Board of Education Meeting

001good yes good evening everybody um I'd like to call to order the regular meeting of Brook board for I'd like to call the um to order the regular meeting of thefield board of education on um Wednesday April 1024 me in r Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all the here everybody all the board and team and our student representative why don't you pick off with this evening's report Thane yeah of course I hope that everyone's doing well tonight um I have a couple updates just what's been going on at the schools in the past couple weeks so last weekend there was Junior Prom and coming up with this week we're right about to

002go into Spring Break um AP exams start May 6 so those lasts for around two weeks a lot of those AP classes have started with review and just going over everything from the courses um senior prom is going to be May 24th and going into may there's going to be a bunch of Ceremonies and events for the end of the year some for SE seniors like the NHS induction and some of the spring like the Bandon chorus concert and other types of events like that for athletics I have a couple updates for Mr Baldwin um the spring season has started all those Sports have started up with their games and practices and everything um the Brookfield the co-op ice hockey team BBD the ice cats they were named Team of the Year this year which

003is really exciting um the tennis courts have been under construction for the past couple weeks but they're done and they were opened on Monday track competed on their new track that was being redone at the beginning of this school year um but they competed on it for the first time yesterday which is really exciting and now for some of the clubs that I'm in for youth commission we had our career fair the other week it went really really well there were a couple last minute changes um and Mr Banda did have to step in for the law enforcement presenter but we got everything figured out and it ended up being a really great event now with that club we're moving on to discuss some other projects the voice for change project is is kind of

004tied in with that club that's obviously still in the works but um the lockers have started to be be torn down this past week at school so they're making progress on that for National Honor Society we have our Mother's Day 5K on May 12th we decide the proceeds are going to be going towards the Connecticut Children's Hospital so we have a cause for that and finally Morgan's message that's a club dedicated to student athlete mental health we haveed started with planning a fundraiser event for this year that we're going to do in the spring and some dedication games so those are the games where athletes will be wearing something with the Morgan's message logo or something to promote uh student athlete mental health through Morgan's message so they're planning some spring home dedication games for

005that club and that's all I have thank you thank you and Jun your P was this weekend right yes yeah okay um we're gonna have public comment um and the Board of Ed welcomes public comment I'm gonna um read two uh pieces of policy in an attempt okay um just to try to bring um us closer our understanding and U The public's understanding closer together about um public comment so um it is important to say first that the Board of Education welcomes public comment and each people will have up to 3 minutes to provide input speakers may offer s such objective criticisms of school operations and programs as concern them but in public session the board prohibits the Airing of complaints against School Personnel or against any person connected with the school system so that's

006where we're coming from that's policy um 1120 um and then we have another angle that's important for the public to know about um it's from policy um 9325 and it's to protect the impartiality of the board um we can't hear public comment that involves a complaint about Board of Education Personnel students Personnel action student disciplinary matter or pending litigation um regardless of whether or not the employee or student is identified in the presentation by name or by another reference which tends to identify an individual so um those if you have that kind of complaint that's very important but that needs to be submitted in writing uh to the appropriate person so with that we're going to have 20 minutes um allotted for public comment on any item included on the agenda and if there's overflow

007that will be at the end of the meeting so um with that we'll call up the first person and that is um Mr Korea oh yeah so Mr you're the only one who the comment um yes this on I just make sure that it's it's up okay um just you know I I people uh text can ask if this is being broadcast is it is it being broadcast is okay um Andy Korea 45 West wicer um proi um so the two topics I want to talk about is the I think it's called the 1312 complaint or 12 13 complaint that was put in by Mr Grimes um regarding board operations um as well as what looked like an oversight on the consent agenda um regarding a h proposed hiring um I agree you know in

008concept with uh the complaint that was put in and I hope the board takes it seriously to make substan substantial action in improving their operations in general since the board has been sworn in key issues the board hasn't been operating as a functional board um you mentioned several policies but one in particular that I I have pointed out and you haven't cured is the actual attorney review policy um there was a view for the a request for attorneys to be you know put out for bid to be reviewed that was now 4 months ago and we still haven't heard what's going on with that and you know in terms of you know the the board the board's code of ethics you have to um uphold um public policy laws uh and you have a uh

009a lawyer that is is in a federal uh discrimination verdict that advised a district to discriminate against an adult that that's a problem the board should have removed that uh attorney as it relates to the um BHS principal inter term position it wasn't on the consent agenda um I don't understand why I do understand that it might have been a contractual position but the was are pretty clear the board hires and fires everybody pieces of the hiring and firing process might be delegated but it has to come before the board um so I hope the board discusses that as part of either a superintendent report or the consent agenda but there are obvious oversights in um and how that person was selected that literally anybody could have figured out just by utilizing Google and so

010everybody's aware you know literally everybody in the United States have has access to Google if you typed in the person's name and where they last worked T page down twice and you would see about six articles that would make you go oh my goodness that person shouldn't be in our schools thank you thank you okay so um move on to uh Spotlight from wh M Mr Renda yes so Mr Renda has students uh involved with Unified sports and they're going to present this even and I think we have a video as well right d yes little bit we're just bringing up is it up y give us a second here we are okay I am very excited tonight I know that Dr Brill spoke at the last meeting about us being uh recently honored as

011a national unified Champion school for Unified sports um as you'll see I put on there now we're a two-time national unified Champion school and also passed Michael uh Michael's cup award-winning uh school um and I want to just point out here's the picture of us accepting I'm going to show you the video which is pretty funny um and then from the C CAC is the Connecticut Association of schools and the Connecticut inter Scholastic Athletic Conference this is when they talk about Unified sports seeks to join students with and without disabilities to participate in a variety of athletic events it was inspired by a simple principle training together and playing together is a quick path to friendship and understanding at this time I'm going to have one of our coaches is here and um we also

012had some helpers but uh Miss Roman's going to come up we also have two of our uh student athletes we have Maddie Johnson and Jackson Kramer is going to also uh say something quick I had Miss Roman come on up so I'm Kathy Roman I'm one of the coaches at whiner my co- coach Cory Rafford he couldn't be here tonight but we want to thank first of all we couldn't do this alone it takes a village um first of all our Administration the district the community everybody has to have a hand in helping us out here um the building Mr Renda does a great job making the building available for us to practice um at the high school here um Steve Baldwin does an excellent job offering his support in hosting um are we um

013do the um what is it the tourament tournaments we have uh tournaments both in the fall and the spring um where we host up to five seven other schools come they bring their athletes and their peers and we have round robin um tournaments in soccer and in basketball and the parents come staff comes the uh students come and it's just great to watch both the athletes and the and the peers out on the field we have ref a whole staff of ref referees come and they come and they donate their time so it's incredible the amount of people and the amount of energy that goes into hosting this event the um the whole purpose behind it is to allow all of our athletes the opportunity to compete in in these sports that they wouldn't they

014wouldn't have the opportunity to do otherwise so we have our our peers and our athletes are out there playing in the fall we do soccer in the spring we do um basketball and we have the opportunity to then go on individual um uh outings we're going to go in couple weeks we're going to go play the watch the yard goats they're going to host a college day so we're going to take the kids out and watch them play play some baseball and the kids enjoy it and they have a great time so in addition to that CIA has what they call a leadership conference so all of our peers have an opportunity to to hone their skills in leadership roles they get it um they'll come with us they have um five or six kids

015will join us and they go through a whole day of leadership skill building that they can use throughout their academic career and they'll be able to use that on later on when they in their professional career so I don't want to take any more time I'm going to let Jackson come up and tell you a little bit more about what he before they go I'm going to show you a little um before he goes we're going to uh show you a video and some other pictures this was us from 2019 that was 2020 at the time as you can tell with our masks um but those are the trophies and interestingly the one on the right Mrs raffy I had my secretary Mar ask her I said where's that trophy where's that trophy we don't

016have it I go what do you mean we don't have it and I forgot that it's like the Stanley Cup you get it but then you got to give it back so we will be getting it back soon I'm not sure for this for this new one but it was kind of like where's that trophy well we don't have um this is the uh video I'd like to show you quickly standard multiple Unified sports inclusive leadership me both partners and athletes active leaders and whole school engagement so that the whole school is included in this inclusion Revolution and we're proud to announce and present National Rec M [Music] [Applause] toi so the reason I wanted to show you that is we had and I I probably should know this before I say this I think

017there was like five different schools that uh that were at the tournament and it is such an awesome thing to see the excitement of you know the students the peers and just the families and the excitement when a student makes a basket is it makes you cry it is so awesome this year um one of the students from the other team real tall tall tall kid he actually they were counting it down and he dunked cuz they eight foot rims he dunked it at the last possible second the place went nuts so it was really just an awesome awesome thing to see um these are some of the pictures of the this was the basketball tournament like we said that uh Steve Ball one put together uh with all the different teams there's some of

018our pictures there's M right in there and then um some more pictures that we had of the student the student athletes and the peers playing and then this was uh Kathy had said something about we do soccer also a tournament up here at the high school these were some of the pictures that we had from there and before I let them speak at the end they're gon to talk Maddy's gonna do um use her gaze board and we're going to show you she put something a little bit together for her to introduce herself and say something and then Jackson is going to come up and talk but before we do I think I just want to reiterate what Kathy said thanks to our coaches and helpers that we have Corey raffy Kathy Roman Jen Kramer

