Board of Education Meeting

001[Music] good evening everybody I'll call the order of the meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education um at 7 o'clock on Wednesday February 21st 2024 thanks very much for joining us um and if you'll all um rise and join me in saying the Pledge of Allegiance that'd be great I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to theic stands Nation indivisible welcome to Man TV I'm Drew Mass the founder of the company founder of the network we're the world's first internet television network so we have um everyone assembled um around the table do I need to say everybody's name this evening okay great thank you very much um so we're going to start with public comment we have one name um Mr Korea second second public comment okay oh yeah

002thank you very much all right um so with that we'll move straight to we're not going to have the um uh agenda item number five uh this evening the students Spotlight Brookfield High School we're going to go straight to the student representative um Eva hi I hope you're all doing well it's kind of been a little while since the last meeting so I have a lot of updates um to start off uh the midterms at Brookfield High School were held between January 23rd and 29th and there was a master year midterms event held for freshman students too coming up the BHS musical Mama Mia is going to be running from March 14th to 17th and tickets are on sale now I have a lot of Athletics updates um to start off with dance team we

003had our first competition on January 20th where we play second for jazz at Woodland Regional High School um this year we were the S swc hipop Champions um on February 6 which we held that event here for the first time in a while um and we also placed third in jazz uh holding the event here was a lot of work but it was a really successful event and it was a great opportunity for a lot of students in NHS or Key Club or other to get service hours we and we have our state championship coming up on Saturday too for the cheer team they play second at their s swc Championship on February 2nd and at the hatter Fest competition at Danbury High School they were first place Champions and the overall Grand Champion too

004um basketball and hockey have their state playoffs starting next week and the Unified sports program at BHS just attended the CIA unified basketball tournament this past weekend um I have a couple individual athletes that I wanted to feature because we have a couple who have just accomplished great achievements throughout their High School Sports careers um starting with Katherine Sosi who scored her a thousandth point this season um Shane Weber on basketball also scored his a thousandth point this season and became the Brookfield High School all-time top scorer Danny car roza from wrestling um won his 100th match this season and Olivia Walters from indoor track will be competing at the New England opens in Boston next weekend for indoor track also this weekend several wrestlers are going to be competing at their state opens too

005finally spring sports are starting up with practices in March a lot of started conditioning already this past month on March 4th Molly McCarthy from the Central Connecticut State University athletics department will be coming in to talk about underclassman about the college sports recruiting process and finally last week Mr Baldwin our athletic director went to speak at the aasa National superintendence Conference about the great work that the BHS student athletes on the athletic advisory do um finally some of the clubs that I'm in National Honor Society we're doing a lot of planning for the Mother's Day 5K we haven't established a cause that we're going to be raising money for yet but we've started to establish committee heads and members just to get everything in the process of organization we also have a blood drive coming

006up on February 27th so right now NHS members are sitting at a table during lunch time and visiting ilt to inform students about the process of donating blood and to get them to sign up um also we had NHS members volunteering at some recent athletic events like I said the dance team s swc competition as well well as a wrestling tournament that was held here for Spanish Honor Society we're still doing our mural project just to increase appreciation and recognition of the Spanish language program at berkfield High School in the Spanish language and culture and we're doing a lot of tutoring for students in Spanish classes as well as the ESL students um I'm in a in the Morgans message club which aims to promote student athlete mental health and raise awareness um um we

007had a dedication game at the boys basketball game on February 5th where volunteers handed out ribbons and wristbands to support that cause and for youth commission we have our career fair on March 26th during the school day we've sent emails and flyers to pass presenters as well as all the parents in the district in terms of the schedule that event it's going to be exactly the same as we did last year with 3 30 minute slots um this year students will mannually get to select their first second and third choices for presenters on a first come first serve basis and we're also going to be working with the college and career counselor Mrs Usher for this event and I know that was a long one but that's everything thank you thanks AA can I ask

008a clarifying question um about the job fair the three 30 minute slots so those are like professionals who would have a dedicated space and then kids would go to that space for the 30-minute presentation so what we do is for an hour and a half out of the day all the in each classroom there's a different presenter so we have a bunch of careers so far we have um I want to say we're up to 36 um so some interesting ones we have right now are pediatric oncology or veterinarian a lot of business careers too um so each student gets to pick their choice for each slot that they want to do and like I said it's first come first serve but then they'll just go to that that specific classroom with their presenter in

009it during whichever slot they choose that's um are you guys still uh trying to recruit folks for anybody who's watching yeah we were like we're not really going to turn anyone away so so they should call The Guidance Department anybody who's interested in volunteering they can contact either Marty mcniff or um Senor dula who's the teacher adviser for youth commission there's a lot of Flyers posted on Instagram and Facebook and other social media with all the information for that awesome thank you of course thank you anything else for Eva thank you very much great report as usual okay so um Now we move to uh the next agenda item written correspondence the following people sent emails to the Board of Education Andy Korea regarding Legal Services special ed Council Federal discrimination verdict and more joint

010meeting BOS bof Boe operations plan and budget meeting Personnel negotiations and Public Act 22-18 Austin Montero regarding public comment at special Boe meeting and Stonewall speakers assembly Foya Todd and I apologize for the name kak kak regarding a news article Christina Zimmerman regarding Morgan's message basketball game and Debbie Brooks regarding the Brookfield Library hosting Brendan slom the following people wrote in support of the email sent by Mr belanda on Friday February 2nd Shannon Riley Raa stefen Laura orbon Ron swinger Christina Zimmerman Jennifer Kramer Andrea yurina Carrie Columbo Michelle Sans and Leslie riro again I apologize for any of the names that I'm about to butcher the following people have sent emails in support of the book appeal asking that fun home be removed from the BHS Library Andrea Lopez Agnes Dickinson Rita Tui Sarah Amaral

011Patricia bosio Kevin plel Amelia malfi Joyce bino Tony sangalo ream nser Jaclyn fistetto Jamie pletta Sarah coffee Elena Lopez Mary ewig Kristen ventresca Lori pesi Michael pesi Nicole Rogers and Robert greo the following people have sent emails against the book appeal and have asked that funol remain in the BHS Library Laura Orban Tara Peterson Christina Zimmerman Joanne cafiero Elizabeth Ray Mike Luchia Aaron Zimmer Stacy Gul Ellen Odon Eric and Tony Joseph s George Jean hartnet John pit Elizabeth cornachio Phoebe Holmes Brian McGovern jeie Fernandez Sarah Joe Banks Jillian Dyer Monica mackinery Debbie Brooks Maria seagull Jessica Hawthorne Shannon Riley Carrie Columbo I think there might even been a few more today um this has been an issue that apologies if I missed those that's right they'll make it had meeting at 6 o' and hav't

012been on my email put them on the next agenda yeah yeah um I yeah it's just noteworthy that we've gotten a lot of um Lively correspondence this um in the past few weeks haven't been on no problem yeah I didn't see those um so um Now we move uh to the next item on the agenda agenda uh I recommend the board approve the minutes listed below as recommended the regular meeting on 1724 and the joint meeting Boe BF and BOS on second um do we need to have the the literal word move in there no okay great um all well is there discussion on on this okay um all in favor say I I I any opposed okay so the um board minutes are approved for the regular meeting and the joint meeting thank you

013very much um now uh next item on the agenda item nine is the superintendent's update Dr BR Dr yba thank you good evening everybody nice to see you all um just uh I do have a number of items on the uh report tonight but they're they're brief kind of uh more announcements or notifications to everybody to let them know so of course I was going to uh congratulate Ava and the dance team for their uh s swc Championship um importantly the bhf BHS Athletic program review it looks like the site visit has been scheduled for early March so it should be in a couple of weeks um the uh State Department of Education has a mandate on a diversity recruiting plan and uh Dr man and our new HR supervisor are working on that um

014and that plan is due April 15th so we're working on that in terms of our human resources department um we're really excited about parents Square which is the new communication platform and website um Eric uh presented actually to the whiskin staff today to share with them what that's going to look like and um in March uh either at the first or the second meeting we'll make a determination based on the balance of the agenda Eric will actually do a presentation for us so we get really excited about seeing that so that's something for um soft roll out in the spring uh likely after April break to get people used to it start signing up for it Etc and then full uh after July 1 full implementation I do have to thank the parents that have

015been involved with speaks student parent educator advisory Council to the superintendent we kicked off in January our next meeting is March 14th we're still recruiting some high school students to be involved the real Focus there was uh enhancing communication and really the use of parent square and how that could really help us all out in terms of Engagement so we're again excited about that um I also need to thank the parents that have been involved with uh Mrs Newman in the gang really reactivating the district-wide PTO um three areas of focus were looking at school climate teams and supporting the the schools in that regard uh also fundraising and making sure that not each school is not stepping on each other's toes uh in addition to the getting the vote out uh this spring for

016the referendum The Joint board meeting that we held um on February 6th of the Board of Ed Board of Selectmen and board of Finance thought we had a successful meeting um and as a result of that um in trying to educate the board of fin and board of selectman on the board of education budget um so everybody knows um we could certainly Rosen might talk about this a little bit later Mr Dunn um submitted his uh budget to the the community essentially and to the board of Selectmen on uh this past Friday so that process is moving forward Mr Dunn uh moves It Forward the board of selectman work it through then it goes to the board of finance and then we see where we all land after that um as Ava talked about the

017youth commission career fair is coming up uh at the end of March um actually Anna and I were invited to do a little piece on uh organizational leadership in uh uh public school so we're excited about that and it's a really nice opportunity uh Legal Services RFP was posted last week um our um purchasing agent has that posted I believe it's for 30 days I think we've had three or four firms already sign up uh on our website expressing interest so that's in process um potential board retreat dates I have heard from two board members um but I could hear from the rest um March 21st or 26th April 2nd or 4th um we need to pick one of those days so if everybody could uh it was in The Weekend Update just asking about

018that if you can send Lisa and me a note as to your availability of those days obviously we'll go with the majority of people who can make what for day school security update um this was something that was really uh exciting and and interesting as we think about school security on February 6th we have our uh bimonthly uh leadership meeting we invited the police department we had the chief and the major and a number of other officers a couple of our sro's and there's really some new philosophy and thought on how to go about lockdown uh procedures and and lockdown safety so we had a nice lengthy conversation about that and we'll be talking further with the chief and with the uh the officers about certain kinds of training we may be embarking on um

019let's see here I did want to let the board know that Central Connecticut um their graduate school has a leadership program for administration certification and they actually put feelers out for uh faculty in various districts as to their interest in being part of that program um we sent that information out to our faculty um if there's enough faculty interested we may even host uh a course or two here that's taught by adun professors from Central um or full-time professors to come in here and do graduate work with our teachers so we're really interested in in graduate work to support our teachers in their continued growth additionally um the interim director of the YMCA Jim work uh reached out to us uh not only is he offered corporate discounted memberships to our faculty people are really

