Board of Education Meeting

001foreign good evening everybody I'd like to call the regular meeting of the Brookfield board today for Wednesday August 16th through 2023 to order please join me in Rising to the Pledge of Allegiance okay so we have one two three four five of us joy is traveling and Rosa is on Route and stuff in traffic so she'll be joining us later today so um the uh first off on our agenda is public comment a board of education welcomes public comment you speak your show with up to three minutes to provide input to the board start of each meeting 20 minutes is allotted for comment on any item included in the agenda and at the end of each meeting it's raining time is a lot of comment on any item under the board's curfew so and we

002would also include overflow time for individuals who are not able to speak we do require sign up at the beginning list that discussion as a reminder discussion of personnel individual students or members of the board so with the boards we have to we have two Awards of one I would say is at the beginning one would be put at the end if you guys are okay we'll do both of them is that okay that way we can let people get back to their evening the first up is Mr Montero and as you go on uh you know the drill name and address all right awesome Ontario 17 Dairy Farm Drive just uh turn up the microphone good awesome Ontario 17 Dairy Farm Drive and uh it's not really just a question and I know it's

003on the uh agenda so you guys may answer this here in a few minutes but it's about the uh dissolution of the equity and inclusion committee um so just reading through the agenda here I know it states that we're going to continue this work under the superintendent it's part of alignment with the Strategic plan of school operations so just a few questions uh really why is this being dissolved this subcommittee and I guess for a bit lack of better words where where is it going and if we are going to continue using it in some way shape or form will parents be able to have access to all the information that's being shared last week at peeves Summer Leadership Conference they talked a lot about the equity toolkit which I have right here so if

004we're going to keep it in play which is fine I just hope parents are made aware and uh sure you guys are going to touch on this here in a few minutes so that is it tonight thank you okay thank you I just looked over to uh Amy who chairs that committee and is bringing forward the proposal this evening with this is um yeah cool that we will address all of that thank you next up is Mrs Collins thank you for taking the time to come see this hey good evening everybody Tara Carr 54 Indian Trail I'm here to ask further questions about the parent portal and it sent an email to Dr Burrell in the Board of Ed last week I believe and I've spoken both personally with Dr Burrell and the chair Mr

005Feldman this past Friday but um Dr Brill as I've explained to you both my husband and I have attempted several times to register all four of our children in three different schools for the upcoming school year on the parent portal and in one section this year the digital Locker section I believe it's called we answered all of the questions except for the the last question which I believe is a new question added to the to the digital Locker portion of the parent portal for this year um please correct me if I'm wrong but I do believe this is a new question um and this this was a very big concern for us as parents um the concern being the final question which is a new addition regarding Library limitations this question asks parents to declare

006whether or not they want to contact the library media Specialists about checking out certain material from the library this question truly really serves no purpose seeing seemingly other than to relieve the schools from indemnification should a parent find that the library materials available to kids are inappropriate due to their content rather than truly having a school take ownership of providing Library materials that are educational and at the same time maintain decency and high moral standards I really do not feel that this question should be asked and it does not belong on the portal at all but if it is deemed by the board because the Dr Earl told me it was his decision to put it on the portal I don't know if that's a legal Avenue or not but if it is in fact

007Dr Pearl's alone to decide um I think that if if it's decided that it must remain that the registration process must be changed so that parents aren't forced to solely answer a yes or no question without being able to proceed in the portal so right now I have four children who remain unregistered because I am not comfortable answering that yes or no question is there another way for my family to register our children without using the portal or will they be registered without completing um that section of the registration process um again if if the Board of Ed or the superintendent feels strongly that the question should remain then the question should be optional versus having it as a gatekeeper question um as of now if you do not respond again a parent cannot finish

008the enrollment and additionally forcing families to answer either yes or no now what does that mean if a parent changes their mind later so again I would ask that you please reconsider having this question on the portal as part of the registration process it is totally inappropriate thank you brief response things like registration are the purview of this is Lieutenant not the board board takes no I have no actions at all on forms like that how the car family can proceed forward and I know you'll be you'll be addressing certainly what the whole discussion of Library limitations sure the one the one thing I think just to clear up right away it's not it's it's updating um nation in Immortal it it is not about registration the children are registered if they've been here as

009students there's no issue whatsoever nothing happens they're waiting to school the information just isn't fully updated that's all that's that's moment that's exactly what the situation is no issue with the children being there in school perhaps actually I have it on my superintendent report thank you all um that's it for public comment next up is written correspondence Andy Correa wrote regarding foa on contract extensions Tara Carver regarding library book limitations Sanford Fox wrote regarding challenge books Lori is a lazorchek wrote with gratitude regarding her teacher at the year recognition and Irene Korea wrote regarding the VHS guidance Wing roof repairs next is approval of ordinance the board approved regular meeting on July 17th July 19th all in favor and it's approved superintendent of the parole alternative all right thank you Mr Belden um it is

010I think we're all awaiting with great anticipation about opening Candlewood Lake everybody's excited um see those uh Most Wonderful Time of the Year commercials for parents as the Indian summer approaches the beginning of school approaches but we are we are rolling in the district we are excited enthusiastic and ready to go um so Kathy if you're able to get that up for me that'd be great my superintendent report tonight I'm gonna I'll start with the Strategic plan um just a little brief update for everyone up here you can see we have a one-page document that summarizes the entire strategic plan and I'll walk through this I'm certainly not going to read everything that's on here but I really want to start by reminding everyone that last year we spent that are part of 10 months

011with about 25 stakeholders from Community inclusive of high school students parents board members administrators teachers and our para Educators really working on what what in some of our citizens on what do we want as the after a culmination of 13 years for our students and that was a 10-month process we put that document together we've articulate it shared it with the community and I just can't thank everybody enough who participated we then I think March last year I presented it to the board of education and it was approved by the Board of Education move forward with the particular particles and strategies what we have here up on the screen tonight the summary page like I said it's a one-pager that breaks down exactly what the Strategic plan stands for in terms of the actions we

012need to take so the first thing is a vision sticker what are we trying to do we really want to create an environment that is competitive for our students that it's world class and that really at the end of the day is an environment that cultivates learning in the world and you may recall that last year our Focus was reset and relaunched coming out of coven really getting getting all of our faculties back together setting our goals and getting tightly and developing the Strategic plan this year it is literally creating tomorrow today we are going to take those strategic actions and move forward and simply our mission for for probably two decades now in Brookfield has been to inspire Challenge and prepare our students to look meaningful and productive lives that's going to really be

013met through the dispositions you see up there of the Brookfield seats we want our students to be excellent communicators collaborators creative and critical thinkers and change makers changing things for the positive in our community and in our world with the strategic planning committee really worked on was that middle section there with the likely background top of the yellow and that's the Strategic actions when you develop a strategic plan you really have to have big strategies you're going for and then develop plans through a backwards design model of how you're going to get there and so what you see is four big goals or strategies that we're working on as a district and as a board and this goes all the way through to our Pre-K students up through our grade 12 students the first thing

014is we really want to define the portrait of The Graduate what are those Brookfield C's really look like how do we incorporate them in an authentic way where all students have experiences with the Brookfield seas in demonstrating their Proficiency in the Brookfield sees from pre-k to 12. moving across the slide in the middle there we need to continue to invest in technology and prioritize training as well as updating and improving our digital tools for students and for staff all aligned to the portrait of The Graduate and then finally making sure that our systems and structures all of our back office work is in alignment with the portrait of graduate to make sure that our operations support the best quality education we can for our students so those are four big statements but they are while

015they're specific they are General there's a lot of work that has to go in to make those all come alive and be actionable and actually get there someday and so we have objectives in year one of our five five year strategic plan the first objective develop the standard portrait of The Graduate we really need to Define that and it's a lot of work that is going to come out of the teaching and learning office of led by Dr Mann as well as incorporating instructional strategies that align to the portrait of The Graduate and Define those at the bottom part of the page the next thing we need to do align with technology the third strategy we need to integrate technology to enhance learning experiences remember that the technology we use now and really frankly our

016students when they're picking up a Chromebook it's probably as important as a pencil used to be technology is so important in our learning process and then the next is obviously supporting the culture of continuous Improvement and that's where the law of resistance and structures and while I'm not going to read through the bottom portion of that because we all can this will be posted in the newsletter that I send out tomorrow and then post it on the website and on Facebook I really wanted to walk through this one page that's very straightforward for everybody to have a sense of what the Strategic plan is but importantly when I talk when you look at the very bottom section there's a lot of actions that have to occur um this year to get us to the levels

017that we want to get to and that's called the District implementation plan we're still fleshing out the plan we'll be working on Tuesday at our leadership Advance with the administrative team to really flesh out all the details of how we're going to get there in year one to these goals we have so for example in creating a developing the standard portrait of The Graduate the first one there is the program of the portrait of The Graduate dispositions are clearly defined pre-K in grade 12. that takes time we have to sit down with our Pre-K teachers all the way through our 12th grade teachers in a really Define mine what what is a communicator an excellent Communicator at a Pre-K level Kayla at a grade one level so you can imagine how one this is going

