Board of Education Meeting

001good evening everyone today is Wednesday August 14th and I'll call the regular meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order please stand for the pledge flaged States um we have a small gathering of our um board tonight um Dr Young Blood and joy Greenstein had indicated their absence ahead of time and unfortunately Rob fetto is dealing with an urgent matter um but we have a quum of the board um as well as our administrative team here um so up next on our agenda is public comment um I don't think anybody has signed up and our audience is rather thin tonight so rather than going through our usual on public comment we will move on to written correspondence should I that yeah oh you know what I'll just leave you're well have a couple things

002yeah okay the following people have emailed the Board of Education since the last meeting on July 17th Irene Korea District substitute pay and policy 5132 Denise rice followup public comment and Matt Andy Korea followup to foyer request and July 17th Bo meeting all right up next is approval of board minutes I move that the board approve the minutes listed below as recommended regular meeting 7172 second okay the motion has made and seconded um any discussion or headed all in favor okay that's unanimous the superintendent report all right thank you Mrs Fernandez um welcome everybody we are really excited and gearing up for the start of the school year you can imagine all the work that's going on in facilities and in curriculum and instruction and all the planning for uh our administrators to be back

003um and all together I should say next week for a number of days of training and then our teachers coming back with starting a new teacher orientation on the 26th which is a Monday uh for Monday and Tuesday and then all teachers are back on the 27th and convocation is on Friday the 30th so we have a we're chalk full the next couple of weeks really uh getting going um couple of uh things I wanted to share with everybody who have my superintendent report in front of you uh the first thing is there's been a lot of discussion about Title 9 updates the federal title legislation and so um interestingly enough our new attorneys Shipman and Goodwin ran a Statewide um workshop on Title 9 in the updates both Bill uh and our assistant principes

004attended um they'll certainly be uh passing on the information to the rest of the admin team so we're uh very pleased that they were able to attend that and our attorneys were the ones actually leading uh you know uh the the lawyers here in the state on interpreting and getting us ready I also have to put a big shout out to our teers and peras um BHS high school kids and our Administration Administration for a really successful extended school year experience this summer and summer school all held at whiskin here thank you Mr Renda and his team for accommodating all of us our custodians Etc um really successful program this year and just uh happy to see everybody do well related to that you may have heard that whiskin is actually shut down this week

005for an electrical service upgrade uh that is if you can imagine at your own house having your electrical panel and all of your electric um uh replaced we're doing that it's going to be brand new um ever source is working from the street all the way into the school and they need 3 to four days to shut the school down to do that and so some people think well maybe at Christmas time you could do that uh holiday time then you're worried about not having heat in the building and freezing pipes you really need to do this in the summer we have to thank a uh someone from ever Source who's become a real friend of ours Le Andino uh does a lot of operational and logistic work there she actually made sure the crew

006came this week so it didn't affect LC or summer school or anything so I want to really shout out to eversource and with for helping us out with that uh Candlewood Lake uh just so everybody knows uh driveways and parking lots uh will uh asphalt will begin for the top coat and the lining of the uh parking lots next week supposed to be a 4-day job Monday through Thursday I believe they'll be out this week they're finishing up all the sidewalk concrete work so we're really in a good place there uh we should be ready to go for the teachers uh by the 26th or by Friday the 23rd we should really be in good shape my uh welcome back message to the entire Community as well as the teaching staff and parents and families

007students of course um is focused on three fundamental priorities for the year teaching and learning school climate and business and operations uh the welcome back message uh really details uh each uh initiative under these particular priorities that will be going out after the board meeting tonight just so everybody knows it will be posted on Facebook it'll go out on parents wear and then it will upload to the website probably at midnight tonight the the way we have it timed up and so everybody will be getting that and that really is going to help center um not only the aligned strategic plan initiatives but everyone completely will be able to see everything in there and we set it up so people could read it for kind of brief highlights or if they want to dig in