019and Ashley Merrick for all they've done this year to really make it special for all of our student athletes in their peers um again the families that that uh participate are just beyond joy to see the happiness and the excitement that goes on and also a big shout out to Steve Balwin I have his picture up there that was him speaking um that day at the um tournament so Maddie your turn you ready SP around you're on can you spin around so I'm G to show you quick this is madd's gaze board and in the classroom when they're doing activities she'll gaze with her eyes into certain things and they'll say what they she wants to do or uh you know something that she may need so we put this together and hope she doesn't

020go bad doesn't go to that one but um I just wanted you to see that because again it's really cool would you think about it hey we ready and Jackson you're in the Caboose so get ready ready Maddie bad she heard me say that and I guess I'm not a good teacher I love going to unified sport I get to play game I love going to unified sport I get to play games with friends and hi I'm mad so again I we just thought it'd be something really neat that you guys could see that that she uses in the classroom every day obviously and just a way to present you want to hear one more time huh one more time I love going to UniFi Sports I get to play games with friends all right

021all right Jackson you ready all right come on we're going to spin you around come on up Jack ready hello hello my name is Jackson Kramer I'm an eighth grader at whisk Middle School I became interested in interested in working with the ELC population back when I was in first grade and I've spent 4 years visiting the students in that room to read to them or play with them when I got to WM I knew I wanted to join the Unified sports program so I could continue to be a peer to the ELC students last May an ELC student and I won the teammates award at the Unified sports banquet I was very proud of the student I work with for accomplishing this I think that this is such an important program because it gives

022kids with different needs the opportunity to learn Sports alongside a peer and have fun gain confidence and become stronger physically and socially I feel very lucky and proud to be part of the Unified sports program thank [Applause] you told Jackson you guys may want to ask a question I didn't know if anyone had any questions for the coaches or any of us oh Jack are getting off easy hold on hold on I I'll ask you a question what's what's something that you're going to remember most about this past year or even in Unified sports in general I'm going to remember um the big award I won with my friend at the banquet um especially remembering him throwing in the water that's a true story we went out to take pictures and the plaque ended up

023in the water anybody ever been to the aquaturf oh yeah yeah ended up in the water we had to go get some to fish it out that's a great memory that's a good memory but obviously again you can see um Jackson's been in this since he was like he said since he was younger and the students that we have that were that peers that we have work with our athletes is really just it says a lot about them I know I've sent emails to their parents saying you should be so proud of your of of your child because it takes it's it's a person it's a kid who has a lot of uh empathy and and wants to help other people and one day he'll probably be teaching for us at whiner Middle School does

024know that yet any other questions no just thank you jackon for being a good role [Applause] model thank you to Mr Renda uh Miss Roman and to andon how do you how do you spell your name m y Madison Madison yes now to uh stud well no to correspond correspondents for the April 10th board meeting Jessica Hansen security task force meeting and state of the district email Matt Grimes complaint under policy 1312 Deborah Casey Personnel Monique Matthews Board of Ed recording Foya Andy Korea board retreat and BHS administrative update Jill Dyer support for educator diversity great let's move then to um approval of board minutes I move that the board approve the minutes listed below as recommended regular meeting 32024 board retrieve second um great so we have a motion and a second all in

025favor of approving the board minut I I okay all right so is uh they are unanimously approved let's move next then to the superintendent update Dr BR what do you have for us all right thank you Dr Young Blood um really so many great things going on as as you get to see um I did check in with Ava she will update us at the next meeting of where she's going to college so we're excited about KN that um very important to know our students landed safely in France for our whiner uh exchange trip uh partnership trip with the with the school there and lots of pictures have been uploaded all over the place and on our district Facebook page so we're excited for the kids and the CH rooms um kindergarten enrollment I wanted

026to jump right to that invite Dr P where's Dr P can you just come up and give us a couple of stats on kindergarten enrollment how that's [Applause] going is this on okay uh so we are currently at 104 14 of those are looking for early admission because they will not turn five by September 1st last year at this time we were at 98 so pretty close and um our plan we're estimating around 163 kids that's that's our projection we're going with that for next year and uh anything else Dave on that are you good we're good all right thank you sir all right um public uh budget hearing um last week the referendum was set for May 21st so everybody knows that May 21st will be the referendum um for Capital and the town

027operating budget uh Magnet School update um that's me Wendy is our representative from the board so how did that meaning go Wendy um it was uh it was pretty interesting um and so I'm updating the board but also for people who are watching um parents who maybe want to know a little bit more about the school um Dr BR and I were joking a little bit about why would we um you know talk about the bagnet school when we have our own wonderful CES here and I mean yes I I totally get it but at the same time it's another option that Brookfield uh brings to parents and families so let me just um I'll assume that people don't know much about it and I'll um give you a few bullet points so um it's

028called AIS the academy for international studies it's located in danur on uh the westc campus um the uh West side campus and it's one of three interdistrict magnet schools in Connecticut um Brookfield currently has eight students in grade five um and 16 students combin um in grades K through four uh so the principal is a delightful woman named Merl Jackson and she if you know folks in Brookfield want to know about this she will come and speak to the PTO in the fall she says that's the best time because their Lottery will close in um the mid to late fall I think um just few features of their curriculum um they do uh well project leadway is really um a big thing to know about these they're starting that in in kindergarten um they have

029Spanish also kindergarten twice a week um they do focus on character with assemblies and like book themes that go with it book of the month where new character traits are explored um they have a bunch of cool clubs um they are using the arc core reading model um and they are doing work with the fourth and fifth graders with some of the Westcon students because Westcon has a really awesome um theater program so um that's just another option for folks in our town all right thank you for that update Wendy any questions on AIS before we move on okay um Legal Services uh RFP update um the purchasing agent Jules capid DOI uh has been in communication with the selection uh for interviews from the board to juwels uh May 8th will be a special

030meeting of the Board of Education uh to interview the three firms uh selected uh through consensus by the Board of Education uh which at this time are Shipman and Goodwin Canon escalera and male and um Pullman and cley so that's May uh interviews with the Board of Ed CES Paving update we put pictures out on uh the district Facebook page we're really excited um we had heard that the schedule was supposed to start April 8th um and it did which um with some of the site work has been frustrating and it actually started on time uh this Monday um black top is almost covering the entire North lot and some extra space in the center of both parking lots um over the April break the playscapes um will get their rubber mulch poured there's already

031rubber mulch there but there's a solution that goes in there and a curing time that needs to happen so that's supposed to that is scheduled for the April break and it looks like weather is going to cooperate and be warm enough so we're really thrilled to get that going it appears that of um over the weekend where Monday becomes May 6th there will be a transition in the parking lot and we'll have some different entrance for parents uh for drop off and certainly for buses the old Huckleberry cutout which is going to become our North driveway will be accessible and we're hoping May 6th is that time uh Dave and the team we working on a communication with the VIS excuse me with a visual so everybody can see how they're going to be driving

032in we'll have Personnel out there some officers Etc to really help make sure we move the traffic along um and of course we anticipate a couple of hiccups there always is something that you can't anticipate so we want to be ready it may take a little more time for uh parent drop off so we want to just be patient with that um the plan is for early August that the driveways and lots will all be done the sidewalks in front of the school that are stamp creete that match the different Bridges will all be installed um leading into the next piece on the superintendent update that leads into Parks and Recreation for the summer and summer school and extended school year we're going to be using whis skiner and the high school for the various

033programs CES we're going to keep it off limits to student programming um because there's so much site work that has to happen and we only have that 6 to8 we window that's with weather cooperating so we really need to get that work done um buses vans cars all over the place it would just be too difficult to stage and move logistically to get that work done so we'll utilize the middle school and the high school like we did last year um Career Fairs as Ava mentioned the youth commission had the career fair over at the High School it was absolutely amazing um Anna and I were lucky enough to be in with a group and um the kids were delightful actually a couple of groups three yeah it it was wonderful so we were really

034appreciative to be invited and just so thankful the youth commission doing such a great job um with that it's important to know that our uh school counselors put on a a fabulous career day at the um uh at whis skiner um the electrician was trying to sell me the gener generator and I'm not allowed to according to my wife get one of those cuz we don't lose power enough so it's not you know that's that but anyway um I I wanted to be sold cuz I really want one um but anyway um uh I digress and I it's this week we also have yeah tomorrow right the Candlewood Lake uh Elementary uh career fair as well so we're really excited uh about all those opportunities for kids to open their minds to all the great

035things that are out there in in our world uh to be in discovery mode and be really excited about things um there's a company that's new to the the town about a year and a half called romtech it's been here right on silvermine Greg dembowski from the town came to share with me that he met with the company and it's a light manufacturing technology company they have about 160 employees now they're very interested in supporting the local community that they have their um home Basin and one of the things they'd like to do is uh support youth they're not sure exactly what that looks like yet but they have some monies um and so I gave them Mr Hill's name and Mr banda's name and folks from the business department and uh we're pretty excited

036about some opportunities that might come in through technology and Entrepreneurship with uh with romtech so shout out to romtech and works excited to to hopefully get to work with you uh this may just to keep the board updated on what's coming down the pike uh from the administrative team uh we have some presentations and reports that'll be coming up over the spring it doesn't stop even though it's spring we actually ramp up our activity um the new reading program which was just discussed at the cape uh meeting prior to this uh will be brought forward uh at the May 1st meeting along with the uh recycling poster contest our annual contest and the it looks like uh we do have the athletic report it just came in uh think yesterday so Mr Banda uh needs