018to take it's a lot of work that needs to be done another example in instructional strategies I'll just pick one here I'm having rigorous and aligned standard-based curriculum directly connected to the portrait of the graduate which has been designed and implemented that's a lot of work while that's working here one that's going to take a couple of years to finish that up but as the time goes on Dr Mann will be reporting out on the Strategic plan often in sharing and bringing up teachers and our instruction coaches to talk about what curriculum is being uh or presented at a particular similarly in integrative technology the majority of professional learning are just picking the one in the middle there will have digital tools for learning so when we're doing PD with our staff whether it's our

019parent Educators or even our custodians but of course our faculty we're going to make sure we're teaching them and incorporating tools of Technology tools and then in supporting continuous Improvement there are a number of items of items in there uh that we're going to be working on and continuing to improve for example efficient well-maintained facilities user-friendly Communications for an example we're going to be updating our website obviously board policies that support teaching and learning so while I didn't want to read every single one of those I wanted to just point those out the other piece to that is if you go back to the left it says initiatives and in year one that's the district implementation all the details will be count Ed accountable we'll be able to link and we'll present that at a

020future meeting for you but it was important to bring this forward what I'd like for the board to be accepting of is that every couple of meetings we support and how we're doing against the Strategic strategic do and I'm thinking and timing wise with Candlewood Lake opening in a couple of weeks maybe the candidate like update can come off the end of the meeting and we could put maybe a standing strategic Plan update at the end of the not maybe not every meeting but so that's the first part and if you have any questions or talk uh last meeting about special right director kind of ways so we might consider having a slot on the agenda that you alternate around the next one we have a special everybody in the community and we can get

021unless they have to up to date on both of us I appreciate that I think that would make sense he's actually on the agenda for his second update with us all right so continuing on my report I want to turn it over to Dr Mann just to give a brief update she's got a handout for the board on new teacher orientation thank you um so I know that we're also gonna about to go into consent agenda um but I wanted to take a couple minutes um from Dr gorilla's superintendents report to just highlight how excited we are um to not only kick off convocation and share uh the one pager on the Strategic plan and all the work that we've done throughout the Summer with the entire faculty but first but the beginning of that

022week meet with our new teachers and about there'll be about dozens maybe 15 people who are participating in our new teacher orientation and that will start on Monday August 28th and it'll run for two days 28th and 29th before rolling right into our welcome back and convocation the 30th through the first so what I've handed out to you is the correspondence that our current hires about eight or nine of them at this point received yesterday from my office so it's just a welcome letter and we're excited to welcome them as members of our Brookfield best community and it just gives them the outline of the day so you can kind of see what the plan is for those two days one of the things that's important to me and I you know inherited a really

023nice strong new teacher orientation but it was really important for me to make sure that each of the teachers saw saw the um thank you thank you I saw all of the as many district leaders as possible so each of our principals is involved but many of our assistant principals um the instructional coaches will be there and so this is not only a kind of an onboarding and logistical piece of their experience but it's also the beginning of really welcoming them and building enthusiasm one of the things you're going to hear from us from both Dr Brill and for me this year is kind of grounded in Purpose with being inspired by vision and that's really the you know kicking off the theme of this this year's new teacher orientation so you can just have

024a look at the two days um you know as I said there's there's some more kind of perfunctory things making sure they get their badges making sure they get their login information but also really thinking about you know their well-being and and their understanding um we're going to be doing some various activities you know thinking about their milestones and having them kind of set their personal and professional goals beginning to think about that and so I'm really excited about meeting with our new teachers and again welcoming nice way to ease into the entire week of a celebration of coming back to school anyone has any questions about it report back on this feeling it's going to be at TSS I'd rather have everybody get in yeah that was one of the things we were hoping

025for that it would be an absolute clean and perfect condition without a lot of workers around where we can act can't be like the one last message a tradition may happen so continuing on my report just an update on kindergarten enrollment we are at 159 115 kindergarten last month we were at 156 so we're really holding nicely in our 17 to 20 range with um 20 or 19 kids or 21 kids in class depending on the classes are a share here really just thrilled that Dr pepsoski and Mr Roland could work together on they're both said this at the Personnel negotiations committee the other night they're really it's nice to be around them have Dr Mann service with me and haven't been a scheduler myself having people who really understand schedules and student needs and

026being able to look at that that whole Matrix and put things together um we're taking a look uh Dave is really taking a look at his regular para Educators in terms of the 4.5 pair Educators we invested in as a board a year ago really I had that support for the kindergarten students in kindergarten classrooms but it was a half day and so what he's doing with Mr Roland in special education is looking at all of our Paris schedules looking at um I find students in the classes where they need to receive their service but also looking at efficiencies in those schedules and there may be a way they're still working on it where we can actually have another adult almost all day for the kindergarten classrooms and we know how important that is even

027if a student is an identified um they're one they're very little school is very new to them many of them and not um and especially give the circumstances of the last few years our younger children are coming in frankly more and more effective and so there's a look there's a lot of support that's needed there and an extra pair of hands is great for our teachers as well so we're really excited about that thank you to gentlemen for working on that coming up coming up now so I wanted to share that but enrollment wise the eight sections looks like it's technology just two quick announcements and this will be in the newsletter the broadcast that goes out tomorrow um we are working on getting an upgrade scheduled for the district website um Conklin um still

028working on whether we stay with our current vendor or given their schedule and their opportunity or do we move to different budget to update our website that will happen this year this year likely uh uh mid to late fall when we started that we also are getting a new phone system this correlates with the new school but also the entire district is getting a brand new phone system which includes new phones and all that that's been budgeted in it's important for everybody to know that while the main phone numbers will be the same for the schools the extensions will change and so we'll publish all of that Candlewood Lake school's main number is the old huckleberry now it's time for summer school I'd like to actually turn it over to Dr brutal we had a

029great summer schools program as Dr Moon comes up just a little bit of History our summer school program really was re uh was invigorated this this is our third summer of having summer school and we've used our passer funds for that as we develop the budget going forward this fall for next year we will have to think about how we're going to one of those items that rolls into the budget but I don't want to talk about that I want to talk about the celebration of Summer School this year and here's doctor thank you Dr Burrell good evening everyone happy August I am very excited to be here to present um what's been going on out of Brookfield this summer so we had two sites this summer our k-4 students were at Center some of

030them were in our step adventure program and others were in the esy program at Whiskey near the same structure was done except just note that stem adventure for middle school was Middle School five through eight Mr Roland will speak about esy in a little bit but I am here really to talk about our saying over the past three years I've worked with Mr runda Mrs Kayla Denault was the site director of whiskey near and this year Mrs Alyssa Larson was our site director at center for the first time so the four of us really worked together to um do a really I think special program for students so not only were students working on some reading and writing skills and math skills we were able to provide a lot of enrichment through this stem program

031as well pictures of our students hard at work they enjoyed it feedback was amazing at Center we had 96 students participate in grades K through four at Whiskey near we had 26 students participate um granted smaller number of grades there versus where it was our next year we hope if this program is able to continue with your support we hope K5 will be housed at Candlewood Lake and more students will be able to participate so just some details like I said at Center there were 96 students that participated we had nine certified staff members the other amazing thing about this program is our very own high school students with the help of Mr belanda's selection were our Tas so students that were in the future teachers of America Club National Honor Society anybody really interested

032in maybe pursuing a career in education were able to apply to be a teacher's assistant and we put them to work they were working with small groups of students they helped lesson planning and preparing they ran our arrival and dismissals seamlessly at CES they used to pick my kids so to get some of our kindergarten and first grade students ready our parents are ready to use it again would like as well so we really took advantage of stem Adventure this summer uh with skinnier like I said there were 26 students six certified staff members um were in the program as well as four High School Tas we used at both sites the stem modules from the national inventors Hall of Fame which provides all-in-one stem modules everything you could possibly need the curriculum the materials

033um new this year was online learning even to help students really engage with different stem topics one of the modules for our I think our first grade through third grade students were that robotics so they got to take care build take care and code a little pet dog that they then got to take home and it was absolutely absolutely amazing um and then of course in addition we had small group lessons in literacy and math so again these classes had 10 to 12 students we like to keep the ratio small so it was really to adults one certified teacher and one ta with those to 12 students this July there were 14 days of instruction we ran the program Monday through Thursday and for three hours each day something I'd like us to explore potentially

034for next year would be the transportation issue busing was not provided for students um in the stem adventure program and it limited the number of students that were able to participate as well as students that were invited couldn't necessarily take advantage of that because of the transportation so that's something that I'd like to take a look at for next year as well and of course more pictures they got into it these kids were building them and not only were they focused on stem they were focused on teamwork collaboration um really big problem solving what to do when you disagreed with someone else's opinion how to navigate all those interpersonal skills that um tie in with the Brookfield sees and feedback from families was wonderful um and I'll share this presentation with all of you season