008we have a lot of links if they're very interested in presentations that have been given or certain explanations they could go a lot deeper if they would like so kind of I wanted to kind of appeal to the audience uh the the uh diversity of the audience that we we serve enrollment update last uh last month uh a couple of board members were interested in just a check-in enrollment update I always give the kindergarten update uh but uh it's important to remind everybody the official enrollment update takes place we do a snapshot in power school on October 1st and that gets submitted to the State Department of Education we present that enrollment update as a precursor to budget work uh by the end of octob so that'll be uh one probably the second I think

009it's an October 30th board meeting this year but um so everybody knows you take a look um BHS um while the class size averages are not in yet because there's ongoing scheduling and everybody just just by imagination could could try to empathize with the high school team in putting a complex high school schedule together in grade nine 2003 students grade 10 215 this is at this time this week grade 11 23 grade 12 229 students for a total right now at BHS of 860 kids at the middle school grade 6 194 with a on team class size average of 21.5 and I have the uh guidelines as you can see and we're not over guidelines which is really good uh for your reference as well grade 797 students at 20 per class on average and

010grade a 208 with 21 per class for a total 599 students and then at the elementary school for the uh prek you could see we have a a total of about 45 students 15 in the morning and right now registered and for the uh afternoon 31 and uh you're looking at an average of five students in the morning classes and 10 in the afternoon kindergarten we're still in the low 120s I think last month it was at 121 so at 123 giving us an average class size rate now with 15 uh I do want to uh hedge that a little bit uh rents sometimes house purchases Etc happen at the end of the month um definitely for September 1st there could be a new influx of of folks so that's always important to know um

011so we're ready you know making sure we're ready for that um but again if it stays that way class size average of 15 would be fantastic for kindergarten it's actually lower than our Target uh grade one 168 student students in the class for class average of 21 grade 2 168 for an average of 21 grade three 199 um and the average is 22 grade four 186 students with an average of 21 and grade 5 196 with an average of 22 uh giving for 1,086 in the school uh at CES and just so everybody knows as a reminder Candlewood Lake is designed as a school within a school Upstairs Downstairs upper students lower students and built for 1260 kids so we're well under enrollment number there so you may hear every classroom is used at Candle

012would Lake well because we have the luxury of being able to use every classroom for every uh special um also for some alternative type programs um but we do have space there for 1260 kids and we're at 1,86 grand total for the district right now 2,545 students and the enrollment study as I shared with the board a cou coule weeks ago is in and we'll be looking at that as a factor as we develop plans for the following year that is all I have does anybody have any questions a question with the new kindergart Weaver did you find that that was impactful at all or was that pretty much stat I wouldn't say exactly status quo I could get Dave to give me any updated numbers but uh as of last month we were looking

013at about 15 is from recollection I shared it last month I just don't have it off the top of my head and I I want to say yeah it was never something that impacted class size or um put families in a situation where their child isn't able to come to kindergart but they really wanted their child to come to kindergart we were able to really work together with the um the orientations and the assessments with the kids thank you sir great question anything else for all right thanks everyone thank you uh subcommittee reports we have from policy inions okay so the July 17th minutes are back on the agenda tonight because Aaron pointed out correctly that we had the budget line item for K policy service for $3,800 and that contract had ended and as

014a board we decided to move forward with the shipment and Goodwin policies so we amended the minutes to more accurately reflect that the budget line item dedicated to Simply say policy services in case did I accurately describe that right okay so that is why that we had approved the amended minutes and that was the update on that um so for the meeting that we had on August 6th um after the board unanimously voted to adopt the shipment and Goodwin policy services at the July 17th meeting Dr Bell engaged and completed the process with Shipman and Goodwin and once the district had access to the policy Services uh kotti took their legally required and recommended policies along with the corresponding cave sample policy manual and our current Brookfield policy manual and created a spreadsheet Matrix with

015links that will help policy committee move quickly and be very methodical the committee members are all very motivated to get as much done as efficiently possible um so this is going to be a great tool as the committee moves forward and we have actually already started um using it um Casey explained that the Matrix and she explained the Matrix and how it's going to work and how board members will have access to past updates done with cave including notes and the date last adopted and any changes as well as the current Brook fill policies uh the board did receive that in Dr brell's Friday update so if you look at it you can see what that tracking looks like um and this tracking will allow a side by side comparison to allow the committee to