020excited about that um he's looking to partner with our principles and schools in a number of different ways including uh possible Child Care opportunities and other activities so uh getting the our local why involved with our schools a little bit more than they already are is uh another opportunity for our students and for a faculty um couple last things here in terms of calendar the um last day of school now is Tuesday June 8 18th we've had three snow days um that would take us to days 181 and 182 would be on a Monday and Tuesday just so everybody knows that graduation is on June 15th which is a Saturday uh the board voted on that a couple months back and then finally our not finally I'm sorry I've got one more after this our

021um religious major religious holidays we talked about that with the calendar development this past fall that has been posted and it's publicized with the 24 25 calendar and then the final thing is um we've talked about student attendance is needing Improvement in working with families and so forth um the state department of Ed has had some programs and some flyers and things that they've disseminated want to turn that over to Dr man for a quick update sure so thank you very much so um the uh State Department of Education and um along with I'm sure most State departments across the country have also acknowledged that student chronic absenteeism is an issue um and so they have launched a campaign uh a couple weeks back they sent all um all districts materials that uh focus on

022this campaign that is called school is better with you and so they send you they send each district enough banners for the number of schools that they have and so our schools will be putting up their banners in a conspicuous place to let all kids know that we um are happy to have them come to school um and whether it's this year or the beginning of next year it's kind of an odd time to you know launch a schools better with you campaign but it's great anytime because we always want kids to come to school um the focus and goal of this program is to inform caregivers and students about the importance of regular attendance regular and consistent School attendance and to educate folks on The Chronic ABS absenteeism which we've spoken about it's 10%

023or more at any given time of a school year so at the end of the school year it would be 18 days or more if you're chronically would be considered chronically absent it um highlights the importance of daily routines coming to school every day getting into the habit of doing daily routines um access to not so much for us but a little bit with the mental health access um but Health Access in general and then meal access um social and emotional advantages of being around trusted adults and peers and then participation in clubs and extracurriculars um and also the pathways to postsecondary experiences both educational and career and that's kind of the focus and so um as part of that you know they sent us all these materials including this LEAP program um which is

024kind of a formal program of Outreach for students who are not showing up to school um and so we haven't kind of gone through that with our uh District leadership team or the ad counsil yet but essentially the program is that you know you kind of establish a committee in your school um for educators to make contact with um with school with uh families that are not having that are have kids in chronic absenteeism situations so it's called leap which stands for learner engagement and attendance program um so it was just it was kind of a fortuitous thing one of those um non unfunded mandates it was just here's some materials to help your students uh avoid chronic absenteeism so um that's a nice thing to be partnering with the state and then I just

025wanted to mention that that um uh increasing educator diversity plan which is the IED plan which is a the state mandate which uh Dr BR mentioned earlier does need board approval uh the state made that adjustment to that mandate in January even though the Mandate came out in the fall um and so we will be bringing forward this plan um for your approval prior to sending it off to the state so I'll have more information on that as we look to figure out what exactly it means so thank you thank you that's all I have thanks Wendy um I have a couple questions on that um is Dr Manel the first part is for you it's about the um diversity recruiting plan um because schools can have that as a goal you know to diversify

026their professional core um or body um but then if and they can Implement all kinds of procedures but if if those folks don't get the job it becomes hard to like prove that you were faithful to the to the goal you know what I mean is there any flexibility within like do you know much about what the state requirements are going to be not not so I mean we'll see how it goes right now it's the requirement is that you have this plan which is essentially setting a smart goal based on your current percentage of and and when they say diversity they're specifically reflect focusing on racial ethnic diversity they're not considering religious or you know sexual orientation or you know um immigrant status or you know background it's specific to racial and ethnic diversity

027um and so it's really taking the percentage of um you know minority uh Educators you have now and then setting a smart goal um and then fleshing out the plan plan on how you're going to realize that goal um there has been no indication as to what would happen if you don't if a district doesn't meet that goal um and I know that a lot of uh superintendents and Educators around the state are looking to encourage the um the state universities and you know postsecondary schools to try to come up with a plan for recruiting kids out of high schools to be go into teacher prep program so that we then have a greater um Workforce to to try to pull from because right now the concern is Educator recruitment yeah it's a small including

028um diverse Educators but um yeah so that's so we'll see it's kind of a a learning curve for all of us um you know I I I think the effort is there they're they're trying to encourage you know uh the the whole concept and building up our Workforce in for educators um and this is hopefully just one of the ways not the only way um building off that to the CCSU leadership program is that for an 092 like an administrative or content so it's not content no this one's just 092 administrator program and it's a cohort that you know you can create if so like some Educators might be from here and some might be from and if there's enough in the area you know one District could serve as a host site or something

029like that okay I had one more question um that probably I could answer if I read my emailemail more closely the the potential board retreat um dates thank you for this uh these options do we have a time uh we were thinking uh 6 6:30 somewhere around that would would work for everybody I had sent that in my note on Friday work for you okay okay great all right thank you did anybody other have other questions one yeah there are four there are four options is that something that we feel that we feel like we still need well when Wendy and I talked we thought there was some yeah yeah that has cost implications when we bring legal legal to a meeting yeah I think I think that there are because there are so many

030of us who are new um the things that are maybe clear and obvious to you um are less so and um I think to to I'd be more inclined to because we were provided with the very thorough detailed binder to be more to have you have people ask questions prior to provide questions based on what they greata organize instead of having him read the binder like I could read that myself I don't need him to read it no that's a great idea sure so maybe by the end of the week if board members could get back to me on their availability and then once we decide on a date you know perhaps we could set up a a a dock or something where you send your questions in and that could help Drive the agenda

031just quickly in terms of driving the agenda does anybody know that they'll be out of town for any of these days I will March 21st and 26th my spring break okay I responded that so far those dates are fine for me all that spring break so then we're looking between April 2 and April 4 then okay great thanks everybody all right thank you very much Dr Dr man that was awesome okay so um subcommittee reports let's start with um policy and uh Communications yes so uh the policy uh committee policy and Communications committee met um and since this was a new committee new composition um Dr BR spent some time uh kind of going over the roles and responsibilities and gave us an overview of um how the committee would function we really spent most

032of our time talking about the survey of students which is the policy number 61 62.5 one which was a carryover from uh the last committee um it hadn't been finalized so we took a look at that language there was some there were some areas that the committee felt were a little bit vague we wanted to tighten it up so we asked for some advice on that uh some legal advice and uh we made some edits to it uh so that we could take a look at it the next time and just possibly tighten up the language so we can uh bring it to the full board for um for a decision on that um and uh so that was most of our time and then Dr br will give us a a a brief um

033update on some of the issues or some of the areas such as the ribbon cutting ceremony for CES um the state of the district the budget flyer and the new website which he mentioned in this update tonight and that was about it do you have any idea when that um policy 616 2.51 might be coming to the full board we hope we hope by the next uh March 20th meeting okay thanks mhm awesome holla thanks very much okay uh next facilities all right we met on uh February 7th finally we're able to meet after a few cancellations um we uh we elect the new subcommittee chair which is uh myself we had a capital project update um the guen swing roof was recently closed out at the high school um we were going to request

034uh more funding for the uh from the board for um another addition to the project but thankfully um we don't we don't need that at this time the uh the money was able to come from somewhere else and move for the electrical upgrade for the electrical upgrade thank you um that we do not have to request it at this time um Mr cwell uh reviewed a proposal from Max orbo to develop uh plans to complete complete the AC project that's been put on hold um the expectation is that the project can be engineered in a way will not require additional structural work which is good news um Mr Co will also provide an update on the locker room condition that uh there are conditions that are being worked on several items that will eventually need

035to be addressed um such as tile flooring and sink um he shared with us that the space is not used as traditional lock room at at this time committees discussed the needs for the space of relation to various Capital needs across the district um and that was it for us and to be clear the that's the um whiskin girls locker room I'm sorry whis my fault whis girls locker room yes so did he talk about give it like a specific timeline regarding that because there was very specific um regarding which one wh yes so the wires have been addressed um anything that could be immediately addressed I think there was he did say he took care of those those were yeah the same day that he was alerted to those um situations they were they

036were addressed okay um the only things remaining are you know there was um there is a sink that's been removed Off the Wall yep we we not even sure um Mr Caldwell was that way when he came to the district about nine years ago so it's it's been in that state for a while it's been sort of cleaned up in other words the ends of the pipes have been capped and and things like that but short of having you know putting in the committee did speak quite quite at length about you know sort of the prioritizing investing money into an area like that um that isn't utilized um per se as a lock room at the middle school um as it's reported it's really more like a holding place to put book bags and things

037like that um so it's prioritizing those things people use it as a the community uses it as a restroom as a bathroom right right right um and there is one sync in there that that is that is functioning okay um so any other fixes would be you know c not capital projects but would be more more um a larger investment than just you know fixing one little item here and there so so it's just prioritizing those things yeah and was the high school locker room was that closed out or is that still open the project um that I think there's still a couple of lingering things um coup with some uh door handles door locks things like that um Eddie from um techon was actually in contact with uh Steve Balman and myself today um

038I reached out to him because we just needed a little guidance on that and so actually Mr Czech go here grab him after the meeting if he hangs around so there you go the NPC okay is that boys and girls that you're referencing with that question for the middle school and the high school and just the boys okay that's what I thought right thank you so we all said great thank you so much um and now uh Cape report okay we met on Valentine's Day and we're all present um myself Sarah and holla is our second meeting with Dr man and Mark Blanda and Liz Spencer we didn't have any public comment and we received a thorough update on the uh 2024 2025 Brookfield High School program of studies presentation which we'll get more information

039on it's on the agenda later on so I'll just um touch briefly about it um there is a proposal for an additional course creative writing to it will be an additional halfe elective course or enrichment course and it's really student requests that are driving this uh creative writing one is a prerequisite for this course this is also possibly an opportunity to expand um our journalism course offerings like I said before Dr man will um talk more detail in more detail about this on the agenda we did vote unanimously um in favor of all the revisions and changes um unfortunately one of them will be not to continue with American sign language for next school year fortunately uh the enrollments down and the online platform that's currently being used is not really preferred by students um

040because we haven't been able to get staff to staff that course so that was an unfortunate uh piece of information to learn um we also talked about Capstone um we were brought up to speed on some of the history of what it was in the past but one of the qu pressing questions moving forward is you know how do we manage it effectively also we're we would need money to hire staff to go through with this moving forward so um that's something to think about moving forward um we ALS so discussed uh we got an update um PDC which is um having to do with the new teacher and educational leader educa evaluation plan um they the committee underwent a two-day trading to orient the new CSD de evaluation guidelines and begin preparing a draft

041for the adjusted teacher and administrator support and growth plans which will be presented to us in June for Implement implementation for next school year a little update on instructional team they're looking at student data reflecting on it and creating goals instructional coaches are creating an instructional Playbook so we're looking forward to seeing this Playbook and they're continuing to engage in ongoing professional learning opportunities with at Advance where they're exploring various approaches to student centered coaching including setting learning targets based on student data helping teacher teachers explore gaps and strengths based on student work and developing the instructional Playbook um and we asked for a comeback regarding midterm exams and data from them uh Elementary and secondary teachers are using their interm assessment plaques both as formative assessments as well as experential for students to become

