Board of Education Meeting 1-4-23

001the Brookfield board of education for Wednesday January 4th 2023 Happy New Year to everyone to order please join me in Rising for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance of the United States of America foreign thank you we have all seven members of the board here uh this evening some of us were also here for the 6 PM public hearing first up on our agenda is public comment I do have the sign up sheet let me just read the the general rules as I normally do the board welcomes public comment each speaker shall have up to three minutes to provide input to the board it's important to remember this is input to the board at the start of each regular meeting a maximum of 20 minutes is allotted for comment on any item on the

002agenda and at the end of each meeting times allotted for any item which is under the board's jurisdiction which would also include any overflow time for individuals that were not able to speak in the initial 20 minutes discussion of school Personnel individual individual students or individual members of the board is not considered appropriate so with that first off and I do need name and address when we uh um when we uh when we start so first up is Mrs Scalera um I'm here this evening to discuss a few things regarding the special education and the budget that do not sit right with me I spoke at the last meeting regarding the special education audit plan that was on the budget I still for the life of me cannot wrap my head around how this mediocre

003plan is remotely beneficial to the children in our district let alone the children relying on special education services being delivered with consistency backed with qualitative data and done with Fidelity as well as follows the law this plan is nothing more than a small band-aid and a talking point that we tried something in the in this case trying something and doing something to address the systemic issues facing our special education system are two entirely different things the special education department is a mess and something needs to be done immediately the plan present did last month we'll look at six percent of our identified students the highest concentration of students who could possibly benefit from this audit or in preschool what I find bothersome about this group in particular is that these children are typically entering from

004a birth to three program with a developmental diagnos developmental delay diagnosis as they do not need a formal diagnosis to receive Services under a special education umbrella until their sixth birthday there's a big difference between what is happening regarding learning and instruction at a preschool level compared to the over 300 identified children in grades K to 12 who are not being looked at which is both comical and insulting I've stood here for well over a year and a half and this Band-Aid plan will not even touch the issues I continue to see in here as well as experience firsthand with my child and not be looked at until it's convenient to move into page two or three if that ever happens I stand here as my child was awarded compensatory Services yet I'm forced to

005file another state complaint because IEP is simply not being followed as written backed services are nothing more than an insult as we've still yet to address the problem and the law continues to be ignored what gives here in my situation my child's case manager has a caseload of 13 children she's failed him oh God the special education supervisor has failed him and the director has failed him actually the only person trying to help the principal is the is the principal and the curriculum specialist none of which is their job over four hundred thousand dollars is paid in these three positions overseeing my son's plan and it's fair to say they're not doing their jobs or following the law so as we know from past meetings we'll just hire more people to fix the mounting mistakes

006we are facing a six percent budget increase and the district has placed three children in out of District placements from June to September each of those children deserve a free and appropriate education but what as a district are we doing wrong each child costs the district at least a hundred thousand dollars each year which isn't a budget item up for discussion as the district is responsible to educate them if we can quickly find three hundred thousand dollars in this year's budget for three summer outplacements alone then why is a deep dive special education audit such a burden why are we hiring staff to be compliant with IEPs and simply not getting back to basics and holding our employees responsible for compliance to do their jobs and appropriately service our children okay could you just do

007me just one favor you didn't do name and address at the beginning the mic haven't been on okay next up is Mrs Matthews Monique Matthews 18 Road our principals teachers counselors and pairs are expected to do their job and then some that they have been hired to do hired for but three but the three responsible for Aaron's child do not if grant money can be found to fix the missteps and Mistakes by District employees regarding IEP compliance and FERPA violations because it's simply too hard or time consuming to manage our current staff responsible for these line items then why can't we find grant money to support our teachers by getting them the pairs that their identified students don't do not currently have Paris now pairs have now been turned into building subs and ping pong