016stay organized um we're also going to get colorcoded bers to make sure that we can make our notes we've all agreed to do that outside of committee and come back to committee to review and update as we move along um in addition to that we've decided to add a meeting a special meeting each month to the policy committee uh to be able to effectively move through in groupings um so the policy committee will start with reviewing and updating the 000 series since they are the most straightforward policies the board bylaws with about half of them being legally required and recommended from shipment and goodwi so this should allow the committee to move through the first series rather quickly and the 9,000 Series policies um were divied up amongst the three of us uh me Erin

017and joy and we are dedicated to reading those on our own and bringing back our feed of bringing our feedback to the next policy committee we have put a special meeting on the calendar for August 29th um um and there we will decide which policies to put forward to the full board to vote to adopt we discussed bringing forward to the board a modified first read for the legally required and recommended shipment and Goodwin 9000 series with no notable changes so this would be an accelerated process in which we would give the board the policies to review two weeks before the September board meeting and the idea would be that everyone would have ample time to review and vote at the board meeting to adopt any that the committee has put forward ready to adopt

018and these would be only for policies with no notable or subst substan substan changes sorry substantive changes um and this would just be for this particular set we would start we would see how it would work um it wouldn't necessarily be something we do going forward because policy is very important we want to make sure everyone has a chance to review because it's the 9,000 Series and the bylaws and something that was recently updated and we're all pretty familiar with we felt comfortable sort of taking that grouping again we're going to discuss that further and how that work at the uh 20 the meeting on the 29th um so the idea would be that after that meeting you uh Wendy would send out the policies that we decided to adopt again only legally required and

019recommended so there would be no you know no word changes it would just be Brookfield iing them putting in Brookfield and what are you know if there's any speciic ific terminology that we use um so that is again an ongoing discussion we have not you know decided on that as a we would love your feedback I'd love to know you know if if anyone has any strong feelings about that um it's something that we feel like if we can bring that group of policies and and get through them quickly we can then move on to the more substantial sort of bigger 3,000 series student policy series 5,000 things that are going to take more of our time I definitely sorry yeah can I say so I definitely think that's a good idea um do you

020expect that would be like in our September meeting yeah so the idea is that we are all reviewing there's 22 legally required and recommended so each of us have taken seven I took eight because one is minutes um and we are all prepared to bring our feedback which because they're the shipment in goodwi legally required and recommended policies we don't anticipate there being any uh changes other than rizing them and the idea of the second meeting would be to the way that we want to keep momentum is we would have the first meeting in which we deat them up discuss figured out like you know where we want to go and the second meeting would literally be to sit in the meeting and make the changes that we need so we pull up the Matrix

021we click on you know the virtual policy one of the things we have to do is decide on format so at uh um 29th meeting on August 29th we're going to discuss because Shipment has slightly different format the cave format which is what Brookfield policy is sort of in so um that should not be like a substance of conversation something that takes a lot of time it just kind of is you know where how how do we want to adjust things um so baring any complications with that we would then bring those 22 policies in bulk to the September meeting and recommend you would get them the ideas that we would give them to the board ahead of time wouldn't be anything that anyone says they so they come to the board like as a

022final read correct and it would be sort of a modified first second read so it would be the final read for those policies specifically anything that shipment and goodwi does not give us that are Brookfield specific we have those as well but we will absolutely submit those for our first and second read Because those are things that absolutely um do we need a like um we would I assume re at the September meeting where this would happen a motion to wave yes okay yeah so we talked about what the language would be how we would present we have a policy where you can't wave right Authority yeah so the idea would be that that wasn't like a surprise that happened at the meeting you would Wendy would send out that email September 1st or whatever