035actually take a look at the pictures a little bit more and see some of the feedback too and we were able to do it because of you so thank you for your continued support and um can't wait to try this again make sure so I also just want to add that um doctor and I talked about when we were organizing this she was organized in this this spring I asked her if because we had so many students high school students asking to be Tas or if you saw one up there a couple of them were volunteering so they chose not to be paid because they wanted to use this time for volunteer hours towards their graduation um but I asked her to inspire them to help with word of the week and so the word

036of the week program has been compiled as a collaborative effort between the Tas and some of the teachers Dr rubel and Lisa Bramley who is phenomenally together all of our pictures and so the world where are the week is going to come out in the next couple weeks and summer but also I look forward to what we're doing with our strategic plan and really is that again grounded in her business inspired by Vision himself and the faculty and students had a lot of fun they were running around trying to take pictures and get words and the students the K4 students actually got involved in suggested Words which was so I know that it's a really popular program with K4 but it didn't look like there was a lot five through eight is that just like

037a lower interest with that age group or did we try to keep the groups a little bit smaller at five threes and some of the targeted needs are a little bit more intense than Q through four um once invitations go out a second round of invitation has come out a lot of the initial limitations are based on under your assessment so sometimes we don't get that data as early as we would like and at that point parents have already made plans for camps or Vacations so that kind of interferes a little bit much appreciated a successful program once again and we'll see Danielle at the end of the meeting she's put the slides together for our Candlewood Lake updates um the other shout out and kind of informational piece on when we talk about our

038future teachers teachers of America or students interested in Oklahoma school and community service hours um Dr pepsowski and the team are always interested in students who want to volunteer at the elementary school and especially if they want to help when they're out of school at 2 45 and then come over to the elementary school and help out whether that's classes helping with dismissal whatever it might be just contact Dr rudel or Mrs Gordon with the assistant principals of the Upper House in the lower house and we can arrange that so we already have some of that arranged maybe kids really um it's just nice to see the the entire team and the community coming together and empowering students so much it's really exciting okay I promise I only have a couple more to get get

039through here there's just so much on so much so much so that was summer school oh so just to go a little further on the library book limitation protocol so the the board as you may recall directed me to address a library book limitation and making sure parents were aware of the policy and their rights and making sure we were paying close attention to to them we have an abundance of care to be very candid in good faith working with the district leadership team which includes our principles is to ensure that was unanimous coming out of our meeting after the July 19th meeting that we would move forward with on the demographic information in the portal asking the question because we don't want any students to fall through the cracks where their parents might be

040concerned and want to make sure that we know they will be likely be requesting a book limitation so that was the the basis of the decision it was out of care for our students and alignment um I won't bring the concern of Mrs Carr because we had a great conversation about it and I always respect her input to the team on the next meeting and see if that is something we want to keep as a required field or an optional field and we'll have that conversation certainly didn't fall into fears tonight so I appreciate that the other piece that sent too is the very simple piece of the protocol which actually Mrs card to talk about which is very nice and easy for parents principles with their newsletters next week we'll have this in there

041they'll have a list of the library media Specialists with their emails and so if a parent has a concern with a particular author or particular book titles they can email the librarian and away we go the librarian will have that on file and we'll know not to check that check that out if a parent happened to check no in the portal that they aren't going to contact the library that's okay because if you send an email to the librarian and say I don't want my child to read this book that's obviously going to be honored and will experience or caring individuals and they are they are on top of it and don't so in all honesty it came out of a place of goodness and care and that's all I can say and we will

042continue monitoring and enhancing and Improvement and then the last one for me on at least for now on certain of course just a brief piece on Candlewood Lake I think it's really important to just make a firm safe in here that all indications from Ong our contractor are full steam ahead they have increased their workers their all indications are we are set to open up on September 5th albeit between now and September 5th if there's going to continue to be um a anticipation and a rising action as we comes Crescendo into the morning of September 5th Hopefully Dr Mann and I are riding some buses we'd like at least around that did last year so we might have to do that um in the morning with the elementary kids but um it's important to know

043that the the workers have increased substantially in the last week Mr Belden I know I think he he might have lunch out there or something I don't know you stop over there quite a bit Mr Golden but I spent a great deal of time with the team over there walking through the school that Dr pepsaski and I are closer than we ever thought we would be with the work we're doing this summer and uh in all honesty I'm very confident OMG is confident our leaders of the NBC are confident but in all honesty um I empathize with someone who might have some thoughts to say I drove by and it looks really commodity like I don't see a parking lot yet how are you going to get into the school right now the site work

044is the biggest challenge it's been what happened actually was what's called unsuitable soil not unsuitable in any kind of a toxic way unsuitable in the sense that it was soft developers of the the property as it was owned before it was even Huckleberry and then when it was Huckleberry a lot of stumps and other things were varied there so when they dug out and tried to get ready to pack the soil it was way too soft almost like a trampoline well that had to be dug down deeper than anticipated which caused the delay and then harder soil with more gravel and so forth had to be put on as a replacement but that's all being rectified for catching up Gerbers the contractor who's doing the excavation in the parking lot and everything and they've been

045unbelievable they're outperforming expectations working really hard and I anticipate while we'll have a temporary parking lot as part of the plan um is it near Candlewood Lake Road the south parking lot at least prepared enough to to have our 100 parking spaces that we need there whether it's the perfect finish on August 30th for our teachers to come in that's the remains to be seen but we've been surprised the last couple of days is some improvement so anyway I'm going on longer than I I wanted to we'll talk about it later but we're really excited and we're ready to go for September 5th and that's all I have this problem any questions from the board for Dr William oh one more one more Candlewood Lake I don't want to forget Candlewood Lake Road so everybody

046knows the widening of the road the um the paving is going to uh packed it down they cut it out they now need to pave and that is going to happen I believe Tuesday August 22nd Which is less than a week away and come around the corner and they'll start going in what's in that construction entrance that's called the South driveway they'll start Paving up in there on that same day standing right now 27 yeah that's a Tuesday that's Tuesday you got it next Tuesday so yeah that's it that's good all right here you know further questions uh next up is or special education update and his bill comes forward just a reminder that as Mr Golden was alluding to earlier Mr Roland and Dr Mann most months are going to rotate on a report

047so we'll get them in front of the board more for some updated reports in addition to that this is actually what Mr Roland asked for in the summer so you got your wish girl you're going to be presenting I do this is the this is the sequel I spoke about um good evening members of the board thank you for the opportunity to come to you uh last time I couldn't hear I was three weeks in now I am six weeks in um my slideshow is uh less than it was last time but I would like to have the opportunity to both reflect on uh some good things that we've completed and some plans that are moving ahead um the first thing I'd like to speak about is this special education strategic plan committee and I'm

048so pleased that Dr Burrell spoke about the district strategic plan this evening because again as I as I've spoken about before both in to you as the board and also individually we want to align our special education plan with the district strategic plan customizing it for special education so the opportunity tonight to speak about that we are still in the planning stages I have been encouraged by parents reaching out to me to to want to be on it but I would also encourage other parents if you have it uh to please give me a call or email me I'd also like to engage members of the board our teachers our parents our related services staff and all Community stakeholders to be part of this decision-making process and this creation of a unique uh strategic plan

049focused on special education but aligned with our district strategic plan um we are in the plane space ages I'm looking forward to having a kickoff meeting in September as a side note to that what I've started doing on a monthly basis is also doing office hours and that's where I I did it during the day this time and I'm gonna give me feedback from parents do it for different hours evening or afternoon for them to be able to just come and talk ask questions and have access and opportunity in addition to the meetings that I've had with parents both individually and in groups also just as a as an update for you on the correct specialized program review Dr Burrell proposed this last fall in addition to the district-wide special educational review this is focusing

050on our specialized programs our ELC our life skills uh and those pieces in addition to what our processes are when we're looking at out of District placements it's not necessarily a review of the out of placement specifically it's more how we operate and how our decisions are put into process in terms of what have we done to move that forward and and the necessities of them and in addition how they might be students returning from out of this Replacements and how we we approach that uh and I've been in uh frequent contact with Dr corvo Who I know spoke before my arrival here on the district program review but she will be back in the November board meeting to speak about the specialized program review and that is in process um I've reached out to

051the parents that are involved in the the interviews and I've reached out to the Atticus Replacements many of whom I've worked with in other capacities so I'm very encouraged by both uh our are moving forward with the Strategic plan committee and with our specialized program review and I'd like to just close with sort of an addendum and I'd like to give a acknowledgment to Dr rudel Who without her help and support during esy with her stem Adventure team we collaborated so well and it was such a welcoming for me in terms of getting to know the district and getting to know parents that we were sharing the space both in center and the other site at Western Air for our older students um just a sincere thanks to Dr brutal and her team but also