008balls bouncing from child to child to Save A Buck the new Administration focuses is merely on existing children exiting children excuse me exiting children which we heard our director stay in a presentation about the high school numbers a few weeks back limiting or identified Children's Service hours and now summer school instead of servicing them which is completely backwards none of this will save money as it will end up costing the district due to non-compliance and emotional issues pushed on our children not to mention loss of committed staff I for one and many other special education parents will be voting no on the six percent budget increase and will continue to do so until our specialization case until our special education director and k-6 supervisor are held accountable for failing the children thank you third up

009is Mr Korea so Andy Korea 45 am I coming through the mic 45 West Whiskey Road um I agree with the prior speakers but what I wanted to speak was the budget particularly the positions of the IEP Specialists and the grant money the registrar for profoa Clerk and the dean of students so for the do students you know Huckleberry had uh has three grades and they're able to get by with a principal and a assistant principal um and you know the reason suggested was that that administrator could you know get to know the kids more well the kids have counselors right for the registrar Clerk and the IP specialist it's about getting the people that we hire first in in the special education Administration and administration in general to do their jobs and not cause

010these issues bringing this these positions forward when we know we're going to have approximately a five to six percent starting increase to keep things um I guess on par for similar Services it's just not competent to do from a manager real perspective um so and and we know that there's bigger problems than that along with having to do the audit I think from a budgetary perspective we should be budgeting for the audit but also budgeting for the Fallout for the audit right there's likely going to be recommendations that are going to require different positions now I understand that the public sector particularly education sector doesn't plan this way but you know we have grant money you have the IEP specialist that person goes away I can see keeping it if you know you're going to

011have to lose a special education administrator for performance and you want to hire them ahead but I don't think we work that way um and as it relates to the special education audit I think there needs to be an inspection or an investigation versus a Consulting engagement and I think the administration it should be walled off and those degree those parents should be consulted to go find where the problems are because there are problems right the proposal brought forward was a lot of shepherding of the administration you know showing the uh Consultants around and we know where that would end up because we've seen the results and I also wanted to let you know two things they spoke about the last meeting one was Oxford actually was on the marketing materials I didn't realize it

012for CES so they were you know showing that as a success and I also had Parents reach out and say they did a similar review in Newtown um and they had problems in uh with the Newtown audit also similar thing where wow the uh you know this report does not match our experience in a car and and so then again Newtown you know had Parents rise up and say this isn't all right so we know people who can do this there's the lawyer that went you know that went into um uh not Darien but I think darianne and there's you know the place that went into Greenwich we need to look at those we need to keep the administration out of a review thank you thank you oh thank you so that's it for uh

013the sign ups for uh the initial and just for the board Mr Korea has also asked to come back and speak again at the end on more General topics so um so next up on our agenda I guess uh Caitlyn's not going to be here tonight yeah she's not here there must be an athletic event or something so so we'll skip past that with the respondents okay Nancy power wrote regarding temporary masking Andy Korea wrote regarding the superintendent's outside Consulting activities and potential conflicts cover-up concerns and performance review request inaccurate meeting minutes and integrity issues and Irene career wrote regarding tonight's public budget forum okay thank you uh next up is approval award minutes I'll move that the board approved the minutes from the regular meeting on December 14th second okay it's been moved and

014seconded and I will uh note that Mr Correa had written us a requesting a change to the words um in the description of the public comment um I think it was the public comment um in the uh in the in the last minutes do I have a motion to amend the minutes as written okay hearing none um it's been moved in second in any other comments okay all in favor of approving the minute says published okay okay um next is our superintendents update thanks Mr Belden um so I have five items tonight I will speak to four of them but first uh the the number one item on my report is the K3 reading legislation program update um we had the board had asked for Dr Mann to come back uh every couple of meetings

015and share new findings regarding that progress so Dr Mann the floor is yours thank you so um as Dr Burrell said I am here to give you an update on the mandatory K3 reading program uh just as a reminder this is uh the State Department of Education is responding to legislation from June of 2021 that required the state department to identify five reading programs that are based on the science of reading that all uh Pro all districts are supposed to comply with these five programs were supposed to be identified and published by July of 2022 um and uh the districts are supposed to either receive or it's supposed to either adopt one of these programs or receive approval to not adopt through the waiver program that was also supposed to be published this past summer