023and say hey guys can you please you know be anticipate this and if you have any questions obviously would be their answer so that was we accomplished in this policy Comm um and then Dr over his Communications uh which was um the ribbon cutting scheduled for September 12th um which is on everyone schedule it's at 6 p.m. and uh there will be tours Hospitality we're working with PTO um principal's working with PTO to um you know figure all that those details out and then as you mentioned tonight welcome back uh emails from the principles are going have gone out or going out and is email will go out um with the priorities as uh teaching and learning School climate and sters and if I may I just want to uh thank Stephanie and Aaron and

024joy the the energy uh that's behind this is really palpable and I think it's it's hopeful we're going to really make the progress we've all wanted to to to make uh and hopefully remain focused on you know real good strong momentum and matriculation uh building that energy and also thank Casey for all of her work putting um I think I think in my link that I gave you I called it the organiz Matrix but I think we should call it policy Matrix I we should change that it's just everybody knows what they're looking at when they pull that up so thank you and Steph thanks for your leadership on this as well and uh again eron just getting on uh thank you and I know you enjoyed did as well off month on on all

025this stuff as well so thank you all it's uh it's a lot of work any other questions for Stephanie so let's move on to the consent agenda I move that the board approved the items on the consent agenda as recommended new hires transfers resignations and retirement I have a question on Mrs civa was leaving and is being replaced um on the agenda but it lists as WMS wasn't she a BHS where is we already had her resigned so where's um it's under the new it's under the I saw I can't find it yeah that should that should say BHS thank you for catching that okay and if there's nothing else I I wanted to congratulate Mr Gutierrez and Mr Tess otherwise known as cosme um everybody knows Miss cosme are retiring um cosme at the

026end of the month and Mr Gutierrez um these are one time custodians with us at the end of September so we're uh thrilled for them congratulations thank them for their service okay um so we have a a motion on the table um is there any further discussion so all in favor okay so the motion is unanimous on to new business um the honic resources recovery Authority presentation um this is just an action for the board um so I'd like to welcome up Jennifer heon Jones um the executive director for the honic resources recovery Authority um for a presentation on can we um Rose just a little background um at the in at the in during spring working with the parents from speaks uh we were talking about you know really enhancing what we do for

027recycling uh and waste management and one of the big pieces is bringing in HR to conduct an audit the cafeterias and you know the food waste that goes on in plastic and and everything else in recycling um and there's plenty of it and so Jen will show you that in a presentation today this is one a springboards forward after we get through the start of school to work with our principal and our custodial so both Dan colell is involved Cas is certainly involved and um really uh doing doing a much better job than we have in the past so we're really um looking forward to the work here so Jen the floor is yours good evening thank you for having me sorry you to have to spin around um so the HRA the lonic resources

028recovery Authority we are the regional governmental Solid Waste Authority for 14 municipalities in Western Connecticut which this one of our member towns and it's also our host communities it's where my my office is a the uh Old Town Hall so before we get into the waist audit in the town of Brookfield I thought I would give you an opportunity to say like why why are we doing this and why should you care as a board of education as administrative staff as parents um we are in a waste crisis in the state of Connecticut and I want you to think for a second about the fact that every single human being in this world including babies to those when we die when we start with a diaper and some of us end with a diaper we

029make garbage every single day and it doesn't go away and no matter who you are um where your economic background is what you believe in everything you're still going to make garbage and we are in a waste crisis and what does that mean we produce three and a half million tons of waste we generate waste a year three and a half million tons in Connecticut a year but we only have capacity for 2.7 million tons and that's because we've lost capacity over the years um there was a 50-year plan that brought us to these six waste energy plants and they have begun to age and age out to the point where now we are shipping almost 800,000 tons of garbage out of the state and we are riant on Ohio and Iowa and Pennsylvania and

030Upstate New York and we're buying for capacity with other North e States and there's only a few things we can do we can open up all the landfills that we closed for 40 50 years ago which is never going to happen we can build new waste to energy plants which is very difficult because many people say not in my backyard we can renovate and improve those waste of energy plants but we're relying on Private Industry to do that for us and or maybe we can just reduce our waste um it's really important to look at the waste stream um I'm highlighting food waste in this chart here this is a characterization study done by the Connecticut d um when you really deep deep dive deeper into this chart you realize 90% of our waste can