052to the teachers the Paris the related services staff the families whom I met in both pick up and drop off uh that allowed and welcomed me and allowed me to reach out to them and connect and I think that's that's crucial in in our first month or two of my being the director is relationships are being established and communication is opening and we're having good solid discussions about what concerns are and how we can support our students in the classroom both at an early age and all through high school and up through adulthood and what we can do as a school district to help that uh in terms of rosters between the two I didn't break it down by program but we had about 132 students on our rosters for both sites and again as

053you know esy is to prevent regression over the summer from the end of the school year to the beginning of the next school year it's a decision made during a PPT meeting where parents have a voice in what their children would need during the summer and whether or not extended school year is appropriate for those that were part of it I know that they had a great time and again having the stem Adventure team in the same building with us was such a great demonstration of how general education and special education just collaborate and be together I picked out a couple photos thanks Dr rodel for adding a couple for me but this was kind of uh the first and last which is kind of the last day when we were kind of getting ready

054to say goodbye for the summer and this these are our students at play having done a whole lot of hard work in the esy program and worked on their goals and worked on their objectives we were so happy to see them coming in eager to come to school and also being part of a group and learning how to work with others in a just a nice community of Learners teachers and support staff those are my two slides so I thank you for that I'm also eager to take any questions you might have um and this is the first ad as you know of many updates the next time I hope to expand on the Strategic plan committee and talk about openings of school and uh just different processes that we're looking at examining and how

055we're collaborating with the principles in each building a question thank you Bill thank you thank you thank you Bill um let me remiss if we didn't thank our special education secretary uh Karen Olsen and also with civio in the office but Karen uh really with Taryn Argenta being new and Bill being new she made sure in the month of June that we were really set and prepared and organized and communicative with our families so I know Bill appreciate me mentioning that and uh the great great summer in Africa all right so we're going to shift gears into our subcommittee reports and we'll start with policies okay we met on Wednesday July 19th um we really had two main items to focus on in that meeting we talked about policy 6162.51 which is a survey of

056students and we had spent several meetings discussing the survey policy prior to this meeting and then found out that there was a brand new updated policy from Cape dealing with surveys for students so the July 19th meeting was really spent reviewing cape's new recommended policy which is much more streamlined very um clear much easier to understand and just very direct so we reviewed the updated policy from cave and had some questions and thoughts about again going back to our previous discussions about opting in versus opting out of surveys so we had agreed to table our discussion until this month so that our full subcommittee could be there and weigh in on the discussion and also that would give us an opportunity to get some input from our board attorney so we continue those discussions in

057our meeting tonight actually uh then we also talked about policy 6563 School library media and a policy change request that was that was children's puzzle via a petition so um part of their request in the petition was had to do with acquisition criteria and acceptably use policy so what we decided to do was again we had a lengthy discussion but decided to table any decision until this month's meeting or Beyond so that we could have some time to review the acquisition criteria and also talk to our library media Specialists about how they go through the library book selection process we also wanted to spend more time reviewing the district's acceptable use policy before we made any decisions so again at con that discussion was continued in tonight's meeting um and then we just had some

058you know a brief discussion about future communications to parents and staff regarding Candlewood Lake Elementary School thank you are there any questions for Debbie so did you finish on either of the policies that are the table in June July tonight or there's Contin [Music] broker from the high school came to our meeting tonight with Mr belanda but we asked we gave her an assignment and asked her to give us some input on some additional information that we're looking for no thank you any questions uh Joy isn't here it's all through the facilities update um and I'm pretty much just going to go through the minutes that you all received but the we met on July 19th committee um impact committee meeting we had the on the draft building condition study for BHS and Winston very

059expensive study it was an existing and they reported in general that the two buildings are uh are in good shape generally but there are projects that need to get done and more projects at the high school than at the middle school and we kind of went through their identified areas but roofs windows piping are some of the most urgent needs what they identify they said they don't all have to be done in a five to ten year plan and so one of the assignments that we left that meeting with was to turn their recommendations into an actionable uh plan that we will present to the Capital Community present to the capital committee when that committee reconvenes what should be happening I hope soon uh uh the uh but if I if I get the high

060the high level numbers it was and the 12 million at the high school over a 10-year period and five to six million in the Middle School Ken you're not in your neck right right a lot of sections of the roof needed to have a regular replacement skid we'll talk a little bit about the guidance roof in a moment because that's the that's the current project um it's a good report we had a good discussion with them but there's more to come on that that front um the two big items that we have requested Capital uh in in the spring for or additional capital and spring the maintenance vehicle has been completed with the utility body and the liftgate so that's that project is complete now and guidance from roof project was going to take place

061in early September and I think it's the week of Labor Day week is when they start and that was driven entirely entire so that is uh that's going to be done they also reported it should not be a disruption for the students it's a group of work being done on the roof it's not going to be um Capital project update the HVAC project at the high school nearly complete they're working on the final punch list so that's been a big project that is we've talked about every month there are some HVAC units that were not part of that original rollout and we'll be part of the rollout on the building conditions study over over the next five to ten years room the drywall at that time was complete and it's scheduled to be completed mid-august

062has been getting regular reports since then it's in really it's really progressing for completion and that includes outside accessible restrooms which was a real important addition to our uh our high school field setup the turf field project will be completed in its entirety by and in October early November but it comes in two phases one is the field itself which is recarponing the main football field action is going to get done in high early by early September but and what happens after that is that is the track project around the field which will be paved soon soon after the football field has done and uh and then it has to have the rubberized surface on the top they take some time to cure and set so those will will have access to the field um

063our athletic directors working to make sure that we have as much access to the field for football games for example well yes and Bob Mr Baldwin is in uh believe and I don't know if Mr belan could not his head for me in the communication I think just recently may have gone out today about Athletics and it's not you know it's we call it the athletic field as a reminder for everybody because all the sports play on that field um and so when we think about football there's the one game a week and then but um peers at this moment we anticipate that less games will be missed that we originally thought given the process that you were just describing Bob um and working with the vendor and the athletic director and most people in

064public don't know is this is a while it affects the school system it is a Parks and Rec project run by Parks Iraq with support from the municipal building committee the Board of Education and situation Act project we have we have cooperation in class and the the key time moment is about a two-week period when they have to lay that rubberized surface yeah you can't be walking across it in those and even like even a ball can't fall on it yeah there's a two-week period between home games that we could utilize uh do that but it's all dependent on the weather and that's that's always the hard thing about outside projects so um security projects we got an update on those those are all proceeding very well and many of them completed most particularly in

065the Intruder proof class at both West Bay Area and high school is complete right so we've got the entire first floor and it's already built into clas so um the media center at the high school is a challenge because the cost came in a lot higher than expected to a contractor and the engineer to see if we can get it closer to the approved budget and that's still worked up that's going on it might include some value engineering because we'll come back too many times asking for more questions uh the third one is equity and inclusion okay um I'll go over a little bit and then I'll hand you over to maybe Dr Mann when we get to the agenda item to get into it a little deeper but we met last because that was

066last two weeks ago two weeks ago on on first we had met in April Dr Burrell wasn't able to attend that but we had met in April with Dr Mann and Miss Abrego who will be seeing a bit later um this is something that's been ongoing we started this Committee in like the summer 2020 into the fall sort of in reaction to some things that were happening nationally and we had a meeting with some alumni that came just to give the background had some strong opinions and things to say about the districts that we felt it was important to look at it and look at the district and look that things are Equitable for every student in the district so we formed this committee and I think as we learned through our meetings and through

067reports to the board we've sort of bit off a little more than we it was um we had a little lost in the process and the data and the direction of the committee got muddy at times and not to mention conflicting schedules it was a very big committee we had students we had community members staff hard to keep everyone on task and we had a lot of you know what problem are we trying to solve and just people have different ideas um on the committee on the board about what we should be doing so Dr Mann when she came in wonderfully who had worked on this in her previous District had suggested dissolving the official subcommittee of the board and bringing it down to more of a district level committee so she and Dr Burl

068I'm sure she could talk of it when we get to the motion part or the agenda item about some ideas that they are already working on and like the Strategic plan the special interview things that are already ongoing and some other things to sort of implement the possibility of making climate committees at each School an advisory Council to the superintendent with parents educators students right speaks educator advisory counseling and super redundant so these are just some ideas that speak on later so that's basically we had that discussion we made the motion to bring it to the full board to go ahead and dissolve the official subcommittee of the board and leave it leave at a strict level Dr Mann and so we'll talk more about it in a couple months right that's it for uh

069subcommittee reports next up is consent agenda I would move that the board approved the address on the consent agenda which are new hires resignations transfers and degree changes the second oh second um okay smooth and seconded uh Dr Berlin any comments on a lot of personnel moves I have a lot to say but I'm going to defer to Dr Mann who is uh in charge of working with HR and hiring this summer all right so thank you very much um so everyone as you can see has been very busy in the HR department and the building leadership level this is you know summertime is the busiest time in terms of hiring and making sure everybody is in the right seat on the bus um so I do want to extend a thank you to the

