaching positions goes down to four curriculum specialist positions we also are going to add that math interventionist I mentioned at the elementary school the climate compliance teacher will create that given the new legislation and the science math teacher in response to student um requests and helping to address some of the class size issues special education tuition and transportation has a 6% estimate on that and so that's going up $480,000 given the the students we have right now

090um and mostly that is for um students who are outplaced and taking a look at those contracts and so forth and then health insurance we're doing something a little different this year but pretty much we know that's a big increase along with salaries um is $344,000 that's EST that's an estimate of 4.7% increasing in premiums now we don't have anything that says it's a 4.7% uh estimate um coming from our um healthy aison however working with uh Marsha and Steve um and looking at the fiveyear history and Casey of course the fiveyear history um the average is 4.7% and if you recall last year we built in a 10% increase which was just an incredible amount of money it turned out we got lucky in the budget process and it was ended up being only

091a 2% increase so you know you spend all this time sharpening the pencil and concerned about maybe I'm going we're going to chip away at some programs and then that kind of back office operational piece wasn't even that expensive so we're going with this average um and then Marsha and Steve are working going to start to work I think next week with the board of Finance to put a health insurance contingency in place should it be higher um certainly if it's lower then we just lower our budget by that number so status quo um is a 3.44% increase as I said getting to the next piece where we start to get to kind of the investment section typically um in this summary slide that I share with you each year um you all recall that

092we have um an A continuing increase in Portuguese bilingual students um speaking by the Portuguese as their first language to that end last year planning for this year to keep cost down we put into the budget a 05 or a half uh Portuguese bilingual teacher into the budget we knew it was going to be tough even if it was a full-time position because it's a major shortage area here in the state so lo and behold we posted we went through the entire process process Katherine Oro did a great job working on this we had someone ready to go um but they were offered a full-time position in in a neighboring District so they took that position we could not find anybody um that was viable and qualified um but working with the state and I

093Shar this with you I think at the beginning of the year the um we are we are in uh in alignment with the state the the folks are giving us good advice there we have a full-time par dedicated to these bilingual children at Portuguese bilinguals at the uh elementary school and they under the aices of our multilingual teachers so they're we're we're fully in alignment with the law we're okay there um but I don't I I would argue that we're not getting an Optimum education for our kids we want more so we want to make sure that we not only fulfill the state mandate but we do a great job educating the kids so we're asking for in this in this particular line I'm asking for an additional half teacher which would put us to

094a full-time bilingual teacher and that population continues to increase we're still at around 20 um but we can anticipate that uh students speaking different languages will continue to increase here in in District um and then the last piece is is pra about $100,000 only um in specific student-driven Investments um we knew going in from last year into this year knowing what was going to happen for for uh 2526 that we implemented uh K3 uh cka the science of uh reading mandate that came down the approved uh reading program that we needed to implement um we're actually getting great feedback from staff on this so that's number one great having said that um grade four and five implementation for next year is our plan so the elementary school has its one program and you could see

095um that ccla and the the instruction applies and the requisite PD is about a $155,000 investment uh to get everybody up and running in fourth and fifth grade and then boost reading is the um digital tool that is uh accompanies um CK uh CK so we want to make sure we have that as well that replaces the old Lexia program that people might remember so that's an investment of $99,000 we're having incredible interest in French again there's a Resurgence at the high school uh Mr Blen recommended that we um uh add a point to FTE to increase um one of our French teachers by just enough to have uh some more availability for teaching French uh at the high school and then two um really nice uh things again these are all student interest here

096um we have interest in 30 kids this year interested in Ski Club the ski team um we have a volunteer coach that did it last year for us we have a volunteer coach again this year he happens to be in the room over here um um I don't think we have to twist his arm too much to be a volunteer coach at this point but um we really if you're going to have a a sport and you're going to have it consistently and daily for kids um you you really need to have form formally uh funded coaches so this is for a a head coach and assistant coach um and The Morning News we talked about with the Grant from the bef one of the requirements of bef grants is that you sustain the programs