031be reused recycled repurposed or composted 90% yet we're in a waste crisis but I'm going to highlight the 32% because the largest piece of the pie is Organics I don't know why the I just noticed that that actually says 32% um food waste Organics and so it's made up of about 22 23% food waste and then another 10 or 11% is other Organics like maybe some flowers from your house or some yard debris that really actually shouldn't go in the household trash but 25% is paper so more than 50% can be compostable yet we're again we're in a waste crisis um so this is the why I'm we're reaching out to our schools and HRA has for our history and I've been with the H for 14 years we go to schools K through 12

032we teach waste reduction recycling repurposing and composting um we focus on the state curriculum and how it aligns um but we're really on a path to try to reach the schools and I want to tell you that out of the 14 municipalities Mr barell is probably one of our exemplars of a superintendent to say I'm embracing this idea and concept of bringing this to our students and making them understand and H helping them understand that we as individuals have to responsibility and be stewards to this Earth so with the support of um your administrative staff uh the H facilitated a waist audit um my staff went and worked with other volunteers uh through in every one of your schools in June and so I'm going to go over the data here that was collected in

033the process and here the observation so um currently the waste in all of your schools is just put into one garbage can or several garbage cans because some of them like in your cafeteria four or seven cans in just one room um so during the audit process we didn't use one container we separated out the recycling the beverage containers cans cartons like milk cartons and paper bags because they're recyclable in any aluminum foil separated out of all the unopened food that was purchased from the cafeteria any liquids milk um whatnot that wasn't consumed any Trash the wrappers the napkins Etc and then the food scraps and then we stacked the trays um so that was the process of the audit and then each of those areas or those categories were weighed and they were rounded

034and recorded and what our staff observed was that as I mentioned before there are several containers throughout the cafeteria that the students use and those bags are actually changed before each lunch round they're not full completely there's a routine that the custodians just empty it out even if it's just half full and it's it's not separated um each kitchen is equipped with a dish machine which is really important to understand like not a lot of schools have that and that's a resource that you have that's not being utilized um and that some positive feedback that the custodians were really helpful the students were receptive and the lunch monitors were really supportive especially in those Elementary grades so here's some photographs of what our staff um observed from can from each of the schools and I'll

035go through them individually so here's Candlewood Lake um and this was what they were separating out and this one is the data from CLE Wood Lake and what you have here is the chart on the top is the material was separated I I'm so sorry that when we I guess when we converted the um file to this laptop the uh names didn't switch so I'll give you the I will PDF it and you'll have it I will try to remember what everything is the top one the green I know is trash I was looking at this earlier the Orange is liquid see if I can remember everything I think that 36 lbs was the food waste the um the other small dark blue I believe was your tray oh geez um nonetheless we will go

036over this later um when I send you the PDF you can look at it you'll understand and know that the top one was the source separation audit and the bottom is basically if you didn't have if you didn't do Source separation and you didn't take out the food waste in your cafeterias and separate the recy this is and actually you just threw away all the trash you separated recycling um and your Organics that's what you would get down at the bottom so you would still get have a n 197 pounds of trash versus above at 78 pounds of trash so you have significant reduction in trash if you were to remove and sore separate out your liquids your recyclables your Organics Etc um um this is the projection for the year I'm sorry that I

037don't memor I can't memorize all those categories uh here's the whiskin Middle School audit and you're going to obviously probably see the same here so you're going to see the audit at the top how everything is Source separated and then if you didn't do anything it would be 117 pounds of trash in one day out of whis skiner middle school and then for the projected year uh looks like she projected just a little over 11 th000 pounds for the year of trash out of whis Ander and then here's the high school audit um again we separated at the top the bottom left so you would have 75 pounds for the day um for the high school and then out of the year I'm going to assume that the 6 6,480 is your Organics because that