042familiarized with the format and the approach of the SBA and ngss assessments and the instructional coaches are um currently collaborating with teachers on midyear data such as mclass midterm exam data Etc and that's about it we'll get more information later on the agenda from Anna um actually I have a question but I I wonder if I should hold off for later like the instructional Playbook how does that interact with um or interface with Atlas is that something that's better for later no that's okay that that would be now because later is just the program of studies for the high school um so it's that that wouldn't necessarily be something that would be reflected in Atlas um the instructional Playbook is really more almost you know kind of like a handbook um to pull from to

043flip through um based on high leverage instructional strategies such as using formative assessments differentiate instruction I mean all of that jazz um and it's really it would be based on you know it would be the way that a coach could offer um you know like based on the scenario that the teacher is bringing here are the things that my students are lacking and then a coach could say Okay so let's set some learning targets and then let's try this or let's try that so it's more like a you know bag of tricks specifically bag of instructional approaches um and so that's one of the things that they're working on as a product for the end of this year the instructional coaching team is working to build that um which is actually something they had started

044with Dr Ruby and then it kind of fell by the wayside so they've they've gotten a lot of their materials from before and now they're really digging into it okay um lots of questions not the place okay um and midterms uh which grades take midterms so um all grades take midterms unless they are unless a student I'm sorry 9 at the high school no 912 um and uh unless they are exempt based on the exemption policy um or on the course and is which subjects all the all the sub most subjects I'm not sure of the some of the elective subjects if it's like if their course is over they take an exam right like their elective course is just half year than they take it okay right thanks sure I may ask for joy

045to help me out with the program of studies or Hala or Sarah cuz if I miss something I'm pinch hitting for Mr Bland tonight okay um was there anything else on on the cap all right then we can go to um personnel and negotiations um we met oh sorry go ahead yeah we have so much to do all right I'll talk fast um so the personnel and and negotiation subcommittee um met uh last Thursday and um we entered into executive session to discuss strategy and negotiations uh related to collective bargaining um and we invited um superintendent Brill and um Mrs de in and um that's the report okay so now moving to the next item I move that the board approv the items listed below on the consent ENT agenda as recommended new hires resignations

046and transfers just have a quick question um for the school psychologist at CES are has that been posted yet or yes y okay since the um motion has been um made and seconded um all in favor okay it looks like it's passed unanimously great so fast all right so Stephanie and I decided to switch things up for new business and I'm going to read the actions and the Motions tonight so the first item under new business is uh the recommended action is that the board receive an update from Mr czecho chairman of the municipal building committee uh regarding clees so welcome Mr czecho thanks for coming thanks mrze thank you for those of you who don't know me I'm Paulo and as a Mobility for probably longer than I should be um I'm very direct

047don't take it personally I can be somewhat cynical and a little sarcastic again it's just me it's New York I know you're from New York working way too long in the Bronx so uh it does come out but as far as clees look the project is moving forward you know the it's taking longer than anybody wants it to the last VI % takes about 95% of the time but we do have right now the removal and replacement of the unsuitable soils in the North Lot which was a lot of the holdup that's complete sidewalk prep is continuing the storm system in the north parking lot's complete sight lighting is complete um you know we're installing the subbase material the plan is to do that get the uh binder course down the asphalt binder course sometime

048in May move everybody over there you won't lose any spots it'll just be a switch of what we're doing and then go to work on the south lot doing the islands the curbs and the balance of the concrete work uh that came up last night we're going to do a plan John and then we'll sit down with the team and we'll go through it and make sure everybody's comfortable because it will involve sort of um modifying that bus traffic um I have to thank everybody I sat in that line trying to get into CES this morning uh as people coming northbound on the road almost hit you because they have to swerve around but it's a wonderful wonderful thing uh commissioning on mechanical and electrical commissioning is done training is done hot water bypass is

049done that was the gym issue all right um we're still there was a little bit of a a hiccup there with one of the uh valves that's been corrected and we're just waiting for colleages to come back and finish that uh commissioning the punch list for the most part is done we still have about 100 open items we find more and more every day as we walk through but look we'll get through it we've asked them what their schedule is for the Easter break and that's where we're going to attack a bulk of these items and then of course there's going to be a host of activity in the summer with that as we get closer we'll talk about summer school whether it's a good idea to have it a clees or if there's activities

050that would prohibit you from having a clees so but again somewhere around March April we'll start to have that conversation we'll have a better idea on going forward what's going to be the best plan for this summer thank you uh everything else for the most part you know has been going along you know we we just do it every day uh you know questions come in and we're just trying to get this building complete get the site work complete and close out this project as far as the financials every month we get from on the BC we get a report from our OPM uh they do the financials for us and right now I think we have about 1.2 million 1.1 to 1.2 in uncommitted funds however there still change orders out there we spent

051close to $2 million to date removing unsuitable soil off of that site including a large Mr czecho I I want to inter when you say unsuitable soils that could be scary to people what was unsuitable about the soils can you explain that that's important for everybody to hear since they weren't good um see there's the sarcasm coming out understand um unsuitable soil so you have different grades of materials where you can put a building on some material some material you can't under the building we did excavate a large amount of material that was Clay and when clay gets wet it acts like a roller coaster you can step on it and the other side lifts up you can't put a building on that so a lot of those Clays were excavated and we put in

052what we call structural fill which is glacial till it's mixed with rock sand um LOM and when it compacts it compacts to about 95 to 98% density and that's appropriate to put a building on we found a lot of clay under the roadways or the road beds of the project and again when you're driving heavy equipment tractor trailers over that you have the sort of roll of coaster effect in the field areas it's not so critical because you don't have those heavy loads surprisingly enough we found a large portion of those unsuit bles under the existing Huckleberry school so after that school was demolished and taken down starting in September and October um when we started testing those soils because they really frown upon you bringing a boring machine inside an occupied school to test

053underneath it um they found a large portion of this some of that we're able to use on-site material to sort of remediate the areas because it is a drive but other areas again we had to bring in so this went through the summer into the fall through the fall just wrapped up about a month ago thankfully we had a winter which allowed us to continue to work for the most part through the winter months otherwise we would have stopped dead and waited for the spring thow on March so thank you unsuit bles in a nutshell can you just explain the 1.2 million uncommitted funds what does that mean exactly you want the sarcastic answer it's 1.2 million in uncommitted funds funds that are not encumbered elsewhere in line items okay that previously were identifi during

054the project whether it be PCOS potential change orders or other trades or contracts so it's that portion of money that's sitting there that if we don't have a another large unknown come forward would be returned to the taxpayers I don't see that happening at this point because of the unsuit bles we still have a few things to figure out with that we also have uh claims for delays from roofing materials and such that we're working through those are the types of things that are going to come up at the end of the project um that we're going to have to negotiate on but again every month we receive this it's posted it's available in the town clerk's office it's with our minutes everybody's free to come to the NBC meeting third Tuesday of every month

055come on down you'll love it can you speak to I don't know if you've discussed or has there been talk about the increase in our bills as far as um yep so the electric bills yeah yeah so when I did a deep dive into that I noticed that the total number of kilowatt hours us used off peak that's from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. was three times the amount being used during the peak hours which kind of took me back a little bit I've sent those out to CES to do the energy modeling to figure out why that is I also notified Tim Chan and Chris Mitchell last night and Jack budus to look at that and to look at their prior bills and their past bills to see why our bill right now has

056three times the amount of kilowatt usage off peak um is shouldn't be so we're trying to rectify and find out what the cause and the source of that is cuz often when I drive by it's like lit up like a Christmas tree it's really bright like I don't know if we need all those lights on is that driving I don't turn the lights on and off Joy I I don't turn the lights on and off so they're not automatic they are automatic yeah but you have custodial staff and other people in the building that you know have the lights on yes it's a bright sight um but it's LED lighting and it's energy harvesting so we your electric bill shouldn't be that High um you know we're again we're trying to get down to the

057root of that but again lights are on all day long so why would the kilowatt usage on the off peak 12 hours be three times the amount of the on Peak 12 hours it just doesn't make sense right now so you don't have an answer no the answer is we've been looking at it and trying to figure out why it is that but essentially we don't have an answer yet do you want the direct answer no I have a clue why your electric bills are higher okay maybe it's your custodial staff running you know they're vacuum cleaners all night I don't know okay I'm not there at night sorry for the sarcasm you're used to it for me though no worries um I I have a question but um my question actually has split a

058little bit so you gave us a ton of very detailed information in the beginning about current accomplishments or recent accomplishments and that is I I was going to try to write them down but I couldn't cuz because it was just too much and too fast and too technical um but I want to be able to process that information more fully so I was going to ask if you could get us your um prepared notes and and share those with us but then you said these this information is posted on the every month okay we have these for all 30 months of the construction you can start from the beginning and go right to the end I think it's really useful for for members of the community who are still like well I don't even know

059what's up with that school you know because there are still those folks who are wondering like is the school ever going to be finished and um I would really like to be able to give concrete f um information facts about the good work you guys are doing well I appreciate that um the concrete information though should be coming from the NBC okay we've been the stewards of the money in this building project um we have very low attendance even lower than you guys um you know we're there every month discussing things in detail uh once in a while we'll get a member of the public there but really that's where it all comes down to it and not only are we there construction manager is there our owner project manager are there our design team

060members are there so very specific and Technical questions can be answered in real time if they have them thanks a lot are there other questions for Mr Cho I think to piggy back off what you said because I think you made a good point that we should either put it in three main points or where they can access that information and not only just going to a meeting right cuz that's not easy for some people so true true right and I think too it's important um when there are items such as parking lot and things like that and and I don't know the most recent but Dr pep sasi keeps the the the most important people are the families so they know exactly what's going on at the school and so Dr P keeps them

061informed of those things too because he's in regular contact with Paul and me and team as you discussed so that is there but there are citizens who are interested in but I think if the um they check out the NBC minutes all there I just want to confirm the meetings are the third Tuesday of every month correct okay good you're coming next month all right bring cookies nobody nobody feeds us um I do have one other thing to address I did receive a copy of a petition regarding HVAC and indoor air quality and I feel compelled to address it um because the basis of it and the information that's out there is how can I put this nicely um it's just not factual it's just not correct erroneous so pardon erroneous erroneous that's too nice

062you know for to paraphrase I would call it BS all right so I'm going to go through this bear with me because I I everybody needs to hear it mandate the installation of openable openable Windows for the health and safety concerns of candle Lake Elementary School that petition was circulated I don't know who circulated it but I did speak with a couple of teachers that I do know who signed it and they weren't given the cover sheet they were asked directly would you like operable windows and they said yes and they said sign here the cover sheet to that petition gave a bunch of information that was false so we're going to play true and false in a minute so there's only five items stated claim as concerned members of the Brookfield Community we have

063witnessed firsthand the health issues that colleagues and students at clees are facing due to inadequate ventilation anybody true or false false false good okay we have a dedicated outside air ventilation system has two stages of filtration MF 13 filters filters out 90% of the microns between three and 10 microns all right that's per EPA the system has Heating cooling dehumidification system 100% outdoor Air does not mix classrooms which means each classroom gets its own outside air into that classroom why is that important well we learned during covid what happens when you mix indoor errs right Co spreads throughout a building this doesn't do that this is most commonly used in the modern schools it's been proven to to deliver excellent indoor air quality this isn't something that we make up to say geez you know