070members of my staff and human resources and the benefits Department they've done a lot of work processing all the paperwork getting at people on board I also want to extend a huge thank you to our principals and the teams that they put together you know it's integral to the hiring process at the building level to make sure that we have all of our colleagues and community members involved in the process and so they put together spectacular teams of the right teachers and support staff to be a member of these hiring teams and of course those people who you know our invested in our district give up time in their summer to come in and participate in these high committee so I really really appreciate it and I want to say thank you to ether um

071so you'll see that we have a few of the most recently new newly hired um this isn't a comprehensive list of people who will be at the August 28th and 29th but these are many of them we also have some list of resignations and I wanted to kind of just highlight that in terms of I'm not sure if anybody saw the article over the weekend I believe it was August 11th by Ken Dixon of the Connecticut Insider that's because referenced the teacher the difficulties that all school districts are facing this summer with the teacher shortage you know there are specifically there not all districts are are suffering as much our district is actually very lucky with our recruitment because we are a desirable District to come work in which people want to come work but

072this is not something that is exclusive to these resignations and transfers there's a lot of opportunity for movement in the in the state right now particularly in some of some specific disciplines such as Math Science and special education and paraprofessionals there's a huge shortage in those four areas um so I just think that that kind of adds some context to the resignations that we have people have opportunities um to move closer to home to have different schedules and that's really what we're seeing um and so you know we do have our list of resignations but what I really am excited about sharing with you um is our list of transfers we have had opportunities with the combination of our full Elementary School and right sizing the middle school there are have been some shifts in

073uh positions and so we want to extend a huge congratulations to all of the people who have transferred but Mr Julio Landa Verdi who is become the head exciting promotion for him he's a valued employee and has really done a fabulous job Jen shot who's coming back from a year of leave but she is a one of our seventh grade social studies teachers so she's taking the role of instructional coach for social studies K-8 so we're excited to have her on board and then Judy Sanborn who's served us very very well as a repair professional ABA paraprofessional has um is getting their certification and is moving into the classroom and she is a huge asset she was a star during esy and she did some long-term Southern course at the end of the school year

074we're just really really excited to bring her on board as a fully certified member of um and then also the uh the kind of culminating piece is that we obviously are an educational system we value education at all at all times of life and we I've always been very impressed since I've gotten here of the number of um staff and Personnel who are pursuing Advanced degrees and and further certifications so we want to send a huge huge congratulations to the four folks who are listed there who have advanced their degrees and they are just a few of the many who are continuing on in their pursuit of their education including our own Mr Roland who is going embarking on his hopefully last part of his doctorate degree pursuing his doctorate and that's my reflection on

075consent agenda thank you any questions on the consensus okay all in favor congratulations to all right we're in the new business section and we're actually moving we'll get at least short and business agenda this evening so first up is a trip to France approval foreign [Music] France as recommended by a World Language ml curriculum leader Catherine Abrego and Brookfield Texas if you want to get us going on us so as a follow-up to the celebratory um is it from the French students to Whiskey near we now have Catherine back with us and she's going to talk about the exchange program to have our students visit France um part of our strategic plan we use the phrase world class and I think postcoded post all the concerns really getting out there and working with our families

076and saying you know what we need to get our students out there and see the world so Catherine can you take the mic thank you appreciate you being here tonight all right thanks for having me um and as Dr Burrell said I just wanted to recall back I think it was May where we had our videographer put together a lovely video that summed up um the French students coming here and enjoying Brookfield we also had some students speak about really just Unforgettable experiences that they had and so we're excited to complete that cycle hopefully the first of many more to come our French teacher from whiskey near Keith Johnston has been the key proponent of all of us to be honest we can't be here tonight but um the itinerary that was put together and

077the actual proposal he pretty much did most of that and I've just kind of been overseeing and working with people here and there to make sure that we've kind of uh costly teased out of the eyes of all these little things and worked a lot with Ken when we talked about like Insurance related things and just making sure that safety is covered that we have everything that students need so that they can truly get abroad and then just enjoy their experience um primarily what's like similar to what the french students did here because they stayed with our students and their homes so that will be a reciprocal experience there and then there's just a blend of activities of being in a French school experiencing what that is but also doing some of the touristy things

078you know going to Paris for like an overnight trip and then just experiencing some of the nature some other cities to just really give them a nice well-rounded view of France and if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them but I think back sums up what we're hoping to do and the board had the full proposal on Friday board Packaging so let me just I'm going to ask the questions I think I can read the answers but that's something people watch it with us this is targeted for April 10th to the 19th correct School holiday week it is so it would be about two to two and a half days that students would miss we may depart on the ninth it really just depends on flight prices and the timing of things but

079they would just miss about two to two and a half days of school and then take their April break how many students we're hoping for 30 that would require four chaperones to go as well and that just helps to drive down the cost a little bit too we didn't want to go too higher you know than 30 since that'll be our first time traveling internationally for a while but we didn't want to keep it too low either because it really you know we wrote the cost was a lot if we kept it really low so this kind of made it a nice middle of a road and we're going to the same school that because we've seen students yeah yep so they'll fly into nice is the airport that's closed session then they would commute

080to Santa pay and then they'll also have um we had train ride to Tulum and then into Paris just to give them a little bit of some different cities European training that's the best experience exactly and what is the cost for families roughly um so we did an estimated cost whenever possible we did try to round higher on prices as a lot of these things could change when it comes to food I mean even the dollar to Euro changes a little bit day to day so we're hoping that it comes in a little lower than this but we looked at um 1876 dollars and even just calling it even two if you're trying to for a couple of the meals that students may have to come out um or some spending money that they might

081want to bring is our starting point again hopefully it comes in lower when we're actually able to purchase uh flights and and solidify our hotel reservation and for Paris for example um and then of course we would also hope to be doing some fundraisers throughout the year to just help students um you know set off the price a little bit that's my next question yeah families yes and now that we've got approval here we can really move forward with a lot of that and try to make that happen sooner rather than later and cost to the district I mean do we pay the teachers and or chaperones or is that the cost for chaperones is built into this studio price so we expose that across everything so that would be covered um and then the

082only thing I thought that where we may incurate costs would have been an insurance coverages but I believe Canada favorite broker was correct there's no additional charges we just need to kind of make some contacts and make sure we add all the international travel policy and we can get more details if we choose but it doesn't incur an additional costs on our the district behalf or for the student questions sorry I just I wanted to make sure that it was clear for those who didn't have this 4K job all right sounds great and all in favor of approvals okay you're off and running thank you very much thank you Catherine appreciate the leadership all right uh next up on the agenda is uh the dissolution of the board subcommittee on equity and inclusion with a

083possible motion and here we're showing an action that uh so we're going to get a report [Music] thank you so um as Amy said we met and actually Catherine was with uh with me in the uh the first meeting that I was a part of in the spring to talk about uh the direction of the subcommittee of the board and you know subcommittees on the board that are kind of regulated by board statute um usually have a specific purpose and a specific Focus that are aligned with curfew of the board and it did sound like as Amy already spoke to this kind of an organic situation in a couple years back when which was what the whole state and Nation were facing and different school districts have handled the uh concerns differently and I think

084that having a subcommittee of the board was what this District needed at that time but given how far things have come and you know changed and then we also dealt with a variety of different issues including covid it seems to me based on where we are now as a community the work that needs to get done is really more at the district and building levels as part of a lot of the other work that has actually frankly been going the correct program review with the development of the Strategic plan with our reflection on where our students are and not just looking at their academics but also their social emotional development and how we're meeting the needs of our of our students and also with that you know ultimate goal of really preparing them for life

085and um you know life beyond school life work and involvement in the community so we I'm interested in helping to partner with again with my colleagues Catherine was very excited about this work to really think about what it is we're you know digging down into the needs of each of the schools but also then looking at a comprehensive I would keep that View and then reporting back to the board on the work that we're doing whether it's through climate and culture or through curriculum or um through programming in terms of meeting the needs of our students it's really just a matter of allowing the school Personnel to do some work on behalf of this initiative but under the purview of a more you know of a more Personnel aspect so that's kind of where we

086were coming from and I'm certainly happy to answer any questions or Dr Brill or Amy can answer questions Dr Mike you're part of that conversation so so there was a mention of an acronym committee an advisory Council and on speaker so it hasn't been publicized or find finely formalized so one of the one of the the goal of mine going forward this year is getting Candlewood Lake behind me and delegating leadership of Candlewood lately to Dr pepsoski will allow me more time in my schedule to more formally engage with the community and one of the strategies that I want to take action on form a team of advisory team of students parents and Educators that could be an advisory Council to the superintendent so students parents Educators advisory Council to the superintendent little cutesy but