038would be the orange and the waste would be the 5 5,580 PB Jen I do have the oh look it's on the right yeah the Orange is trash okay and the green is I'm actually seeing on the chart she had it right there so here you are um thanks see so yes your trash would be 6,480 and the 5,580 would be your food scraps for the year so here are some suggestions um this is provided by my staff many who are um have extensive experience in zero schools and implementing them from Wilton to Richfield Etc um and their suggestions were to move the utensil and napkin dispenser move to a a dispenser for students um instead of apparently they are given these packets and they don't use the entire packet so there's a lot of

039waste in those packets so instead if you move to a dispenser if they need a for they take a fork they don't need a fork a spoon and a knife um that at canwood Lake don't place the utensils in the cold lunch bag again they just get thrown away they can just go to the dispenser and then instead of giving out single user single packets of condiments you would have a dispenser um in the high school to re-evaluate the different tray needs and to consider out apparently a lot of blastic black plastic plates are are um handed out is just Wass you can't recycle black plastic at this time the W stream is always changing recycling technology is always moving someday we will be able to recycle that but right now you can't um and

040used five compartment trays bowls black plastic plates and paper boats apparently is what's being used to move away from that um so some other suggestion to set up a liquid Recycling and trash station and I have some examples of that on the next slide um decide on accepting all possible recycling or to determine you know do you want to just do one kind of recycling um just for like beverage containers and just paper bags you can start slow that liquids can be poured down a mop syn and that is a personal preference in uh the janitorial staff every school's different every school has a different um water system or septic system um but Mo many schools do use a mop syn for liquids that tray stacking is another way way of it necessarily mean you're

041throwing away less trays but it takes up less space if you stack them rather than throwing them multiple bags um that you should have some signage for the students to follow you can either be digitally made or it can be sort of actual like uh milk carton stuck to a board and they see it three-dimensionally and then to explore how to manage the unopened Food donation program they feel that you could Target that through K through because that's typically where the food donations would come from and it would only be the items that are purchased it wouldn't be something a child would brought from home and donated but it would be items that they may have purchased but then didn't consume and to contact some of our our partners in the state like food rescue

042um that they would actually come to the school and pick it up so it wouldn't require volunteers within the community that you would need Refrigeration um either donated or purchased and we do have more resources on our website on wasted food so here's some sorting station examples um from various schools and so it's a it's a real preference on you know some like a very consistent professional refined look and some don't mind maybe the students help to provide the signage and there by doing that it's part of the education of them learning about waste reduction um so some additional suggestions exploring adding food scrap collection to the schools through either a phase in or Allin process and there are companies that conservice schools that all they focus on is Organics they're not a full service

043Waste Management Company um they are all um licensed and registered with the HRA and incorporating reusable items within your cafeterias to move away from single use um material we as h we are here to assist you we are here to help you we will be your power on your education and help with your volunteers you will need volunteers you'll need your PTO engaged but most importantly we need your support we need to know that it's from the top saying yes we support this we believe this is should be incorporated in our students everyday activity they learn at school every day they'll take it home and hopefully educate their families on the importance of our our own resp respons responsibilities as individuals um so we can help you with all of the things that we just

044suggested with the signage or Resources with Partners like food rescue Etc and also we love writing grants we really don't but um we write over a lot of Grants and uh the US day is often very generous and when it comes to food waste management and so we are actually in the process of writing and applying for an additional Grant from the USDA um that could incorporate this program if you're interested the um the deadline for that is early September and so here's our contact information um education at H is actually Tammy's uh email we all get it but really Tammy Thorton who is our public education coordinator who did the she facilitated the audit um if anyone is interested in asking questions regarding the data that was on these slides they can reach out

045to Tammy um or jennif raom who's our regional recycling coordinator um but I'm happy to question questions in regards to this process and why we're doing what we're doing Jen thank you and and for the the board and the communities you know this is a it will ultimately be a whole Community effort as you're talking about Jen and Tammy the education coordinator has already been in touch with h Deb FAS or director of instruction to look at how could this realistically fit uh into an integrate I should say not fit integrate into what we uh are doing with uh our different studies or in Cula so it's it's really good stuff I don't know the board might have some questions um probably more for but um are there plans to start incorporating even on a