064what let's build a building let's not let any of the windows open this is such a Hightech system that it monitors the CO2 levels in each one of the rooms so the next data claim is the school's current window system does not allow for fresh air circulation leading to an unhealthy indoor environment that is affecting our staff and our children's well-being true or false there you go okay so again dedicated outside air mechanical ventilation it operates year round 100% outdoor air to each space in the building no question about it each and every space from your smallest room indoor rooms with no windows to your classrooms they all have 100% outside air tempered humidified dehumidified before it enters that classroom number three state claim an additional concern with windows that don't open especially on the

065second floor is about the safety in an emergency situation multiple classrooms do not have a second form of egress if the main one is blocked there is another reason we feel that we need to have Windows that open as a secondary means of Escape in case of an emergency the school safety gcn training video States and this is where word play comes in windows that are intended as a secondary mean to be agress should not be blocked and should be ready openable from the inside and they write our windows don't even open because the windows aren't the second means of egress each one of those classrooms has two doors some have lead you through a third classroom 60 ft down the hallway we have a building which is reinforced concrete 100% around the exterior non-combustible

066construction on the interior we have a sprinkler system we have every safety fire alarm system imaginable that's required by code in this building so true or false we know it's false egress was reviewed in detail we were given a building permit and it was approved by the state this isn't something that we did locally and said hey geez you know what let's save some money let's not make the windows open and let's only give them one door out of a classroom we can save $220,000 no that wasn't the case you know what I'm a licensed professional I expect other professionals whether they're Educators or such to have the information and not sort of embellish it to make a claim I I really kind of take offense to these things all right number four we're almost

067done here we believe it is can I miss one oh no I only have I only have four I'm sorry number four you're lucky stated claim we believe it is essential for our local schools to provide a safe and healthy learning environment for our children therefore we urge relevant authorities and Brookfield to mandate the installation of openable windows in the Candlewood Lake Elementary School this will not not only improve air quality and increase safety measures but also contribute positively toward creating an atmosphere that is more conducive to learning have you been in the school have you seen a school that's not more conducive to learning than this every turn in the school has been designed every space in the school has been designed for this well-being of the students to give them a learning environment

068that's probably second to none in this state even the new Sandy Hook Elementary School isn't up to these design standards so really I mean come on so is that true or false Rosa okay so in Connecticut Natural ventilation via operable Windows is generally not considered favorable why we live in the Northeast the amount of degree days that we have where you really want to open a window is limited you're not going to do it from October 15th when the state mandates you have to turn heat on till April 15th where the state mandates you have to turn heat off you only have times in the spring and fall what happens in the spring when you open the windows the pollen comes in all right you're going to add you're going to aggravate people with allergies

069what happens in the fall and the spring well that's mold season outside you know what happens when we don't have open openable Windows the use openable it's operable when you don't have operable windows and you have 100% outside air that's filtered we don't allow mold spores and pollen in they get filtered out so you know opening a a window for ventilation will introduce outside air into classroom yeah just like our ventilation system does it also brings in everything else from the outside whether it be noise whether it be allergens whether it be dust um if anybody was following the the uh wildfires in Canada the summer when was the last time we had a health alert October 2nd these kids were in school anybody Smell Smoke in that school mhm no it wasn't a concern

070because it's filtered out so these modern high performance mechanical systems such as the one at clees provide the ability to control the conditions of the outside air far greater than opening a window so you know really um I can't express enough the discontent I have with this petition um that if they had a question or a concern they could have come to the MBC and we didn't do this design in a vacuum we had user meetings for months and months right John yep months with all the different user groups throughout this process this was never a concern it was never raised and and we debated a versus B to no end to give everybody a safe secure healthy and beautiful school so I I know you all can appreciate it um you know you're on

071the board of ed like I was you're here for the students you're here to do the best things for the students we appreciate that we're here for the same reason to give our town and our students the best environment possible so I do hope that in the future um facts overtake the BS and they can come and ask the questions directly so if you have any other questions Paul I just have a quick question yeah for the filtration system so is there like a filter that needs to be replaced or how does it how are those cleaned those are those are maintenance items um omm has gone through training on these uh the units are the filtration is upstairs on the roof in these units there's filters that get changed you know whatever the interval

072is um and there actually two stages those are two stages of filtration on these so but Dan Caldwell and his staff have been trained okay with these and they've received x amount of whatever uh what we call attic stock um to do that but the filters at the end of construction were changed by the CM by the mechanical contractor so there are filters prior to taking yes prior to taking the uh occupancy of the school how often do they need to be changed I you'd have to ask Dan called well that that was part of his training okay quick question on the are there controls in each classroom like can they adjust that or is it centrally located there's controls in each classroom and all so I don't know if anybody was here when they

073were doing the um the control system for the high school all right but at the new school the control system was part of the entire package so there's controls in each classroom there's also temperature readings and those go all the way back to the computer that the uh maintenance staff have and you can Trend this data you can print out a report and Trend the data weeks months years at a time to see what the temperature humidity Co content any number of factors in the air quality it's really geared toward providing the maximum IAQ or IND indoor air quality that we can and controlling that and also seeing if we have an issue you know in real time because the screen in that classroom as we know will flash um if there's a problem this

074happened during programming and it Flash in a member of classrooms that ever was high CO wasn't actually the case but they were doing programming and one person didn't know the other person who was doing the programming so but it does give real time information so I have a question really quick if a teacher or staff member does have a concern regarding their classroom either a smell that they can't get rid of or their temperature control isn't working how do they go about that process go ahead like anything else they can go to their direct supervisor or to the principal of the school and let them know they don't need to go to the Board of Education they actually don't need to come to me and they don't certainly don't need to go to Mr check

075up they go right to Dr Pepsi or one of the assistant principles and say hey I'm having an issue with this and we will get right on it um or the custodian who might be cleaning their wing they could ask that person um no different than any other school um in the history of schooling it's the same thank you good question when I was on the board we put in a work order system and with a building this size you may want to implement a system of just notifying for they they have they have a a system especially at the beginning of school year but we have School dude system but that's from like School dude reports the school dude report scho but that's and then people know how to do that but if there's

076some issue that's a a little funny and they're not sure and it seems you know more than that they go right to the administration right and that's why they're there Dr Peele give me a call or shoot me an email it's nothing like working for free huh I know you all do because most of you Educators well for anybody who had um concerns or questions about the air quality at CES I think they're if they're watching they're much much better informed now and um can continue to either uh work there or send their kids there or just be a confident resident of the Town knowing that um air quality is top tier over there so thank you very much that was a really rich um presentation all right because you ask questions I going to

077offload all your notes our before this is bigger than the phone book for New Milford the fact that you phone book is really that's our financial and this was the letter from addressing the ventilation system great which a lot of my data came from so if anybody has any questions you can send it wonderful thank you so much appreciate that Paul thanks so much for coming tonight what you wish for right okay um so we're moving to the next item which is the Wendy I have one more thing that Eric wanted me to share tonight about CEs and Paul will appreciate this there's work going on they're working on the wireless Act access points tomorrow on the light polls so there may be a chance uh at student pickup and parents should try who are

078doing pickup that we might actually have full Wireless out there possibility so it's coming so we're working on it so everybody can give it a test give it a test tomorrow afternoon you know if you got rid of s pick up and drop off you won't have to worry about no one would be able to pick up their kids if it was up to Mr Cheo so there you go thank you Paul great so the um now the we're moving to the next agenda item this B we're getting our midyear update um so the board will receive a midyear update regarding the correct reports from Mr Roland the director of special education and thanks very much Bill hi good evening everybody uh I'd like to thank the board for giving me the opportunity to come

079before you this evening and give you uh uh hopefully a brief update on on where we're at with the correct recommendations um before I begin I'd like to just speak a little bit about gratitude how grateful I am to be here tonight how grateful ful I am to be part of a team uh with Dr burill Dr man Mrs diot um the principles uh and also the parents um and the students that have welcomed me into the community and have helped me uh come in and look forward to working every day with them to to make special education um what we want it to be which is inclusivity and I'll get to that again at the end but again just a a quick note of gratitude before I begin um that really it fuels me

080to be able to do that uh and and be grateful every day for the position I'm in now you're looking at this you're saying Bill why did you use twoo Font there are 20 recommendations in the correct report those of you who are on the board before know that it was divided into four domains um resources student learning communication um structures and it's and wait organizational structures and processes I swear I wrote this myself um so what I wanted to just show you this evening are the recommendations that were in the report but also to pull out some of the more uh pertinent ones give you an update on where they are and while I talk about them in completion obviously in a school system things are ongoing nothing is ever fully completed we're always

081working to improve and to refine our processes so although I'm not going to have anybody do an I test uh on this these are the seven recommendations for domain one and again I have links to the report at the end but to show you this and to then show you the next slide which is where we are on these and what areas I've uh focused on and the progress that we've made so one of the things that when I came in was was uh imperative was uh professional development and so throughout the year we've had IEP quality training we've had training from bcbas on behavioral strategies in class I consider the professional development piece completed in terms of framing it again every year we have professional development so this is not like oh we're done

082year one we're all set with professional development it's an ongoing process but what we needed when I first came in based on the recommendations were to really look closely at IEP development writing goals and objectives that are focused targeted and that are measurable um and again this comes throughout with coaching with professional development with working with the teams directly in buildings attending ppts as I've done uh over the course of the last six months and just giving you the option of looking at professional development not only as an ongoing process but as something that we can complete year to year based on what the needs are um in addition one of the recommendations was professional development for administrators regarding their roles for special education to ensure efficient supports throughout the building now in Prior um

083meetings that we've had of the board and and myself in in pres presenting to you and in the buildings one of the things that we talked about were that in Past Times um general education administrators principles and assistant principles were not necessarily at attending ppts it was the supervisors that were doing the majority if not all of the chairing of ppts that's changed this year with an ongoing plan of dividing those cases up so that the principles assistant principles can be part of the conversation because as we all know an IEP isn't just a special education piece it's how is this implemented throughout the building the advice and the guidance that a general education administrator can provide at a PPT is crucial to me being able to implement that it also gives the general education

084administrators insight into what the needs are of our students with IEPs what the needs are and how we can Implement that with best practices and how they can support that in the building because as we all know special education is not a piece of curriculum or an IEP over in the corner it's a living document that that we work with all our students who have IEPs to integrate them into uh general education classrooms and to provide specialized instruction as as needed um the reviewing of the Brookfield High School academic support model this also speaks to a need for more consistent transition ppts going from elementary to middle and middle to high so what a program looks like in the Middle School um has needed to be adjusted when they get when students get to the

085high school we're constantly looking at that and what that looks like at the high school level because often times the hours and the goals and objectives look one way in Middle School and to adjust them appropriately for high school not to just fit them into well this is our schedule and this is what we have and this is what we're going to do customizing that making sure that the students get what they need that's an ongoing conversation so I can't say to you tonight that it's complete but that the conversation is happening and ongoing if you notice um I did color code this evening so green would be the the completion or the ongoing yellow are things that are in process so one of the things that's in process could be considered ongoing but I'd

