Board of Education Meeting

001see [Applause] right it is 701 I'm G to go ahead and call the meeting um the pro field Board of Ed uh to order this Wednesday evening November 20th would you all please rise and join me in sing the plan of Allegiance Pledge alance is to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay we are gonna first of all good um morning good evening to everyone uh we've got quite a crowd here tonight um it's pretty exciting and we're going to begin with our student Spotlight uh from whiner Middle School uh Dr P are you here Mr sorry come on that was that was that was a joke on purpose um sorry m Mr Renda please please Mr Renda

002um share your good news with us so as always I'm always very excited to highlight things that are going on at the middle school and as you know early in the year I talked about even part of our school Improvement plan and school climate is two of the programs that we started this year one of them is called web web is where everyone belongs it's our sixth grade student orientation and we have eighth graders that are advisers in a sense for our sixth graders they did some stuff over the summer and then they're continuing to do it throughout the year every month and then we also started something I I brought it before called unplugged hour where students as we talk about the anxious generation and no cell phones in school we wanted to come

003up with activities where kids you know um where there's no electronic devices involved so we started to unplug that why I shouldn't say I did it's it's these guys that put it together so I'm going to introduce two people we have Kayla denal and Jessica ree they're going to talk a little bit about our programs with the kid hi I'm Kayla denal I'm actually going to turn it right over to the kids so if you want to come over and hit the mic I'm just on slide Duty yes hi I'm Vanessa Ginsburg and I am an eighth grade student at Whiskey near middle school and I'm part of the web program web stands for where everyone belongs this web what we do is for the new sixth graders we make them feel comfortable in the

004new school so they aren't as nervous nervous coming into the school um the benefit for the sixth graders is they find out more problem solving activities they find out Concepts about whis skaner and they become more comfortable in the school before they have to come in on the first day the benefit for us eth graders are we feel more like a leader after this because we're leading a group of sixth graders that of people that we don't know yet and we're a bigger role model because when when we're in school we're in the hallway a sixth grader might come up to us and say hi and that really just makes us feel a lot better this is a national program and this is the first time whis skiner has done it so for orientation well

005first we had two days in the Summer where we did our training we learned the games that we're going to do with our sixth graders we got comfortable with each other in groups that we didn't know each other and we just really learned everything so we can teach the sixth graders the best we could um when they got to the school on orientation we had all a big assembly and we did a lot of group activities all the eighth graders sat with the sixth graders in the bleacher so they could be comfortable with us then after we did all of our group activities in the assembly we split up into groups we all got around like 8 to 10 sixth graders with two leaders and what we did was we did games as like we

006tried to keep balloons up and and tried to do it with Teamwork because we could only keep our pinkies linked together or something like that we did problem solvers and we taught them about what whis skiner is like all about and what really important things are in whis skiner and we did take them around a tour around whiskin so they know where everything is on their first day hi my name is Ethan Gomez I'm eighth grader at whisk Middle School part of the web program now throughout the year we have had academic follow-ups now these academic follow-ups uh we in these academic follows we teach kids uh all important things that they need to know to get through the school year in our first academic follow we taught kids how to ask questions the questions

007we kind of asked the questions we teach them to ask were the difference between closed ended and open-ended questions we played activities with the sixth graders to help them learn about the knowledge that they were top we played a game where we hit an object around the room the first time they could only ask closed-ended questions the second time they could only ask open-ended questions by the end they had to compare which was easier to use to help them learn daytoday activities then throughout the year we also have social follow-ups during these follow-ups they're more friendlier a little more fun yeah a little more fun and more um group based so they're fun uh our most recent uh social followup at the end of October we tal about Day of the Dead and Dali and

008uh with the kids they made little crafts and activities from what they learned and throughout the year our next followup will be a student run unplugged hour now when we have these uh when we have these lessons with the sixth graders the rest of the school has an unplugged hour and during this time the eighth graders who run web and the sixth graders who learn don't really know what else is going on the school so next month we the web leaders will be hosting their own unplugged out thank you they're very excited about that so to show a couple pictures from our orientation we had a big assembly in the gym where we had every sixth grader Pile in the eighth graders like they said were amongst them we were doing some big group activities

009and then this truly was the most student Le program I've ever seen where the eighth graders went with their group to classrooms and they led the activities of getting to know you keep the balloon up some of them had themes for their tours around the building so already on the very first day of school kids knew some friendly faces they had a group of people they could say hi to or that they knew in the hallway so that was awesome and then since then this was a picture from our dwali lesson where again it's so student L it's incredible to watch these kids practice a lesson and then teach it some of them have said they feel for their teachers now because they're like how do we rein them in how do we redirect so

010we've practiced that too and they're just doing a very nice job all right unplugg all right hi I'm Jess ree um while the eighth graders and the sixth graders are doing un um web we are doing unplugged with our seventh graders and the other eighth graders who aren't the leaders in the program so these are some of the clubs that we have offered um some of these are teachers suggested some of these are ones that we've kind of crowdsourced or looked around for what other clubs or other schools are doing the idea of the clubs or during unplugged hour is just giving kids an hour of time first Friday of every month to connect with kids and adults in a non-academic setting um it's completely tech-free screen free um mixed grade levels just based on

011interest kids got to sign up it was first come first serve um and so far they've reported that they're really enjoying the time some of these have turned into like after school clubs based on interest so like Dungeons and Dragons became so popular that now they're running after school every Monday um and it's just been a great way for the kids to get to connect with people who a teacher they might not have had or a staff member they might have had a passing rotation with but now they have a more like formalized get together with them um so as you can see we've got like board game groups we've got basketball cornhole readers theater mural design um seasonal Sports there's just a lot of opportunities for the kids and here are some of the

012clubs we have Tyler and Sasha here to both kind of talk about their experiences in the club so if you guys want to come on over good evening Board of Education my name is Tyler EIG I'm a seventh grader at whisky middle school and I'm here to share my experience in our unplugged hour program unplugged hour program allows every Stu allow students to choose from a variety of activities for 1 hour on the first Friday of every month some of the include board games School walks and artistic activities I choose to participate in board game groups because I enjoy playing board games at home and with my friends some of my favorite games include chess guess who Monopoly and clue unplugged hour has many benef benefits for our students and school Community I most enjoy

013the chance to socialize with other students that share a similar interest and of course the break from school work is an added benefit I would recommend unplugged out for all schools but especially in larger schools and as a way to help welcome new students unplugged hour helps motivate me to be a better student because I know that I will have this fun hour every month I'm hopeful that the Board of Education sees the valley of unplugged hour for our students and school Community I might suggest you allow consider you you consider allowing us an addition of hour to unplug with students in other grades such as sixth grade it' be a great way to get to know the older and younger classmates thank you for letting me share my experience with unplugged hour I'm happy

014to answer any questions you may have okay so good evening so good evening everyone I'm Sasha sto I'm a seventh grader at whiskin year and I'm part of the mural design unplugged hour my favorite part about it is the amount of creative freedom we get to just paint on a big wall and I love doing especially because we get to paint with people who are passionate about painting as well um we go around the school with our art teacher to paint murals that um and that make the School more a more welcoming place for students staff and visitors um my favorite uh my favorite part about it though is like getting to see the students at the end of the at the end of the like mural progress um Smile as they walk by it

015and make their day um uh it's very like it's very opport opportunity to leave your creative Mark um on the school and it builds teamwork artistic and creative ability sorry and creative ability um I just it's it's I'm very grateful to have that opportunity I hope that our Mur inspires people to join the club and art as well itself um so thank you for your time and attention you so I should have said Thank you to the students I really appreciate you guys coming out tonight we just wanted to have a couple of thank yous um we want to thank Mr Renda for always supporting initiatives and the ideas we come come to him with and seeing the value for students in both of these projects um huge thank you for me to the Brookfield

016Education Foundation they funded the follow-ups this year so all the materials we needed for orientation the binders for our students to have the curriculums every material like when we say we had an art project for dwali and Day of the Dead that was funded by the B um Brookfield Education Foundation so we're extremely grateful and then whisk and your staff our hope is that both of these programs the benefit for the students ends up benefiting the staff that it ends up being something that we look forward to once a month but it is something extra on their plate and they've all been very supportive so we appreciate whiskin your staff for these so thank you and thank you guys awesome you guys have any questions about either program anybody have any questions no just really

017impressed um Sasha no notes nice job very nice but that that was really awesome I think that you've made a really compelling case I don't know that we have any say um Tyler on whether you get another hour or not I'd ask Mr Renda uh to work on that thanks so much guys you got my vote man thank you guys very much thank you thanks everyone great job and um now we're gonna hear from Mrs ml Jackson who is the principal at the Academy for international studies AKA AIS U who's going to tell us a little bit more about the magnet school uh that's an opportunity for our families in the district good evening superintendent barell Board of Education community members that is a tough act to follow um amazing job to the students clearly

018there's amazing and great work being done here in Brookfield School District I'm not here to take families away but I'm just here to share about the academy for international studies which is a magnet school in Danbury and just inform the community that magnet schools do provide a choice and education for parents just want don't know do I have capability to show video it should it should work for you just a quick video nope here we go there it goes that should pop up for you at the Western Connecticut Academy of international studies in Danbury students develop a Global Perspective in a dynamic learning environment families in surrounding towns with children entering kindergarten through grade five are invited to apply to this tuition free magnet school to learn more visit our website okay that's just a

019quick video just go back yeah maybe minim cor okay perfect thank you okay so as we said in the video it's a kindergarten of fifth grade inter District mag School located in danber Connecticut on the campus of Western Connecticut State University at the top of the hill we have about 341 students in our buildings um we have two kindergarten classes and three classes in first through fifth grade are and we have about 18 students in our uh kindergarten to second grade classes and about 22 students in our second third to fifth grade classes again we offer an opport um a curriculum that is structured that supports student engagement and a Global Perspective which is connected to our International theme our International theme is grounded in the studies of countries continents and cultures starting in kindergarten

020students are learning Spanish um we this year we were last year actually we were recognized as a school of Distinction for the 200 um 2022 to 2023 school year for high achievement and high growth in mathematics um some of the curriculum we offer similar to Brookfield Reading Writing science social studies um we do offer Project Lead thewe a steam um curriculum um beginning in kindergarten some of the extracurricular activities we offer include yoga chess um Taekwondo um and Garden Club so students are really excited to participate in those extracurricular activities as well um just some important dates I wanted to share our Lottery opens up on January 6 2025 information regarding our Lottery will be posted on our school on danburry school district website we'll have our open houses on the dates that are listed

021here if anyone has any more information feel free to contact UM me at um you could find school information at our Danbury School District website thank you so much for your attention tonight any questions thank you did you guys have any questions any questions okay thank you everyone thank you very much appreciate it thank thank you so much thank you that I would appreciate that okay we're going to move now to um public comment um the Board of Education welcomes public comment each speaker shall have up to three minutes to provide input to the board um thank you very great at the start of um our meetings we will allot up to 20 minutes um for comment on agenda items and at the end uh comments not on the agenda um there there will be

022overflow time for that so discussion of school Personnel individual students or individual members of the board is prohibited and with that um Mr Korea you are up first to talk about climate legislation and the 3 1312 complaint hi Andy Korea uh 45 West West Road um so I've heard um comments from the administration and public meetings about the new climate uh law that was passed in 2023 effective July 1st um and the comment was that it was sweeping legislation not sure what the presentation is going to look like in terms of because I it hasn't been posted but I just wanted to clarify um the legislation isn't sweeping it's iterative um the and in fact in the public press the reasons for the changes were to clarify certain aspects move forward climate initiatives um and