097and we really want to get uh daily supervision for kids and script writing and and uh video announcements ready to go for the mornings to uh to move that along so as you'll look at the like I said it's about $100,000 in kind of new spending Investments um uh at the bottom there but the rest really is aligned with State mandates Andor the status quo budget we're looking at a 3.6 uh 4% recommended budget increase at this point in the year going forward um to to move us forward but stay focused on those core those three core areas that I talked about earlier uh Casey put together a little chart here for us when we look at expenditures by category and the increases it's important to know that of the total expenditures um of $2,147

098th000 64% of it is attributable to salaries and benefits We Are a Human Resources business I say this every year but it's important to to let everybody know that the non-discretionary that we talk about um salaries benefits Transportation utilities special education tuition and transportation is practically 95% of the budget so it's really important for people to understand how that all fits together all right so our budget goals first one is really maintaining class size uh within guidelines we've always tried to do that as best we can with the the Staffing that we have um but where we can achieve efficiencies when enrollment changes uh we work on that the second goal is to to provide the the best curriculum we can they say the curriculum is the DNA of the school district we need to

099make sure that that's there and again with that transition I talked about earlier going to the curriculum specialist model will really put a focus on that particular area of teaching and learning um maintaining and enhancing programs while CH uh being responsive to changing organiz organizational needs you'll see a couple of pieces there what have has to do with coaching and then providing the technology not only the infrastructure but the digital tools to continue to advance learning for our kids and then making sure we have the resource in place to meet all state and federal mandates that are uh that we have to follow all right so goal number one the maintaining class size um again as I said the focus is going from 51 regular classroom sections at the elementary school down to 50 um

100and there'll be a couple of changes in grade levels again it's very early I'm not going to get into the weeds and details on that here at a board meeting in December uh that's for Dr P to work out but you'll see that the way we have it set up uh you'll see in a chart that I have a little later all of our class sizes K through 8 are within the class size range you'll see no red on that chart so that's really exciting um we're going to maintain eight sections in kindergarten although we'll have 16 in a class they'll be low class sizes which is great remember we have Paras supporting in kindergarten as well um the other thing we're going to do is really take a look at first grade um because

101with the new legislation some of the younger students whose birthdays um happened a um after September 1 parents either decided or the kids weren't ready after their screenings and they've been held out a year from kindergarten they might come and jump right into first grade after spending a year in private kindergarten so we're going to see where that goes and we're going to keep an eye on that we start kindergarten registration in February and that's always an area we keep an eye on and of course if we find we're having a a spike in a particular area I'll come to you we'll go to the town and see what we need to do and we've always had support to make sure we have you know the proper amount of teachers for our kids um then

102the math physics teacher that I was talking a math science teacher which is really a math physics teacher I was talking about earlier uh responsive to course selection and class size issues and then the point to World Language um for uh the increasing interest in French so those are our kind of our class siiz pieces there's a lot here I'm just going to highlight some pieces but these are the key initiatives in the curriculum area making sure we have a standards-based uh and rigorous uh curriculum uh really focused on the portrait of The Graduate the NGS standards the social study standards um making sure that uh we are developing assured uh instructional approach just like I was talking about going around the high school and walk through with Mark uh today the grade four and

103five roll out of ccla as I talked about uh the illustrative math piece and making sure that we finish up the implementation next year in the lower grade so we're we're fully K8 with illustrative math and the requisite PD um the other piece is that the U teacher and administrative support and growth plan we have to make sure we're following that with Fidelity but also making sure that that's is actually working for our teachers and our administrators and they're actually reflecting and growing in that support and that purpose work and Boston College actually wrote to me today to make sure that there um you know our partnership will continue next year so that's that's a a great opportunity for all of us um uh bill was just here uh last month uh or two weeks

104ago whatever it was uh talking about the special education strategic plan and the work there and that's all in alignment with uh Dr corvo uh from CRA and the the recommendations going forward and then at BHS uh looking at career preparation reaching out to the community alignment with Port of The Graduate a lot of great extension there goal three enhancing programs while remaining responsive to changing needs changing organization leads and the like like I said earlier we're going to eliminate the instructional coach model replace that with and that's six FTE replace that with a curriculum specialist model and that model is going to look like the following it is going to be four FTE is my recommendation going forward it will have a stem FTE at the middle school and a Humanities FTE at the