086rather look at it this way is analyzing the relationship between classroom teachers special education teachers and Par Educators in the context of meaningful inclusive practices before making further changes in Staffing what does an inclusive classroom look like what can teachers do to differentiate that instruction before we start looking at we need more whichever position You' like to talk about we need more teachers we need more Powers we need more let's look at what we have and how we can work through that in terms of the relationship of a co- teing model whether it's resource advising General Ed whether it's a co- teing model where two teachers are in the room to make that so that there's more of a cohesive structure around those conversations versus having one teacher F fill one role and another teacher

087filling another role there should be more of a collaboration so I look at that as in process I don't look at that at that as something that's complete um also aligning the purchasing of curriculum materials for general education classrooms to account for co- teing and special education teacher roles in inclusive classrooms and again this is something that's ongoing as we look at the models for what classroom instruction looks like to be able to be inclusive not just for our students but to look at differentiated materials for our general education classrooms as well again in process I don't see that as completed and I did not want to come here tonight and okay here we go again two point font um organizational structures and processes there were six recommendations on this and as you see in

088the the slide coming up I've uh worked to address these and you can see what this looks like here so one of the things that we've talked about pretty much every time I've I've gotten up to speak to you and and and talk with you is the special education strategic plan so that is ongoing I've gotten input from parents input from teachers the meetings are ongoing I plan on presenting that to you in May that is going to be in alignment with the district strategic plan but it's going to be focused on action steps and actions that we can take as a district specifically to special education and how we move through the next three four five years and the actions that we're going to take as a district and recommendations that we've gotten from

089parents from teachers from Paras from building administrators um and just observations of students that we've done as well um increased departmental meetings communication structure so this is another piece where I've said it's both completed and it's ongoing it's not like we're going to uh you know increase the communication structure and then we're done um in terms of having departmental meetings uh those have been ongoing monthly but also I've been attending more of those and I've been also in buildings for uh Team meetings and and uh uh intervention meetings uh to sort of increase that communication not only with meetings with the principles but meetings with interventionists um and with teachers in classrooms and with teams that are working with parents and in some cases uh with parents but making sure that our departmental meetings aren't

090just in a vacuum that the departmental meetings whether they're in CS WMS or the high school all have a cohesive theme and all have a cohesive structure and that the message is Al LED based not only on the grade levels but also in what we need to do to implement this plan in these recommendations so again completed and ongoing clear guidelines for adult support so those of you who have worked on IEPs or been in ppts know that adult support is one of the the major conversation points and you know it's not a one siiz fits-all it never has been and it never will be uh if you're looking for a student needing one to One support that's a discussion that can take place with data uh with uh you know conversations with teachers with

091parents and with performance in the classroom whether that's Behavioral or academic the other level is maybe just Paris support where there is a par available to multiple students in a classroom and again this depends on need and I think through some of our professional development and our conversations making it clearer that there are areas where one to one is absolutely necessary there are areas where a par in a classroom might be working with four or five students or fewer or larger but also that there's a reasoning behind it a philosophy behind it so that the conversation that takes place at a at a PPT is not well they should get a you know this child should get a one to one let's talk about why and not to say no to it but let's make

092sure that we're justifying it because when we're justifying Paris support it's making sure that as the student moves on there is a move towards independence and for those who are who have uh more intense needs that the one to one is provided specifically for them and again that's completed but it's also ongoing because again as we go through every year iep's annuals change and conversations change as well so this one I broke down to analyzing roles and responsibilities of building leaders supervisors and the IEP compliance teacher as I mentioned in the last slide building leaders are attending more ppts we uh worked with the supervisors and the principles to lay out which ppts they might be most effective at um where the supervisors might be more effective and in some cases where I might be

093more effective in order to meet parents to meet the students and to work with the teams on kind of an active coaching model of how the PPT progresses through an agenda through the discussion and so that when you're having maybe difficult conversations the meeting doesn't have to be difficult the conversations don't have to be contentious we can work through with an with a a feeling of mutual respect and that's through conversations with both parents and with teachers and with building administrators of creating that culture within each PPT um the IP compliance teacher as I spoke of in in previous months is providing immediate feedback to teachers and administrators through our CT said system uh ongoing support to PPT teams and is sometimes modeling facilitation of ppts so so that that role has been crucial in

094terms of implementing the recommendations and in terms of supporting what I'm seeing through the central Office Team and what I'm seeing in the buildings to be able to have that active ongoing presence and conversation across across the buildings now a side effect a side benefit of building administrators attending more ppts uh the supervisors have been don't have a full day of pp p s anymore and I I I looked at that from last year there were some days where supervisors were in pretty much the whole day in just pvts when you start including building admins and you have a more flexible approach to who's going to be the chair or or the admin for the PPT that gives the time for supervisors to be in the classrooms to uh observe and engage with students and

095staff uh it also allows me the opportunity to partner with them and to observe classrooms in in all three buildings and as I I said when I came on board um the one thing I wasn't going to be is is uh Not Invisible but but inaccessible um having parents call me having teachers reach out to me but being in the buildings and being visible so that the staff the students and the families know that there is a a voice and there is an advocate for what needs to be done within the buildings okay so this is not so much two. f as you can see as we move on domain three student learning there were three recommendations um and I can address those right now this was how CRA saw how we did what we

096did in terms of learning and in terms of implementing specialized instruction so again creating and calibrating roles and responsibilities in partnership with building Administration this goes hand inhand with having building Administration be part of the conversation around ppts they also need to be part of how do we implement this in the building it's for all of the students who have IEPs the building administrators need to be uh involved aware and part of the conversation versus being handed a plan that says this is what we decided in a PPT this is what we're doing so making sure that there's more um accountability not only for the teachers uh for the supervisors but also for the building admins in terms of making sure that this is not just a one-size all uh approach and again ongoing um

097analyzing Special Education data regularly at both the building and District level in conjunction with supervisors and building administrators so we look at things like referrals we look at things like the goals and objectives and the Mastery so if you're looking at a a random IEP and you say Bill will um answer reading comprehension questions accurately four out of five times let's see the data for that because often times and this is is just anecdotal excuse me parents will ask justifiably show me the data I need to know how you arrived at this and that has been an ongoing process in terms of making sure that the data isn't anecdotal that the data is the probes that happened where are the four out of five what are the dates for the four out of five regardless

098of the goals and objectives and making sure that that data reflects what we're putting our attention towards and analyzing the data to ensure that when we get a referral or when we're moving a child through the special education referral process it's worked in conjunction with the intervention process which I will get to uh in a little bit so again looking doing a deeper dive on data uh is never a bad thing but in terms of you can look at data all day long what are we using it for what is the purpose the purpose is to support students and if a student isn't reaching reaching that four out of five or isn't reaching Mastery or you question what Mastery is this is where I need to focus ongoing versus just saying one and done and

099we've talked about it and that's it it's being able to speak to the IEP accurately and with Fidelity in a in a meeting to be able to make sure that we all are aware of where the student needs more support and where the student has mastered their goals and objectives finally uh for domain three partnering with intervention to examine academic and behavioral tier interventions and particular attention for me has been paid to the tier three intervention and the process of special education referrals so one of the things that you know parents will make referrals and we honor those requests for ppts but within each building intervention teams look and they say we we'd like to make a referral for special education okay my question back having attended these meetings is show me where where your

100tier three isn't working show me what you've done tier one tier 2 and tier three and in working with teachers and asking those questions to show that if you're making a school-based referral if you're an intervention team making a school-based referral at tier three that we really have exhausted our tier three options not to the exclusion of the student where where we've waited too long but also sometimes I don't know that we've given the tier three the the the opportunity to see if it's working or not over the course of you know 8we periods and and examining that data before we make that referral to special education not to deny a referral that a parent might make not to deny a referral that a school-based team may make but just to be able to be

101more uh targeted and precise on where does it go from tier three to special education referral are we there and if not why aren't we there and if we are there show me what that data looks like and again these are all things that are in process ongoing finally uh domain four which was communication and collaboration um this was one where I felt for the type of teacher I was and the type of administrator I am this is something that I feel comes naturally to me so I I I feel very strongly about the the recommendations on this and how we've moved forward with communication and collaboration across the building so the recommendations were things like aligning systems of collaboration with building principles and supervisors in all three schools with customizations based on scheduling in

102each school so I can say to you again yes it's completed but there are weekly meetings with principles there are weekly meetings with supervisors there are classroom visits I'm making making sure that the the process at CES is the process at WMS and is the process at BHS um again an ongoing process as we spoke about transition ppts before that's one area area where it can be very uh specific in terms of moving a child from middle school to high school or Elementary to middle but making sure that those systems of collaboration are similar so the parents experiences it at ppts or the parents experiences with special education are aligned not that you're getting one type of experience at CS another type of experience at whis skiner and another type of experience at the high

103school again ongoing as we change the culture as we improve Communications as we reach out to parents more as we have ppts where there are more conversations than they are confrontations um and establishing a school visit schedule there is not a day in the week where I'm not at a building I have my responsibilities at at TSO and I fulfill those but I also would be derel in my duties if I didn't visit the buildings to see what we're doing in action uh to be able to coach to be able to point out areas of growth and Improvement visiting classrooms visiting students making sure that there's connections um and creating uh clear expectations of availability and visibility for staff and parents parents know they can call me anytime they can email me and that I

104get back to them pretty much the same day and if I don't I'm telling them I'll get back to you tomorrow um but also making sure that the principles are looped in on what special education is looking like in their buildings and receiving feedback from them and receiving feedback from the supervisors in order to make sure that we are in a state of improvement again we're not looking for Mastery instantly in six seven months but what we are looking for is that we are in a better place now than we were uh in July when I when I arrived um cotter's change management model so in terms of uh the correct report looking at change management um this is a an area of leadership uh methodology uh that I've been applying in terms of how

105do you handle change management know you can't come in and and you know knock everything over and say we're starting over it's a matter of collaborating listening talking but also observing and seeing what else needs to be done and over the course of this change management model this is how you're how you're implementing that piece of leadership whether it's collaborating with building leaders reaching out to parents um accessing all the stakeholders within a building to be able to know that there's a visibility and there's an accessibility from my leadership point of view and again uh it kind of has been a through Point through these domains building leaders attending ppts as Administration Representatives affords the student the family and the team an opportunity to collaborate on implementation and provide context for how goals and objectives

106can best be implemented from a building-wide perspective so I'll give you an example example we're in a PPT and it'll be a just an average PPT if there is such a thing and you're talking about a behavior plan and what's that going to look like well maybe we do something with the lunch wave or maybe we give an incentive from class to class if I don't have a building administrator in those types of conversations then we're not collaborating to the level where we can support that student the Student Success is is incumbent upon the building leaders and the Special Education team working together so that when those plans are implemented it's not the case manager being the the only person that really knows or the related Services being the only person who knows it's a