023hold accountability the reality is here in Brookfield we have not been in compliance with that law five years later playing on its face um non-compliance is there needs to be a um public notice of Rights and remedies posted on the district website it's not on the current website it's not on the uh prior website that was a law was passed 5 years ago um I can tell you from personal experience very recent that if there is a bullying in incident teachers are supposed to intervene and report and that is not happening um there is a 48 hour window that the Administration has to get to the parent with a report I can tell you that is not happening that did not happen in the past nine days with an issue um with my child I

024can tell you that generally uh the administrators from a lay person's perspective you would say oh they're doing the right thing um they're talking through the issues looks like they're trying to do a good job but they are they clearly haven't been if they have been trained it hasn't been effective because 5 years after the law has been passed and a year after the policy has been implemented four years late we do not have the competency within the district to follow the law so any statement that the district follows the law is a knowingly false statement until that's remedied now I think this presentation is going to come forward and ask for resources right the question this board should ask when they go through the presentation is are you following the law are you you

025know tell me what the the law that was passed in 2019 effective in 2021 are you doing those Provisions right you should we should have people with three years of experience as climate coordinators that now that they have to do more work they either need a stip in a half a py but we shouldn't be there shouldn't be oh no we need four positions right um the very much like the cave contract if we go to the board if you guys go to the board of Finance saying that you need more funding I will ensure that the board of Finance is is um informed of what the base state is so I would ask the board to go forward and say here is the current state here's where we're delinquent and here's how we're going

026to fix it please okay thank you very much Mr CA appreciate that um Mr Burl just for clarification I'd like to know are we compliant with the law as far as I know we are if there's this particular case that needs to be reviewed then there's a particular case that needs to be reviewed but our administrators are trained and Veteran principles and Veteran teams that work on this all the time okay thank you um the next um person on uh public is um Mr K I assume it's Mr Ked yes hi Mr Ked this is about school climate Chris K 28 flax Hill Road um I'm here to talk about some positive School climate that I see a month ago my family experienced a sudden personal loss my children's teachers at the middle school and

027the high school were kind and understanding several teachers who many of whom I don't teach my my kids or have never taught them in the past when above and beyond to take time to check in with my kids this is not the exception with our teachers it is the norm I would like to thank Miss Alban miss trada miss caparosa and Mr Cass Mr Mr CED I'm sorry we we can't identify individuals okay just the staff okay these are just the ones that I heard about I'm sure there was many others that took action we hear a lot about the social emotional needs of students I believe our teachers do this well and it's overlooked at times they make it look so easy it's part of who they are there was one particular teacher who

028did not only console my daughter but put a smile on her face during this very difficult time when I asked my daughter how she met this person she told me it was in passing time before school or between classes when she stands in the hallway and greets students with a smile she not only not just her students but all students then my daughter would see her at after school events taking her time to attend her athletic events these are small but extremely positive experiences our students en counter on a daily basis by many teachers in all of our schools it is the tip of the iceberg of what our teachers do for our students please follow follow the examples by our amazing teachers show kindness compassion and collaboration and put your our students and our

029schools first thank you thank you okay um the uh that's it for this round of public comment um and we thank both speakers uh so next Miss Baines hello everybody um so first I'm going to speak towards a few athletic students here at the high school um so majority of the Fall Sports have finished their Seasons uh just to mention a few boys call um yeah it is up okay okay thanks Melissa no problem um okay so going back to what I was saying um some of the Fall Sports have ended their Seasons just to mention boys golf uh girls volleyball field hockey they all had great seasons um this past Saturday boy soccer won the class L state championships after four rounds of penalty kicks um and their goaly uh Andrew geneves was titled

030their Most Valuable Player uh girls swim placed second in class M state championships they performed incredibly with multiple school records broken um Mia hatet senior broke school records in the 50 free and the 100 free making her a seate champion um in addition to this the 200 yard me team Maggie O'Hara Gretchen Janney Emily Denise and ali gvis um broke a School record and also won their event um and then we had multiple um All State athletes for their respective Sports just to name a few L Maul jnna corz Jimmy cth Andrew Genevie sha Ryan um they did great this season um in terms of student government last Monday was Veterans Day um so members of student government organized a panel of guest speakers uh to speak towards their experience in the military um for

031history classes to attend during the day in addition to this panel we also had various veteran St themed films shown throughout the day that classes could attend and then for some more General goals towards Student Government um they've been working on starting safe driving initiatives for students and parents um in addition to brainstorming front Rising ideas and events for Junior and senior prom in springtime um now towards like the personal clubs and events that I'm participating in um on November 11th National Honor Society hosted a blood drive during school for students and staff to partake in we collected 30 pints of blood which calculates to 90 local lives saved here around ffield um at the high school we also started this new volunteer program called cultural ambassadors where multilingual Juniors and seniors during their schedule

032um early dismissal can go volunteer at the elementary school with English learning students um so if you didn't know I'm proficient in both English and Spanish um also with Portuguese so I'm currently scheduled in a Kindergarten class and I've been working and I've been a few times a week and it's been a really great experience um working with these students and having a fresh new face to work with them where they often didn't feel really like they could communicate in their native language um and then last week although it wasn't teacher appreciation week we had two events that were appreciative towards the teachers that we had um especially cuz quarter 1 ended here um and a lot of college deadlines have passed so we just wanted to express our gratitude towards our teachers for being

033so great with that um NHS hosted a staff breakfast before school last Thursday and peer counseling hosted a teachers dinner last Wednesday with food made by all of its members um and then lastly to talk about some future events that are coming next Monday There's a powderpuff game to raise money for breast cancer research um it was organized by a bethl senior as well as a Brookfield senior and if you're not familiar with like the term Powderpuff um essentially a select group of female Juniors and seniors will play football against a the select group of bethl senior Juniors um and it's just a really good like Community event and way to raise money for breast cancer and then our annual football Thanksgiving game is next Wednesday at bethl high school um the boys football team

034is currently undefeated they're 90 and ranked pretty high in the state I believe they're seventh currently yeah um and they'll also be hosting the state playoffs later in December um and that's pretty much all I had to sorry that was a lot of information what what time is that game in uh that's at 6:30 I believe wait that's the Powderpuff no oh no no no for the Thanksgiving game yeah okay there are people in my house who are going to want to know about the Powderpuff the Powderpuff is at 7 7:30 on on Monday okay thanks 7:30 on Monday and that's at you said that's at bethl too yeah it's really cool to see Brookfield High School coordinating on so many important causes with bethl because there's a rivalry there but it looks to be

035like a really respectful positive one and I think other school districts could take a page from book so Bravo to you guys thank you other questions for Melissa great well thanks very much app thanks Melissa yes Happy Thanksgiving to you as well yeah she remembers the important stuff yes okay let's move now to written correspondence [Music] then I written correspondence for November 20th 2024 uh the following people have written since the previous Board of Ed meeting on October 30th Donald Jones request for information foia from the Brookfield Education Association Logan solander thank you and more ideas related to the budget Denise rice [Music] safety okay um then we've got approval of board minutes these two um oh well this is for you I move that the board approved the minutes listed below as recommended special

036meeting 10:30 24 regular meeting 10:30 24 um all in favor of approving the um two groups of minutes listed hi hi um any opposed I okay um so it passes 52 oh are there abstentions okay so it passes 52 [Music] okay all right um so let's move to the superintendent's update all right good evening everybody thank you very much um so um I want to start with uh and I know we'll get into um some specifics of security task force in the um uh subcommittee reports but just briefly uh to let everybody know that on November 5th for professional development day um and we talked about this at security task force both whiskin and the high school um worked with the police department and had Alice training which is kind of a different approach um

037to get staff ready um in regard to lockdowns um we're not fully there and training students yet or fully communicating things to parents um Candlewood Lake will have their training upcoming Dr P and uh rsro Jay Anderson over there will be working on that in terms of the schedule for an after school meeting um in addition uh in terms of operations I want to thank Mr czecho uh from the BC and Eric Conklin uh from technology uh also on November 5th they spoke with the Candlewood Lake team uh regarding kind of utilization of the building kind of questions that were still lingering regarding the new school and also technology in the new school and making sure uh we're optimally using our technology um there is a uh Google doc where the teacher submitted questions and

038all of Paul and Eric's answers were um uh recorded so that's there I shared that with the board in the Weekend Update last week um Paul has some backs on that there were a few questions that came up during that meeting so just FYI um that was uh that was something we do thank Paul for giving his time he's done a lot of volunteering uh as well as all the folks from the NBC um under teaching and learning I'm going to turn it over to Dr uh man just regarding November 5th and the professional learning day and he give us a brief update on how that went sure it's kind of a continuation of what Dr BR was just referring to so um as you see part of the day was sent was spent focused

039around Safety and Security of some way shape or form whether it was Alice training or um discussing the um with the MBC and Technology um but then the other part portion of the day was focused on teachers professional learning plans so um it's an opportunity for teachers after having worked on developing their professional learning plans throughout the fall including on that October 14th day um and then meeting with their uh evaluator their administrator at some point prior to by November 1st every that was the that's the uh deadline for all teachers um to finalize their to have their goal meeting um then the fifth uh was a perfect time for them to work toward uh Meeting those goals so all of the reflective intelligence groups began that day so they did their orientation to um

040the the practice and then played the first two rounds of the game um because again this is a gamified approach to uh you know kind of reflective practice and um you know personal connection as well as connection to your purpose as a as an educator so they were able to get through two rounds their their subsequent rounds will be of the First full round of the game will be in December and January um and then they will play the round again from basically February through the end of March at multiple play times whether it's an after school Wednesday meeting or during a PLC day um from a kind of narrower perspective so the first round is kind of from their perspective as people so that they can really connect and get to know each other

041and get comfortable with the process and then they'll hone in and focus in as Educators so they'll answer the question questions and play the game from the perspective as a Brookfield educator um and so that's and that's just one part of their professional learning plan regard you know and it can kind of fit a variety of different types of goals um and other uh work that happened that day um we had some illustrative math training at CES as well as CK training um for folks that are working on that um and then curriculum work at the middle school and high school um and then there were also a bunch of uh groups that went to outside November 5th is kind of a common day for uh folks to have professional learning across the state of

042Connecticut so our Visual and Performing Arts teachers went to Westcon where they host a great big conference some of our uh fizzed and health teachers went to hamen um hamon always hosts a big PE um uh program there um and then we had our librarian uh library media teachers went to Hartford where they had a conference to attend there so there were a variety of things that happened across the district all the administrators were also involved in some of the work and they are also just to as a as an FYI I may have mentioned this before but I'm not sure um the administrators who are involved in the reflective intelligence work are working among the administrative group we didn't want to kind of mix groups yet um we wanted everyone to get comfortable so

043kind of keep keeping colleagues with colleagues and then we'll see how as it kind of matures and and evolves um maybe next year so we are beginning our work with uh this week um or next week with our our reflective intelligence groups so that's it thank you very much Dr any questions for Dr okay continuing on um in our climate initiatives um you saw the presentation certainly from whiskin tonight which was incredible thanks Dean uh for the leadership and and your team over there um in terms of community you heard Melissa talk about it we did a lot with Veterans Day at each of the schools with our veterans in there and honoring them uh in addition to that at CS they're working on notes of thanks uh for staff appreciation um whis skiner in

044addition to that um they the counselors are working on some seal lessons specifically in healthy relationships um uh focused on interpersonal skills Technology based skills um and uh and the like so we're really proud of what's going on at the high school um they're working on becoming a no place for hate school and as Melissa shared the uh Honor Society put on an appreciation breakfast for staff so I mean there's a lot of Goodwill and collaboration and connection going on uh among the school community so it's just so nice to see uh in terms of budget just to let everybody know all uh internal meetings in terms of working with the principles and department heads um have been completed um the district team uh just met yesterday to kind of finalize where we're at with