016the the waiver was not published and was not given to districts until December 15th of 2022 after the programs were identified six programs were actually identified not until October of 2022 and when the waiver came out in December just before the holiday break they had added a seventh actually so now that instead of five they're at seven programs and it seems to be that they are working their way through and possibly adding some so it's still a little bit vague as to exactly how the state is working through this assessment and program and program requirement the waiver is arduous and pretty extensive and does not allow for what had been intimated by the State Department of Education which was a postponement of um this you know of implementing these programs it's it's an all or

017nothing it's either you're going to do do this one of the state department programs or you are not because you are doing something that complies with the with what the state is saying is under the state legislation so we are um and there's also no indication once you submit the waiver which is due by the end of February February 28 2023 there's no indication as to when districts will receive the results of your waiver so we don't know if that's going to be fairly quick turnaround or if it wouldn't be until well past a budget election or you know a vote um and then one of the other requests or questions uh from one of the previous board meetings was what happens if we don't do this um and based on while it hasn't been

018explicit and the state department hasn't been forthcoming as to what exactly happens um kind of uh implicit in the correspondence from uh the state commissioner is that if those uh districts that do comply and do adopt a program may be eligible for supplemental funding through arpa or other unidentified funding but so the consequence might be that we would not be eligible to apply for those funds if we did not adopt one of these programs in the time frame that the state is requiring so our plan now that we have the information that we've been waiting for um is to uh is the committee that is comprised of myself CES principal and future uh CLE as director of instruction Debbie farius um cles assistant principal Dr Danielle rudel Ela instructional coach Julie Vaughn kindergarten and Brookfield

019teacher of the year Sarah Doherty and and second grade teacher Laura Miller and K1 reading teacher Christine Irwin are on the committee and we are we are reconvening this Friday which we had already previously identified to review the waiver document begin working on those requirements and create a plan for completing the waiver over the next month so that we can complete it and um uh send it in we are also some of the members of that committee myself Julie Vaughn and Debbie and Danielle rudel are going to be attending a webinar on that same day that Cabe is sponsoring um where Dr Melissa hickey who is the uh the director of the center for literacy research and reading success overseeing this whole process is going to be presenting Julie Vaughn has already begun researching the

020various assessments that have been approved because we do know and I've spoken to this before we do know that we want to review our reading program both our Universal screener and our probably K5 curricular approach and so this was already kind of in our time you know already on our uh our Horizon so she has been looking through those Universal assessments and screening assessments to begin kind of vetting them um so we will continue that throughout the spring as we wait the results of the waiver um and that and this com this committee will then also kind of start planning out a time frame and a timeline that is going to be both fiscally and educationally responsible to meet the needs of our students and our teachers and our district um and so um we

021you know we do anticipate making these adjustments it just might not be in the time frame that the state is saying that is required as of this point based on how you know the legislative breakfast went that chairman Belden spoke about at the last meeting and the way that the state has been progressing so far I wouldn't be surprised if things get pushed a little bit but we will that's out of our hands and we'll have to see so that's where we are so I'm happy to report back once we have completed the waiver and submitted it and we have a time frame for how we think about that what are the seven programs that are approved um the seven approve the universe oh the seven programs that are approved because there's also the university

022assessments um American the American reading company Arc core k-3 amplify education core knowledge language arts Hooten Mifflin um Harcourt into into reading Imagine Learning El education grades K through three the McGraw-Hill education the Wonders program open up resources the El education and the Savas Learning Company my view literacy thank you could keep us abreast of how that's progressing I will I think I find it interesting that they have a waiver that's all or nothing and that doesn't deal with time because time is what we what I heard at that legislative breakfast was time was the time and money were the two biggest issues you're trying to rush it through was issue number one and issue number two was no nobody has it in their budget um you know and so and in some cases you