107a collaboration so that we can have input from the principles to say you know I think that might be better if we did that towards the end of the day versus the beginning of the day that checkin would best take place with this person or items like that where there's a a a conversation oh did not mean to do that I apologize oh see my own fault um so those are the four domains and the recommendations that were uh across both the um crack report from June before I arrived as well as the specialized program review and out placements that was done in November by Dr corvo Who I also have to thank for her guidance and support throughout my my time uh since July being here again without the support of the teams in

108each building and a TSO I'm not able to do this this presentation I'm not able to be able to say to you things are completed and ongoing uh I'm not able to be able to be visible in the building so that it's it's that support that that fuels uh this report so now in summary two things I want to say so we're looking at recommendations and we're looking at you know green and yellow there's no red I'm proud of that um but really when you look at the correct report it's not really about Staffing it's not really really about increasing uh positions as it is refining systems and structures looking at those systems and structures from both a district and a building point of view and making sure that they're supporting the students but that

109they're valid that they're valid for parents that they're valid for students that they're valid for all of us who work in this field um so of those recommendations uh 13 of 20 have been completed but again I caution everybody that I have completed an ongoing but we could float ongoing back and forth because again in education nothing is ever completed you're always moving towards uh improving your processes and and uh aligning your processes across across the district the three that are in process and I would say are sort of on the outside of this looking in are as I mentioned before the Strategic plan there was a staffing analysis and a Time study that was in there that's probably more of a long-term uh look uh probably next year into the the year after and

110and that may be part of the Strategic plan and a purchasing analysis as you saw before about curricular materials aligning with both General and special education these are things that I can't come to you tonight say oh you know what we did a purchasing analysis in January and these are the results it's an ongoing piece so for those I I caution isn't the word but just that well yellow was caution but cautioning you that these are areas that are ongoing that are not going to be one and done and that the recommendations that are in there are both completed addressed and ongoing as we move through this year and ongoing and as I've said to many folks this is not a one-year uh project this is this is at least a 3 to five year

111project but it's something something that I that my heart is in my energy is focused towards and that I want to see through and be continue to partner with everyone I mentioned before so just to to conclude within the existing recommendations from the correct report is the belief that we must continue to Foster and reinforce a culture of inclusivity when we talk about inclusivity that means being inclusive of all students those who have IEPs those who don't have IEPs but making sure that when there are opportunities for students to be included in any activity in the building that everything that you see in these recommendations that we that we proceed from that not just recommendation number four on page eight but that we're looking at how can we best include our students all the time

112not just in specific times and areas uh a community of Learners which we've heard of anybody who's been in a classroom we've been at PD about community of Learners when it works when it's successful it's when all types of learning styles are recognized and supported including students with IEPs how can we best show how they can demonstrate what they know and within that we believe that all students can learn we believe that and I believe that to my core special education exists to create opportunities for all students and allow them to demonstrate their understanding the correct report is a way for us to reinforce and to implement these recommendations these are more philosophy these are more how we should proceed and and maybe they're a little more emotional or feeling than than the hardcore you

113know datadriven pieces that I've spoken about tonight but without those three points that I that I'm concluding with there is no uh the correct report is meaningless without a feeling of inclusivity a feeling of all students can achieve success and that all of our students students can learn so I thank you for your for your time this evening and I'm happy to entertain questions thank you Bill I also have oh finally links to the CCT report so when you if you want to look at things not in a two-point font those are in there both the June and the November and I thank you for your time thank you Bill does the board have any questions yes quick question Bill thank you for that um so what percent of time of time is used in

114PPT by or does an administrator like a principal or assistant principal attend a PPT would you say like 90% of the time or it's it's hard to say I i' I'd love to be able to break it down for you and I might be able to get get back to you on that what we did was we looked at um case loads and areas where a principal or an assistant principal could be in and if you're looking at let's say we have four or five ppts a day and of those four or five uh a supervisor might be in one or two of them an assistant principal might be in two of them principal might be in one of them it could be an hour to two hours a day if we're looking at a

11545 minute to an hour but again hard to to break that down but it is more they're attending more than they were let's say last year so so is that a practice we're going to continue or absolutely I think that that what the principles and assistant principles being at ppts affords is making sure that we don't look at special ed as oh that's the supervisor or that's the director or that's a department you're including I mean we always include a general education teacher but to include a general education administrator puts an importance on the student it puts an importance on the plan and it puts an importance on these are your students too and this is something that we have to implement throughout the building and this is something that you need to be aware

116of and participate in not that they weren't before but I don't know that the opportunity was there if you have supervisors chairing every PPT I think in terms of like I said an example of a behavior plan or um anything where the larger school is concerned I think to get that message of inclusion really embedded you need a general education administrator in there to hear it and I think it they they have it affords them the opportunity to be uh part of that conversation and to be accountable for that plan as well and I think joyy bring up a great question because the other part of that is the more holistic view of a Time study of all the different positions and how they spend their time right yeah that was that was a recommendation

117inated into strategic planning correct for sure it's IEP compliance um person how do they play a part in that are they attending pbts or they're kind of after the iep's been implemented there's there's ongoing sort of instruction attending and following up with teams to write more appropriate and targeted goals in IEP so there is a a point where they could be facilitating ppts um uh there's also to me being able as I spoke about before writing those um writing those goals so that they're specific uh and targeted so that it's not again this is this is anecdotal and it doesn't mean Brookfield I've been in in multiple districts so I can speak to this you don't want to make a goal that is so General that almost anybody could Master it without some sort of

118data behind it and I think taking the ideas of what we want a student to work on and translating that into all right how are we going to show that what are those objectives going to look like what's the measurement going to look like that's where the IP compliance teacher also comes in and in terms of again interfacing with CTS which I again that's a presentation in and of itself um talking about making sure that those goals are appropriate and that they could be measured and then if a parent has a question about them that there's an answer that makes sense and not just oh we think they should work on writing what do you mean writing what does that look like what is you know if they need to work on their you know

119five paragraph essay or they need to work on topic sentences let's make it so it's specific and it's not just bill will work on topic sentences and write a topic sentence four out of five times what kind of topic sentence how is it related to the content um the IP compliance teacher is part of making that more specific and being able to um in instruct the teams to refine those so is that very specific pointed goal developed in the pbta or it's General at first and then it's it's definitely developed in the PPT but I think making sure that that language is available to the teachers and to be able to make it specific in the meeting versus trying to craft it out of whole cloth once you're once you're in the meeting I think

120the more conversations we have about what a specific goal looks like outside of a PPT and just in general I'd like to work on reading comprehension okay what kind what part of reading comprehension and what's that going to look like if a parent asks how do I know that they've mastered this goal we can't just say well you know they answered all the comprehension questions nope sorry not the right that's that's what did we do what was that specialized instruction so that kind of thinking and that kind of mindset can be brought into ppts where there should be and can be more specific conversations around that and again not happening 100% all over but again those conversations that through the correct report we needed to address and make more real and make more valid based

121on parent feedback teacher feedback and just looking at how those goals were were mastered and whether or not they were mastered and what evidence can you show and if it's four out of five show me the four out of five don't just give me oh it's four out of five so okay thank you all right all right great thank you very much thanks very much everybody much appreciated um okay we're going to move to item C under new business um and so I just want to make sure that I've got my dance steps right here uh this motion needs to be amended to include the information about the creative writing class as well so we we make the motion and then we amend no or you can just insert the oh the new language okay

122great let's do that then okay so um I'm going to move that the board established college algebra as a course offering in the math department and creative writing to in the humanities department at Brookfield High School beginning with the 2024 2025 school year uh as recommended by the cape committee including um Dr man and um and B just principal Mark Belinda second great um so the would we like to discuss that first or yeah so I can I can present on that a little bit so what I'm actually handing you is I'm not on now I'm on um what you have just take taken one and passed it along thank you very much for doing that um is a copy of the summary sheet so these are uh Mr are there not enough no no

123I I was thinking about my motion so much that I just passed it along okay thank you um so you have the summary sheet which is a two two-sided sheet which we're going to go through in a minute for the second motion as well as a copy of um the parts of the uh program of studies that are highlighted on that summary sheet rather than print out the 78 page packet and give you each one of those which you will all be able to see when it's online I just took the um Liberty of just taking the ones that are uh the parts that are changed so for the first motion we're going to focus on pages um we you turn to the back side of your sheet and you'll see that on page 30

124which is right in the middle somewhere it is they are in chronological order um numerical order rather um so page 30 into 31 um is the is the highlight of that uh creative writing 2 is a 9 12 elective it's not it does not supplant um a required English course but it is one of the elective courses um and as Joy mentioned earlier so if you turn to page 31 um you can read the course description there but really this is an extension of creative writing one which is a current semester elective course um and it really satisfies requests for a more advanced exploration a deeper dive into creative writing the current creative writing one course is more survey oriented and kind of um just you know gives students the opportunity to explore various types

125of creative writing the uh the expectation and and uh purpose of a creative writing 2 course as the uh the extension of creative writing one is for uh students to practice uh creative writing areas of their choice more deeply and explore that more deeply and again that was um uh really came from student requests based on their experience now um just kind of uh Tang mentally as Joy also mentioned in her uh summary of Cape this based on the way the schedule works at the high school this would um offset the journalism course currently journalism runs kind of opposite of the creative writing course so if we have a creative writing one and then a creative writing to there may be a need and an opportunity to create a similar parody with the journalism scope

126and sequence so I can anticipate this time next year we might be coming back to you with a journalism too so that's just a preview I'm big on that this spring um so that's the the creative writing two course I can present the math course if you want and then we can discuss it if you'd like okay so then the last page um you'll see that actually is the wrong page number um it's supposed to be page 52 but the last page of the packet has the college algebra course and this was actually presented to us by Mr Hill at the January Cape meeting but we wanted to Spring to everything together in one Fell Swoop um this is a course that again this is more based on um prepar post-secondary preparation and and student

127need So currently um kind of the scope and sequence for high school anywhere from 8th grade up through senior year would be Algebra 1 geometry Algebra 2 possibly pre-cal um or kind of an Algebra 2 extension where Algebra 2 gets split into two years and then a calculus course um and they're really they the uh Department the math department really saw a need for um rather other than splitting Algebra 2 into two years which might be um too kind of twoo paced out for certain students or launching right into pre-cal there was really that extra need um of a college algebra Prep course so this would really uh kind of bridge the gap between Algebra 2 and pre-calculus for students who are interested in going um into post-secondary education um and just don't quite have

128the foundational skills in algebra or trigonometry um that they would need in order to really handle the pre-cal it could taken either as a senior if a student came in taking Algebra 1 and then going G uh geometry Algebra 2 then the college algebra or it could be taken as a junior if a student took Algebra 1 in the middle school geometry Algebra 2 college algebra and then they could take pre-cal or maybe one of the other math electives um and so that and you can read the again I'm not going to read to readers but um you can read the course description uh but both of these courses um both Department chairs felt uh very strongly and were brought by their uh um their teachers and are based on student interest and student need