046slow small scale any of these ideas in any of the schools yes and actually I'll turn it over to Casey because she's taking the lead on that in coordination with principles okay got M um great question and the answer is absolutely yes um I think you know we really wanted to get this Wast a and in right before the you know the school year ended so that we could see um get get some ideas make these Rel and get this Buy in at least from you know the level over here um so that we can start transitioning this into the district it's not going to be one fou swoop that you know day one of school opens and we've got all these new stations because think it's more important than doing it fast and quickly

047is just doing it right and get the proper Buy in and do it the right way um so I will as you know we do have a new um Food Service management company um starting U they've already started and already them I shared this presentation with them actually um and they they you know they were very intrigued by it um I shared with them that it is our goal to move to these um you know the dispensers for the utensils and the condiments um and things like that so they're already looking at um ways to to do that and cut down on some of those Plastics black plastic that Jen had mentioned um so they know that that is our priority um as as Jen mentioned you know volunteers is a big part of this

048um um particularly with uh using either the composting or the um the unopened items for a you know either the food pantry or social services we have to coordinate you know pickups of at the different school buildings each week to bring to make sure that those can be um you know brought to the proper locations um so there's there's some Logistics till to to work out but absolutely um we want to we want to start implementing this throughout the district and all three schools for sure right and and and I will also add I didn't realize even J that 50% of the waste is paper 25% is 25 over 50% is compostable right so that's right exactly 25% is the compostable so the paper is another you know that's another part we're going to expand

049it Beyond just the cafeteria because we're a school we go through a lot of paper um I want to make sure that that is all getting to the proper um place as well uh so it's it's multifaceted for sure and we're excited to get to work great um you mentioned a grant um a USDA grant that was probably due um in a few weeks but um what sorts of projects would that support it specifically supports food waste reduction so it's a food waste reduction Grant um most of the focus on the grant that I'm writing is for municipal transport station drop off to some of our transfer stations to be most more self- sustainable but certainly I envisioned that we could incorporate um a a portion of that money for public education changing to dispensers

050um the unopened food supporting food Rescue all of that component we could put money in and then later figure out how to use that money how the best way to use the funds um to support the program I just wanted to say I was there the day got it and the willingness of the kids the enthusiasm that they have for like there was no question they didn't argue I was a CS so I was with the little kids but um I think incorporating it as part of like an education series and help like they were all in and some of them stood up there and were directing their friends and some of them like came back and was like I licked this clean can it be recycled now because we were telling them if it

051wasn't clean it couldn't go so it was great to have Jen and you guys there because they were so like instructive and efficient which allowed us to sort of like play with the enthusiasm of the kids and like Eric conin had like four little helpers is he was like putting all the cheese sticks in a pile to like rescue and eat later and so it was like great but it's not just that we're like instating this new system the kids really are like when you give them sort of the instruction and help them understand they're all in so I think this is going to be a really good move and easier than we think it's going to be to like get them to pay attention to that I love that thank you for sharing that

052I think it's also really important that we find ways to incorporate it in that regular curriculum of like where does paper come from it comes from it's all about the science and then the tonage and math and incorporate for them to actually understand like oh these are resources and we're wasting these resources that are coming from the earth and our environment and we can repurpose them and or somebody else can eat today that might be hungry such great everyday lessons that I I see it's interesting how trash and recycling can be incorporated into here every day Jen thank you so much apprciate I'm give Bron up next all right so we'll move on to the Brookfield cares presentation and Mr jaffy can come up first I want to give special thanks to everybody who helped

053on this project uh to help update the guide and improve its contents including School administration and staff uh the town Health Department the police Department uh the Western Connecticut Coalition and certainly members of Brookfield cares this new edition is the third version of a parent guide to helping your child succeed it includes the most recent results of the student attitudes and behavior survey which was given in 2022 we again thank the schools for supporting this important effort and look forward to discussions on when we should work to give the survey again significant updates have been made to most sections of the guide including drug safety and Disposal mental health OCD eating eating disorders and more we've added sections on new challenges and changing schools the guide now has a vaping identification chart and the drug