045budget and what we're thinking uh in terms of initiatives uh the full administrative team will review things on Tuesday afternoon at our ad council meeting um uh regarding budget we're keeping interest and engagement up with the budget and trying to put an effort out there for understanding by giving the budget kind of early with small um chunks in terms of the budget blast we've been doing that weekly um and um we did key drivers recently the capital plan uh probably tomorrow the climate um presentation that I'm going to do tonight will be sent out maybe the ml report we're not exactly sure we've got there's lots of pieces that we could put out there and then obviously it'll coales into a presentation on December 4th um where where we'll work on that and and certainly

046Rosa when you present on finance committee share share a little bit more if you would like um and then the final thing I did want to share uh so congratulations to the board specifically for receiving the uh award um for uh excellence and communication and the and Eric and his team uh specifically on uh social media things like Facebook parents square and Instagram our use of those was awarded by cab um at their recent uh c cap conference we also received a um uh honorable mention for the district calendar um various presentations on curriculum instruction and assessment our budget flyer work and the word of the week so a lot of nice things and um typically uh someone from Cape uh comes and presents to the board in a couple of months so um that's

047really something special that's been ongoing for quite a long time so wanted to put that out there uh for everyone and then the the the other thing is since I did go to the cave cap conference uh a wise mentor of me uh of mine told me one time your staff if they your staff your board if they know you're going to a conference they know you're going to come back with some kind of new idea or something crazy to drive them a little wild or crazy so what I did want to share with you is something I was actually quite inspired by uh Tim Shriver was the keynote speaker uh Tim is of the Shriver family that started the Special Olympics and so what I I wanted to share with everybody in Casey if

048you could pass that down for everybody is something very interesting really the the there was uh some thematic things about uh polarizing times and unifying spirit and things we can do as a society and so it was really interesting in his keynote talk he focused on a tool that he's coming up with um and in his foundation and it's the dignity index and it's really something where we could kind of just give a rating to ourselves and do some reflection there's no implementation guide or anything like that at this point it's really conceptual um he is doing some work with Mark bracket from ruler which is interesting there's some Yale affiliation there but what he really talks about is rating ourselves and and and reflecting on what kind of language are we using when we

049are working with people uh and talking with people um or talking about people that we may not agree with and he's got this one through eight scale it's just something interesting I think for all of us to think about I talked about it uh we're going to be talking about it um at administrative Council um you know things like the the dehumanizing that goes on in the vitriol that we all hear through social media and cable news and everything you know that leads up uh to an election um things where we talk about people not even being human and we must destroy or we must break them so we can win that kind of attitude and language versus um we want to engage with the other side um even when we disagree and really try

050to understand where they're coming from so I think it's something all for all of us to reflect on um and um I think it could be a better place it really also aligns with the things we did in uh the spring with the anxious Generation Um and social media I just heard that LeBron James now is giving up social media for a while so uh you know um all of us we have our unplugged hour so I I think we're realizing what social media perhaps is doing to all of us and if we all setep back from that and really appreciate each other as human beings that have value and worth and um legitimate opinions that we could try to listen to and work together and try to find Common Ground would I think make

051us all feel better and also be great role models for our community and and our students so I want to just put that out to you um and we'll see how it evolves over time uh thank you I don't know if anybody has any questions on the report um I just wanted to say regarding uh the cab Awards you you laid it at the feet of the board but really um the the Kudos belong to um Eric um the calendar committee Dr man Mrs de all of you guys um so so Bravo finance committee with the bud flyer you guys did that so no thank you all for your support couldn't do it without you aome I also just want to can I just have a shout out to uh Lisa gramling and the folks

052uh the students uh from the summer the Tas who help with word of the week because they put they really put it all together and they do a great job so um the student students come up with the words and the sentences and they do all that kind of thing and um then Lisa finds appropriate uh pictures to match with them from our community so nice job Lisa thank you great thank you Bravo and we and we do recruit uh new teachers from our future teachers of America Club so we're always working on that too sounds like we got one with Melissa did you hear the the Portuguese okay so um let's then move to subcommittee reports starting with facilities Roger that all right um so the last time we met was on October 28th

053um all of us were there uh we had one visitor from the public Mrs kah uh we spoke about Capital funding requests and uh Casey did a phenomenal job presenting her Capital funding the next at the next meeting so we did already cover that uh most of the capital funding that we did speak about is going towards the mechanical upgrades replacing the um unit ventilators rooftop units engineering design and possibly upgrade to the heating system which we desperately need which um uh Joy had sent in some questions for us about the um Heating in the building in uh are the thermostats in the room where they located protocols for the staff they were with addess Casey and I uh went over that the the uh when when heat is too high they do alert the

054office Dan was um was there at the time on that particular day looking at and addressing the heating issues and Casey had instructed the team that um since we have such an old heating system it may have to be manually started is that how it went and they had to get there early in the morning to make sure that the heat was regulated for the day so to speak yeah it was it was more the timing of the year when we have really cold mornings and then it gets really hot in the afternoon um because of the steam the the steam running through all the pipes if you don't turn off the boilers fast enough it's going to be sweltering but you've got to turn it on early enough manually and then on and off

055so um I think I think we're out of the woods that was whack I think every school building across had that had that I know mine did so that was for sure um the whiskey Portables uh was awarded to best tech uh that we're working on when we can start working on the removal um as far as a list of issues over at CES um Paul Czech I know has a a punch a list of punch list items and I know we're in the process of getting everything fixed if things are broken Dan said that they do go over and fix it but if it's contractual then it goes to the con contractors and we're kind of stuck dealing with the contractors right now as far as I know so is there a way what

056I got is there a way that we can get a copy of the punch list I yeah but he should have it at the next meeting I believe is they just well they they were just updating things they had the NBC meeting last night okay yeah okay I I i' ask for the [Music] next so the the I mean it was a binder about this paulos but Aon what's important there there is something that had 600 items but there's dispute over that so I wanted to get something more definitive from Paul if we can't yeah I think um when I was watching the board of Finance meeting I just and I know Rose has spoken about I think it's really important that we know what issues are there and they're fixed before the school gets

057transferred over right so um I told them that last night and that's all I got great let's move to Cape then [Music] please okay we met on November 13th we reviewed the November instructional coaching survey results which you should have access to where it was an exhibit um so 43 46 CES teachers responded and 38 um whiskers teachers responded for a total of 84 out of about 150 160 um uh 27 of the 84 are using instructional coaches as part of their um professional learning plan and of those 27 17 are using it for curriculum like CK La luster of math the following information was shared um although we appreciate the survey and data collection um it didn't really yield valuable results in terms of information to support this model and initiative mov moving forward

058Katherine Breo shared and reviewed her very comprehensive World Language presentation um she went over the our programs at the elementary level and in some other districts neighboring districts the proficiency expectations our specific roal language program structure and contact hours at each level she shared the stamp results for grades 7 through 12 talked about the sealed by literacy University requirements and recommendations and some student achievement data up to date we also discussed the College and Career accelerator Advanced program which we got a brochure at the last meeting so this is a customized dual enrollment and career opportunity for our high school students and it's very much in the exploratory phase and we're not quite ready to jump in yet on this opportunity so we need a lot more information such as specific framework scheduling and transportation

059information cost Etc and we also briefly looked at resources at the college and career counselor at the high school provides through her Google classroom for students we did review the initial fall 2024 PSAT results which is also in your your packet here and that was about it does anybody have any questions I do actually um so regarding the um instr instuctional coaches um did the committee discuss what what they would like to see in terms of data that would support um you know the instructional coaching model DR man um asked for our input our initial input um we didn't feel that the survey that she did that they did provide kind of yielded um any data that would be um really used to benefit the support of this model moving forward so I guess like

060what's like The Benchmark that you were looking for any kind of data that shows alignment with um guiding your instruction based on the data that it is able to provide for our students um so the data that we have now are in front of us currently right PSAT scores SAT scores midterms finals things like that um that we've been looking at s back scores well I mean we know that instructional coaching is never going to be directly tied to scores so that's something I guess I'm trying to understand like what standard the committee is trying to coales around well that's something that we' have to talk more about um but based on what was presented to us at the meeting um that was not helpful to provide Clarity on supporting that moving forward at this

061time but I asked Dr man if she can provide more information or whatever she deems appropriate as far as you know it's really what we agree as as a board what we want to continue moving forward with can can I jump because I I want to be able to tie it to some data right if we're investing money in a program or a model or structure um that has to be tied to data to some extent right but I guess what I would just urge the committee to do or if this ever comes to the full board is to figure out a standard of what exactly it is you're looking for because I know personally for me if I was to have an opinion that I can't support this model I would have an understanding

062of why exactly that is what Benchmark am I looking for that would say this is ineffective this is effective so so to answer your initial question then if you look at the survey results it's not yielding results as far as teachers are not use utilizing instructional coaching okay to to drive their instruction and to improve their teaching yeah so maybe percentage like what percentage was the uhing for 27 so there were only 84 that responded what is which you could I would infer that the other part of that half of that is not using it because they didn't respond but that's I'm inferring that y right so y a very small percentage are speaking on behalf of it so one of the things when we talked about this I want it was I remember us

063being in the in the um Auditorium so it must have been sometime in the summer and I had mentioned that you know response rates to surveys um you don't necessarily need a huge n but the N that you have has to be representative of the population so I don't know if when this survey was deployed if any data was collected on are we looking at only newer teachers are we looking at more veteran teachers what's the spread across the schools because if we have a pretty good mix of from each school from each level of um I guess like veteran status years of service maybe then we can see well are these are these 84 actually representative and then if they are then we're kind of looking at a much clearer picture but if we're

064only looking at teachers and these 84 are the ones that hate instructional coaching well then that's not a representative sample so I guess we could just have to understand more about the sample not necessarily make it bigger can I jump in here because um to to Joy's point the these two slides right here I think this is what caught my attention um and I I think I'm drawing a little bit on my own experience of working with instructional coaches but like I would think if there were a robust um like kind of um affirmative yes we are excited about this amid all our professional priorities I would have expected some of these to to look different and so it looked like there's a cohort of teachers and we again as you just said we don't

065know who they are I'm sorry can you I I can I'm getting distracted by the public talking right now public okay um yes uh so it's it's this it's this slide and this slide um and just I don't know if this corresponds with your personal experience Sarah in the classroom or taking these surveys I mean there are people who are deriving benefit for working with the coaches but we as a board managing our resources have to ask ourselves if this is a concentrated enough cohort maybe that's the wrong adjective to use but like is this the best use of our resources if we have other options and that's I think what we were considering um and there I think we have a cautious maybe cautious consensus maybe more but yeah these these were the two

066slides that really um caught my attention in these are the two most meaningful I think okay I'm going to take a look at those more clearly so I guess to bring more clarity to Rosie your question so um our our test score in areas specifically math in particular are very poor across many so we have to re really relook at how we want to allocate funding right is it better spent there we resources doing something that we've been doing for several years now or we do we need to reallocate and look at how that money is better spent to really hone in on those little test scores how's the Comm committee come to a place where you're ready to look at or recommend an alternative option like if this isn't working is there something you're

067proposing might instead well I I for me I don't want to answer for the committee but um I was hoping that that would be a proposal from Administration right and then go from there you know I agree so they get paid the bid books right I agree I just I wasn't sure if there was something within the committee that you had and we have been talking no not at this time not currently to Joy's Point we've talking about this as a team and in the budget um uh budget presentation in uh two weeks we'll talk about that and just excuse me also just to um kind of answer your question Rosa as far as the respondents um there would be you know of those 150 or so certified folks to whom this was sent um

068a Cadre of those folks would not respond right they wouldn't they wouldn't be expected to because they are support you know speech and language Pathologists or School psychologists or um School counselor so there's a whole kind of group that wouldn't and then we and we only sent it to K8 because that's where our instructional coaches are concentrated how many K8 teachers that would that could have access to instructional coaches are there well probably about 130 okay that could have responded and would have been um and that's inclusive of unah teachers or um so they're not you know our instructional coaches are designated by content area so um even though Any teacher is is open to you know using an instructional coach because they are instructional experts and and they can help any content area kind