105middle school and so a Humanities would be an English social studies curriculum specialist at the middle school and a math a stem would be science math uh uh expert at uh the Middle School to help uh the teachers to write the curriculum articulate the curriculum model the curriculum answer any of the questions the teachers have and that's a that's those are full-time positions and the same thing at the elementary school this will also create parody with the high school which as you know we have uh two administrators one focused on St which is science math and technology and then the humanities and uh uh English language arts so that's the model there the other adjustment we're making is the math interventionist that I talked about um CS already has one math interventionist but it's important

106to to to know with six grades one math interventionist has a tough time getting around for the needs of the kids so adding the second math interventionist we kind of have an upper and a lower uh interventionist to really focus and one focus more on some of the primary work one on the upper work um the middle school right now has an interventionist for the three grades that they have so just creating some parity and alignment and Equity at the schools the fourth goal is technology I'm going to hit those bottom uh pieces first um making sure that uh the communication user experience is strong uh in continuing the transition and the rollover of the website uh the parent Square work we talked about that earlier so I won't beat that one um the it's

107time for the device replacement and so the whis skiner and uh High School laptops for the fact faulty need to be replaced so Eric's got that in the budget it's hard to believe because we've been working on this for so long to get digital dis digital display boards and smartboards in all of the classrooms in the district but now it's time to start looking at the life cycle replacement and starting at the high school so we have to do that uh Eric's really getting the team together on uh developing a a plan for technology for the district going forward A Five-Year Plan um and then of course investing in our digital tools um like boost and some of the other things I talked about kind of going back to the top of this slide one

108of the things that's important for people to know um with um our bring your own device uh initiative uh it's been very good for us um but we also have Chromebooks for the students and students could invest in those we're building a phase in plan about 80% of the kids who can participate in the whiskin and the uh the high school um have uh invest into the buy into the the Chromebooks and uh they use them and they do well with them kids still could bring in their own device even if they have a Chromebook but about 20% of the kids elect to just their own device what's problematic about that is kind of on two levels one with all the different standardized things that we have to go through it's much more efficient to

109have everybody on a Chromebook I see Sarah nodding her head she's dealing with that kind of stuff the other piece there is in you know the anxious generation and the work to make sure we don't have fragmented attention and kids are focused and get them uh away from social media during instructional time those kids were bringing in their own devices it's very easy for them to use those devices to be distracted and we don't want to see that so with the Chromebooks we could actually Eric could do the work to block that and have more more pieces in uh place so that's that's something we're working on and then in goal five making sure we're meeting federal and state law we talked about the climate leg uh the the the uh climate compliance teacher um

110so I won't go over that again you're versed in that and then I I went into some detail on the Portuguese bilingual adding a half teacher to the existing half position we have in the budget um and then while there's not necessarily major new investment uh really focusing on um the updated strategic plan um and and really working things through on systems and structures and professional learning and special education now there's a lot of Staffing things I said there so I wanted to put a slide together that simply summarizes it for everybody so the first thing we're doing in terms of Staffing because remember I said status quo was was a pretty solid just kind of a rollover type budget in terms of collective bargaining seven ftes are going to be eliminated six of those

111are the instructional coaches there is I have not heard a lot of value from the community on this and the faculty themselves are not utilizing them for the instructional coaching it's more getting coaching but really focused on the curriculum uh implementation area so we're going to we're going to talk about that in just a second and the other is the enrollment adjustment and lowering uh Staffing uh faculty by one FTE at the elementary school those seven FTE will be replaced by creating seven new FTE the first one would be the C for curriculum specialist which I've talked about the math interventionist which we've talked about at the elementary school the climate compliance teacher which we talked about in great detail two weeks ago and the the science math uh teacher for [Music] BHS that remains

112in the status quo we then have those additional part- times that I talked about the point 2 French for the increased interest and the Portuguese bilingual that's the summary of the Staffing changes so it's really straightforward you just go to this slide anybody who's watching at home who's just got to get back to this just go to this slide it tells everything we're doing and then reviewing the student driven new Investments well the French and the bilingual are student- driven Investments I'm just rolling from one slide to the next here the ski coach stiens and the adviser for the morning video news at the middle school and then the curriculum instruction assessment Investments which is CK for grades four and five with the support boost reading digital tool to go with that those are the