037to get a look at that and we need to get a little mini presentation put together to be ready for May early May we're excited about that the special education department strategic plan will be presented on May 22nd for Mr Roland he's been working uh for a long time now with the team based off of the work from the uh the correct reports and also uh some surveys and other things um and at the May 22nd um Board of Ed meeting we'll have our last um installment of teaching and learning and kind of of a summation from Deb and uh and Anna the teacher and administrator evaluation um plan it is um really ready I think today we did a lot of work about four hours of work today we're almost there with our teachers

038and administrators have the new evaluation tool in place um as you know annually we have to comply with state regulations it is a radical change from where we've been the last dozen years or so that will be presented and shared it really is a compliance exercise for the board but really important to understand and present to the community uh how we're um evaluating our our team um and then we will be putting a report together um regarding faculty and Par educator attendance kind of a last year versus this year and how we did because we've been putting some safeguards in place and really working individually with our uh with our employees uh the next thing actually Casey's just going to pass something out regarding Communications um and we did have a special um policy and

039Communications meeting last night uh part of that was two weeks ago I sent out the state of the district um there is a nice format there kind of where we were where we are where we're going and it really it's not only a summary of the year but it is a nice look ahead um it was sent out it's typically electronic but I ran off copies for you so you have it and uh if you haven't had a chance to give it a look um it's it's really a nice document I think it's our third or fourth year now of putting it together in this format and it's worked out quite well um I also sent out about two weeks ago a budget update notice to family and faculty regarding the $728,000 in cuts that

040we had to achieve as a board um we'll be talking about that later uh on the old business part of the agenda um budget flyer we just went over that at committee meeting uh yesterday sometime after the April break probably not right away probably the first week in May uh when we get back we'll get that out to the community so people uh could kind of get referendum on the brain and you know get that on the calendar and make sure they know it's uh it's time to vote and then finally end of year activities uh end of year events just to remind the board uh Lisa and I put together a a pretty comprehensive list of each school's activities um AA started to mention some of those um many of the things um they

041might be offered during the day um but there's also a lot of evening events for celebrations she talked about National Honor Society there's concerts there's all kinds of really fun and engaging things and board members are always uh invited and people are excited to see board members if you get a chance so we'll get you that list so you can get your calendar set and that is all I have any questions uh John for the attendance presentation will that be for student attendance also will we be addressing that I mean the F the focus in the goals we had talked about was on the uh faculty and Par educator it wasn't it wasn't student attendant so the intention was a report more not necessarily a presentation more of a report to the board yeah I

042have I have two questions um one's about the communications so the budget flyer how is that getting out to the to families is that going um are you mailing that or is that email School message okay District Facebook page um and then typically the pto's also put it up on their pages and then we make hard copies to put on the counter uh you know over at the senior center at Town Hall in my office uh in the board of office I shouldn't say my office and uh at the schools in the main offices so um the other of the other items are they they're all email everything's electronic posted on Facebook Okay um and hard copies left for the counters that I just talked about in in offices I mean I guess it's it's

043expensive to do a mailing very okay um okay the last time I think we did a mailing was the major effort back in 2019 probably January February 2019 prior to the uh vote on the school project very expensive um but didn't wasn't there like a 70% I I couldn't tell you what the turnout was it was around two to one in terms of the vote for the project but I I couldn't tell you the turnout um and then the other question I had had to do with the the third item and your your upcoming presentations and reports um the teacher and administrator evaluation um can you share you think about that with us now or no absolutely well Dr man was working with the team uh with Dr Pepi this afternoon so I'll turn it

044over to Anna a little more upate and a whole bunch of teachers um sure so we um have been working over so our professional development and evaluation committee affectionately known as pedc which is a a state requirement that all districts have a pck um comprised of certified faculty and staff um so certified administrators teachers and then actually one of the new components is you have to have at least one ref representative from the par educator Union um and that's for the professional development portion of the planning um and so this committee is a standing committee and it has to meet regularly um but this year we've had a very clear Focus specific focus on um creating a new teacher uh an administrator growth and support system which is going to serve as our evaluation uh

045model um and so there were new guidelines released by the state uh last the beginning of this school year um and then they recently released an excuse me a model um program and so we've been kind of crosswalking that model that what was released by the state with uh some former uh drafts that have been created in Brookfield um and so but the the real comprehensive shift here is that it is focused it the focus has gone from um a high stakes accountability model which was based on summi of ratings by the end of the year which was much more compliance driven for administrators and teachers to for administrators to admin and for teachers to comply with um where they would meet certain criteria um to a wholesale shift based on adult learning theory that

046is really focused on growth and development and kind of ongoing growth and development so teachers will be um will be setting goals around that are focused that are student- centered goals but focused around their own professional growth um and so it really marries together the evaluation system and the professional learning that teachers are you know that the board provides time for um but the teachers will really engage with and create their own own learning um plans essentially so we but it's been a pretty comprehensive shift so we are using a new set of Frameworks um that in that are kind of guiding the work um we're choosing learning FL forward uh for both the administrator and the teacher uh those Frameworks learning forward learning forward is the framework that we're using um and we are

047we have spent time creating a single competency um rubric for for based on the CCT the common core of teaching or service providers um which is the current rubric that is used right now um and then the the leaders the similar Leadership Model so we're not shifting completely away from what teachers are are are are comfortable with in terms of what they know but the entire approach is a is a pretty comprehensive shift um so we and the part of the requirements so that we present it to the board which is true every year um this will be a little bit more in-depth because it's completely new so I'll want to um really you know walk you folks through it so you understand what's going on but it is it'll kind of become one of

048the cornerstones of our work um towards the Strategic plan because it really is you know can be married very nicely into or melded nicely into the work we're already already doing with our portrait of the graduate with um you know everything that we're doing to try to make sure um that those four goals of the Strategic plan are realized through supporting our Educators in their own growth and development as they support our youth youth um through their growth and development so it's kind of that extending the concept of learning and ongoing learning well that thank you awesome awesome um okay are any of the it's like the I guess the taxonomy of evaluation changing it all that's probably not the right word like um are you reapportioning how many people get evaluated by individuals or

049well everyone um reports kind of thing um I we haven't gone that into those kinds of logistics so far we um the the model does uh the plan does identify who is in you know one of two cohorts and that's based on essentially for um certified teachers it's based on tenure um whether they're new to the district or new to the profession versus tenear teachers and that the really the main difference is um in terms of the number of uh observations that are and whether they're formal or informal so th those kinds of kind of standard operating procedures are not particularly different it's really more the philosophical approach to it and the um the reciprocal nature of both of the uh plans where um employee and evaluator really enter into a a relationship in terms

050of trying to learn and grow from each other and set goals that are um measurable but are ongoing um and are collaborative and specific to the work that they're doing and relevant to the students that they have in front of them that's awes sure okay it all right you're welcome okay um so sub commmittee reports let's start with um policy and Communications okay the policy Communications committee met on March 20th and again as Dr Bill mentioned we had a special meeting uh last night as well so that we wouldn't wait until um prior to the next board meeting which would have been May 1st there are three policies that we really focused on uh that we had referenced in the past and that is uh 616 2.51 which is the student survey policy 514 5.5

051which is sexual harassment policy and 6563 which is the school library media policy um in terms of the student survey there we had brought it to the last board meeting for a first read but there was some concern expressed uh about it so it came back to committee um we made some uh specific uh edits to that and so that will be coming back for a first read again on May first the second policy the sexual harassment policy cape has some um very specific language uh that we had read that looked uh pretty good so uh we are going to be Consulting with legal on that and we are uh hopefully going to be adopting much of that language into our own policy and that will also come planning to have that come to the

052board in may as well um possibly May 22nd for that one it's going to take a little bit more time the school library media policy um we had requested some information about how many titles actually are adopted each year the number we got those numbers from each of the schools they're pretty significant however in the meantime in the legislative session there is a bill uh concerning the removal and restriction of access to books in public schools the legislative session ends on May 8th so we are going to wait to see uh the result of that and uh we may be obligated to adopt some of that language so we're going to wait to see what comes out of that legislative session and then proceed accordingly uh Dr burill also brought uh a new business uh

053to the meeting which is uh policy number 9324 which is the meeting purpose and Parliament parliamentary procedures and uh the only thing we're going to bring that may 1 uh for a first read as well and the only thing there is about the streaming service that that the that these board meetings will be streamed on an online service so uh there was just a very slight alteration there and the board will see that um in terms of updates or new uh information uh Dr BR basically went over everything um the budget flyer has been cleaned up and uh that should be going out soon and everything else has already already been talked about so unless there are any questions I will end thank you awesome thank you so much Hala um regarding uh Personnel negotiations

054uh we met on the um Second and um let's see we entered into executive session to discuss strategy and negotiations relating to collective bargaining and unaffiliated salaries for um the 2024 2025 school year and um that was pretty much it are there you guys have questions about that okay then let's move to facilities Robert you ready yes I am thank you um good evening everyone we uh we met on Wednesday April 3rd um we went over some school dude reports from Dan um the average work order that we get is uh done in two days so again shout out to Dan for great work I keep shouting out every meeting I told I'm going to keep going so um we also have a custodial help desk that was set up by the tech department and

055it basically answers small the requests um that are needed um we have one page of incoming requests and Eight Pages of finished work so again kudos to the uh to the tech team uh AC project update all the paperworks were filled out and sent out we're trying to uh still get the specs down um and all that's being done by uh marks and okubo um f i it uh for Capital projects update the ballards are coming uh money is available and it's been earmarked for the project um we have uh 12K ear Mark for the seven ballards that we're getting and it should be finished the shooting for August should be ready by uh opening up next school year um as far as the boiler repair that we spoke about last time um it it