069of focus in on that so you'll see some of the responses are that like you know instructional coaching isn't in my area so that would be one of you know like a PE teacher maybe or an art teacher um so we did get some responses of those and it was fairly um I would say proportionately balanced in terms of CES versus WMS um we have many more faculty in CES than we do WMS um so I think that it probably is it's definitely statistically significant in terms of the response rate um and probably indicative of we didn't collect any information on the respondents we wanted them to be completely Anonymous um and while this is you know it was brought up at the meeting um Joy pointed out that you know this isn't we can't

070compare apples to apples from the survey that we did at the end of the year um which is completely correct this was specifically focused on um now that they have the that teachers have the opportunity to build their own professional learning plan and many of them are doing instructional goals how might they incorporate an instructional coach and one of the things that kind of you know um when I was asked what jumped out to me what jumped out to me is really that large concentration in curriculum and and kind of operationalizing the curriculum work um and so while I think we all can agree that the philosophical approach to instructional coaching is sound and it's research-based and it's you know totally appropriate um there's still a focus around that curriculum piece and that link between

071the curriculum and instruction uh as far as how the coaches are generally being utilized by the teachers whether it's individually or in groups in PLC groups and grade level groups and content area groups so there's a there's a lot of work that is that they're that's how they're you know kind of being used the greatest to the greatest extent I just have a question as far as this the PSATs I know used different groups this year um I I think we tested more grades this year correct with P we went back to 9th and 10th in the high school um which has historically been the case just last year we did not okay um is there any way we can get a comparison like from last year's test scores to this year like a cohort

072comparison like we do with the sbas I mean just to look at them I mean because I have this year I I don't know what last year's were are we moving it all are we going down I think it's really important yeah we so these were these were initially um released the Thursday before the cape meeting and so it was kind of a last Edition a last add to the cape agenda so we'll have a lot more information at the December meeting once the high school gets a chance to look at things so we can um we could look at cohort data from the 10th graders last year to the 11th graders this year but as I said they weren't 9th and 10th weren't tested last year so 9th to 10th we can't no I

073appreciate it I think the more information we have better off we absolutely cool then can we move to um Finance weren't the nth graders tested last the current 10th graders were or were they they were tested in eighth grade yes two years ago yeah so that would be interesting to see too 8th grade to 10th grade yeah as long as we can are those the same are those the same test I thought those was no the same test oh really they two p yeah there's an 89 test and then a 1011 test all right let's move to finance then all right um we last met last week on November 14th um we all of the committee members were there and also Dr Brill and Miss diot um our accounting supervisor Joan Reynolds and um as

074frequently as they do um our um town of Brookfield Finance director Marsha Mary and and a board of Finance member Eileen cook um after going through the check registers we reviewed the um October financial report um which detailed a net budget shortfall of approximately $69,000 um a change from the previous month of about 51,000 um largely this was due to um just some better accuracy in special education tuition um some of the actual invoices are coming in um and so they not uh based on estimates but actual um invoices um accompanying that a decrease estimated excess cost Grant Revenue um and of course the continued rising of long-term substitute costs um which for uh the time being are being offset by uh our salary savings from leaves and vacancies um okay um we received a

075quick update regarding the competitive mckin vento assistant Grant um which we applied for but we do not yet have word if we will get assistance there um and then for new business we went through a discussion of the uh 2526 budget preparation um right now the district has already locked in favorable rates for diesel and oil um that's going to result in overall savings compared to this year's rates um the committee then discussed a potential new budgeting strategy in terms of health insurance and electricity as um the way we do it right now is by taking estimates directly from um the health insurance um and electricity companies and sort of continuously updating that rate as the budget process moves forward um and it's kind of a a Target that moves around and we do it

076in in alignment with the town um and we talked about potentially just going to use um going back to using more of a historical average um so that we can most likely get a little bit closer to where we will likely be um we will still have that same sort of agreement with the town where um you know if we're if we're off budgeting that way um that they would have money and contingencies um on their side to to kind of cover us and of course this would be in alignment with what the town was doing as well in terms of their budgeting strategies so a lot of conversations are still going on for that um let's see um oh and also in terms of special education a budgeting strategy there um right now as

077you know we only budget for students that are known and that are in the roster and that we know will be there the following year and really that's as of essentially um January when we adopt the budget um and so a lot of changes happen between January and the end of the year um so uh the committee had was showing a lot of favor toward at least students that we know with a very high degree of probability what their placement situation and what their service situation will be the following year to budget for that um but of course that will still be um a discussion that happens in alignment with the town but we think that that's a good idea um and then we discussed our Capital requests um so um Miss deat noted that

078some of the things are going to be pulled a little bit of some of the smaller things going to be pulled out of that budget request and put into the operating budget um things that are you know kind of small more maybe larger maintenance items but still maintenance items nonetheless um and then we briefly discussed perhaps an inventory program um to kind of more accurately capture what all of the district's Capital um uh assets essentially are so that we can have a a better forecast of of what's really truly in this um next 10 years and then um there was an opportunity to ask any questions about um you know the lunch account issue that was a couple weeks ago but we didn't have any concerns there so that was it um I have a

079question um Mrs diad can you give us an example I mean you sort of hinted at it Rosa about something that might be pulled out of the capital budget request and put into operating yep it's uh one one of the capital requests that were presented last month um $30,900 for door repairs it they range from like replacing doors to just um sort of uh buffing out sort of these Rusty rusted components of it um or um weather stripping on some doors they're really while while $30,900 for a whole bunch of door Replacements could be capitalized it's really it's really more appropriate to be in the maintenance budget it does keep our maintenance budget um operating budget at that higher level if you'll recall last year we did fund um an addition an increase to that

080uh budget area um it will maintain at that higher level I do anticipate that that would be able to come back down um as it as it you know to to a a level that it uh saw previously um in the next couple of years but um so yeah it was $30,900 for door repairs was the only change okay thank you that's that's really helpful to give everybody a sense of things so are we all set yeah great um and then security task force okay um so we also met on the 14th uh last week and um one of the first items of new business that is something that this board should definitely pay attention to um and I think we should probably get it on an upcoming agenda um but we talked about voting

081locations and how um the chief py was there and could not be stronger in his um sort of opposition to using School our schools um for voting locations especially when students are there but it's much cleaner to just say find another place to to put the polls um because essentially to have a wideopen school when students are in the building just you know kind of undermines all of our security measures that we work so hard to put into place so um I think hopefully in the next couple of months Wendy maybe we can get it on an agenda um because I think the board should probably vote to sort of make that prohibition um then uh Dr BR talked about some updating updated terminology for emergency protocols um you know there's a lot of really

082different complex situations related to various um emergencies and Hazards within the school and to just have kind of a standard terminology for um those various levels of activity in and out of the building um and working with um the police department to kind of um update and make some userfriendly guides to so that anybody any substitute or any teacher that's there kind of doesn't panic in the moment and kind of has somewhere um to go for information on uh protocols and procedures um Dr bril mentioned already that um Chief PGI and the SRO were at um WMS and VHS um with uh to meet with teachers and staff um fi filled their questions and kind of fill in the gaps of any understandings that they might have in terms of their capabilities during emergency situations

083then we talked about some new swatting technology um which was kind of a carryover from our previous meeting um but Eric provided an update um for um this company that we are hoping to engage with um to mitigate these swatting techs um and then we'll move forward with this technology once that company um develops sort of an implementation plan and it kind of goes through all of the legal um overviews there and then um our athletic director uh Steve Baldwin provided an overview of an app called Alerus uh which is an app that can provide um authorized emergency notifications immediately to um staff to students as well as to visiting teams so as you know when we had that emergency situation a few weeks ago um it was a lot of students were outside right

084and there was you know visiting teams that don't know where to go in those situations right so this app would kind of help standardize um and alert visiting teams and and those students on where to go how to get into the building safely things like that um and um Mr Baldwin um spoke very highly of the use of that app and actually that was it so our next meeting is uh Wednesday December 11th and actually we're going to meet at Candlewood Lake Elementary School um because actually one of the um comments to come out of the um CES building facilities thing was talking about a potential security gate to kind of block access to the rear of the building um so we're going to go there take a look at some potential locations as well

085as fences for to help I guess like balls rolling down the hill at at recess so um yeah so those could be potential um new Investments awesome thank you yep okay let's move to the consent agenda I move that the board approve the items on the consent agenda as recommended new hires resignations retirements October financials okay um all in favor of approving the consent agenda uh please signify by saying I I I any opposed any abstentions so it passes 70 okay Wendy might have a moment I just want to make sure we acknowledge Dory Corgan from whis over two decades uh at whiskin here serving uh the brofield public schools and and our students and wanted to just make sure we acknowledge her thank her for serving and uh she'll be moving on uh after

086the winter recess thank you m thank you Dory yes um okay moving onto new business um Dr burill you're going to talk to us about climate legislation [Music] sure okay all right so thank you everyone um uh in my weekly meeting with the chair she has uh respectfully requested of to keep it under 15 minutes uh it is a comprehensive presentation has about 30 slides I'm not going to read through every slide and some I may even quickly reference and and uh skip over certainly this uh presentation will be available for everyone and we'll send it out and uh uh people could have their opportunity to uh to go through it um uh but good evening thank you for the time um the school climate legislative update uh it's Public Act 23167 and the actual

087title is an act concerning transparency and education what I do want to say about this is there we just talked about this actually at policy committee um a number of things may be changing with laws right we've had some updates to Title 9 we have this update um we don't know what's coming down the pike but we're going to work from what we know now um and I have to thank our friends at at Advance who um helped us understand that they actually came in and talked with our team uh about a month ago um on uh the this new uh legislation and the Mandate that's uh forthcoming so what we would like to do tonight is uh uh really help people understand that there's a much broader definition of behaviors now um than just

088bullying um that must be addressed um creating a positive environment uh in the school is also included in this in this update and a narrowing of the time frame uh down to 3 days to complete investigations right now the language actually says that investigations will be completed promptly well that's very that's vague promptly could mean a week it could mean two weeks it could mean one day depending on the person and their frame of reference um the 48 hour rule is once the investigation is completed getting that information to parents and so now this is narrowing down two about 3 days from our understanding and reading through the legislation that's going to require uh a change in how we operate uh in terms of our urgency and how Swift We act uh and move on

089these things and pull students from classes to investigate and do the things we need to do um it's going to be a significant ripple effect so tonight what I'd like to do is do an overview of the climate legislation try to develop some understanding for everybody of new roles and responsibilities that are required um the BPS response and our planning for implementation um frankly we're going to go above and beyond um it's really important to us that we meet the expectations of the community and we do a great job for our kids and then differentiating very brief differentiation that we talked about earlier when uh in the year when we talked about school climate and the difference between climate and culture so that difference between climate and culture again I'm not going to read through

090on this the bottom line is school culture on the right hand side is how the school functions and school climate is what we survey how people feel about that why does school climate matter very briefly I'm just going to hit the high points here for you relationships strong learning environment emotional well-being of kids certainly behavior and discipline student engagement and teacher satisfaction we talked about teach efficacy a little bit earlier in the year all of these things are that that we just talked about here impact school climate and this is why it matters all right so the purpose of the legislation what are those those that wider swath and the narrowing of the time frame that I'm talking about prevent identify and respond to challenging behaviors that's the new term it's broader than bullying critical