113invest going to slide into enrollment projections right now so everybody kind of just change gears for a second the elementary school next year we're anticipating based on current enrollment looking at our enrollment uh study uh 1,21 students that includes prek whis skiner a little less with f a little less from where it is this year at 579 and at the high school 830 this brings us to 2430 students that we anticipate for next year as you know in the enrollment report that I shared earlier this fall um we uh our population is about 100 students more right now and you could see that in the kind of that middle section some important notes on our subgroups that we really do track here in District they're very important we not only track them here in District

114these we have to report out on these particular subgroups and uh it's a lot of data uh on Ed site with with the state department of Ed uh students with special needs uh right now three as of October 1 348 students were identified as having uh an iepa or special need and that's a year-to-date change from last year uh of uh 17 less students uh we're at about 14% of our student population identified with special needs the state average is about 17% people know that multilingual Learners we've done some some a lot of talking about that tonight um we have right now 100 or as of October 1 122 students identified when I got here uh 9 10 years ago that number was in the '90s as I recall um and students weren't exiting out

115of the program they were kind of identified and that was it we really worked hard to bring in programming for those students and each year on average about 20 students exit so as more and more kids come and you can see it's plus eight from last year um about uh and in last year to this year we had 14 students test out of the program which is great because we're we're always moving the students and assimilating them uh here into English and into America um we'd be looking at about 136 kids if we didn't matriculate those students out uh through through all the work that goes on there then free and reduced lunch uh 668 students that's 23% of our kids qualify for free and reduce lunch um it was under 10% when I got

116here 10 years ago so there's a big change in the Dynamics in our community but there is a caveat to that there was in 2018 uh a different a change in the threshold where um it it it more students qualified based on the change in the threshold so I want to be you know uh very transparent about that but really that is a lot of students qualifying and so it's something to be concerned about and we pay attention to all right class size averages like I said said working with Dr P working with Mr Renda uh you could see uh down at the bottom of that there's a there a 10year history there's not a lot of red on this chart red is when we're outside of the uh high end of the range we

117really uh K8 do a great job staying uh uh tight on class size and this this next year assuming the numbers don't really uh Spike at all those class sizes look really good I mean I mean if if I'm a parent I am I am enjoying the fact that my kids are going to be in in quite small classes [Music] so I told you what I was going to tell you I told you and kind of going to tell you again just to bring you back to the summary slide I'm not going to go through it but at the end of the day our status quo to keep business as usual not adding uh a great deal of Staff or anything like that 3.44% increases that's just the cost of doing business contractual increases Etc

118we then look at the bilingual programming we want to really add to that to make sure we give that opportunity to our students and then uh about $100,000 in student driven Investments very specific and very um uh very appropriate frankly and um I'm excited for the kids I think this is a really focused and uh tight budget and I'm actually excited for the community because it's it's a a well under 4% increase at this point and we know we will be sharpening the pencils with the finance committee and and doing a lot of work over the next number of months getting to the last slide here um reminding everybody that the budget as I said earlier in the presentation is a financial statement of our values and education educating our students expenditures by category so

119this is kind of our our total here so if we look at salary and benefits uh almost 80% 77.8% of the total net budget request uh of 52 almost $53 million is Staffing right and you could see that in the pie chart to the left and then again going to non-discretionary spending which is salaries benefits Transportation utilities and special education tuition and transportation represents nearly 94% of the total budget just some facts there for you now the the the the numbers on this chart if you look at there's some fine print on the bottom there that's not inclusive of grants that we anticipate of $1.5 billion coming in and that's it for the budget presentation I thank you for your attention and if there's questions or thank you Dr bur I just wanted to say

120that I appreciate that you listened to the board and the community when we had had concerns about the instructional coach model nothing to do with the individuals but um the fact that your team and you have taken that and advanced that and developed that into something that can be more useful or helpful for the teachers and for the budget um I just wanted to say that I think that's that's a really uh what's the word I'm trying to think of pro thank you or or um proactive thank you thank you for being proactive and listening to I appreciate that you have really heard all of that I have a couple questions um we have two months for questions yeah no this one's just a clarifying question um so for the for the 0.5ft Portuguese bilingual