023know some of it was a big big like a Danbury District it was like five million dollars yeah yeah it was Watertown I think that's superintendent said about close to a million yeah yeah so it's a big Bill it really is all right we're unfunded mandate coming yeah thanks Anna appreciate it thank you um excuse me so a few items uh I I really uh wanted to report out but more thank the people involved the uh as most most people here on the board know um we had a uh sprinkler burst pipe in the main office in the ceiling of the main office on Christmas Day and um as you can imagine when 15 000 gallons in 10 minutes pours out into the office and then spreads into the nurse's office down the hall the

024cafeteria principal's office uh and a lot of other places it makes quite a mess and um as a matter of fact I think Mr philande uses the broken pipe the valve is now a paperweight that he's using so he did recover that right Mark so um I do I really um I need to thank um first of all our um alarm company United alarm the alarm worked the way it needed to and within nine or ten minutes both fire companies were here from town and they they were right here and they were able to get into the pump house and in another 10 minutes get the water off so 15 000 gallons in in 10 to 20 minutes uh fell upon us here at uh Brookfield that was on Christmas day uh Dan Caldwell uh

025our facility director Mark Blanda postponed their dinners and came out uh and and surveyed the damage we got Servpro out here to start cleaning and then continued the next day and I really have to thank uh Ken post our director of operations um Seth Kathy and Eric and technology and of course our custodial team and Carol Ann and Karen in the main office just the dedication and rolling up the sleeves and everybody jumping in to make sure we were ready to open yesterday given all the different holidays and people's week you know family schedules and everything else they made it work phones computers um raptorware um were rendered useless that were that were uh flooded we were able to replace those immediately our security buzzing system is dwindling but working and we're just replacing that

026but our copiers were okay so um there the insurance adjuster has been out we're working through that and we continue to have some recovery efforts going on we'll have to get in there and look at sheetrock and ceiling panels and painting and floor tile and still do that but we're able to work and uh the kids the kids and the teachers were not disrupted so we were able to have school so I just I thank the team and everybody else it was a great effort um the other thing I want to talk about is just remind the public that's listening and the board and families on Monday we sent out uh we resent a note from your school nurse which was a note we had sent out on December 12th which really just reinforcing uh

027good hygiene rest mitigation efforts regarding flu and covid and and all of those kinds of things and we put that out there our nurses are behind that and I wanted to make sure we got that again that we sent that out after um animal Forge yard nurse coordinator and Tracy Cahill from the health department had a conversation on I think it was Saturday to chat a little bit about was was there anything we needed to do given the media attention what we're hearing about spiking numbers and really it was kind of a state of the course this week and let's monitor what was the thought process um but make sure we communicate with families and so we've done that we're going to meet on uh Friday morning with the health department Anna and myself with

028the health department and take a look at the cases from the nurses from each school and just stay on top of things and manage as we need to so I just wanted to make sure everybody was aware of that um the next one is actually special ed program review update uh when I have information to share I'll let you know um we have a meeting scheduled to look at um not only limit uh limited as it's been described you know more phase one kind of approach but also um a full comprehensive approach to a special education program review conversations with um krek District Management Group which is known as DMG um those are scheduled for Thursday and Friday this week another reach out to CES just to ask them what a comprehensive review looks like

029from their View and also to um Publican the public Consulting Group which is known as PCG we have a reach out to them and haven't heard back yet so we continue to to look at that and I know the board asked for a comeback on that so that's the progress update at this point two meetings scheduled for this week and then the final thing I have actually we're going to use the technology here if tech guys can hear me if we can get there's Eric right there um Mr render had put together a Time Lapse video of the whiskey near wall project and it's probably 98 complete and I thought everybody would like to see it so it's a two minute video there's no music or narration unfortunately it's very quiet yeah no voice over

030there yeah feel free to uh to walk us through there it is okay foreign nice job thanks Dean and uh on the wall on the wall project it's really important to uh to acknowledge the municipal building committee who really helped us out with that project and helped us secure funding um uh Mr checo as as the chair of that uh department or that that group uh Dan Caldwell his team uh the administration uh the phys Ed Department over at the whiskey near and their patients through all of this and uh we're really excited to have that in full gear for the especially for these uh cold weather months is there still any remaining work left there's some um uh painting that needs to be done by hand and it's temperature sensitive so it has to