054identification section has been completely updated and expanded it even includes information on oral nicotine pouches such as Zin this guide is paid for completely by Brookfield cares and we are happy to do this and part of the funding from this comes from Grants uh we are mailing the guide to the homes of students one per household using the address to parents and guardians of Brookfield public school students the file provided had addresses not student names and our plan is to mail the guide the last week in August so they'll get it right before school starts we'll also make available copies to staff and schools town offices and more and they'll also be available at any uh any events that Brookfield cares attends including back to school event back to school events and the new guide

055is now available on Brookfield Care's website as a downloadable PDF so it's there on the homeage and resources if you go to resources it's got its own page so I'm here tonight to present you with copies of the new guide to thank you for your continued and ongoing support and to answer any questions you may have so thank you very much thank you don't questions but I will say I always love this because the information in it is never stale or recycled it is um informed by what's actually happening in our community so this is an excellent resource for families thank you it's interesting the uh you know the printer that we use um we keep going back because this is a it's a technical printing job um uh but the comments that we get

056back the printer are why aren't other towns doing it this is such an important thing and you know the uh the uh the feedback that we get from the community is is pretty strong on this so we are glad to do it uh we're happy that we're able to update it and we look forward to uh continuing to work together so thank you very much thank you Ron thank you and just so everybody knows the the um I don't know if it transferred yet to the new website but we have this we available as well on our website under the parent section um and I I can't say even for me at the superintendent level but it's certainly with counselors and teachers in our building Administration um we reference this as a reference guide by

057our phone so we're having a conversation with a parent they're having a difficult time and we can help direct them you know to to resources as well so it's just fantastic and so Ron uh to field cares thank you for the continued partnership we look forward to making sure this is available than much and any anybody needs more copies just getting compa thank you all right let's move on to the approval of the nur's contract I knew that the approved the successor contract between the Brookfield Board of Education and the Brookfield nurses Union we'll give this a second to Ain you guys said it exactly the same time um the motion has been made and seconded um is there any discussion did everybody get a chance to take a look at that um this was

058a very simple um you know negotiations really that just updated yeah really f on on compensation for the nurses you'll see this in the secretaries as well they have the same uh kind of parent uh Statewide Union that supports them um and uh they want they asked the board for a truncated negotiations process so was very very straightforward this year I'd also like to thank attorney Murphy this was his last large assignment for us he started this in the spring and worked it through the summer so i' like to thank Dan long time legal council person as well any other questions all in favor I that motion pass unanimously we'll move on to the approval of the secretary's contract I move that the board approved the successor contract between the Brookfield Board of Education and

059the Brookfield secretary's Union Aon second that motion um any discussion here similar that passes unly all right so uh we do not have any old business tonight um so up next would be public comment um we didn't again have anybody signed up earlier tonight um is there anybody here who would like to speak okay all right so then we will move on to our three main points what do you have so I had number one as the HH presentation the recycl um number two as an update on foral Care's uh guide and where that's available and how that can help and um number three the policy update policy committee update that seem to be the only other major piece of information today yeah I think prob all right any upcoming events start school yeah start

060of school Tuesday the 3 and the um ribbon cutting for is Thursday September more information we've sent invitations out and the dates out there but you know the U you work with Dr pep sasi and the PTO on the agenda what that's going to look like music selection you know real celebratory uh event would be nice so we'll need board members there toward the building if you're not too familiar with the building it's okay it all circles back so you'll be fine oh and I should say I don't have them written down but I have gotten a few questions the back to school nights are on the calar um and they different I think principles have communicated those as correct y those have gone out um and I believe they're before or at the same

061time as our next meeting I was looking at that and I should have about those tonight but I wanted to make sure people knew those are the first like third week of school the because the 18th is a Bo correct and they're like that same then and I think there's one after as I always say the dance card gets filled quite quickly just not enough you all right so uh then without objection meeting ised good night everyone