091components of the bullying law right those critical components and the district policies are being refocused and broaden in including a required response and that really has to do with tiered interventions and restorative practices subsets of what challenging behavior is bullying teen dating violence assault physical violence harassment threatening the new legislation not only addresses the challenging Behavior but requires a plan to create a more positive School climate that's that's so there's a lot here it's very Broad and comprehensive all right developing best practices around school climate the board and the district need to consider adopting a goal regarding School climate you saw those earlier in the year when the principes had their different goals in their school Improvement plans and you'll see some um uh redundancy in what you've already heard throughout the year uh School

092climate efforts need to be embedded in the Improvement plans and you saw that we're getting ahead of that Although our school climate plans for this year they'll look a little they they're not going to look exactly the same this year to next year there's a format um but we're on our way um and you saw this on October 16th um and of course we're going to consider how the initiatives align with our portrait of the gradate so our continuous improvement process is important to know that we're working this climate uh implementation plan that we're putting together that it works with our school Improvement plans as I just said our strategic plan the NES work we're going to do teacher evaluation our growth and support plan all of this is very comprehensive we're going to embed

093this in all the work we do we need to look through through identify examine and Implement and what what are those things we have goals and priorities we need to think about roles and responsibilities and the professional learning that needs to go along with this what are our practices what does the climate data tell us you can see the things here are there budget considerations the new policy we just talked about that and I'll show you that in just a second the Improvement plans and of course monitoring and Reporting out so we're going to need to have a vision statement for what we're going to do with climate but that to come from stakeholders so we'll put a team together and we we'll work on a vision statement I certainly can come up with a

094vision statement and have it here ready to go but that needs to come from a broad group of folks so what are the main District obligations I started to talk about that earlier so in this current year the way the law is the board May adopt a new climate policy um if the board doesn't want to adopt a new policy the board must uh the board or the district must comply with the law that's something we always talk about if we don't have a policy for something we follow the law um and our current bullying policy um the Complaint Form the defined procedures Etc they come to an end as of this summer okay when we start the new school year we have to move into the new policy the new forums Etc all right

095so for July 1 districts must adhere to the statutory criteria um and the new definitions and adopt a new school climate policy our policy committee we just talked for the very first time very surface tonight about the policy itself I presented it very briefly um cave has a policy that we'll work off of shiping and goodwi our our Leal firm does not have a policy specific to uh climate but we need to uh my recommendation strongly is to have that policy ready to go probably I would think approved by March 1st I think we can we can do that on the policy committee this this committee is amazing how fast they're working and uh we'll have it ready so when the summer comes we're we're ready to rock and roll all right so in the

096school the school year next year 25 26 we have to have a number of pieces in place now de facto right now I'm the school climate coordinator as the superintendent we work with the principles and and we do that work but that's not defined in the current law we have to have an administrator an actual 092 certified administrator or the superintendent has to be the climate coordinator uh for next year um I'm picking up that mantle that'll be me I'm not going to assign that to anybody else everybody else already has full-time jobs we all do this is going to force us to pick up the pick up the pace and do the things we need to do this is a priority not only for me this year but for the whole District it'll continue

097next year um the principal of each school or their designate um who is trained in climate Improvement or restorative practices Shall Serve as the school climate specialist so you can there's going to be some verbiage and some overlap and just take our time you will understand it over time we're there's just a lot here so again I'm not going to read through every single slide but this is a really important one and they serve as Specialists now our school administration just so you know that then um we do something uh a little differently which is under current law um but it works for us and we want to keep this in place as well so there's a district climate coordinator in this case in Brookfield would be the superintendent then the folks who act as

098the climate specialist would be school administrator who is designated um or could be a split duty at each school we currently have school climate coordinators and again there's a that coordinator word we might come up with a different word to to differentiate it um those are um teachers on stipend assignment who after school uh in their non-teaching hours um either split that Duty or single uh or a single teacher at the schools depending how it's set up um work with the school climate committee that we also have to have and that is something we continue to have to have next year from our view as an admin team we've really been talking about this for the last couple of months we believe that critical to implementing the new law correctly um is to make sure

099and to meet our community expectations um is to develop a new teacher leader position to operationalize and make sure we're implementing this right and getting all the reporting the data the professional development and the coordination across the district and at the schools and something we're going to call a comp climate compliance teacher just so you know I'll share this more in two weeks when we present the budget this position would be a reallocation from an existing position it will not be asking for additional resources above and beyond the status quo budget so what would a climate compliance teacher do District level leadership they would work with the superintendent to support the implementation of the plans it's obviously with the school school folks they collaborate with those Specialists remember I said the Specialists are the school

100building administrator administrators or whiskin we also have the dean of students developing strategies to prevent identify and respond to challenging Behavior remember it's a wider slot swath wider swath excuse me and a narrowing of the time frame to do this work reporting to the superintendent on a regular basis and I must submit an annual report to the board concerning the number of tiered responses the incidents Etc the compliance teacher will assist the superintendent in districtwide climate efforts so I will be working directly with this particular individual and it'll be a real help with a liaz on to the buildings and of course we'll be in the buildings working on this and always handing glove with our administrative team we thought putting together a graphic might help people understand a little bit there's some things we

101do and will continue to do and then we've got our additional layers so the climate coordinator for the district uh is the superintendent in our case and there's communication working with the state mandate um Regular meeting meetings there's some minimal regular meetings you must have we're going to have more than that practically uh if if it's not weekly it'll be it'll be twice a month for sure um and then around that orange circle you can see we have the climate Specialists that I talked about which are School administrators at all three schools and then our climate coordinators um who are those full-time teachers who receive a stien who work with the climate committees all right and when I say that it's not just that the climate uh coordinator teacher is the only person who works

102with the clim committees the administrations there and those kind of things the compliance teacher is really there to operationalize this mandate make sure we're reporting assisting completing all the paperwork in the requisite time frame which I've I've emphasized already monitoring the challenging behaviors looking at Trend data making sure we're all communicating with each other so we're coherent aligned and responsive as a district not only as a school and making sure we are uh ensuring that our teachers are trained in restorative practice [Music] so I've listed out in the next couple of slides some of the responsibilities to help people with operationalizing this and kind of picturing this um so working with the Specialists the compliance teacher provide District level support to make sure our Improvement plans are being implemented so for example we are moving

103away from Panorama they their costs are exorbitant we're moving into thought exchange and we're actually looking to conduct a thought exchange survey uh for January Ary um I believe the law requires uh every other year a survey now going forward we're going to do two per year uh kind of a midyear end of year um for example working with the uh different social emotional assessments looking at discipline records attendance rates academic growth data the types of bullying complaints that are being submitted the types of challenging Behavior Uh uh that are being addressed and how are we conducting restorative practices and of course excuse me any data concerning uh implementation additionally um I just talked about the two-year uh commitment uh two-year meeting so we'll move on from that um the other piece is the climate

104compliance teacher this is this we can picture is a veteran teacher this is someone who who um is taking on the mantle of leadership so they'll they'll be working you know obviously with the superintendent working on District pieces and certainly in Brookfield like I said um we are going to go above and beyond um because a compliance teacher that I'm about is not required by the law is to help us implement the law effectively um the climate Specialists these are remember our building administrators what are the things they do they provide the leadership for prevention identif identification in response to challenging behaviors okay this is above and with the challenging Behavior it's above and beyond bullying like we talked about um making sure that the restorative practices are implemented appointing members of the school climate

105committee I'll get into that in a little bit scheduling meetings for and leading the school climate committee and leading the implementation of the plan and they'll do this in coherence and in alignment in full collaboration with myself and the uh compliance teacher the climate coordinators these are again our full-time teachers that receive a stipend and again I'm trying not to be confusing with the language here so just it'll come to everybody like I said they organize the climate committee meetings obviously working with their school administration collaborate and plan regularly with the school administration and help develop initiatives at the school for positive School climate which is all going on now at the school so we'll continue that um so the school climate committee I'm not going to go deep into this but it must represent

106a diverse group of stakeholders um two members of the school Community um as determined by The Specialist we'll have the compliance teacher on there uh the union teacher Union has to have representation um so uh and we we need to have a parent on that group what's the committee do working on having uh the survey maybe we um have very organic questions as part of the thought exchange survey that we talked about looking at the climate data what are some responses we can have how do we implement the school plan um making sure those things get implemented and Advising on maybe creative ideas and strategies so it's really a it's it's a homegrown School effort that that committee and then annually providing notice of challenging behaviors then the school climate Improvement plan I'm not going

107to get into the details there because we already have those for this year they're not required for this year there will be required for next year so we'll make sure our format changes in accordance with that um continuing on to the plan uh obviously using survey data to develop the plan that's what our principles already did with their teams um recommending to the committee things we're going to work on we talked about some of those tonight uh our Spotlight had that in there as well um and working with the Specialists and the compliance teacher um the plan starting next year has to be submitted on December 31st the district plan um so continuing on um again the words prevention identification and response the plan may be placed into the existing School Improvement plans um the

108state department of Ed will not be collecting the plans but we need to post the plan on our website there's School climate training that has to happen in this current year in preparing us to get ready for next next year um and the years thereafter so what's theal work that we have to do what's the school climate and culture work we have to do and what are the restorative practices training we have to do and you can see some examples there of what we're doing we are going to develop a kind of foundational common restorative practices District uh training and then it'll be delivered at each of the schools to make sure everybody has is level set un restored for this year we're going to do that so challenging behavior and bullying again the existing

109bullying definition is about severe persistent and pervasive uh conduct new bullying definition unwanted and aggressive behavior among children in grades K12 in uh inclusive that involves a real or perceived power imbalance so you could see it is much broader than the current definition um we must address the challenging behaviors and school climate and again in that truncated timeline challenging Behavior behavior that negatively impact school climate or interferes uh or is at risk of interfering with the learning or safety of a student or safety of a School employee and again I go back to that statement I made in one of my opening slides a broader definition of behaviors that must be addressed creating positive School climate and narrowing of the time frame uh to investigate and report and the subset I want to reiterate these

110again of challenging Behavior so it's broader than just bullying we've got harassment assault they talk about te they specifically say team Dating Violence physical violence and threatening we have to have a tiered response for these things and of course these are very significant words when you see them it's scary um law enforcement would would obviously be involved in anything that's uh criminal our SRO would be there to help us with that uh there's a challenging Behavior Behavior reporting form which is part of the policy this is all linked in there so people are more than welcome when we we get this out to everyone they can look at it themselves um survey requirements so just to make sure everybody knows I think I mentioned this earlier um bi anly Dr man and I I looked

111it up to double check what we understand it to be now and again things are subject to change would mean every other year um but regardless we're going to do it twice a year so we'll be in full compliance um parents and Guardians must receive a a receive prior written notice of the content and administration of the survey and of course excuse me we talked about this forever having the opportunity to opt out um and the survey is the foundation for the climate Improvement plan so what are our next steps again here's that continuous Improvement slide again I'll move right through that specifically next steps we want to designate the district climate coordinator we've done that budget considerations I've talked about a climate compliance teacher uh leader position um the policy uh committee has been

112updated and provided the uh cab sample policy and that's really all we have to go on at this point um we I'd like to get that done my recommendation is by March um so we're ready in full swing excuse me train each School climate specialist those are building administ Traders regarding the new law and expectations we'll be talking about this specific presentation on Tuesday next week um updating our climate committees uh can developing oural and restorative practices training as I mentioned transition to thought exchange uh for midy year and end of year and while the majority of these are required as a reminder I'm talking about my recommendation the team's recommendation for what we need to do to implement this effectively to meet the expectations of our community and have uh you know the best

113climate we can have in the safest environment for our students and our staff and so the it is not required to be very clear there's no requirement for this compliance teacher that I'm putting forward as a recommendation I'll put that forward in two weeks in the budget recommendation and that's all I have for you thank you for your [Music] time I have a couple questions um I know just with my own experience that I hope moving forward that each School the reporting and what is said to parents or whether they're asking for incident reports that it's consistent from school to school um so I'm really looking forward to that being streamlined but also I mean um in May or earlier in one year I asked who the state school climate coordinator was one school didn't