121teacher do we already have I thought you mentioned that we're going to have this basically brings us to a full time it would bring us to a full time is this two half times no it would bring us to a fulltime it would be a one it would be meant for one person okay and that's going to immeasurably increase our chances of getting someone to to be a teacher in that area we can't promise though because no we don't even have five we're using the fund budgeted we have it budgeted the5 is budgeted it's in the budget and we're using those funds we we talked about this we're using these funds with a par educator okay who has uh linguistic Acumen and they're they are they are working with those students but the state would

122not just allow us to just do that you know there's laws in place for this to make sure the kids are getting the proper education the ml teachers are actually supporting that par educator okay no yeah yeah okay I understand now so we will have hopefully hopefully a full-time if this all goes through yeah right and then the other quick question was um even though we talked about it in the finance committee but um for the health insurance the estimated 4.7 increase is is the town planning on budgeting that way as well yes okay yes so this we came to an agreement you know those are those those weekly Monday meetings and um the other thing is I I believe Steve has had some conversations perhaps with Board of Finance leadership by this point but

123I think officially unless they're meeting tonight I think next week they're meeting and so look at e over there yes there you go and when e comes to the finance committee meetings too so we talked about this already so yeah okay that's it so everybody's in alignment so for members of the public who want to ask questions about this if you think about it or dive into these documents over the next week next two weeks it's on the 18th I'd like carry the one um Wednesday the 18th here at uh 6 o' we'll have the budget round table and that's for um the community to come and ask questions but also people could attend the finance subcommittee meetings right those are Thursday at 6:30 yes um our regular meetings are the SEC sorry our regular

124meetings are the second um Thursday um of each month at 6:30 but in the month of December we will be meeting every week um until the until roughly like probably mid January until we get through all the line items at 6:30 at I 6:30 on Wednesdays yep sorry on Thursday we went through like week by week and I think there might have been some and my apologies I put all those subcommittee meetings in for next week and I didn't put the special Finance subcommittee which is Thursday right next week okay it'll be posted for it's at town hall for people who would like to attend to just um witness some of the deliberations they're very detailed can I add one more one more thing um we do have a budget blast ready to go out

125tomorrow and that will have the links to this PowerPoint presentation to the um you know Dr bur's presentation and and uh and where to find all of the budget documents on the website for members of the community that want to take a deeper look and you're not kidding I mean it's a deeper look it's a deeper look and and as a reminder we we you know uh between Lisa and Eric they'll work on taking the contents of the budget binder I want to make sure the way Casey said that so everybody understands it and get that it'll be electronically by section up there like it is each year and we have what about an 8ye history up online right now at least yeah maybe 10 year history up online wonderful then quick one quick question

126the science maath teacher at the high school is that just going to kind of be a hybrid depending on the need so we have to wait for uh course registration right so we have to wait for that so in working with Mr Banda he's got some people who have multiple certifications and high schools that's the toughest Dr man went into a whole dissertation on that a couple meetings ago so we've got some people who can can be that hybrid and so when we look to hire depending and again we're not going to post for a long time at this point when we look for that we may be looking for a specific physics or a specific math or whatever and then the person who's here right now who might not be in a hybrid type

127position might do that so that's what we're trying to look at I have a question as far as a math intervention I know that we're looking for one at the elementary level but historically when we're looking at our test scores our math scores across the board you know in middle school and high school are struggling as well so are we looking to do anything to assist those students or you know yeah so we have our our multi-tiered uh support uh services in place so that we have that uh in terms of intervention it used to be called RTI and and all that kind of stuff as you know a the um so that's where we're looking at you know those six weeks intervals and to help our students the interventionist obviously will help us another

128interventionist can certainly help us with that but across the board the other thing we're having some very preliminary conversation you know when we look at our high school test scores when when the kids take a PSAT or then they take an SAT it's an integrated math assessment right so they may not have taken geometry yet but there's geometry questions so they're not going to score well because they haven't been taught that yet so one of the things Mr Hill Mr Planet having some very preliminary conversations nothing that would affect next year at this point what we need to start thinking about is is the curriculum itself and the curriculum specialist can really help us in this area too is K through 12 do we want to do something different with spiraling or integrating a little