129any questions concerns there's no budget College it's also right thank you very much Sarah so the college algebra course is um based on the um Community College course and so it's actually would have that opportunity for college um ADV advancement college credit thank you very much for that reminder is that um based on exam results or grade point average or what what's the it's because it's aligned to the current college algebra course and it would be essentially kind of like an ECE course is you know where you um as long as we use their book which that's the only U major budget implication uh use the book that's approved by uh the college uh algebra course through the state of Connecticut and uh we would have the syllabus which is fairly aligned at standards based

130um our and our students pass it then they would earn C Credit that's a great opportunity y so aside from the um books no budget implication because we would just readjust assignments are there other questions about these thank you for that reminder sir huge so all in favor say hi any [Applause] so it passes unanimously all right so now we'll just kind of go through those are the main presentation pieces but there'll be some other discussion points so they have to do a motion for so I know I know I think it's contagious right so um uh I move that the board approved the proposed revisions to the program of studies including any course updates as recommended by the cape subcommittee assistant superintendent Dr Anna man and BHS princip ipal Mark Banda second great so

131now that the motion's on the table uh let's hear from Dr man okay thank you so we're going to flip back to the front side of your page and we're just going to kind of walk through um the these uh notes so on the first page page four um and you'll notice that I highlighted the areas that we're going to be focusing on um the the adjustment for the required required course load is being adjusted from rather than carrying a um minimum of seven credits or six credits and then six credits senior year is adjusting down adjusting down half a credit for Junior and Senior year and the reason for that is that it still um requires 26 credits to graduate which the the actually the um requirement is 25 credits to graduate but this

132would allow that buffer if a child um didn't didn't pass a course one year would still have a one credit buffer um but what they're uh noticing at the high school is when students particularly seniors are forced to take six credits um there is a lack of investment and a lack of Engagement and it also pushes some students out who might be more interested in taking an elective course um and so it kind of just jockies things around so that's the reason for that adjustment on page four so um the it would go from 7776 to 776 and a half 5 and a half students would still be considered you know carrying a full load they would still meet requisite um requirements for C and all of that jazz the next one down um is

133a kind of a um bifurcating of the schedule changes and that's just more for clarity and for um focus on uh as kids are choosing their their classes kind of really having them focus in on what classes they're choosing and then once they get their schedule really taking an Earnest and honest look at what they've signed up for and what they've received on their schedule and then um clarifying that after the first day of school the time frame for which uh students can um adjust their uh schedule and drop courses um and as Mr Bland put on here um it provides an accurate representation of courses selected one of the things that uh is a constant struggle in the high school is if you allow too much time for dropping courses then a class that

134you ran because it had 12 or 15 kids all of a sudden drops down to six or set five we wouldn't have necessarily run that course and it again um messes up the schedule and puts more pressure on other classes uh in terms of that okay so if you turn the page to page seven um page seven is actually an adjustment back to how it had been uh last year the state uh this is class rank uh it's a revision um last year the state had uh asked districts to adjust and get kind of get rid of class rank um and so if a board of ed had class rank as part of their policy they were supposed to adjust that policy the state has now rolled that back and basically taken away um what

135we talked about this last year as adjusting the class Rank and not publishing class rank that is no longer the case so um they have adjusted that back so this is just now in line with our current um policy so now it's back to class rank how had been y Yeah well yeah how so this is now just in line exactly with how it had been page eight seven and eight but it's really page eight so um Mr Banda had presented this a couple years back I believe um with adjusting from um every year the Board of Ed recognizes has recognized the top 10 in the class the top 10 students in the graduating class um and this is really um an adjustment to make sure we honor and recognize the academic prowess of more

136students and based it on percentage rather than number um so that it might be you know 20 or 25 kids instead of just the top 10 um whereas you know students who are number 11 through 20 have worked really hard and done some really amazing things um and but they don't get necessarily get recognized so uh this is the proposal is to go to the Latin honor System which again I think this was proposed a couple years back and um agreed upon um but this is just reflecting those agreements um and so the top 5% would be Magnum ly which would include the valid dictorian and Salud Oran 6 through 10% would be Suma Kumi and then top um 11 through 15% would be just Kumi and so that the other way around Suma Magna

137okay yes did oh I'm sorry about that yeah he didn't adjust his notes for me sorry about that Suma Magna and then Kumi right um which would make sense so again that's just uh an expansion for our recognition for our students okay so we're going to know is that recognized like it graduation or are we still doing that I think the intention would be to do that at the Board of Education meeting in lie of the top 10 and I believe this senior class we're still doing top 10 still doing top 10 this is going to be for next year yeah this would be 24 25 um okay so then the next one is the College Planning suggestions so page 16 and 17 um and I've highlighted the the areas that um are being uh

138focused on I don't want to confuse this with the graduation requirements because they are not the same right so this is really a suggestion to students who are interested in going to college After High School graduation this is what Stu what most colleges are generally looking for so it is not um an adjustment to any requirements for graduation but as a suggestion for students who are looking so that to to go to co to college After High School so that as they're planning their course of studies they can think about okay so I have to take four credits of English and four credits I I should take four credits of math um the one that is really uh often um you know uh kind of the waffling one is the World Language piece do students

139want to stay in a world language for three or even four years because frankly four years is um what a lot of schools would prefer um so this just kind of puts it um for them the other thing we talked about was the fact that um I'm not sure any of you if any of you saw but a few schools particularly Dartmouth was in the news a couple weeks ago is bringing back sat requirement and I have a feeling that trend is going to kind of take flight a little bit um not with all but with some and so just highlighting the fact that the SAT or some sort of college ENT exam may be a requirement so students should be aware of that because we've gotten so into the mindset of it doesn't matter

140it doesn't matter we talked a lot about that in terms of our um our you know student achievement report not So Much Anymore now it might matter so depending on the school that you are looking to go to so that's in there along with uh focusing on the essay prompt on page 17 okay so if we so those are all kind of the operational and procedural pieces that were adjusted now we're just going into the course adjustments um a couple of which I've already spoken to and you've already voted on so I will just skip over those so on page 19 um there was there were um course the course that used to be here was critical literacy to um literacy Workshop uh this is just Clarity um so that students who need this course

141would sign up for this course and students who don't don't need to take the course so it's really just being much more transparent and clear that this would be literacy workshop for multilingual Learners um same course explanation um but it's just adjusting the title in the business department this is an adjustment to the grades this is on page 21 the grades that personal finance is open to um and we had some you know probably a little bit more in-depth conversation about this um currently it is open to 10th through 12th um but the proposal is to adjust it uh to be open to 11th and 12th and that is a couple fold one is um because it is a graduation requirement students have to take this course and so we kind of have to narrow

142it down so that if you're if you don't get at 10th grade then you don't get at 11th grade you know going to get a 12th grade because the requests are so great and the way that the the power school runs the course um or the scheduler might uh you know push some kids out so this is a greater guarantee if you have fewer n you have a lower n greater guarantee that uh those kids are going to get the course um and also the idea of just um preparation and Readiness um and probably proximity to graduation when students will need to make sure that they have these personal finance skills is narrowing down to 11th and 12th grade the other thing I'd like to add on that when Anna says that it has been

143for many years now a bfield gr Brookfield High School graduation requirement is now becoming a State graduation requirement um again actually for the class of 2026 so it's not even for this class yeah no it's not for this class so that's coming that is not a budget implication for us we had you know Vision the the uh leadership team faculty Board of Education a lot of great vision on this uh many many years ago and that's been instituted for a long [Music] time page 27 is just a CL again a Clarity in the in a title of a course it's the same course but rather than calling it Boe bot it's um coding for robotics so that students know what they're signing up for um we spoke about the creative writing course on page so

144we can kind of flip past page 30 and 31 it's actually page 34 on your sheets it says page 31 um this is again an adjustment to literacy Workshop rather than saying critical literacy 1 and critical literacy 2 um it the title was adjusted along with the kind of scope of the course you know what it's covering and um in terms of its focus for students on the next page on page 36 um oh 37 I yeah page 37 oh there was a I guess I I must have left out the um digital photography there is oh no I'm sorry 37 37 36 um so digital photography uh is just um the adjustment uh for grades offered 10 through 12 um rather than 9th through 12 and again that's a kind of a preparation and

145a um have kind of expecting kids to have a little bit more experience in um General artistic uh approach to um to photography and then that maturity of thought um so there's that adjustment as well moving along to the Visual and Performing Arts on page 38 um it's just kind of uh pulling out General chorus one and general chorus 2 and those are based on how they run um and clarifying uh where they um uh where they are in terms of specific to uh General versus specialized specialized course is on page 40 um which is being opened to ninth graders and I may have did I leave out syic symphonic band it's in the bottom of picture yeah the I just didn't highlight it yeah so symphonic band and then um some reason it got

146the description got cut off but um yep so symphonic band is again just a a clar clarification for the teachers as they are thinking about honor symphonic band versus symphonic band and that would be um you know the level of uh capacity for the students so those are the Visual and Performing Arts um special chorus is again open ninth um uh uh you open to adjust to be able to open to nth graders so that has to get adjusted and then the college algebra we talked about and then so that's we're through the adjustments and then as Joy alluded to earlier um we unfortunately have two courses that we are unable to offer um I want to just preface this with they're not being taken out of the approved course offerings we're just not running

147them next year and um one of them is the EMT course which I know some people have had children who have gone through the course and it's an amazing and very unique opportunity for um our students unfortunately it was a program that was kind of built around a specific person who's no longer with the district um based on certifications um and capacity to teach that course to actually give um you know an EMT licensing course uh and so we talked a lot about um various ways to bring something like that back and maybe do kind of a preed or pre you know emergency responder kind of um offering maybe partnering with different um towns trying to get a cohort together so those are that's still in the works um we just don't have the capacity

148to offer it next year we don't want kids signing up for it thinking they're going to get it and then we're really not able to offer it and then as Joyce said unfortunately which I know was a huge long hardfought battle for this um this body um was American Sign Language we are still committed to trying to explore how to offer that in the future um back to the educator certification piece it's not a public education certification uh for state of Connecticut there are certified instructors um but it would be you know we have to if we're going to offer it for credit um there we can try to kind of grow somebody into that or possibly um you know find somebody uh I know that there are other school districts that do have pretty

149robust programs so we can also talk with those folks and see how they grew their program I know Fairfield has a pretty in uh involved program so um we're not offering that next year it says deletion it's really just deletion from the program of studies it's not deletion from approved courses those are your updates to program studies my have pleasure um I I have a question sure um regarding the change um in grade levels for personal finance M aren't the personal finance classes the ones that are already um overcrowded I'm sorry to use that word is just the one that comes to mind those were the highest numbers right 28 or 29 per section how do we um how do we work around that reality well so if if we you know make fewer kids

150eligible to take the course um then they there would be fewer kids who that would be put into the course well except that all 11th graders and all 12th graders have to go through it well all kids do and now they only have two years to do it so maybe I I don't know I mean I hear what you're saying but when I saw that I was like wait a second you're putting a lot of kids through a smaller time window yeah I mean I don't I don't think the the way that we talked about this um with Mr Blanda um I think that there would they don't anticipate their being uh burgeoning um actually next year they might have fewer that might be smaller because they would have some of the 10th graders would