114answer um and the other one said that it was Mr Roland and Dr man so I'm just there needs to be I mean and I can forward you the emails just because um it it seems that there's a disconnect on what this is and when a parent seeks the information it's different or it's not accurate inconsistent and we can't so I mean from May I mean I can tell you for April 29th at 24 I was told that it's Mr Roland and Dr man and in October it wasn't answered a different school so I think that it's really important that you know whether it be posted on a website so it can be readily available to parents is just would be really helpful okay let's yep please sorry um so I you you might have

115mentioned this but the climate compliance teacher that's a full-time position that that would be a full-time teacher leader position consistent with you know other full-time teacher leader positions we had that's for the district that would be for the district we work directly with me and our specialists at each school school administration um and then I just have kind of like a general question because I know you talk obviously done with other superintendents in the area but what is sort of is this the model that sort of the state kind of dictated or is like having this climate compliance teacher districtwide with the school climate specialist kind of becoming like the model the compliance teacher I couldn't tell you I'm actually prepared to share this with my Western Connecticut colleagues I'm going to see them on

116Friday for a meeting but I wanted to get this to them tomorrow after this presentation I did share it with uh a regional colleague and they said wow I have not been thinking about this as much so I appreciate this so I think this is something that's not is not on everybody's radar and that's why I said I really had to thank our friends that had Advance Judy Palmer and Fran Mara came down um and uh really helped us understand the impact um you know of what's going to happen I think there's a lot of unintended consequences in terms of the time commit commment in what school districts have to do locally to make this work um not faulting them at all this is totally well intended of course um but boots on the ground

117to operationalize these mandates frankly it becomes another unfunded mandate and everyone who could be assigned this these administrators have full-time jobs already um and if they could do things faster we would do things faster um but they have to be done thoroughly as well so there's a lot here but each of these positions like climate Specialists climate coordinators and the compliance teacher compliance teacher is really the only new piece that we would add that is not requir like necessary We Believe to implement this law yeah effectively okay and properly oh sorry we we as a team we believe we need another body to help us do this work okay if I can just speak quickly to the public act 11232 which was the 2019 um Public Act which took effect in 2021 when that came

118down the pike um to specifically outline the expectations of school climate Specialists that that was the responsibility of the um of someone who has an 092 in the school um and to do those investigations promptly and then to make sure that all parties are uh made aware of the investig of the investigative findings within 48 hours that was a huge shift back in um you know the late 201s um and one of the things that when that's when restorative practices came kind of onto the Forefront because there was a kind of again a not just a punitive approach um so this is another step along the way um but really when uh you know we knew this was coming because it's been around you know the law was a year and a half ago um

119when we and we've talked about it it's one of the reasons we established reestablished the eiib Comm committee at the district level to kind of be that initial um not specifically to the challenging Behavior piece but just to be you know kind of that climate focused uh aspect of the district level um but when we were when we met with the Ed Advance folks and they gave us some uh in in service on this in September the specific uh adjustments to the forms which are a a a welcome thing because it is true it was up to the school districts um there were sample forms but there was not a consistency across the state or even within districts um and then the prescriptive aspect of the the 3-day turnaround um that's not just that's from

120finding out about it to full investigation and full response back that is a huge shift um and something that our school climate Specialists three of whom are sitting over there um are just it's just not feasible to have it done just at that level so we're talking about one person to cover three schools essentially one person to help coordinate so this person wouldn't be the investigator no this my question who's the investigator on build the school climate Specialists who are the building administrators but if there was so we have to look at how we prioritize our time in in the school right um and the other piece is if the compliance teacher needs to roll up their sleeves and help out because there's a rash of a social media outbreak of whatever is going on

121at a particular school then they'll spend more time over there you know it's not going to be uh they're going to be in the building all the time uh this is not an office at the TSO or anything like that so you're that person would have an 092 so they could we're going to post it as you know this all goes through um preferred 92 not an administrative position so it's not required to have an so if they have to investigate it they could right and and the other part about that Erin is we're being very mindful of costs we're not looking to put more administrators uh uh here we're looking to look at our teacher leaders that can really help us on the ground with this and that keeps the cost down for the

122taxpayers does the dean do any investigating the dean does do investigating yeah so the dean functionally in a lot of ways with the exception of evaluation and and supervision of Staff uh does a lot of role of an assistant principal right yeah I figured that they also to do all the climate stuff too right they they're they're aren't they the climate coordinators uh depends on yeah not necessarily not necessarily a SED position so they teachers are able to apply for it because it's an extra Duty gotcha okay is this the first time that we would be doing restorative practice training no we we've been we've there has been restorative practice training mentioned like about fiveish years ago when it was well I don't know about here I wasn't here five years ago but we've done

123trauma informed instruction all of oural work kind of falls into that area but we're going to put together a very specific foundational restorative um training for everybody and depending on the on the on the level of involvement you'll have different levels of of training so there's actually on that slide 23 when it says you know required School climate training those are the topics that have to be included there's no prescribed School climate training um so the reason that we listed all the other things that we're currently doing is that based on all the stuff we're already doing we will have be in compliance with the law as of July 1 2025 um with the uh addition of a formal kind of restorative practices presentation training to the entire um staff uh and then we'll do

124further followup that's one of the things the compliance teacher that will be kind of the guru of the restorative practices in order to provide further professional learning specific to the administrators to you know um your support staff you know your respon your school psychologists and your counselors they're going to you know the crisis team is going to have a different level of involvement if there are issues that that come up so for example you know Sarah you know when there's a aesque or the state has some kind of Workshop that's new next year the compliance teacher would go and then bring that back for everybody that kind of a thing as well that leadership piece was there any language in the legislation about conducting investigation was there any specific there was the form there are

125the form lead you through the investigation yeah yeah okay but in the presentation when you receive it there's a link to it so you can read it yourself it's all there to make it convenient for everyone and everything will be investigated everything reported requires under challenging Behavior right that is under yeah it has to [Music] be okay let's um let's move then to um discussion of the um ad hoc committees that we established last week so um regarding the healthy school start times uh do we have we need Clarity on who is going to be on that my understanding is that it's we have some clarity all right excited good well that's I'm hoping so my understanding Sarah and I un someone has anything else to say about that but and we're first meeting is

126going to be December 4th we're hoping at 6 o' do a zoom great and we have a board meeting that night do we want to do it at 6 in person right before because I'll be on that that's the committee I'll be on an is GNA take the class SI and you know oh I told you the nth did I tell you nth oh nth sorry nth you're right yeah that's fine 129 all right that's we could do it the fourth that's fine facilities do you guys have facilities at at on the fourth I think facil no facilities is not on the fourth all right let's this is why we're doing this let's see oh Sarah's also on the other one okay yeah facilities is on the fourth that won't work won't work because Sarah

127Sarah won't be able to attend because there's facilities [Music] already you want to do the ninth [Music] so we have cape on the 11th all right the nth okay so that's six great so healthy school of yes can you do Monday I work at the pleasure of the board so would that be in person or would that be Zoom thank Zoom would be preferred can we have as much data as we can what dat what's our first date the 9th December 9th that's probably going to talk to Mr Bland and Mr bald when I think that's the data we want there because I think they've been collect I think they mentioned they they had been collecting data M great that sounds wonderful so Monday the 9th will be the first meeting and then we'll take

128it from that 6 6 PM with the zoom and so we'll just need to post the zoom link we'll get all that done thank you great um so then class size Sarah again Watch back at it um so we so we spoke um and you said what did we say DEC Thurday the 12th hope the 12 but then you weren't you could do the 12 I have EI that I could do a little earlier what you mentioned but yeah I guess we just have to keep throw around possible that would work like a two 132 is yeah I have I I just have um EI at 350 so I just have to be done by 3:45 yeah so I could even do like 2:45 to 345 if you prefer I have to do like hour

129before okay 1:3 to 2:30 um I I'm working yeah um I guess thr a couple more days back Sarah you need to turn yeah okay um so if not maybe the day before the 11 we have Cape the day before you could come early to Cape we could just the two amazing two of you you're want to do that so 5:00 perfect on the 11th there we go on 1211 and that'll be in person here at TSO Town Hall okay thank you okay I and I actually have um some information and data I can share with the two of you prior um I've collected some information from other districts as well as some research okay awesome thanks everybody yeah we'll be well on our way thanks for bringing this up tonight okay um and then

130um I I would like to um I would like to add uh an item right here since we're talking about committees but in order to do that um I mean I'd like to add a motion um but I would need five of us at least to add this motion this is about the rbac um that I contacted you about Joy has um stepped down you finalized the lots of paperwork that you have to do in order to do that and then um nobody reached out and said that they wanted this I'm willing to do it um unless somebody I'll just take that so um with that let me just make the motion to add this topic to the agenda other topic to the agenda so I move to add um the rbac motion to the

131agenda right now right now right here right here right now yes um great uh all in favor of adding the rbac motion to the agenda right right now all right okay any opposed okay great so so now it's on the agenda so now it's on the agenda so what I'd like to do is move to amend the subcommittee meeting dates and members document to reflect that uh Wendy Youngblood will replace Joy Greenstein as the Boe representative to the rbac committee second okay so all in favor of me of us amending the subcommittee meeting dates and members document to to reflect me going in for Joy for rbac please say I I I I any opposed any extensions okay then that is done thank you very much um so yeah that first meeting is tomorrow okay

132great so now we're going to the um grants approval I move that the board approve the attached list of Grants as recommended by the director of business and operations Casey deti and the superintendent Dr John baral um I'll in favor of approving the list of Grants um as recommended by Mrs diot and Dr Brill please say I I I any opposed any extensions all right great okay now we are moving to the next item it is the complaint um the 1312 um and so here's here's what I propose um we are discussing whether or not to take up the 1312 complaint from Denise rice against me um so I propose giving us um a time limit to decide whether we're going to take it up or not and then if the if the board votes

133yes to take it up um then we will move in that direction I would recuse myself and Rosa would take over um just so that everybody procedurally can see what would happen so um okay I don't think we have to move to discuss taking don't okay so um the the substance of the complaint just to remind everyone um is that um and I don't have it in front of me um that the complainant uh was unhappy about a conversation um I had with the union president teachers union president and um the uh the complaintant disagreed with the events that unfolded thereafter um and says that it it was a um I guess counter to board leadership so that's that's the short version um is this something that we would like to take up um are

134Robert you ready to vote on this ready when everyone else is Aon are you ready to vote y Sarah are you ready to vote vote to take it up to take it up um Joy are you ready to vote yep yep okay um and I'm ready to vote on this okay um all in favor of taking up the 1312 complaint um please say I I I okay all opposed n n any abstentions all right so it passes uh 43 then I will recuse and um go ahead all right um so everybody should have had the opportunity to read through the complaint so what I'd like to do is go around the table make everybody sort of or give everybody an opportunity to say their peace and then we will go from there so Rob why

135don't you I just wanted to hear what the public had to say I didn't want to dismiss a complaint from the public so I just really wanted to hear it out and give it the you know just give it some the time that it deserves okay without just dismissing it basically Ain I mean I I think you reading through the complaint there's a few things that you know as a board member I'm not really thrilled to find out you know who attended meetings based on an foa an foi that was presented by a Community member I think that it lacks transparency um and I think it lacked you know um a conversation among board members so um I do have to say that I'm really disappointed about that I think that this could have been

136approached in a different manner um while I understand that um the union president asked to me I also do not feel that the board was um represented um and I also don't feel that what was sent back to us as board members from the union president um while his opinion is you know his opinion um we didn't have the opportunity to even you know discuss it it was buried um and then we were faced with probably the largest crowd we've ever had and I think that it is really um unfortunate okay Sarah I mean I have similar sentiments but I just think if you're going to preach unity and transparency this is going to be something that contradicts that and I have a problem with that okay go yeah I'm um really upset about it