056turned out to be a huge project that was down uh that was knocked down from 27,000 excuse me a projected cost of 9 to 27,000 but because of Dan again we was able to knock it down down to $3,800 so um kudos to him and for saving us money and just doing a great job uh as far as water quality all the paperwork has been submitted to Aquarian um to request sufficient volum and pressure we we continue to look into the um Middle School Aquarian water to linking to the Middle School aquarium the Middle School to the aquarium water system and Dan is on top of that and it's a long and tedious process um phase two of the water quality we're compiling data of our existing lines as well um at CES we had

057some fact issues but the contractors are fine-tuning all of that um and we should be up and running with that so it's been an ongoing uh monitoring process so that's pretty much it unless has any questions all right thanks so much absolutely okay um so now let's go to the consent agenda item 11 security task force oh sorry gosh my bad it's okay it's a quick report um we last met on Thursday April 4th um and then after welcoming our two newest members um Jim Mitchell and Stephanie um we entered into executive session to discuss um security um at the various schools and um we set our next meeting date for Thursday June 6th at 10: a.m. at TSO Rosa can I share just a couple of quick things regarding security um so yes in

058in welcoming uh Jim uh it's important to know we when we talk to parents we ask their kind of background in terms of what they are able to bring to us and the value that uh Mr Mitchell besides being a parent brings is he is a secret service agent and so um he has all obviously his entire background is Safety and Security so we love having him on the on the team and thank you uh very much Jim for participating and being involved um uh last public comment there was a suggestion brought up um about staff members wearing uh ID badges staff members do wear ID badges um if they happen to forget it it is addressed by School administration or security team um it's very important for people to know that and I didn't

059want anybody to leave last meeting thinking that we don't have ID badges the idid badges also are uh beneficial for other things for entrance and copy or access and things like that so it's valuable um uh not a nuisance for staff to have them on um and so we make sure for that for safety um Connecticut Center for school safety we are part of uh I don't know maybe five or six schools that are working with Connecticut centers for school SC safety who are writing an anti swatting Grant to the state to get us some training um and actually some anti- swatting software which is really interesting to see how that works so anyway know that that's out there we're taking a lot of effort in in moving that forward um a number of us

060from uh the different crisis teams at the school and at the district level um the last two days there's been um two different uh days and multiple sessions that the FBI out of Massachusetts is hosted uh for an online uh training regarding swatting so we were a part of that um and then one of the things we did talk about at security task force among many things is looking at all of our different emergency procedures and we may have some updates to lockdown procedures that might be something we work on over the summer and then Institute and train up the staff and the kids uh come come the fall so those were just some extra things I wanted to get get out there for everybody thanks Ros can I ask a question um so if

061people have questions about the um Connecticut centers for school safety and the uh anti- swatting training who who are the lead folks on that well Connecticut Center for school safety is Amry burnhard uh he's employed through a massive State Grant regarding school security so Amry is a retired officer who runs that um there is a link in the um state of the district for anybody had read that and was interested they could actually link right to the to the website there and I did mention the grant there as well okay great thank you and again it's these are typically competitive grants so we're hoping we can get it um we're certainly putting the effort in did you have a question you all set yep awesome okay now now let's go to item 11 um to

062the consent agenda I move that the board approve the items on the consent agenda as recommended resignations and retirements okay um all in favor of approving the items on the consent agenda uh please say I I I no opposed okay so the um motion passes thank you very much Wendy I I I have a couple things I'd like to say because we've got a lot of retirements here so the first thing is uh it's important I just like to correct um for Miss Spalding um the retirement effective date is June 5th not June 3D so if we can we'll adjust that um but you can see we have a lot of longtime Legends some greats from uh Brookville Public Schools retiring um so not only Mrs sha last month we got her retirement but miss

063t uh Mrs longtime secretary Mrs Sarah soy I we're talking 25 years uh with the district from Miss T Mrs Sarah so that currently been the secretary for a number of years now at whiner but she's been across our District 34 years uh Kathy Malik has uh one of our par Educators has been with us 22 years and our speech and language pth pathologist at the elementary school Miss Spalding has been with us for seven years um when we add in Miss sha we're talking about 125 years of experience retiring so um they're just great people have dedicated their lives to Brookfield and we can't thank them enough and uh that was a very important um point so thank you thank you for doing that um and happy retirement to those folks okay so we'll

064move then to uh new business um the first item is the last day of school for the 2023 2024 school year um and maybe a possible motion so um uh the recommended action is that we discuss as a board and maybe take action regarding the last day of school um for 2023 um I can take background a little bit of background I think I think everybody knows at this point in the long history of public education in Connecticut we're obligated uh by Statute to um have 180 school days uh in public education um in Brookfield we have 182 um this year we had four emergency emergency days three three for weather related and the one for the swatting uh that puts us um at June 19th as the last day of school right now which

065is a Wednesday um and that's that's the basic background of where we're at um there is in my tenure I believe there's one time where we were going late into the year it may have been the macro burst year um where our 180th day was on June 29th which was a Friday and so we the board decided not to uh have school for two days um and so we didn't um if the board was to consider cuz that's been you know questions from parents and staff when is the the actual last day for students um when we look at all of the bargaining units it is not a major impact at all because there's um bargaining units different unions you know uh nurses or par Educators or whomever um the way their schedules work it's

066it's by day and as long as they get their contracted days in um or they work hourly over the summer um it really isn't a big impact there um our faculty um we are scheduled to pay them for8 7 total days if their if the last day of of school is the 180th day that would be 185 for the teachers when you include their professional development days um we have plenty to do for for uh staff uh related to strategic plan related to the work with portrait of The Graduate um other uh business to reflect on from the year and move forward and prepare as we get ready for fall that we could really uh be chock full of uh effective activity for uh the additional two days and and um the last day if

067it was 180 days if the board elected to uh move in that direction it would be Monday the 17th the next thing to understand is that June 15th is graduation um which is a Saturday so just understand that for Brookfield High so those are some things so that's just a general background for everybody and there's one more Factor right about isn't J uh June 19th is a Federal holiday June 19th is juneth which is a Federal holiday uh not recognizing any of our collective bargaining agreeing contracts at this time um It's relatively new so it hasn't been bargained into to you know so it's not it's not even if we're in school on June 19th it's not an issue for us gotcha gotcha so the teachers are going to go two days past whatever that's

068the determination of the board we can that's the discussion that's part of it okay so we can adjust that and we can adjusto the the board's discretion do yeah well the teachers the the teachers will work till June 19th right right they do I wouldn't recommend yeah that but if you want to have that further discussion you can have cutting the teachers yeah wait can you clarify that the teachers are are scheduled to be compensated for working 187 days correct if we if the 180th day which is Monday the 17th is the last day for kids it's the 185th day for teachers they still have to work two more days I think it's still work two more on the schedule of compensation the taxpayers are paying them for 187 days of work so and we

069have plenty to do so we can have the teachers work that Tuesday and Wednesday but you just said you're not recommending that no I'm recommending that we keep the schedule as okay that's why I was confused or second adjust that we adjust the teacher schedule correct correct I I wouldn't recommend that if that was something we lean toward I wouldn't recommend that yeah exactly yeah yeah it gets confused this day and that day and which date totally understand and we have six collective bargaining um six Union contracts and there's a lot to consider okay but we've we've that groundwork is known because we've been down this road a couple years ago so we understand how to handle it I'd like to um you know honor that the students are in school till the 19th to

070make up those days that were lost okay that's my priority um sorry go ahead no you go um I recognizing that it's the first year that we are celebrating we're not celebrating I don't know the way to say it that the state is recognizing juneth as a holiday is second year the second year okay but we weren't in school last year wer we had gotten out previous to that yeah um I think we should consider how that could impact families who feel that that's an important day for them Educators who want to celebrate with their families cuz they we've learned in recent years that that's culturally a really big deal and I think in the way that we consider um that being the last day of school okay might impact how that affects families so

071I I think I would I would lean towards Monday being the last day um and kind of having the emergency day off that Friday kind of wasn't can wasn't anyone's wasn't a fun day I mean that's not a reason to to have or not have the last day be uh cut but I feel like it's unfairly impacting the students um so I'm leaning towards Monday being the last day so to speak to your point Stephanie um we can embrace it just like we do on Veterans Day where the students are in school celebrating that day um we also have to consider that there's working parents and when schools closed that impacts working parents um and many children in our district rely on school for um for nutrition for their services uh peer interactions social social

072mental not just academic so um I think our priority is a students and that if school was if schools closed for five of four emergency three weather you know whatever the reason what is we should honor that respect the day should made up especially for working parents who have been impacted so my recommendation is to I'd like to make a motion to have the last day of school for students be on June 19th point of order I don't know if you need to make a motion for that because that that is what it is by default you would make a motion to somebody would need to make a motion to change it but I would agree with that okay yeah because it's already the 19th that's the established calendar it would go in that direction

073um I'd like to approach this from a slightly different angle um and the the factor of graduation being the 15th that exams at least at the high school will have been the previous week um I see those those days in the I I see students so eager to get what you're talking about outside of the school space um and I think that um it's it can be challenging to have meaningful learning be done um after the summi of experience of final exams um coming at it from an elementary perspective you you might feel differently about that but I just know that the high school level it's it's hard after because kids are really like we're exhausted we just gave you everything we have and what's what's the point now um I don't know I I