087I think it works and really focus on Communications and engagement and resource provision really early in the day because it's all about our students making sure they have the greatest welcoming and environment where everyone feels that they belong and that's one of the opportunities to get feeling direct engagement we have school climate committees at our schools and so that's going to be a place where principles how we can get representatives from mental climate committees to come to the speaks committees and our district level talk things through I talked with several parents that are interested in volunteering As Leaders on this just to help me um so that's just one aspect I'm talking about what Bill talks about with the correct program review oftentimes when people talk about equity and inclusion um immediately folks go to

088sexual orientation or race we 've been part of that we need to make sure to make sure included and they have Equitable opportunity as well this really affects all of us so we already have a lot of great things going certainly anything that um is going on in the school building is under the responsibility of the pursue School principal so they'll know what's going on stakeholders that serves any changes that go on with curriculum and I can't say this strongly enough is very important I think this helps Mr Ontario with his question go through the cape committee so and then after the cape committee onto the full board so it's always transparent we move forward with that that's really important looks like we approve a textbook or a curriculum or whatever it might be um

089I just wanted to you know what we do as school leaders is look at a lot of the many of the issues that we Face through a variety of lenses and so this is really just affording us a formal way of looking at all of the things that are under our purview you know certainly curriculum instruction and assessment climate and culture uh you know Athletics uh um you know special education involvement who has access to different courses just by nature of our kind of scope and sequence those are the kinds of things that not only from are we having are we using the highest leverage instructional approaches and using the best of most of appropriately aligned assessments but also are we noticing when a certain seems to be getting left behind or not included in

090some way right and not not to not to nobody's fault but just the way that our structure is created so to me based on what I was what I was listening to with members of this subcommittee it seemed like there was a kind of a question of what are we doing with all this information there's a lot of information shared a lot of data was collected and crunched a couple years back and then there was kind of a stall because it wasn't there was kind of not quite a direction of what we should do and that's partly because as members of the board it's not your job to do it's our job to do and so um that's really kind of where we were going with this is that I am anxious for this not

091to to stall because it's an important part it's what we've seen it's one of the reasons that concerns have been brought up from our community members about special education and other aspects of our you know our choice of books and those kinds of things so um it's really just an opportunity for us to continue to looking to look at our work through a variety of lenses the formal way [Music] I just wanted I just wanted to add as just somebody who was part of the formation of this Committee in the beginning was part of it throughout its long life and the last couple of meetings that we had um Dr Mann definitely said a lot more eloquently but the appropriateness of it really just ends up resting at the school level but what is nice

092that came out of it I think is the fact that um administrators and and building level leaders know that it's a priority of the board that's something that we want to focus on and so those reports are going to be really helpful and I think useful to us so I think um you know I I would um you know support the dissolution of the committee itself I want to add to um I had forgotten to say earlier some other like Anna had said some other districts also tackle this like our neighbor new town and a lot of them went throughout of hiring like an equity coordinator and I believe that position is no longer in Newtown right yeah but there's been I think there's a lot of you know it's somewhat of a buzzword sometimes

093too when people think there might be a hidden agenda but it really is all about what Dr Mann was saying you know the best outcome is for everyone kind of going back to the beginning of the meeting when we said hey we're gonna have a separate bill we're having sex with the doctor man this could be your part of a kind of a regular or online I thought that was kind of some I was thinking when we said hey we're going to make a spot for Dr men and but maybe you know other people of that of the climate committees and different schools can come and take some of that too but just in the interest of you know transparency I think it's really important stuff and then you're on top of that so I

094really appreciate that and so I um reflect back on Mr montero's comments at the beginning he said there was something called I'm going to get this wrong and Dei Playbook that was reviewed at the state level Equity check first Equity is that something that we use or is our approach more General I mean I don't even know what that is so I'm not familiar with the cave um Equity toolkit and I don't believe it is something that added the work of the subcommittee so but that would be from cave it would be not so much I I didn't read it a number of years ago when the committee was first formed it really was about process um member of how you get started in a set and have assessments and things like that okay and

095then the other we approved a policy statement to work hard on that policy system this does not affect our general policy statement on equity and inclusion is that a true state ment on the foreign any other comments discussion polls all right Amy why don't you put the motion on the table there so I will move that the board dissolved the equity and inclusion subcommittee second Ed any discussion okay all in favor aye Dr Mann thank you for the thoughtful conversation with us I appreciate that the third item in new business is a memorandum of agreement between the Brookfield public schools and the Brooksville Police Department I will move that the board approved the memorandum of agreement between the Brookfield public schools and the Brookfield Police Department regarding concealed carry for off-duty Brookfield Police Department officers

096exactly yes uh yeah I'll be very brief the um as uh the board may recall this was brought back brought to the board a few meetings ago you've seen this uh you've seen the Moa before the police commission has already approved the memorandum of agreement for concealed carry for off-duty police officers on school grounds and this was developed by legal counsel it's important to remind situations that remind the board that our legal counsel for the Board of Education actually is the same firm that advises the town as an advise the town and is able to collaborate on this and basically early in the last school year police chief a police he came to me he was seeking permission for off-duty officers um employed by the Brookfield police Department to carry weapons on school grounds and

097install sponsored activities off-duty police officers under current Connecticut Law which was just go down again recently are not permitted to carry weapons on school grounds and so they're prohibited for a variety of reasons the chief's main concern and my main concern is that we want to provide students and staff with the greatest protection in any emergency that might require an honored police officer and so if an off-duty police officer can't carry weapons on school grounds they would have to potentially leave the vicinity of the emergency and possibly Municipal grounds in order to retrieve a weapon thus possibly losing valuable minutes to most serious issue situation so really at the end of the day we have wonderful police officers many live in town others maybe they don't live in town but they serve as a coach

098or something like that they're on school grounds during their off-duty hours because Connecticut state law doesn't allow them to have their sidearm with them we want to make sure that we don't put them in any kind of legal Jeopardy and we was a resource for us if they're off duty and there happens to be an altercation in a parking lot or whatever as and that's basically the area if I recall the discussion of our first time through with us with the lawyers the uh if they were to be responding immediately become an on-duty office that's my understanding yeah um and this is unchanged since the first time I was on uh yes and the commission got it right after well Chief policy work to get it on the commission's agenda to then ultimately requirement we

099weren't going to sign it until then absolutely yes it's in draft it's in draft form Bob's name needs to be spelled correctly and we need to add the date in there so we'll get in the word document and have our town officials congratulations all right questions thoughts about this I I have a question um if right now by Connecticut state law they're not allowed to carry correct grounds how does this bypass the law I understand I thought I think the law said unless they have an agreement between themselves okay okay so the second part of that question is I would like I don't know I just I don't really feel like I know enough yet about how this would work and I really would feel more comfortable with presentation or discussion with the police chief

100about what other school districts are doing is this pretty widespread across the state if the state made it um illegal to carry on school grounds when you're not on duty I feel like they're was probably some justification for that and rationale that about your feel like we've been given that background I have not done the research or asked for that trustee but lazy trust our Council and equation of good police commission's judgment on that so it's our local off-duty police officers that are it's very clear in the Moa good standing of course I don't feel comfortable it will always do you want to take uh take a look for one meeting and uh isn't that a place to bring that up I mean I would feel better if an unarmed police officer could get his

101weapon in the event of an emergency that's what this is that's what decision this is saying he doesn't have to do it it doesn't have to do that he will he or she is so this would allow them to actually kept on our arm while being a coach at a practice is necessary in schools point out that it's not microphone and it's it's not like a it's not say Cooper it's a Brookfield police only if we were to open it if we were to open it up the state troopers it's another mou right right with the state right it's just I feel like you said something that's a little confusing okay they're a coach and there's many officers that don't live in town that are departments if they coach only Brookfield police officer so a

102police officer a little league coach for example and but the game is on school grounds they right now their weapon right thank you I apologize to the Republicans microphones in this room just bounce off of each other like crazy with respect I would like to go ahead and vote on this personal uh and uh we've talked about it before and I I personally would like to school this way along Debbie I'm sorry I didn't disagree with you first respectfully there anybody else have an opinion going now versus waiting okay all right so any other questions or discussion all in favor of the motion on the table please say aye aye all against okay passes five one thank you all right um so next up that's it for our new business and uh all right so

103uh next up since we did public comment there's no old business and we did public comment in its entirety at the beginning so next up is Kenwood Lakes Elementary School building project update all right so a little bit different for this update and you probably only have one or two more um this for a couple of years now so I'd like to invite Dr P to the microphone just to kind of open the celebratory comments this evening as well as I'll eventually with Dr Casey doctor will show the slideshow just a little bit but things I agree so first thing I'd like to share is on Friday we were able to email all of our sales parents and let them know who their child will have as a homework teacher the high school did not