137um very disappointed when the email came from the union president that um they wanted to speak with the board um I immediately responded to our board chair and shared that I would like to attend the meeting as well um and at that point the board chair could have said I'm choosing to bring Miss Fernandez with me but she did not she's not transparent about that she had an opportunity to say I appreciate you wanting to come but no thank you she said she was going to go and no point did the board Chair say that she was bringing somebody else with her so um that was not transparent at all was very dishonest um and I don't appreciate that we're supposed to be acting together as a board and be being on the same page

138and giving the same information so to find that out in a secretive way through a member of the public fo you know an email that was really upsetting disappointing and very divisive um it led to further division of the board um it's is very contradictory to what's being put out there um and I think that made an unfortunate series of events from that point happen which shouldn't have happened should never have happened um under proper leadership so I was you know very disappointed about how that all unfolded Stephanie you have anything to say so I want to start with the fact that Wendy reported immediately after the meeting that she met and gave us a clear explanation of what the meeting was about so I I disagree with the fact that it was done in

139secret that we didn't know we did not find out through the FAA that she met um with the Union president bottom line is the teachers do not feel supported and I think that anything we can do including the chair meeting with the Union president is the right way to handle this situation I I the chair of the board board is a representative of the Board of Education and can speak on our behalf and the meeting was requested I find that the complaint is from a member of the public with a perception of what occurred without all the information making the complaint against the board of chair or the Board of Ed chair and there was no policy violation so just because it wasn't something that you liked or agreed with does not mean that it

140was a violation and of any policy and should be taken up as a complaint to consider removing the chair okay um honestly I'm not I'm not going to entertain this with a lot of time because quite frankly I think we had a lot of really good conversation tonight and then to have this in front of us brings everything to a embarrassingly grinding Halt and it is a completely inefficient and ineffective use of our time on this board and I don't think the teachers appreciate it I don't think the general public appreciates it but to stand here and complain about each other is just I just don't want to have any part of it so I'm not going to correct any of the factual errors I think Stephanie did a good job of that um but

141since we are here um and some very serious complaints have been lodged does anybody have a motion what or was this really just a completely meaningless vent well I'd like to add a comment um Stephanie what you said were were facts absolutely we were given the email we were shown the email she um the board chair provided the um details from the meeting um but details were left out and that's not being transparent right I'm not discounting the fact that all that information was provided for us absolutely you're right but if someone purposely leaves out information right as a leader of this board who preaches transparency and honesty and cohesiveness then you need to be honest about everything that wasn't being honest and she had an opportunity to be honest when I asked politely and

142with kindness to attend as well to be a voice together because we are all in here to support teachers and to give the notion that we don't is absolutely ridiculous and I take offense to that we we serve on this board we've all made it very clear we're here for the students we're here for the teachers we're here for the community we're always here advocating to make things better for the teachers so to give that perception that some people attend a meeting and God knows what was really said and then to sit back and let other people be called out is not showing Unity at all so wait wait wait can I just ask for clarification you just accused the union teachers union president and the chair of the board of education for not being

143honest and relaying information a meeting between the two of them that's not what I just said you just said God knows what was said during the meeting so you're saying what Wendy said and reported to us you're calling okay the fact that the meeting was not factual you God knows what was said we're not going to go back and forth I gave everybody an opportunity to say their peace so we're going to move on I'm going to End discussion here so again I'm going to ask is there a motion or is this really just an area where we are going to just complain about each other because I will tell you right now that that is not something that I don't think anybody in this room or in this community appreciates Point Blank so do

144we have a motion agree I mean no the question the we're not discussing anymore we're we have closed discussion I'm asking for a motion I move to End discussion of this item do I have I move second I move to continue discussion because the fact of the matter is Aaron there is a motion on the table to End discussion you cannot make another motion on top of it there is a motion on the table to End discussion it has been seconded it's on the table all in favor of ending discussion of this please signify by saying I I I all oppose Nay n n fine discussion continues Aaron you have the floor please make it quick okay well you want to flip over the timer no Aon you have the floor I'm going to be

145completely honest when this came up before this even became a board discussion I became aware of what was going on in the community about what the union representative wanted to meet about and called John specifically I didn't point of order this doesn't have anything to do with the complaint in the discussion but yes it does because it's what the complaint that's why you met with them is is that or is that not why you met [Music] I mean let's be real here we met right you met with him because of something that was emailed to teachers that the community found out about is that true or not I don't think that's the thing that we can discuss here you know what just me you guys are ridiculous would anybody else like the floor I would

146just like to add Stephanie I don't agree that the email that Wendy sent was clear clear at all in fact it made it even more confusing to me as to why anybody thought we weren't supporting teachers when the 40 teachers showed up here I still didn't understand why the perception was we don't don't so did you listen to anything that Mr patrin said because I took notes and he said the Board needs to stand up for teachers the Board needs to respect have respectful exchanges the Board needs to make sure that we're not attacking teachers when asking questions that the ethics and professionalism of the Board of Ed members are in question so these are all things that are real out in our schools concerns directly from the teachers and the union president brought that

147to the board of ed the union President also brought to the board of ed that um guess that there was certain Board of Ed members that had a Personal Agenda so was that ever you know able to dis be discussed so clearly we went into a meeting to discuss you regularly okay what Board of Ed members whatever their agenda is in case I mean in case the the flavor of what Mr petrino's meeting was about it is literally this right here it is literally this you are not understanding that this board sets the climate for the entire District this is a complete waste of time and it's embarrassing to our district we've got to stop it so again do you have a motion do you you want to do anything or are you just here

148to Lodge complaints I moved to dismiss the complaint 1312 from uh and take no action I dis I move to dismiss the 1312 complaint and take no action second any discussion on that okay all in favor of dismissing the compl I just want to say that I just wanted to give it because when complaints come in I feel like we should give it the air time at least discuss but respectfully discuss that was a reason why I felt we should at least have it out there so good thanks Rob all right all in favor of dismissing the complaint please signify by saying I I I all opposed I okay uh the motion um what are we doing a TI is this a pass no it doesn't pass it doesn't pass okay so then again if

149we are not dismissing the complaint I urge you make a motion I like to make a motion I think the board chair should step down for leadership are you making a motion to remove the CH the board chair yeah ask her to step down making a motion to ask the board chair to step down I'll second okay any discussion on that okay all in favor of I'm sorry I'd like to say that I think that um there are a lot of assumptions at root in this complaint which are not borne out by the actual experience and um I'm trying not to get into The Fray but I wholeheartedly agree with what Rosa has said and I really feel like this is um not good for our district all in favor of removing Wendy as chair

150please signify by saying I I all opposed nay the motion fails okay moving on Wendy I relinquish the chair back over to you okay we're going we're moving now to Old business uh we're looking at the special education strategic Plan [Music] update think I'm good yep I think so good evening members of the board thank you um coming to you tonight with an update on where we are with the Strategic plan some items that i' like to uh lead with um and before I begin I'd like to thank our committee members uh that you see listed here um we had one or two folks who had left the district but we had um Shaina marks and Ryan pelli who are our new social worker and school psychologist have jumped on board uh to help us

151as we move forward with the plan um what I'd like to talk about as a whole concept tonight is the state of the Department of consistency and stability or as I just wrote stability and consistency um we're moving forward forward from where we were when I was here a year ago um I'd like to talk about the desk audit so to give a real quick history lesson way back when in the midst of time um say 20 years ago the state department of Ed would randomly select districts to go in and look at their IEPs and files and make sure they were compliant um they would come in in person they would pull files literal files and go through them and report on them right then and there well with the Advent of CTS the

152state is no longer um they don't need to come into the district and do a desk audit however they notified us last October that they were going to do a desk audit select about 20 IEPs at random to look at compliance issues and what we got was a pretty good report card there are areas of growth we did well on compliance on timelines on re-evaluations areas of growth are things that we have been working through with compliance including more parent input more data collection more progress monitoring not anything that Rose to the level of the state coming in to do focused monitoring which would be uh an area of non-compliance and that's not something that we want so it's just areas of growth for us as a district I also reached out to Mike Taver

153who wrote us the letter who is the state consultant and said could we get comparisons to other districts just to see how we're doing it's not that type of audit it's sort of your audited for your own growth and for your own sake so I couldn't come up here tonight and say bethl versus Brookfield Danbury it's not the purpose the purpose is to see how well we do with where we are and I'm very proud of our team to be able to come to you with those test audit results secondly professional development um working with at Advance with our partners at at Advance on professional development not only for our teachers uh and administrators but also for our Paris um there's 18 hours that Paras are required to have now but we've talked about and

154you'll see on the slide um what we're doing with that um and finally on this slide which leads to this slide um our Unified sports team so um Dr burill and I are uh with the team in the middle um Mr Renda I had to get you in you were there um and this is just I wanted to give a visual example of the good stuff that happens every day you know looking at our gened and our special ed students working together uh not only on our field hosting other districts but also um at a a summit that they went to in Rocky Hill last week with uh our coaches Corey raffy Kathy Roman uh Nick Castellano and Carol Reinhardt uh and also a big thanks to Mr Baldwin Steve Baldwin for being the point

155person around which we can collaborate with uh the athletic teams and be our own uh Representatives as we go throughout districts so I want to thank everybody for that uh as I move on to other points so last time I spoke to you we talked about the four domains from the correct report and in talking with Dr Coro who I'm in regular contact with and kind of um you know checking with her to kind of see where she feels we're moving forward in terms of the correct report we had the four domains that also included communication and collaboration last time I was here I think we talked about uh me folding in the communication and collaboration throughout the domain so tonight you'll see three areas that we're working on um they aren't uh Dynamic pieces

156necessarily but these are pieces that move us forward and make us more structured so one of the things that we've been doing throughout the committee and each Committee Member is kind of folded into a subcommittee looking at the allocation of case loads we saw the case load report back in October improving delivery of services again to look at compliance and equitable distribution but also making sure that students in each building are serviced appropriately again moving forward this is these are goals that we're working on and processes that we're involved in um you saw from um this picture uh our new ELC teacher Miss jyn um who has done an amazing job in that classroom of transforming what our vision was of the program so enhancing our specialized program at whiner to better align with the

157transition that Mrs sudow and her team have at the high school we're very proud of that and we want to make sure that that was acknowledged this evening and again talking about the professional development from the previous slide um the topics that we are working on with that advance to deliver to teachers and uh Paras and related service staff assistive technology dyslexia secondary transition and continued development of quality IEPs these topics were born out of conversations that we had in the um the Strategic plan committee as well as speaking with parents speaking with staff and speaking with that advance to kind of see what they felt was were were areas that they could provide us with these um professional development systems speaking of systems systems and structures so with this you've heard me come up

158here month after month talking about aligning our systems across all three buildings again a work in progress but making sure that there's a flowchart and guidelines across the board to make sure that the systems in each building are the same this is based on feedback from parents uh area special ed directors that I've work with through con case um our resc community communities have practiced through Ed advance and professional development sessions again the the communication process has been clarified across all three buildings that's again something that might have been communication and collaboration as a separate domain we don't see it that way anymore and making sure that we're meeting on a regular basis with classroom teachers specialed teachers talking about items like co- teing you know that's a topic that's that's come up and topics

159that we're looking at for for professional development different models of co- teing different models of inclusion and areas where we can improve and look at different areas that we can Implement IEPs in different ways um social emotional so these this comes out of conversations that I'm having with principles with assistant principles and especially our mental health staff so our social workers our school psychologists um you know what does it look like when we're looking at tiered interventions for Behavior what does it look like when we're monitoring data to develop protocols and responses to increase student challenges as we all know the mental health challenges have increased over the past few years not just in our district but in many districts responding to that appropriately creating systems that support the kids and give them what they