151have already taken it this year um and so only the remaining 11th and 12 who have to take it would would take it we'll see how it kind of plays out as we go forward um but the real the real impetus for was um the noticings of preparedness and maturity and also I think applicability it's more um although we know as is the case that there are some more precocious 10th graders perhaps even more than the 12th graders um who are prepared and excited about the course um and and then you're also mixing in the fact that it's a requirement which it already was a requirement so that wasn't that's not a big change for Brookfield okay well that works for me thank you sure are there other questions all right okay um then are

152you guys prepared to vote on the motion y yep okay so um all in favor say I I I okay all oppos nay right on it passes unanimously thank you very much they'll be thrilled they can get their course offerings out kids can sign courses yes um okay so now we move to um item 13 old business um the uh Board of education's adopted budget um so the recommended action is that we continue our discussion of the budget if needed I can just make maybe add like a little bit of um context if you are okay with me sort of just sharing some of the updates and then maybe you can add flavor to it if you can um but so since we've adopted our budget um and some of this was spoken about at

153the Joint meeting last week um but we have um some areas of reduction and some areas where we will have to increase certain line items um and I'll just kind of go through there's only a few of them but um so one of the things that was mentioned was insurance right so um when we originally adopted our budget um we had budgeted a 7% increase and it's looking like it might actually only be like a 5% increase um so that brings that item down about 151,000 um there was some since um that joint meeting some fluctuations in special education um to the tune of $225,000 for um transportation and 177,000 um for 2 ition so that's to the good of our budget um what goes what will have to be added back into the budget

154so actually more of an increase um is about 45,000 for um vocational agriculture education and Magnet School tuition um there could you maybe you can explain a little bit more about how that came out of the and actually just to clarify so that um that about $45,000 reduction is not part of the adopted um budget of the 6.43% increase that sort of came after you guys adopted the budget on January 17th and so that was sort of a on the horizon we we can likely reduce so it actually doesn't affect our it doesn't affect it doesn't affect it it's just is is was an opportunity um but based on the governor's um budget proposal that funding has been removed from the proposed budget so the guidance um from you know from casbo and from cave

155is to not really include that in our in our budgeting but it doesn't doesn't actually impact the current budget thank you um and then lastly just in terms of Revenue because we see those reductions in special education Transportation tuition we will also see a reduction in our excess cost Grant so um about $50,000 54,000 so in total we're looking at about um a net of 300,000 less than what we had adopted um but we're still looking at a couple of things um we're still going to wait on our final number for the various insurances most importantly health insurance um what were some of the other areas that we need to um basic all of our any insurance rates so our um liability insurance those are still estimates our electricity for the second half of the

156budget is also a big one um right now it's budgeted at 11 cents per kilowatt hour um we're you know we haven't locked in for our pricing for January 1 125 through um July so um I'm not sure if we'll be able to um get that final um estimate before the budget has to uh be approved but um but our purchasing agent is looking at that um very closely right now so fingers crossed that was a big one yep Rosa did we want to mention uh Mr Dunn's budget in the total reduction off of the adopted budget just so everybody knows that um yeah could you provide I don't have that in front of me just in in in round numbers uh Mr Dunn reduced in his proposal of the Town bu budget that he

157brought forth to the board of Selectmen but he shared it with the board of B and board of Finance he reduced the board of education budget by $575,000 so as we start to think about what that might mean again we're a month away from when we'll have a sense where the board of Finance lands on this whether they um stay with Mr Dunn's proposal whether they take a little bit more money from the Board of Ed uh budget or they put money back last year they they put money back uh after The Bard select brought things forward so um we don't know yet but what this means is when Rosie you you and Casey just talked about that approximately $300,000 that we know off of the adopted budget that leaves us with to meet the

158575 if that was to say another $275,000 we we need to find so those are things we're starting to talk about at our leadership meetings where we might look um hopefully we get some favorable news and in administration and operation uh so we don't have to go near staff we would love that to be the case um but we'll wait and see it's it's a while off but I think it's important for everybody you know who's watching at home and the board to know that um Mr dun's proposal is $575,000 less for the Board of Education than what you all adopted in January thank you and thank you very much um oh Casey just so the people at home will hear this again more concretely um about when I think you said early March is

159when we should know about insurance numbers early early March is the latest information I have that we should have another update and hopefully that will be the final final number and what's the Horizon for um decision-making about electricity in your best estimate um the last conversation I had with uh our purchasing agent was that um spring like early spring is the time to to lock in so he's already in conversations and getting quotes and pricing for for that so um maybe within a month but I'm really guessing at that okay thank you yep thank you very much I'll certainly keep you updated okay early spring in Connecticut it could be anytime know now in right right um anything else from you guys about the budget okay all right then we're going to move to um

160public comment um we have one individual signed up for public comment um I'm just going to read our our statement and then I'll invite you up okay so the Board of Education welcomes public comment each speaker shall have up to three minutes to provide input um at the end of each regular meeting time is allotted uh to individuals and um discussion of school Personnel individualized students or of individual members of the board is prohibited so we urge you to stay issue focused um and so Mr kab the floor is yours yes and you know the drill please please think so Up is on it's on okay uh and 45 West whis Road um so I wanted to talk about um Integrity competency and doing the job for um both administrators and the board um this

161this has been quite a problem I think in you know with uh the administration in the past and prior boards looks like it's continuing a bit um we had a very positive example here um of Competency um and integrity and getting getting the job done today and one one of the presentations I think we have our staff member of the year pretty much figured out um an example last week or two weeks ago was a email I got that was referenced in correspondence about Public Act 22818 my response there was really a discussion of how that communication wasn't truthful it was a look at you know incompetency throughout the district um we know that there was in in the Press nationally there was Prett embarrassing situation but when we look at that communication it shows

162us that our district when asked to comply with the law and can't will then just make up an excuse I sent it to the board I hope you understood it um the other example here is really our budgeting process this budget was that you guys approved was essentially a rubber stamping of a of a plan over time without looking at the problem right a 6.6% increase we have a sort of a managerial Council that looks at it and says hey how do we do better we had a couple of board members look and say let let's take a different look at this the reductions that we just disc that you just discussed were really the sausage and how is it how it moves around right so in the end we're going to have essentially a

1631% challenge to the budget the job is you know to look at what the objectives are for the school how we're doing what the taxpayers are going to afford and come up with a solution just looking at what we're doing in the past and how we replicate it is not actually doing the job so you know we have caucuses here who decide hey how do we you know essentially give the administration what they want and then others that are looking at what what should we really do in the end you know you focus on process research you just really got to do it is right and not just get together in little groups decide what's right to do should we tell the truth when we make a mistake should we protect kids you know when

164they're abused by coaches teachers and I think if you look you know behind the scenes and what's going on we can't just answer pretty simple questions so I think as you guys move forward stop caucusing try to get real things done the job is pretty simple when you think about it right prioritize understand the truth and make a decision thank you thanks for sharing your opinion okay so we're going to move to um the three main points Stephanie what have you gathered thus far uh so I suggest the three main points first be the CES update um next the crack update and and I originally thought that the course editions and revision should be the update but with the I don't know the information we discussed I was thinking perhaps even though it was small

165the finance update yeah the budget yeah I I think that's I think that would be a good one just because it's more broad it affects everyone rather than just the high school so people that are in high school yeah it's an important like update to see like where where the budget is in this process yeah okay so do Finance go that the budget the budget well hold on let's let's talk a bit um Sarah your thoughts I mean I think the budget has gotten a lot of air time and I think that the course offerings um with with what we went over the high school but I understand it doesn't apply to every I was on the fence about it because I thought this is like really in depth information we haven't heard but also

166I think because we don't have solid number well we don't have specific solid numbers for the budget yet I think maybe in a couple weeks yeah the program sort the meat in the core of our instruction 3 what are your thoughts I I could go either way Hest like I think they're both significant issues and I think either one would be be fine agreed agreed um would you consider what do you guys think of like uh for the first one the CES I was just going to say can I combine CES and school and say like school upd I think that's I think it might be too much um but I mean I think like the the budget is foundational to what we do so I think like communicating our budget and where it is

167at every step of the process in its approval all the way to referendum when we have these updates like that sorry um is important but it's you know that's my own personal opinion about it but I mean not to say the program of studies is not important obviously but yeah I agree with that I also think the budget's going to come up again so that it's probably going to be one of the three main points in a couple weeks probably as well so this is probably a one and done so you might want to include it oh yeah um what do you guys think of um I don't know I find your point really compelling and I I think like it could be like four for this one time you know um but for the

168CES what do you think about doing like slash MBC well yeah oh I have that M okay good good good that's why I asked for the meeting today okay oh that's really important I think yeah so are we going to do the three or we going to add a fourth for just something for everybody to think about um the town if you really want to stick to three cuz it's called three main points um but it's a self-imposed rule so if you need a four in a month you can do that um we we whatever three are decided the fourth one Stephanie and I are going to work on the three main points um the town um what do we call the town Spotlight we could put as many things in there as we want

169we have to stick to three so that's we could write up a piece on the fourth one and have it in the town spot a short little it's really just your information followed by the town we can put that in the spotlight that's fine yeah make everybody happy thanks that's decided then great um so upcoming events yeah sorry I was busy writing things down okay okay yes we have several upcoming events actually uh whis caner Middle School events this week is random acts of kindness week and so on February 23rd which is Friday there will be a kindness social for sixth graders after school and then a kindness dance for seventh and eighth graders from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. February 28th is parent meeting regarding the France trip at 6 pm and March 12th is

170the B not is on March 12th the BHS counselors will be visiting uh the Middle School eighth grader to explain the registration process and the answer any student questions and then upcoming events at the high school March 7th is parent teacher conferences March 14th through 17th is the uh BHS High School Musical mam Mia gets are on sale now and March 26th is a career fair as we heard from AA um tonight she has uh several updates about that and then April 5th is Junior Prom I do not have my CES events but the only thing on there were conferences which I should know this are March conferences hold on let fill in my calendar at CS well you're finding that and we have a coupon code for Mama Mia oh yeah could you say

171a little bit more about that for anybody watching email so we get one coupon one ticket complimentary ticket complimentary ticket I guess sorry everyone yeah no not stop any stop or teachers listening um CES parent teacher conferences are March 28th and 29th okay as the parent of a recent graduate I want to tell all the um the folks out there who going to Junior Prom no no 14th and 14th and 15th foras ah okay okay well the kids going to prom need to wear jackets hopefully comfortable shoes hopefully not I wanted to add also that the whis caner conferences are March 5th here we go parent conferences it's a half day is it yes so at CES those two dates are also half day is lunch served the 28th and 29th is lunch served yes

172lunch is served at 10: a.m. it's more of a snack okay so are we all set then yes thank you for that you you did a Tona we had a lot to discuss so for everybody watching at home the public portion of the uh Board of Education meeting is now over thanks to everybody at home and to the folks who came here um for spending your time with us uh the board is going to well I'm moving that the board enter into executive session to discuss to discuss strategy and negotiation as it relates to collective bargaining second thank you so much joy all right thanks everybody good night well let's make the [Music] motion [Music]