074would I hear what you're saying um and those those are compelling those are compelling points um but even with those I I think I would go for the the day release um going back to 180 days I think high school students are mature enough and old enough to make the decision for themselves if they want to stay home that can be a family decision um if they want to opt because they feel like they've given their year they're all yet I don't know if we should speak for all high school students um so I think they have that option to stay home they can not come to school but it it should be an option that we offer can I make another point is it okay if I make another point um speaking to your

075point Joy of like having them missing the day of instruction if it wasn't the very last day of school I would tend to lean more towards that because of course we don't want to take instruction days away from our kids but to Wendy's point being the last day I think it's we're not necessarily taking an instruction day away and all of the things that they're getting that they would have missed out on I don't know I feel like we have to be careful with that statement because anytime that our kids are in school we want to value that as instructional I'm not devaluing the instruction that I didn't say it the correct way I'm just saying if it was not being considered as the last days of school I feel like I am not seeing

076it the right way so would anybody like the floor just in terms of scheduling purposes prior to the three emergency days that we had for weather and um whatnot safety the the original end date would have been June 14th correct the the 182nd day originally was a Thursday the 13th then four days missed three weather one swatting that brings us to Wednesday night oh four days missed okay so in terms of planning just for parents they would have they would have planned for the 13th as an end date prior to these emergencies coming up these emergency closings so um they you know if you're looking at the year and vacation and summer camps and whatnot the 13th Would have been on their mind in terms of the planning so okay I just wanted to clarify

077that but in their planning they I think they know they have to possibly plan for later CU consistently but they don't plan for when the school's closed right so that might be a and I think that's where Factor we're hearing from the principes and uh teachers and my office we're hearing from parents they just want to know um they're kind of itching before April break and I I've let them know we typically let formally formal announce if we have these discussions after April break but perfect time to have this discussion a couple days before the break and let everybody know we tomorrow whatever we decide the board decides tomorrow we could let everybody know I mean technically once it wraps to the next week it kind of like oh we're in the next week anyway

078so plus or minus the de is it easy to explain why we went to 182 in the first place um from 180 When in Rome when I got here we were at 182 so we've always done it in Brookfield as far as I know I knew that yeah and everybody you think there would be full days or we think about doing half that's the the the last day of school traditionally is a early dismissal so the 19th right now would be the early dismissal day full days on uh Tuesday and Monday and um but the board has discretion there are districts that the last couple of days of school are all early released so there's that decision can be made here as well that's a choice uh one thing we do have to think about

079is and we're in a room right now that doesn't have air conditioning um the high school especially gets super hot so it's just something to think about at the book ends of the year we have a lot of heat too and sometimes we get into these decision or it may snow what's that or it may snow it could snow you know it is New England so who knows right Jo um so that's another thing to think about where we end up there's been a couple of times where we've called an early dismissal mainly because of how hot the high school is frankly um CS is fully air conditioned now and most of whisking a is air conditioned so just so you know that well you had mentioned there's a lot for staff to do as

080well for the if we did the last Monday I can definitely understand completely so I'm I'm definitely okay with that Monday last that makes sense I think they I think staff would relish the time as much as you know everybody is antsy for the summertime staff know there's a lot of work to do and connect with colleagues connect with Administration before the year's out um a lot of the the pathway and pck work that we've been doing all year so there there there's plenty to do we don't have to worry about that I can tell you be EAS without the kids there yes so I um I'm gonna I'm going to dissent with what I think is probably the majority of the board right now but um you know we we always talk about how

081precious instructional time is and how we have to do so much in the 182 days that we have these kids for and to take away two days that those particular days might not be filled with a ton of instruction as we know we've all been in school what the last week of school looks like but it's two more days that back up maybe two weeks before that so it's to me cutting out school days is cutting out instructional time at some point in the year so I'm I'm almost never in favor of getting rid of days just to get rid of days they're going to be there on the 17th which is a Monday I and I understand the whole the whole issue with the graduation being on the 15th but they're still 2third of

082our district that is not graduating um and they need instructional time as well um so I'm probably in the minority but I'm okay with that and that's kind of where I'm at it's sort of don't along that I if we take away the day that we were was sort of out of our control what if we go to the 18 kind of split the difference because that day you know we can't control weather but the other stuff is very unfortunate so maybe we recognize that that was unfortunate sort of like yeah compromise the Monday versus the Wednesday board's discretion you know all of that's out of our any of our control right the weather and the conditions and those kind of things they're all safety decisions right that's paa did you want to share some

083more thoughts I think I'm I'm just kind of reflecting on it everybody's saying if the kids go to the 19th um then staff is here till when 19 the 19 still the 19th so there's there's no time there's no time for staff to be in the building without we had our professional days already would be half days half day for kids for the would that be uh Monday Tuesday and Wednesday would be half days the board would have de I think just 19th a half day just the 19th now got it so they basically have a half day on the 19th on the 19th the staff does okay got it um do you guys feel like you're ready to to to vote we need to have a motion on the table no but I mean

084like like in order to okay okay then then I'll I'll move that we uh change the last day of school to Monday June 17th um for students for 2023 2024 I'll second it okay all in favor say I I I all oppos say Nay n okay the motion does not pass all right um thank you for your discussion moving on let's go to uh the next item educator diversity approval so Stephanie there's a motion for [Music] you I move that the board approve the educator diversity plan as recommended by the personnel and negotiations committee Dr barell and Dr man second um all in favor of the board approving the educator diversity plan um as recommended by the p&n committee um say I I oh okay we're not getting any presentation or anything no one's presenting

085on it okay we're prepared to talk about it if you'd like to talk about it I just don't know much about it then should um okay we haven't found ourselves in this uh place before uh we were in mid vote um then uh in this situation I think maybe make a motion to withdraw yeah I'm moveed to withdraw the motion um pending um discussion or yeah discussion um with Dr bril and Dr man second okay um all in favor of removing the motion I I okay um any opposed okay great then we remove that motion and um Dr man can you tell us a bit about the um educator diversity plan please so before Dr man goes I just want to U the first thing that everybody needs to know is is obviously educator diversity

086is quite important um it becomes more and more challenging in a time of teacher shortage um to fill any position especially those in shortage areas so that's one piece from HR we have been making um a lot of effort over the last number of years um I'll be it um we're not really increasing the diversity of our staff to be very candidate um there is a lot here that we do in practice that is being codified in this plan that we are now mandated to put together this is um uh a another legislative mandate there is not necessarily a cost to this it's not a budget impact uh but there's work we to do it's a lot it's a lot of um uh reporting uh uh and form filling out to be very honest with

087you to comply with the state mandate um but there's some really good things in there and some goal setting we can do uh as a department for HR and as an organization so I'll turn it over to Anna on that one thank you for your effort on this work pleasure thank you um so actually in some respects this couldn't have come at a more timely um I always look for opportunity as you can see in situations um but it couldn't have been been more timely for us in terms of our kind of refocus on our human resources department and um since I uh came on board kind of our efforts in hiring practices so it's always a good thing to review um you know your processes your protocols all of those kinds of things what

088this particular um and what you have in your packets that was sent to you on Friday um is a memo from me to Dr burill um explaining kind of giving some context for the purpose of this submission um and you know to be in compliance with Public Act 23167 section 10A um which specifically uh requires uh local Boards of Education in the state of Connecticut to submit for um essentially for compliance purposes to the state department a um what they're calling an increasing educator diversity plan um there used to be uh the statute used to read a uh the title used to be a minority recruitment plan um so they have taken that language out and uh supplanted it with uh increasing this educator diversity plan um and so really what it it it's focusing

089in specifically on um on Race within dver within the concept of diversity and requiring districts to come up with a pretty comprehensive plan for recruitment retent recruitment hiring and retention so there's three parts to the plan so in your packets you had two two Port two representations of the same thing this um legal paper which is the template um is the required template that the state is that I have to submit to the we have to submit to the state after um it's presented and hopefully approved by the board so that's why I wanted to make sure you gave this this is all that the state requires um in doing in preparing for for this to complete this requisite plan um I kind of wanted to give it some context give us create a document

090that we could post on our website um that kind of outlined what our goals are and um you know kind of held us to some task oriented um approaches that will help us improve um not only not only focusing on the data of our uh increasing our educator diversity but just it'll help us reflect on our hiring processes and so our recruitment our hiring and our retention in general um so I am happy to to briefly review both um I just I want to let you know that the three parts recruitment retire recruitment hiring and retention are all requisite um and and you can so you can see the required parts of the um of the plan that are on the document but the vision um in the first part and again same language in

091both of the two documents but I'll just kind of go through some of the highlights uh the the vision uh was pulled actually um was inspired and pulled pretty much uh directly from the vision that was originally developed by the uh subcommittee of the board that we if you remember um actually uh absorbed last year last spring last summer in August um the diversity equity and inclusion subcommittee of the board one of the um products that came out of that group was the first part of this vision statement um I did a little bit of tweaking to be more actually more inclusive and more comprehensive in terms of um the language but it that comes right from what was already uh approved and adopted by the board um and that's true for most of this

092document I didn't necessarily come up with a whole lot of uh novel ideas um the next part down are the current uh policies one of the questions from uh districts across the state was we have have a policy we have multiple policies can we just submit those the answer is no you'll see it's actually not anywhere on our doc on the uh template that you actually need to identify your policies however um I wanted to make sure that it's highlighted that we do have policies that guide our work the next part because the requirement of the plan is that you set um kind of data driven goals um I wanted to put some data in there and so the um the graphs that you'll see which are pulled from edite um which is one of