129differently than maybe we do now to help our students with that so they looking not only at schedules and Staffing but also our actual approach remember when we have illustrative math or we had my math before that that's just a curricular tool that's a a base for us to work from but that's not the curriculum and that's not great teachers teaching that content to the kids so moving forward um there is no old business so we're going to go to the second round of public comment and Mrs Rice um it is your turn okay Denise rice three old Hemlock Road um I just want to say just quick with the minutes Andy on the last meeting the first public comment it was about not complying with the law second one was about ethics violations just

130for the record you can go look at it um I anyway and I see that you're going to Executive session after the meeting I believe the attorneys will be present I think we do need to move on so I think it'll be cost effective to add the following item tonight while they are present instead of having another meeting at a later date which will likely end up costing double to disc to discuss attorney client privileged into information and advice regarding a meeting among board chair Vice chair and Brookfield Education Association representation any board member can make a motion to add an agenda item if everything is above board nobody should have a problem with this I believe the whole board would be interested in hearing Council explain their communication with the board chair and advice

131given on a separate note as parents when we get up and speak we're welcomed with grunts rolled eyes and laughed at by certain board members or disregarded or last month in my case was even told was was wasting time it was shocking to see the same treatment happen to another board member if you don't happen to agree with others opinions I believe when was told to even hurry up what is that when the same person in the past went on a 10-minute dissertation about her political views that was allowed I think we need to stop the circus and um certain board members can't run it you're sitting as board members that took an oath for what's best for our children to deliver the best educational experience you can and it kind of sickens me that

132several members don't have the children's best interest or mindset to make the necessary changes needed to move this District in to the world class education that Brookfield claims to deliver so I think that maybe we should all pull together and try to do this by being transparent and having more people patience because I know how hard it is to be up here and it wasn't right hurry up thanks thank you Mrs Rice um Mrs C you are next sear C case mow UI Brookfield Connecticut sorry let me just my notes good evening I'm no stranger to standing before you I have for many years I've even spoken at many board members before this panel was in effect I often speak on special education budget and policy I myself in the past have F filed a

1331312 complaint and I and I have also helped many others file their own State complaints regarding their children and their educational process um I can probably recy idea and my sleep and at this point I'm fully aware of my rights and those of our children I recently joked around with a principal at the football game that I'm not a rule follower because I've often found that rules and policies you want others to follow don't even exist I cringe when I hear the word policy thrown around and and if the policy is in effect those that should be implementing them and using them as a resource don't I employ I implore anyone in the public to do a quick search on their own you can see when they have our policies have been revised many are

134outdated Antiquated and many state mandated laws and policies in Brookfield don't even exist when these don't exist it opens up us up to legal fees litigation and mediation this cost our district dearly again do a search on that filing a complaint is and should be taken seriously the average State complaint uses up eight hours of legal fees I work in finance and I have for many years there is a process called an internal audit what that means means is an assessment is done to make sure policies and procedures are being handled with Fidelity and care if you sat on the board and simultaneously sat on the finance committee you should fire yourself immediately because to date there still is not a policy in effect regarding my own 1312 that I had filed that states that

135a special Edge ver verifi certified teacher needs to be in effect for long-term sub how can you possibly keep to a budget when you know how and where we are bleeding finances and do nothing about it it's lucky that I don't sit on the board of Finance because I would probably rip your budget apart thank you thank you Mrs oops thank you Mrs CES um so let's talk about the um three main points what do you what did you gather so I thinking the first should be um the summary of the bef Grant updates because that pretty significant and um great news for the school um two would be the policy approvals cuz that's a huge chunk of uh what we've been working on and then the third the um Dr Burl's uh budget proposal

136update yep or proposal presentation um ladies that was 18 policies approved from the 9,000 Series well done okay upcoming um oh wait actually what did you guys think of what did you guys think of um the three main points do those seem like good choices to you all right okay upcoming events so we know that we've got the concert on the 17th there was nothing new from the last meeting I had included all of the upcoming events right awesome um all right so we are um well I'm going to move that we uh actually hold on this ends the public session for everybody who's watching at home and for the folks here um we're going to be um moving into executive deess uh session to discuss um employment sorry okay all right so I move

137that we um move into executive session uh to discuss employment of administrator and possible action concerning employment of the administrator second um all in favor of so moving I oppos all right so this concludes it and thanks everybody have a great night