031wait till the spring that's my understanding oh and then the letters have to be put up sure I can see the new lights too it's much brighter than it used to be that's the night that's my backyard by the way so I see your lights sorry and that's all I had about okay any questions for Dr Burrell okay so next up we're going to do subcommittee reports so uh there's a couple of uh finance committee meetings so Rose I'll turn it to you yep uh so we met on December 12th and 19th the 12th was our regular monthly meeting and so we after reviewing check registers we reviewed the November financial report as you all know where we have a budget shortfall this year it's still hovering close to where we are month to month

032um so right now well as of November I should say 737 little change from the month prior to that so you know largely this is due to substitute costs Professional Services and other costs related to special education although there is some salary savings mostly from vacancies we also talked about the operating budget we started composing the document that hopefully you guys have gotten a chance to take a look at and hopefully will contribute to um Dr Brill reviewed several reductions and adjustments that can be made to the budget um we'll see those tonight and probably more in the coming months so um and even after we adopt the budget hopefully we'll be able to fine-tune some of the the larger numbers that are making our our increase so big um on the 19th um this

033was a special meeting uh where our only item was talking about the budget again um so we reviewed some professional development instructional coaches and some of those costs they're transferring in um to the budget from the ARP Esser Grant um and we had asked at the 12 at the meeting on the 12th for Ken to provide us with some scenarios of what possible um reductions would have to look like to get down to somewhere around four percent you know um taking into account maybe like a half a percent reduction what that might look like um very very large numbers obviously 500 000 is just one percent so um so yeah so um but there are some reductions and adjustments that we can make without having to make any huge sacrifices so we'll go over those

034later tonight and that's it okay thank you uh policy and Communications Debbie yep uh we met on Wednesday December 21st there was some subcommittee members shuffling around so it was our first meeting with Sharon we welcomed her to our subcommittee and had a wonderful time right um we discussed the non-resident tuition policy which is a policy that we already have um it's not required or recommended it's just it's just a policy that we have but Dr Burrell thought that it might be worth taking a look at considering lowering the um fee that we charge for staff to have their students attend Brookfield schools if they're living out of District um so you'll see that coming to the board for a first read at our next meeting on the 18th and I'll give you some more

035details and background on it then um Dr Burrell also updated us on the policies regarding FERPA restraint and seclusion and bullying and we didn't have an extensive conversation about that really Dr Burrell just was like letting us know that those policies are being re reviewed by um the board attorney Dan Murphy so we're waiting for his feedback on that we continued the discussion of policy 6162.51 survey of students which is in your packet tonight for a final read just to make sure that we were all comfortable with it and we didn't make any other changes other than the things that were discussed in our previous board meeting so that's up for like I said a final read tonight and then Dr Burrell gave us an update on the revisions to the district website uh the

036principals are working with the website up upgrading company or website design company and making some changes um the website will have a new look and be refreshed prior to the end of the school year he also gave us a brief update on the videos that are being made um CGI is the company right all about Brookfield public schools and what we offer and then we just talked about tonight's budget hearing and that was it okay it would be okay if I just make a quick clarification on the um the webmasters at each School are going going through with the principles just to make sure um organization organizational chart information staff information is updated that was really the big one and you know any any uh older documents that are stale that that could be removed

037or replaced uh taking a look at that the website itself we have in this year's budget we talked about it at this time last year we have funds in there to upgrade our website and Eric's going to be working on that um as he obviously getting the technology plan not only for next year but for this the Candlewood Lake Elementary School working on all that he's kept him quite busy this year but the new website we have the money to either go out to bid for a new website or work with our current vendor to upgrade our website so there's some decisions that are going to be made through the technology department there not until the end of the year and then work over the summer with the commence to begin that just because of