093our you know main websites that we use for our um the first graph is the racial demographics of our students um and because that's really the purpose and the the impetus behind this uh this act is to begin to um close the gap essentially between students of color and uh teachers of color and administrators of color um and so this is our uh data for this is the context for our work you know we always want to keep students at the center um so that graph um and I have a narrative I know I apologize that that the numbers very small um I can certainly help you with those if you um if you need some if it's hard to see but I did want to highlight some of the changes in our population um

094and I use 10 years uh going back a decade so 10 years prior um and the CH the shifts in that um I also included our graph for our high need students um and as a reminder um High needs are um students who uh receive special education services are English Learners or who are eligible for free and reduced um they don't have to be all of those uh in any all of those components they could be in one of them or multiple um but that's just uh kind of more information um just to show again to show our our increase in our um needs of our students and then the last part is a um the last section of the uh demographic data is um the adults so the first graph is our educator diversity

095in Brookfield versus the educator um diversity in the state and I think it's really important to include the state here because um we have heard over and over and over again um not just in Connecticut but across the country that we have an educator shortage and recruiting Educators in general has become quite challenging um and so I just wanted I thought using the state as kind of the Cornerstone and the the focus of um you know what where what they're doing um could give us some a little bit more of a reasonable Benchmark to try to um aim for um and so the the goal then has become um for our because you have to set a measurable goal um so the goal that is true and is consistent throughout all three the recruitment the

096hiring and the retention is to more closely match the gap between students of color and educators of color so the gap for the um for the state it has um as you see in that last part uh went from 136 points so the difference between the uh students of color and the educative educators of color was 136.28 at 10 years ago to 28.5% so it it reduced um 5.79% over 10 years we actually increased our Gap um partly because our educators of color have gone down but also because our students of color population have gone up um obviously we serve all of our kids and we're happy to have all of our students so we're going to um this plan will help um have a road map for how we might increase our um educator

097diversity there are no guarantees um we are not uh changing our hiring practices to focus on any particular race or ethnicity um but it's really more keeping uh a mind mindful approach about our hiring practices um and so the rest of the then there's a theory of action which is part of the requirements and then the rest of the um document is really kind of the strategy who's responsible and who's what's the time frame um to try to and we will we will work on all of these strategies um and then we will re-evaluate and reassess as we go through um definitely on an annual basis if not on kind of a you know buy you know like maybe every six months to look at where we are um to see if we're making a

098difference we're adjusting and then eventually we will have our Ed site secure data that we can kind of uh look to compare where we are versus the state um and then the other parts on the under each goal there are indicators of progress resources risks and mitigation so the risks are the full bullet point the mitigation is the open bullet point and then consultation and communication so things that we will we will do in the with HR and across the district with our um hiring committees um some of these like I said we can control and we can really kind of work on and some of them will be um Less in our control but we will Monitor and all of them will be good hiring practices for us to Institute um and so that's

099kind of again I'm I'm if you have any specific questions about any of this I'm happy to answer them but um or try to answer them um but really this this would be the document that would be forward- facing on our on our website I just think it's a little more user friendly and accessible versus this which you can't even read even if it's sitting in front of you so um but it's the same information and I don't know if you can answer this but I I understand this is a mandate coming down from the state um for this document what does wested have anything what is the connection that is the the um the consultation company that the state is using okay who put together um the template and um is going to help

100uh I don't know exactly if they're vetting the uh the plans as they come in but they're the ones who provided support for districts if we had so I actually consulted with folks from West when I went on to sign up for a consultation support ass set session so they're the ones providing the consultation to us through this for this process contracted by the state cont yeah I have a excuse me I have a question I was say and they this company has been been vetted through the state I I you don't know I have no idea to with the law and okay yeah it's from the state department good my question is just um if you can just briefly address how the strategies are different from what we're doing now what have we what

101are we adopting here that we don't knowing that we do want to hire the best people and have you know the biggest pool of candidates what is different about this so some of the things that are different some of them are not particularly different um it's they go may may extend on um some of the things that we already do so for example we don't currently um uh collect demographic information about our candidates um what what one of the strategies in here in terms of uh the recruitment piece um or in the hiring is to ask for a voluntary survey um for to collect demographic data it's not required and you're not allowed to I read that and I saw that it's voluntary so being that it's voluntary you know changes the the picture a

102little bit because if people don't provide that that so that's that's one marker that you're not going to have necessarily is there so is is there so besides that is there anything that we're that this would propose doing that we not doing now um I think that it's so again it's more of the extension of things that we do currently so for example um reaching out to uh College fairs um that may be um sponsoring uh you know a minority College uh teacher college fair or um recruitment Fair um we have not historically participated in any uh recruiting fairs so that's something that I've been interested in doing anyway but then specifically working with local um or with our state uh higher education groups and seeing if they do um like I know for example

103there are a few schools that do actually sponsor uh minority teacher prep uh fairs um so attending you know those and kind of working more closely with the I mean in general we have to increase our relationships with um our teacher prep programs we have done done some historic reach out um not necessarily at universities but sort of state sponsored fairs and things like that and because everybody in state is working on this um hopefully you know kind of high tide will raise all boats and um it'll help us everybody work together to um it not only hire more uh folks that are highly qualified um and you know diverse but also get kids into programs so that they're actually looking to exactly I guess that was going to be my follow and this is

104nothing that you can control at all but I'm just wondering if there are any initiatives Beyond just the school district level where there where there's incentives for people to go into the field of Education minority incentives to go into the field of Education because that's kind of where it starts right many many of us are involved in higher ed and AD junk Professor work at private and state universities and um you know years ago I've known about some of those and they just haven't come to fruition they just haven't but um that's one of the reasons that I wanted to align our data with the state data because my hope is that you know if the state has some really great ideas um and that they're going to reduce their Gap then you know we

105have we'll be aligned to that and we'll try to do some of the same practices of reaching out to the folks that they are partnering with and I think important an important piece is uh one of the things we really talked about with the spring results of the smarter balance assessment last year is we did work um and had demonstrative results that we closed the achievement gap between High need and non High need students so the learning is happening that's really important to know regardless of plan like this thank you I also just want to point out one other thing that there is no um there's nothing in the state statute that says that the board has to do an annual or biannual review there's there's no information in the state statute of what happens

106if you don't meet your goal um so that might be coming but at currently the pro the what you are approving or are being considering for approving um this would be it possibly as of now of course I would come back if you were interested in an update but the state would not require that and the state actually just put in the Board of Ed requirement piece which I think is a good thing it's important for the Board of Ed to know what's going on in the um with these kinds of things but that wasn't part of the original act that was added later are there other questions for Dr man is uh is West Ed the only option is that because it's through the state you said yeah this is so West Ed is

107the um is the the organization that the St yeah that the state has um hired to uh C come up with this template process this template and support folks as they filled out the template okay so we don't we basically have to corally work with them corre yeah I mean we're not really we're not work I'm we're not working too much with them I submit to the state through through a portal but they're the ones who this is the that's the one they don't care about my little report that I did they don't want to see that they want to see this in addition to the state colleges um on in Connecticut what about the arc program have you guys ever worked with because that's like centered in Hartford and I know looking for student

108teaching positions out in this direction is very challenging so that could be a good other place for you to absolutely yeah thank you for that and actually um Mr Blanda met last week with um the do you want to talk a little bit about it this is just a little update it's kind of an aside but to your point to certification it's for uh non teers to ass go through a certification process yes so um two weeks ago the dean of the Yukon School of Education actually reached out to me as an alumni of the program and wanted to meet and just touch base and check in to see how things were going here down in Brookfield they didn't often get too far um past 84 and 91 past Hartford so uh and he recognizes

109that the school of education has a presence both at their Stanford and Waterberry campus um and they're usually um tcpg graduates uh people who have an undergraduate degree already and go through a master's degree program they have them at both campuses and so some of the suggestions and conversations we had the exact conversation about you know uh minority recruitment across the board it's a huge piece that he's working on and all the schools that he goes to in terms of recruitment um he's putting me in contact with um some of the leaders over there at both Waterberry and Stanford and has encouraged me and HR and Dr man and Dr BR to reach out to those schools put a face with a name um and particularly schools uh in Waterberry in particular there's a draw

110certainly to come from Waterberry if you're in that general area to come down towards Fairfield County in terms of pay and benefits and those sorts of things versus where you could be Stanford's a little bit different it's a little further south in that southern part of Fairfield County um but he talked about having a presence and really wants to try to work he understands that we have to recruit within um and there's also some other programs you'll be hearing from me in the next year or two about uh internal uh ECE programs with uh for Education actually to even continue to further grow our own here in building and come back so yeah thank you thanks Mark other questions or comments all right then then I am going to um try again and move that

111the the board approve the educator diversity plan as recommended by the Personnel negotiations committee Dr John burill and Dr Anna man ex second okay um so now that we have that motion out um all in favor of approving the educator diversity plan say I any opposed all right so with that the um board has unanimously approved the educator diversity plan thank you very much and thank you that's comprehensive too bad it's in font four okay so we're going to move to the next item of new business um and for the consideration of complaint I'm going to relinquish the chair to uh the vice chair okay um thank you Wendy um so in consideration of the complaint that you are all familiar with um this relates to policy 1312 receiving complaints about the conduct of schools