104do that and it's important to understand why as much as I'd like to say it's because we're superheroes the reality is 1200 students 51 schedules young and physical they move my home rooms so 51 home runs 51 schedules the high school with 900 students and over 100 course offerings I think it takes me the same amount of time to schedule 1200 as it takes you to schedule so that's awesome thank you uh and the same with the middle school middle school has maybe 600 kids for the same time so that's why we're able to do that so not because we have superheroes right a little bit so that was awesome to be able to do that and I was able to reference a schedule sorry and now that I'm thinking with Paving and this shows

105me 20 29th 30 31. should we determine we might delay a little bit basically because on the 28th there's supposed to be some payments that's the case awesome let's get the baby done I'll remind you to come look at our beautiful new building uh as far as being in the building I get to live in every day I've been there for the last week and a half full disclosure at 3 30. you'll still workers leave and myself it's kind of describe it as Kevin come home alone emptying these cribs which is when the swag Runners were proudly showcasing at home it's just such an amazing structure uh and to that end I can't wait to get the community and to see that the classrooms are all finished uh it's just a matter of getting my

106staff safely to the classrooms so they can start unpacking their boxes so that's going to happen next week again with the 22nd Paving if they choose to do so that's a courtesy of like a lot of them are really good shooting and we'd love to give them that opportunity that's about that's about it uh we have some really incredible slides to show you I am blessed man because at home I could yell Danielle and poop my wife appears and solves my couples and issues and helps me at school I do the same I give you all video Dr little appears and helps with the problems and issues and whatnot and she's going to come up here today show us as possible presentation and slideshow of pictures that she personally took Dave before Danielle starts can

107you share a little bit about the office that and their stuff because they're fully in as well office staff is also fully in as well and the nice thing about the office staff they're sitting in the front with the big picture window that overlooks the library of the stairs my office is kind of in the back earlier this week I heard screams in the main office oh my gosh I mean staircase so they get to kind of see everything as it's happening and exercise Disney [Music] so I am very excited to share our most recent progress photos of Candlewood Lake Elementary School and like Dr P and Dr Burrell have been saying we are so excited to stop sharing PowerPoints like this and actually invite you only to see what it actually looks like um

108it's amazing I know we keep saying it but it really truly is an amazing building um that we're so excited to to work for every day so last time you saw an administrative office that looked a little boring perhaps a little just furniture and some walls here's our furniture for the administrative office Dr B working on it he's in he moved in he unpacked his two bucks he's almost there but it it's Donna um similarly in the main office ignore the garbage can there but our four of our three of the four pictured here of our front office staff have moved in started unpacking those boxes getting settled um like you see the picture window behind you they get a very interesting view of the demo that's happening um behind to see Huckleberry go away

109but at the same time you see the bridge torque that's being done there and installed the bridges are installed um and cement is actively being poured each day we go and that's Debbie Lisa and Claire and that's where they're weaker on the house so they're getting their permanent workstations and speaking of the bridges in concrete the stamped concrete is in um right outside both of the front entrances are all actually interior the main entrance and the lower Pre-K entrance you see beautiful stamped concrete and there we go so this was taken on Tuesday but this is the multi-purpose room flooring being all prepped and ready to go you see the walls that are um all nice to soundproofing and then this was Wednesday the view from above um of the multi-purpose room the rubber um

110subfloor thank you it has been laid both in the multi-purpose room and in the gross motor and it's ready for the next step Christmas so progress is happening in these roads most recent this picture was taken this afternoon the grand staircase so um we got to see today cement being trucked in by buckets from the book Bridge into the building and actually being thrown on and poured and smoothed out so that was pretty cool to see but you see the railing in place and done the flooring is just about done I believe one more coat goes on from what I understand Chris our project manager and here's a look from up top and you see the landing being laid it looks good pictures aren't doing it justice it really does look good gym floor progress

111we heard and smelled them sanding today so that was a nice update it's been sitting and kind of curing a place after standing the next step is the staining so that's along nicely our lower Media Center is completely carpeted now and Furniture installation has begun all that wood that you see around is the bookshelves for not the lower but the upper Media Center as well shelving is being put in place much to de-piercing specifications in terms of shelf height even for books so it's coming along quite nicely so by the end of the week shelving should be done early next week at the latest just an example of kindergarten classroom all ready to go all that's missing is the teachers to unpack those boxes and 21 students in that room same with the upper grades

112classroom they're all ready to go this is really cool so in the neighborhoods in addition to in the hallway the neighborhoods there are some walls that are bulletin board so teachers can decorate it just like they have now at Huckleberry except they're quite large in addition some of those wall coverings are this amazing wall art in the different neighborhoods that go with the things so here you see the butterflies in the kindergarten the kindergarten wing and up in the fourth grade weeks see the uh the really cool fish artwork and the the seaweed Danielle if I could add on this it's really important for everyone to understand the way the construction was done of our Candlewood Lake we have shoe drop walls and what has been done the genius of the design thought that's gone

113into this not only do we have bulletin boards as Danielle mentioned we also have this wall art but the wall art is made of a material that is washable so instead of fingerprints and the like the dragging of the pencil side of the wall of those things we've probably all engaged in that a little bit ourselves as youngsters can be washed and then where there isn't wall art or a bulletin board there's a plastic type cover and the every surface is but these again pictures don't do them Justice um outside of the fifth grade there is a Big Moose leading into the teachers staff ORD it's huge it's amazing it's hard to believe it's in school it's so cool and then these are the backgrounds of the um sculpture wall art that are going in

114the neighborhoods too so um eventually those installations will be housed right here I believe that's the kindergarten in a third grade and the um one on the left is in the hallways or in the stairwells in the back stairwells all the stair treads are installed so staff can students um Can safely go and get down the stairs and it's important for people to know the truth saved they're almost finished with all the stairwells that stairwell is dirtier there is an increase in workers I don't think Dr P will be able to wander by himself after 3 30 for the remainder of the summer um course all that will be cleaned up but I'd rather have it dirty and have a lot of workers in there finishing everything up so it will be clean I won't

115think that that's what the finished stairwell looks like and in addition to the stairwells our two elevators are functioning and they're improving and of course the beautiful Chromebooks that are going into each classroom so each so students no longer have to look for their Chromebooks store them in whatever Contraption teachers think of and are creative enough to think of students don't have to share unless classes they all get to be housed right in the classroom for easy access when needed instruction and the logo that you see there is the logo for Candlewood Lake that will be on the center of the gym floor to rival the Bobcat at Brookfield High School and that is there August progress so hopefully next time you won't see a PowerPoint next time you'll actually see it in here maybe

116even a video of Entry to the school I have an idea all right and David Daniel can you share a little bit you know we took a picture of the the office that's worth in there you talk a little bit about the adjustment of the remainder of the admin team you know Tara and the dead and uh June and also if you can tell they share the anecdote about Nicole Barrera one for one for Brookfield High School English teachers who has transferred and is now going to be the lower Media Center uh librarian I think there's just two really poignant important pieces to share here so it was uh with respect to Nicole Guerrera without Nano Island embarrassment certain enthusiasm we were walking through the uh the school at 9th graders come from torch who's

117very excited and uh as we walk through the lower media center she was just so I'm impressed like it just really tearing up a little bit because she's just alone by how awesome the structure was and I have a rule that Nobody Cries along so I may have cheer up a little I don't know a legend uh but just it was so awesome because I didn't really know her but you know I had interviewed her she allowed the committee we knew that she's a person but just to see that that passionate excitement I heard was was just awesome uh with the office staff admin right but so I've got okay so like just in general how are they interested well I I kind of feel badly for Dr Rudolph and Dev Farris because their offices

118are upstairs and they're ready to go but they can't safely access them so they're working with us so Danielle has taken refuge in the beautiful school psychologist office and is sitting in our school resource officer's office but it's still this beautiful little windows and gorgeous don't get me wrong I just feel bad you know I work with my stuff and I'm putting my pictures up Dr P if you're ever feeling a little hungry hangry and you just got the almonds and all those great little snacks so we're in we're excited and we're just waiting on Taryn Argenta who had the nerves to get married and go away on her because we do but she'll be back shortly uh and she will I don't think anybody has taken her office knows and what's been nice is

119over the past year we've been meeting every week so Debbie's been at Center we've been at Huckleberry everybody's been all over this past week minus Terry for sure we've all been able to be in the same building in the same office suite right next to each other being able to bounce ideas off of each other and laugh and go crazy when the cement was being poured and yeah so it's happening it's real it's real thank you both so much are there any questions at all at this point for Dr Peter Dr riddle while they're up there um I love those smiles I have a few more uh items to share as we go and uh it's just really informative for the board informative for the public and again um actually come up maybe a little