160need at an appropriate level that support them going into the classroom and learning uh and this also aligns with the Desa piece we use as a as an overall districtwide um initiative guidelines for specialized programs this is not necessarily an an entry and exit criteria I don't want it to be so um structured as that but guidelines of when would we move from tier three to a referral when would we move from uh a more open classroom setting with some support to a more specialized program those kinds of conversations are happening and they're happening more frequently and developing a review process for present levels of performance you heard me talk about the desk audit this is one of the areas of making sure that it's not just anecdotal in present levels of performance and I

161don't want to get into the Weeds on IEPs too much but um that there should be data there should be specific test scores there should be specific areas of measurement within the present levels when we're building goals and objectives that's not always the case that's not always the case in many districts it's something that we're focused and working on and terms of our structures and overall of this is educational benefit making sure that the students benefit year toe from CES to WMS to BHS finally student learning again clear qualifiers for specific programming addressing specific needs rather than making an emotional decision let's make it Based on data and and systems and documentation of why we're making the decisions we're making looking at specific programs within each School design resources for the specialized programs and what

162we might need to expand models of co- teing what we might need to expand understanding of IEPs and areas of growth within that and again guidelines we don't want to make this specific criteria of gatekeeping that's not what special ed is about it's what does the child need and how do we make that decision looking at guidelines for what are the service hours where is the setting is it a whole classroom is it a small group um what accomodations look like and that the accommodations are reviewed yearly and special considerations around areas like academic support and behavior and again collaboration among the Gen Ed and specialed teachers in each building to make sure students are getting where what they need wherever they are in the Continuum of services whether that's uh a co- teing or

163an inclusion model in a gened classroom a resource setting a specialized program across the board with that and finally what are we going to do to look at student learning our areas of focus are looking at outcome data we selected recommended prek grade three grade seven grade 10 so that there's a a a marker for each area looking at attendance looking at Exit data looking at what criteria we need to look at transition programs looking at our ability to create our own transition program uh and rates of inclusion and least restrictive environment again speaking to the co- teing model and what is appropriate for each level of need and level of student at each school and like I said not the most dynamic um and again I thank you for your time this evening I've

164also linked both the correct program review and the out of District program review for your perusal and any questions you might have in the future or areas within those recommendations that although in year one we addressed them we looked at all of them but now we're honing in on what can we do in year One what can we do in year two and if we're looking at a 3 to fiveyear plan this is the year we start narrowing down areas that we can move forward so I thank you I thank the parents who have helped contribute to this and I thank the community for the support thank you very much thank you I think that Unified sports though is absolutely awesome well done awesome and and there's more pictures than that great job that's that's

165what we we fixed for tonight so Bill's running away but were there any questions the light went on I don't know it's after 9:00 I have to run away I was old business I used to be new business I just wanted to say thank you for starting this special ed strategic plan I think um the more we can do to make it a more inclusive um environment and everybody can understand it um and every child's accepted for what they bring to the table is just um I think it's really incredible so thank you for your dedication and the people that are serving on I appreciate that and when you see those photos it's many of us in this room have had the conversations about what inclusion should look like and that that's why I want

166to put that in because if you if if that's not the most exemplary example redundant of um what inclusion can look like in a non-academic setting this is social so again I thank you for that and I thank for thank everyone for the input that they've given for us to be allowed to be able to do this for the kids I'm not running away Dr BR he's still looking at you're on the than for doing that thank you thank you okay um [Music] so I move that the board approved the 2025 2026 one-year prioritized capital projects list as recommended by the finance subcommittee and is presented by Director of Business and operations Casey deti at the October 30th 2024 board meeting I second all in favor of approving the oh sorry gosh I thought we

167were ready to go that's okay um yeah so it it's essentially the same except for the one item I mentioned earlier um which was the removal of the $30,900 that I um had in there for door door repairs and Replacements at the high school um those are still going to happen those repairs are just going to be um covered under our operating budget which you'll see in the in the presentation um on the 4th so that was the only change to that hopefully you had an opportunity to check out all the pictures and the presentation and any other backup information you needed so and I also understand from Mr Dunn that uh the capital committee for the town will be having their first meeting tomorrow tom so this is important that we and at that

168meeting just for clarification that's where I will resign and Stephanie as we discussed at our last meeting will take my place there well she'll have to be voted in by the board of Selectmen but um I'm sure that won't be a problem but um I did have a question about just a quick question because I know I wrote it down and I have seen this before um but could you just like do you happen to have the net sort of change from like last year's like this is whatever year two of last year's 10e plan like what the difference is so from the original 10-year plan that was presented last year yeah I do a second [Music] with okay this is the right number so the number yep the number you're looking for is what

169we projected for year two as of last year yes okay thank you is the actual correct and so that was uh 2,137 300 okay and the difference there is like a 200ish thousand yep yeah and the difference there is um they're all noted as new items um in the in the plan they are the um the floor scrubber at the high school the weight room equipment the outdoor score scoreboard the server upgrades at both the high school and whis um the stage curtain at whiner and carpeting in the main office at whiner thank you [Music] yep I good okay it is astonishing how much those curtains cost yeah um okay so we are uh then um Stephanie ready for you yeah oh wait wait are we the the motion's on the floor and um uh

170so all in favor of approving the one-year prioritize prioritized capital projects list um as recommended by Mrs diot please signify by saying I I I any opposed I I okay so to any exensions okay so we have a 52 pass Sarah were you a pass yes yes okay great thank you awesome thank you all right and with that then we move to um our second uh round of public comment we have um Mr Korea who has just signed up for a second public [Music] comment um Andy Korea 45 West whis Road um so I have read the uh Board of ethics code pretty thoroughly um it's Crystal Clear that um if there's an issue which you know you have a personal interest in then uh you need to uh recuse yourself and announce that in

171the public meeting get up and move into the audience um there was a complaint last spring about you know um regarding the public broadcasting of part of a meeting in that complaint process um that didn't happen um I come and came and spoke and wrote about it it was clear to the board it should have been clear to the board that that was an acceptable behavior that happened three times tonight so the respondent of the 1312 should have announced that they needed to recuse themselves move over to the public area um not vote on whether to discuss the issue um and then not be at the table when the issue was discussed and then shouldn't have interjected into the conversation the uh board could have asked for Testimony but the respondent would need to be

172at the podium that is direct and clear in the Brookfield code of ethics um that's unfortunate because there are have been significant um governance issues that I've spoken about wrote to the board about including board members lying to each other in email BC seeing Administration the these are some of the reasons why you're getting board members stand up and say look we're not we're not getting the leadership and transparency that we we need to have you know to ask for items to be put on the agenda to discuss instead you have a shadow chair of a former chair there helping you try to figure out how to get around actually managing the district like things like the list of notr and not implemented things from Public Act you know 19 uh Public Act 19166 that

173if you Google what is school's District's obligations under PA 19166 it'll give you the seven things the district needs to do and hasn't done right so it is embarrassing that we have a Cadre of board members that are looking to protect and serve non-performing administrators rather than follow the law and follow General good judgment including if there's a complaint against you follow the board of Ethics rules thank you sir um Mrs CES this always happens I'm not prepared again I was going to speak on something else I had prepared for tonight but in light of the situation that happened regarding the 1312 speak on that pleas please give us your 21 meow view dive Brookfield Connecticut um so I myself have filed a 1312 complaint the one thing that I have to say that was

174good that came out of coming out of it tonight was that it was disgusted embarrassing as it was it was disgusted and issues were brought to light and you can clearly see the division I really hope because you're each and of you in your own individual um respects have a lot to offer the board I wish to to see you working better collectively our children I'm going to get ational our children desperately need you there's so much work to be done and I would just love to see you just come together work better together um there's going to be issues there's going to be arguing there's going to be divisiveness there's going to be issues that come about but I really tonight it was embarrassing it was um I mean you hear about things at

175the last meeting that I was at when the teachers came because you know we've always spoken up so much especially about um special ed um issues um but when I saw the teachers come in with their signs I was like oh great they're finally going to speak on things they're going to finally you know they come to us and tell us so many times things that are going on and when the next day when teachers reached out to me personally and said hey what was discussed after we left you know and I said nothing and they're like really nothing was said nothing was discussed I said no it was kind of crickets about it um and they were kind of asking me hey what was what was that all about so teachers didn't even know

176why they were coming in to support what they were supporting um so I found that very confusing um but then to find out some of the after thing you know things that went on before that and some meetings and you know it could be a little bit more inclusive next time you know when something comes about um I just ask that everyone work together because our kids really need you you've heard my own personal things through the years that I've come up here um and that's that's all I can say I'm glad things came to light as ugly as they were tonight I'm sure we'll all look back and see I know I've I've in my anger too I've said some things that are are embarrassing or misspoken or I didn't it wasn't right what

177I said just like some things tonight weren't right when you are a chairperson you speak for the entirety of the board you make those decisions there needs to be transparency you can't have these like little clandestine meetings and they need to be transparent um that's all I have to say I think that it's dangerous when it gets to a territory where teachers come in and you know PE people are thinking that other people are not supporting them because that's not the case but thank you thank you very much Mrs cese [Music] okay so um with that I know you've probably been really busy Stephanie what did you come up with this three main points and you guys give it some thought on your um on your own uh I thought we should feature the um

178whis skiner student Spotlight M the security update that includes uh the facility or the sorry the um security task force meeting update as well as the superintendent update and the CS security uh and then number three would be the finance budget update wait what about the climate climate um we can put that I there isn't I mean I would say climate over Finance I agree just say that it's upcoming legislation there's not really present some points like some of the yeah takeaways I guess sure [Music] what was the third thing the capital project um no it would be the WMS student Spotlight security update and now climate presentation why security update I think it's good because of the voting machine I think there's a lot there's also agree with that it was a topic at

179the municipal okay yep building committee it's been several emails we've gotten and we need to prep people to know the Voting is yeah that's a big cuz they're going to have to figure out another spot for us right yeah okay not us right um upcoming events yep I have several okay upcoming events upcoming events for the end of November and December hold on a second are you guys ready y okay upcoming events yeah upcoming events for the end of November and December from CS the student council coat drive is now through December 13th PTO Candlewood craze fundraiser is now through November 22nd with craze events taking place on the 21st for prek and the 22nd for K through 5th picture retake day is November 21st second grade balloon parade is November 25th the second grade

180field trip to Stanford Museum and nature center is December 4th and 5th PTO Night of Lights taking place in the Cs parking lot is December 6th CES report cards are going to be available on on the parent portal on December 10th fourth grade field trip to the state capital building will be December 11th and 12th and the December PTO meeting will be December 18th at whis skiner middle school student council Thanksgiving bash will be November 25th after school the boys and girls basketball tryouts are this week and at Brookfield High School oh okay uh the youth commission local government conversations for all grades is November 21st the PTO meeting is on December 3rd the booster club meeting is on December 11th the grad party meeting is on December 19th the Winter concert is on December

18117th and I am just remembering that I was supposed to add the CES holiday concert is on have it written down somewhere I want to say the 12th hold on sorry let me grab the I wrote it on my other paper wait this is the this is the CES holiday concert yes and I she sent it to me at the end of the day because that's going to be so cute I know I think it's the fifth grade the fourth graders are singing at the stard tree lighting and the fifth grade band is having their concert on the 11th the 11th thank you you pulled it up right before me on December 11th and the the Brookfield and sorry Brookfield Education Foundation so now districtwide yep so the districtwide events are the Brookfield Education Foundation

182thanks for giving Gala is this Friday November 22nd uh and the last day of school before winter break is December 20th with winter break being December 23rd through January 1st thank you lot that was a lot um okay so um without objection we adjourn at 9:30 [Music] onj [Music]