112um just uh as sort of a summary this policy um clearly relates to school Personnel um employees of the district um so um it's it's clear that there's um we as board members are not employees of the district um we are not the administrators that the policy refers to to um deal with such complaints and nor does the superintendent have a role um in dealing with complaints against board members so um are there any other comments that board members would like to make here you SC that wording again the policy uh it was just titled receiving complaints about the conduct of schools I don't have the full policy in front of me but I hav oh perfect so we did just just so that the public is aware um because of this complaint um on

113our board chair's uh recent actions in an e in an effort to show this transparency we are having this conversation um she's here to answer any questions by board members um so I would you know encourage any of you to ask them now if you have any sure uh I would like to move to dismiss the complaint and take no action I will second then that motion um moving to discussion on that motion would anybody like to say anything so you were just you were just you just mention that it doesn't apply in this policy because um trying to find it in the policy um concerns can you just repeat what you said because I can't see it sure so in that in that policy it it basically outlines how complaints of school Personnel should

114be help dealt with um first with administrators and then if there's a dissatisfaction with how the administrators handled it then the superintendent would handle it um that's very clearly not referencing board member activity but rather employees of the district okay okay any further discussion on this okay so the motion is to dismiss the complaint all those in favor please signify by saying I I okay that's for all those opposed please signify by saying nay okay abstentions I okay three abstentions and four yay so the Y's have it and the motion to dismiss without any formal action is passed and I will relinquish the chair back over to our board chair great so moving on to Old business um we're going to talk about the um board beds adopted 2024 2025 budget um and we will

115continue our discussion okay well that's right uh Casey has um some updates for us is that correct Miss di yes do you want to oh sure yes so Wendy did you have anything or do you want me to just build a little bit of context of where we're at um and kind of walk through an updated chart that we have no I understand that the the pieces are moving on a daily basis and so what I learned yesterday uh already has been updated yes okay um we're trying to uh as always be as precise as we can in a nearly $53 million budget um so just for a little little history a very very brief history in uh February the for Selectmen and I think ultimately Board of Selectmen uh reduced our budget by approximately

116$500,000 through the board of Finance process it was reduced uh another $250,000 into that range for total in cuts to the board's adopted budget from late January to um by $728,000 the chart that is up on the screen and you have a hard copy in front of you um we have gone through a version uh over the last week a couple of drafts um we shared with Personnel negotiations uh because this impacts Personnel um uh and collective bargaining um we also talked uh with finance committee yesterday at its meeting and went through this and we've since made a couple more uh adjustments because we're constantly fine-tuning and looking ways to do the best we can um in really approaching Cuts uh with the scalpel as we've said in years past and not a machete and

117we want to get in there and be very very very selective and stay as far away from students as we can um so you can see in kind of that uh purplish light purple color at the top uh operational cuts and then there special education uh reductions these are cuts that we've talked about um that were initial cuts um over the U past couple of months this is public information we have talked with the board of finance and board of selectman about this and continually through my communications with the board let you know where we stand uh we were able to get to almost 500 uh just about $500,000 in reductions uh based on on uh some efficiencies and favorable news that continue to come in through the course of the last two months um

118so the first piece is the operational Cuts health insurance the increase is only 2% the original budget I presented at the beginning of December was 7% um that's a significant reduction getting us $300,000 right off the bat very close uh almost halfway to the $728,000 um electricity some continued fine-tuning with the actual rates uh coming in more favorable um $80,000 reduction uh was able to be achieved toward the 728 uh workers compensation estimate is $12,000 less than originally almost $113,000 less uh in special education one of the things that Mr Roland and the team are doing they're reaching out to families um uh of all kinds students who are in District students who might be outplaced and really looking at their programs seeing how the students have progressed um and when there's an opportunity uh

119seeing if students are uh ready and interested in coming back and so you can see special education transportation and tuition um and the requisite excess cost Grant calculations there for a savings of approximately $170,000 so we're we're really on our way to the to the 728 this is that 500,000 or a little 500 change that I was talking about earlier the cuts get more challenging after this you'll see what under the light blue in the middle called programming this is where we really had to sit start sitting down with the principles um and our director of instruction and um fine-tuning um areas in technology um make choices with investments in some things like the enrollment study uh investments in library books or textbooks um and find Alternatives um in that regard uh the rationale is

120is to the right I won't read to you but just kind of the general sense and then we can maybe go through questions after that in total um in the last couple of weeks we found $67,000 in those uh areas that we can cut a lot of the technical areas are on looking at uh student usage these are things we've done with the cape committee before the board is aware of these kind of techniques you go in there and take a look what's most efficacious as a program um what are some of the things with the K3 science of reading new program we're going with where we're going to have new technology that we'll use and maybe it'll phase out current technology uh in learning programs so uh moving on to the next piece is

121getting into Personnel this is where it gets really hard you have to look at your Staffing as a reminder for the public and for the board this current year we had reduced an administrative position the Center School principal position was eliminated going into this year with the consolidation plan um of the elementary schools now we're a year into uh having Consolidated the middle school and uh consolidated the elementary schools and right size the uh Middle School really taking a look at what do we need and how do we keep impact on any staffing reductions to get to the full $728,000 how do we get there and so there's a couple of things we've had to make a decision on looking across our different bargaining units and the impact they're having on the organization uh the

122first one uh which is a relatively significant savings is one of our uh instructional coaches the technology integration specialist um we have made a um decision that that's a position we will reduce it's not in the core subjects it is not student facing um and it's a tough decision we have to make if we're going to meet the the 3/4 of a million dollar cut that we have to face um there is you'll see at the bottom of this chart some requisite professional learning that we're putting in because we won't have that person on staff to help us out um this will likely slow down some of the digital tool workor that's in our strategic plan and integrating with uh curriculum development um but we'll continue to forge ahead the next position is a secretary

123position um with the consolidation of the elementary school and 200 less kids at whiskin ear we are going to look at our secretarial team districtwide and see how we can um still continue our functions uh but reassign work um turns out we have a retirement from um uh the secretarial team which just came to us last week um so the timing actually works out so through attrition uh it won't be a secretary who's last in to be first out with this particular reduction so just so you know that and then um a lot of folks don't know we are obligated we have seven and a half nurses uh in District we are OB all um school districts in the state are obligated if they have a private school in their town to support Health needs

124of students at the private school we had to do that when St Joe was operational and we still do it christian life um so with that there is a half nurse dedicated to Christian Life one of the things again that we're going to do uh is look at our seven core staff of nurses and how we could reassign them based on having three at the elementary school two at the high school we kept two at the Middle School nurses and um again there's 200 less students at the uh middle school so 600 Kids versus 800 kids they're seeing less students even though the needs are high and it's wonderful to have two nurses um in working with the nurse Union having that conversation there may be some rotation or some other ways to assign and

125make sure we're still covering uh Christian Life Academy so those are the Personnel decisions we had to make and then the next step I'm going to turn it over to uh Mrs di we did have some operational increases that are adjustments again when you're working with a 50 or $53 million budget you're always you know fine-tuning um and we're really getting down uh to the nitty-gritty with this budget so can you talk a little bit about that sure of course so there was just a um a few uh operational increases that have come about since uh the budget has been adopted our liability insurance this net um increase of $ 26,1 159,000 is uh for the addition of CES coming on to our liability uh insurance plan um so we've included that um and that

126did it does seem like it came in late we've been open at CES all year but we did just get this figure um on March uh March 13th from kerma so uh we've had to account for that um you'll see uh uh just under $112,000 and some salary adjustments to um that are recommended for some unaffiliated staff um which will be discussed in executive session as they relate to personnel and then some programming increases we have um because it is a a difficult decision to remove the 1.0 technology integrator coaching position that will have an impact on you know moving forward with our district goals so we have um set aside $115,000 for additional professional development um at each school for our staff to um get some some you know intensive technology uh professional development

127and that could be in terms of um you know professional development of some perhaps somebody from un Advance coming in to provide support or extended Duty um to have the the individual who was the um Tech integrator uh coach to offer you know some different uh programs and and um ideas IDE curriculum extensions exactly um and so that and that would be paid through um our contracted our our CBA um uh extended Duty rates um so uh and then ASL uh American Sign Language we do have three students at the high school that um are completing their first year of American Sign Language um we do want to see that they are able to complete their second year um to to um complete their 2-year uh foreign language requirement and so there is an uh

128a virtual high school program uh that's $900 per student so we have put that in the budget to to ensure that those students can can complete that program so the total increases were 55,57 um with those increases in the and the total cuts that we've um found uh we are able to meet our uh our requested reduction sure there's some questions I just have concerns about the enrollment study um I think that's really important given enrollment study the enrollment study given the all the changes that are happening and all the building that's happening in our town um because when was the last time we've done it we did it we we had an enrollment study um a uh not as comprehensive as uh you're familiar with Malone they did really comprehensive studies uh Dr PR

129is a known um consultant around the state who does uh enrollment studies in 2021 he conducted a study for us charges about $2,000 for for his studies and then he reports out um I can share the one from 2021 pretty much spoton um with his last projections uh with the exception of kindergarten or was some and he talks about the rationale and you know where the Miss was um we certainly could bring him on to conduct another study for $2,100 um and make a hard choice to delay a more comprehensive study um um until next year when we have perhaps less Investments going forward that was the thought process when was the last time we did the really comprehensive I believe it was 2019 18 or 19 19 yeah and actually and we look back