120bit later to share a little bit about some key dates and also some of the communication system he and his this is Gordon of Dr rule has sent out they're trying to have a at least a weekly Cadence of communication is going to our families and into our staff to make sure they know what's going on because I know everybody is chomping at the bit and I'll be very very honest no one more than me you know I've been I've been a part of this project with many of you board members who've been a part of this project from envisioning it when we looked at the ball field in the back of Huckleberry decided they might come and uh so to see it really that whole Vision really come to life it become brick and

121mortar and concrete and Timber and then come to life now is just a crowd up a couple of things just to kind of share a little bit about what's ahead and we've already kind of done that but I want to make sure you go through my notes so I don't miss anything that set expectations so I talk about rising action you know we're really heading toward that Crescendo of the start of school and with any construction project it is a furious fight to the Finish and that's what we're seeing now we've just pulled into the temporary lot today which again is the lot it's kind of a raised lot that's close to Candlewood Lake Road and I couldn't even get a spot now thankfully I'm a Jeep so that was hard for me to find

122a spot on campus I throw the mud out the parking lot to prove it um so I did have a little fun but um it really that's how many workers and that's never been the case up until this week so they really have increased their their Pace like we said we're sanding to get rid of the polyurethane in the gym the other large space area floors are finishing upstairs or finishing up really the concrete work that is really so beautiful and you saw the stamp concrete that actually looks like um pavers that were put in by a mason so it's a real high quality and that's kind of a section and or phase at a time so I've taken a little more time the concrete trucks that come in actually have to come in with

123the die in the truck or the color of the concrete to match exactly as so it's taking a little more time than just coming and pointing the white content concrete anyway I just continue to ask for everybody to be patient flexible I know you're anxious to get to get a lot of updates and punch lists gets done gets shorter every day that punch list continues to go down other questions arise as you know what are we doing with the small Wares boxes and where are they going who's unpacking them right now and here we do that so those are coming up every day in terms of cycling use the word Paving a couple of times there's a lot of phases that go into the site work as everybody I think knows it's a very wet

124site at Huckleberry in fact Brook River really serves as a remote for our bridges to go over so it's a very wet say there's a lot of phases of drainage in there in the parking lot so all of that infrastructure needs to be dug out and laid out first talked about the softer soil and the work that had to remediate that and drained properly into the into cases so that work is really going on in different phases but that south parking lot we did receive good news Dave and I talked with the NBC late yesterday afternoon and they had worked with OMG we were under the impression that we may have to not only start with the temporary lot which we always knew would have 100 120 of the south parking lot which is very

125close to the building we may have had to start with that being kind of a gravel stone dust Rock process um and then the paperwork would have Paving work would have to be done on the weekends we're hearing now that they're actually moving so quickly performing so well that that may be asphalt by the time if not for the first day of school so they're doing what they can we obviously have to get the buses in because sidewalks everything has to be safe staff has to be able to get out of their cars and walk safe things change every day for us we won't give updates every day because it would be too confusing for everyone so a once a week communication is probably um sorry so I'm sure I've got everything here um we

126are examining we're working with the police chief Fire Marshal and All-Star Transportation they're out there looking at temporary driveways that's neat and that will likely be installed until November when the north lot is done that is going to limit our space one of the things we're taking a look at Dr P will be in touch with parents when the time is right if this in fact becomes a decision there may not be enough space at with the buses to also have parents doing a ride around cars so when and if that decision if and when that decision is made that when I meet them to pause for a month while continuing TXS is developed we will talk to those parents and let them know and want those students to us and of course individual circumstances

127if that's not possible because it was a particular family situation obviously accommodations would be worked out we'll um the other expectation that people need to know is the state bureaucracy really got in the way on finalizing the order of the playscapes Ong and arcadis went around I think executives are owner agent went around and around the state in multiple meetings are very accessible and incredible playscapes will not be ready to start the school year they'll be arriving probably the first week in September by the end of September we're anticipating the install of all three playscapes with the poured rubberized safety flooring for each of those areas so I just want people to know that Dr P and the team are working on what the alternative outside exercise and recess time could be in a season

128area as well as our fully air conditioned facility with all of those large spaces how we could conduct inside recess especially on those hot days in September in those large spaces have a ball have a great time and also not interfere with visible education and working with Mr Baldwin maybe front load some of the health lessons in physical education so we could accommodate inside recess if we need to so Dr P is going to work on that with the team and we all know we'll make whatever alternate options we need to explore not only communicate that to families and faculty but make it work for everybody and again we just uh really ask for patients and flexibility and I think that's all I had Dave would you come back up and talk about some of

129the communications you sent out beyond the teacher assignment and then just uh kind of let us know where over the next week we might go and I know um maybe he's getting ready to talk about dates for Western Air and make it might be as simple that I just take the 28th and switch it to the end of this Friday instead of Monday so I'll know more next week definitely and then you know communication I share all the communications with of course the staff as well so that requires the situation uh so they will be able to start on a third Wednesday in the classroom so they should do that and then as we move forward I'll continue I like I said weekly Communications excuse me the way you're going everything is happening so quickly

130I mean when I think about that parking lot what it looked like yesterday versus today it's just this beautiful smooth and yesterday it was the truck so it looked like my childhood sandbox come to life which was very exciting for me but today it's just all nice and smooth and I saw Dr Mr baloney so that Mercedes parked way up there overlooking and we're surveying the scene and I'm thinking you're pretty impressed with what you saw with the Department the drainage culverts so that's uh that's a good sign because you can actually start picturing the driveways okay anything else all right thank you very much it's going to be a wild ride in the last couple weeks and uh but we're going to get there right we're going to open on the kitchen cannibal Lake

131Elementary School all right next up is three main points okay I was thinking that um nice to feature the update from Dr rudel about the summer school program then I was thinking about the um news about the France trip from Catherine Abrego would be exciting to put in and the Candlewood Lake Elementary School update all right and upcoming events Candlewood Lake Elementary student walkthrough scheduled for the last week in August specific pacific times and dates have been and maybe will be communicated again to families and the high school Tuesday August 29th is that right engineer will be open for student walkthroughs on Tuesday August 29th from 10 to 12 and Wednesday August 30th from three to five and at the high school on August 22 ND and 6 p.m is new student orientation and 23rd

132at 6 PM is the fall Sports parent meeting both of those take place in the auditorium and the first day of school Tuesday September 5th a full day yet that's not an odd day yes the new school start times yes at the Whittier school start times do not do we have those right I believe right yeah why don't we talk a little bit about the new school story times before we break what are they and how do parents will they will they yes so Mr post can talk about scheduling is in just a second so um in how that gets communicated from All-Star but what I will tell you is we've put out a school message to all of our families regarding specific start times the fact that the high school starting 45 minutes later

13335 and that was eight o'clock excuse me and the uh it'll start at the same time as whiskey here and then the elementary school starts at 8 50 and all buses for the high school and middle school are separated we do not have middle school and high school students are writing together that was important to the committee and then the elementary kids for Candlewood Lake as most people know while both elementary schools Center and Huckleberry started at the same time they were on split runs the runs will go through a neighborhood once and pick up the children there but I think what I don't want to be lost oh and we put this on Facebook a couple of times and the start times will be in my newsletter tomorrow as a reminder and the principals

134have their newsletters coming out next week and it'll be there as well so the word is out on that um but going back to the committee's work which was approved by the board in June of 2020 but the work started at the beginning of the burglary or 2019. the whole point of changing the start times rose out of adolescent health issue which was making sure our adolescents had his sleep but they needed based on their actual bio rhythm s of being in those teenagers and all the studies pointed to the kids were up later naturally and needed to sleep later and so all of the work that we did Yale checking with other schools and what they did and looking across the country it was very clear that if you were going to make a

135change for the later do it at a minimum avoidance people don't bother doing that and so we made the whole decision to move from the additional Brookfield seven o'clock start time excuse me 715 star term to eight o'clock and and we're really excited about that we actually had Mr Baldwin our health and PE leader K-12 as well as our athletic director he serves in all those capacities on the committee not only so he can advise us on the health piece but he can take a look from the athletic perspective in what an after-school perspective what that disruption could look like and really there is minimal disruption and the reason for that is one it wasn't going to be that disruptive in the first place but second many schools over the last 15 years are moving

136in the direction of a later High School start time so we're all getting on that scene there are some things with Athletics with some of the spring Athletics mostly but fall golf where the evening time in terms of sunset starts to impact things and so those things will be worked out there's always a plan in place for that we're really excited about it it's a lot of years in the making we wanted to implement it earlier but we decided to postpone for a year until Candlewood Lake was going to be ready last year and then wasn't so we've really postponed two years longer on this decision than we wanted to but while we had this amazing opportunity with the consolidation of the fifth grade to elementary schools into our new school we thought what a

137perfect time it would be to bring the entire district for the right sizing of the middle school and the big change with the high school with the start time do everything at once so it's kind of a fresh new starter as we you know as we say free tomorrow today um know we had a number of our board members on the team I don't know if anybody wants to comment any further thank you all right and losses of the objectives thank you all