130at both studies when we look at our projections and develop the budget that you're presented with in December but there there was so much movement during and because of covid and then we've had the housing starts here um it's just I don't know and we have the new kindergarten law with September one so you know he'll take that into consider generation as well that could affect classes deping on start dates and things like that yeah so that was the thought process there join we wrestled with this one because to exactly your rationale the other thing I think it's interesting in terms of personnel so the technology integration specialist um the reduction there uh we talked about it at the Joint meeting with Board of select on board of Finance but while we're having the conversation

131publicly and it's recorded for everybody uh it's important to think about um that teachers like that are typically you're more senior teachers um so they don't just um you don't eliminate that position and then they're just gone through the collective bargaining agreement they bump a less senior teacher that's typically how that works and so this is what we have we have to look to at all the different certifications that we're in the process of bumping rights in the teacher contract to see how this will affect our staff um so um if there is there is a May 1st deadline um for non-renewing non- tene teachers so if um and we're still working on this scenarios with the teacher Union if there is a non-teacher non- tene teacher that um will need to be non-renewed I

132will inform uh you all and let you know that we have to have a special meeting to notice that and consider that because the board non-renew I don't non-renew and that's under teacher 10e law in Connecticut hopefully we don't have to do that we're really being as creative as we can with everybody's certification to see um because the last thing you want to see is someone lose their job of course are there other uh questions or comments about the budget just the mclass intervention is that that's not part of our mclass assessment that's it's only so that it is part of the mclass assessment but it's not the comprehensive part it's actually because the Boost reading will be coming in with CK um so that would be the intervention tool and they actually have found

133that while they love the M mclass as an assessment tool that intervention piece has not um been as much value added as as they had anticipated So the plan is for next year to see how boost goes and then we'll have experience with both mclass and boost and make an informed decision for the next fiscal year okay what grades uh is mclass 4 I don't that's the tool I don't know that's for K through five for math and reading and what's formative again so formative is another platform um that was piloted uh last year and this year it's um and it was just at the middle school um and essentially it's a tool that allows teachers to for students to submit work through the platform they're able to give kind of real-time feedback adjust their

134um lessons uh you know use it for differentiation it can be used across all all um I see Roberts said he probably knows about it um so it can be used across uh disciplines the math uh folks used it a lot last year math and World Language um it just hasn't really I think it's probably you know a little bit of a glut of online access for teachers so it just didn't really take off it's a really nice tool it just isn't it's one of those things that when you're making those hard choices um we had to pair out for next year and it's only in the middle school that it's really been focused on so we figure that it's not a huge impact across the district anything to add Super Chat yeah it's a

135great platform too B it's not it's a good platform all right with that um thank you very much okay um let us move then to uh public comment we have a couple people signed up um Mrs Scalera it looks like you're [Applause] first and just as a reminder I know you know what you're doing but please start with your name and address Aon Scara 5 Jackson Drive let's find it I was really disappointed by the state of the district email blast that parents received on March 27th I stand before you and I ask you if you truly believe some of the fluff presentations and the smok and mirror that are happening right before our very eyes we continue to hear that everything is amazing in special education but I'm here to make it crystal clear

136that everything isn't awesome and it's far from being factual as some students are not receiving what they need the entire District mailing list was told and I quote we embarked on a comprehensive special education program review which I will happily remind the board was pushed by a few parents as the district recommendation was only to look at less than % of brookfield's identified students how's that for commitment to all our kids correct reviewed and analyzed District resources organizational processes structures student learning and outcomes communication and collaboration the recommendations from this report served as a guide for the work of our new special education director and all the faculty and staff this year I'm pleased to share that we have addressed all the recommendations on our way to Excellence in the special education programming end quote

137by addressing all the recommend ations please tell me why I'm aware of many students that did not receive legally required services for months how children have absolutely no measurable data driving or targeting instruction by any service provider or special education teacher how families were misled that their children were being serviced by people who were not qualified in the positions they were serving I just found out that my son's being serviced not by an OT for the last 3 years but by an assistant I will share that his disability requires intensive OT he's not getting it State complaints are piling up which does which which hardly screams Excellence to me my child's program is using four-year-old testing we just simply missed this trianal we skipped over it and I stand before you asking what exactly did

138the correct review fix it was said that initially it would take initially 3 to 5 years to plan but somehow every box has been checked how's this possible the correct review will end up being completely useless if the only one driving the much needed changes is the new director who can't possibly wear every hat in every building and every day day in and day out because the people underneath are not working in their capacity they were hired for the special education program has absolutely no consistency from school to school which is not the least bit helpful for children heading to another school sadly the special education department is nowhere near achieving excellence and continues to be a needs a major overhaul the longer the district chooses to ignore the pressing issues the special the spe

139in the special education department the bigger they will get and cost a district much more in the long run you can't your budget can't support many more out placements can it you need to immediately rip everything apart from the start and start over over because a framework or structure if you will is nothing more than a deck of buckling cards visibly close to imploding progress monitoring is absent in our district for our children and mine on IEPs but when children receive srbi intervention to avoid special education classification data is collected and track thans thank you Mrs Scalera Denise will finish okay so Mrs Rice good evening yep N Rice three old Hemlock Road I'm finishing errands it seems a bit backwards don't you think I ask you all how often do you think data be

140collected toward goals the answer is D daily weekly or bi-weekly and an IEP team should discuss these factors and determine what intervals are most appropriate for each goal for each individual child but it rarely happens that day Behavior data should be collected daily academic is often collected once a week the frequency that data should be collected is related to how often measurable progress can be expected in Brookfield I am here to tell you I just learned earlier this week that we track nothing chart nothing graph nothing and expect every identified child is learning and making adequate progress thus claiming everything is awesome I don't know about you but this hardly sounds like the lovely picture painted in the state of the district that we are all well aware on the way to Excellence I know

141you are likely sick of hearing this meeting after meeting but as parents we have an obligation to our children so until you fix what is broken we will continue to show up and speak out until every child in this district is adequately serviced and receive the exceptional education of all the students of Brookfield deserve thank you thank you Mrs Rice and finally Mr Korea when you are ready no I got to think so Andy Korea 45 West whis Road um so what was just described was you know ongoing failures that had occurred up to the past eight years and was just discovered really last year after that correct report and when the when the uh correct person from C came and discussed it one of the senior administrators response was oh that's great I love

142to write strategic plans my question would be why wasn't it in the Strategic plan 5 years ago why did it take eight years to to find right you know we we had hires that were incompetently hired that impacted special education last year we know about that right why did we just have a problem with a a high school um vice principal higher how did that not happen how did that person not get Googled there was no discussion here um at like I asked about hey why wasn't on the consent agenda for the board to manage that tell me why didn't you guys discuss it and as it relates to the policy um I'm sorry as it relates to the complaint the policy reads the purpose is to improve the quality of schools or School District

143to perform its Mission more effectively the board conducts the district business that policy applies board policy was clearly violated the Board needs to follow its own policies you're either going to follow the law the Boe policies and the town code of ethics or you're not so far you're not across the board federal law state law your own policies the town code of ethics please figure out how to do your jobs effectively thank you thank you very much all right so let's move on to the three main points um Stephanie you've been writing very busily um and you are not alone so I'm sure we have lots of good ideas what did you come up with um so my suggestions for the three main points are the whis caner Unified sports presentation M um a security

144update since that had a lot of pertinent information and a budget update Co I was ni said last day of school last day of school okay just because it was big like we discussed it a lot is this where I say put down the people who voted for extra days of school go ahead I know I know you guys had you guys had good arguments um is there anything that we're missing we covered a lot tonight budg yeah the budget upate that was okay I I'm good right so um upcoming events then and thank you Stephanie sure uh the only upcoming events I have have already been discussed which is well spring break is next week for the district um the I've lost my notes here somewhere um John gave all the and the the

145budget flyer and it was the budget Fier um the referendum oh the referendum date find the ref I apologize I have too many things in front of me um and career day for L CES tomorrow sorry um and then uh for isn't a town meeting on the 7th and they could change that date isn't that correct no we already had it we just had town meeting was last week to schedule the May 21st referendum I don't I haven't heard anything else yeah the the referendum will be on the 20 the budget votes the 21st of May um and then we will be meeting um on the 27th we as a board and then we also are meeting on Thursday May 8th for interviews yeah so everybody should put that on their calendar those are in

146person right are they in person in person um the thought is to organize them at the Town Hall at our curriculum room um special meeting executive session uh a 6 a 7 and an 8:00 the way the inter work out 45 minutes a piece 6m 6 starting at 6 what's that no I meant for the um retreat that's April 27th April 27th you're it's a Saturday that's that's a morning Retreat yes May 1st regular meeting May 8th special meeting for legal uh interviews May 22nd the day after the referendum for okay so this is the the legal um interview interviews thank you s and8 you said 6 o'clock 7 o'clock 8 so you call call the meeting to order at uh 6 I will have to change Kate yeah correct yeah we can decide if

147we it okay you and I talk okay yeah yeah that we talked about that Jo did you say that's at Town Hall yeah at the at the TSO TSO Town Hall Board office whatever you like to call it it took me like two weeks to figure out what they meant by TSO you twoo all right um so with that that will I believe that concludes U the public portion of our um meeting thanks to everybody who came uh that was awful nice of you guys and we are going to um enter well I'd like to move actually yeah that we enter into executive session to discuss strategy and negotiations as it relates to collective bargaining and unaffiliated salaries for next year okay all in all in favor of um moving into executive session say I

148I anyone opposed okay so the motion passes and here we go thanks Tech Team for everything you did yeah