038the Manpower here the that we just don't have to do all of this at one time but we at least want to get the determine what vendor we're going to go with we're going to continue with the current vendor all right I just had a couple questions about policy 5018 should I just email them to you or do we discuss it now or that's a non-resident tuition yeah we haven't even seen that one yet right right no and I think Debbie on that one I think we do we talk about it as something we're going to bring forward yeah so it won't even be forward for a first read right okay yeah so when we get first read then we'll have we'll set the date by when okay okay any other questions thank you Debbie

039all right consent agenda I will move that the board approved the items on the consent agenda which our new hires resignations and the November financials second on any commentary on any of them no I don't okay thank you any questions okay all in favor okay all right so now we're going to move to uh new business and I'd like to make a motion that we add there's no items under new business but there really is one that John brought to the finance committee's attention yesterday and uh and I'd like to make a motion that the board add an item under new business to address the superintendent's recommendation to hire two bcbas in lieu of doing it through Professional Services including a budget change adjustment my second because we'll give it to George um so uh

040so Joy is seconded any questions on the motion to add the item okay all in favor all right okay so um Dr bro one and I turn it over to you and you can give us some background and sure on the change and the financial impact of it sure absolutely and um I'll give a little bit of a background it's pretty straightforward uh and invite Ken up to talk through the the budget implication um in the memo that I shared uh with the board this this evening before the meeting there also is a memo from Ken as well for the budget transfer just so you know so you have everything there and in my memo is background information that uh Amy put together for us and she's available to answer any questions as well so

041um currently we have one um employee of the school district who is a bcba and bcba stands for board certified behavior analyst and so we have one employee but we have emerging needs with students at the time right now 19 students that are now requiring they could be students who've moved in or students that have been with us requiring additional services and in this realm and to make sure we're meeting the needs of all of our students we have six days per week um budgeted essentially for services from Ed advance for bcbas and that's two different individuals will cover about six days a week for us it's been very difficult and challenging we all have heard about Labor and teacher shortages and all kinds of things like that over the last couple years to actually

042find bcbas as employees so agencies or some of our local risks have actually employed them and then we've worked with their services and that's worked out well for us considering the cost for the service for the bcba service and the lack of availability given six days a week we have made the determination that we could be more efficient with our funds and service more students with two full-time bcbas as employees in addition to the current one BCB we we have which would give us three and we could actually work that through our budget not only in the current budget and and have actually a bit of a savings and then move forward um into next year which is already in my budget I planned it in The Proposal I put forward before the holidays we're

043really actually very excited about this opportunity and instead of six days a week with essentially one and a half individuals providing the service for fee we can get these two individuals to give us 10 days a week so they'd be here for two people five days a week so we're really excited about that um maybe now can I can invite you up to talk through the the specific budget transfer and how that's going to work and flow through sure as you can see in the memo the uh if we assume that we're going to hire two individuals with start date of approximately February 1st through the remainder of the school year with health benefits it would cost approximately ninety one thousand nine hundred thirty dollars the cost for the Advanced bcba Services for that same

044time period is 129 441 dollars so there is a definite savings for the remainder of this year if we do that and that's reflected in the uh the transfer memo uh which specifies what the salaries are the health benefits and then the offsetting Professional Services which is where we charge the advance pcba and I'll just add um Ken had presented this to the finance committee last night and we went through exactly what he just described and we felt it was a good idea not only now to capture as much savings as we could because as soon as you know we can hire that this the vcbas which I assume we have some that are identified as potential potentially good candidates the sooner we can start capturing some of those savings and the bigger that'll be

045for this year which is obviously very helpful but also for next year as well so the committee was very supportive of this yeah we appreciate that support all right any questions and would this involves students hello would this involve students from all the grades actually we have backup materials in the memo which you didn't receive till today so I wouldn't expect you I've read it maybe Amy you could come up and walk through some of the backup materials and answer any of those specific questions foreign ER can you hear me um yes to answer your question Sharon it would uh cover all students from preschool all the way through 12th grade and how are these students selected uh it is an IEP service determined by the IEP team we also with our full-time employee currently

046she is able to work with teachers on a consult basis for students in their classrooms on behavior management classroom management and that's something that they can do during the srbi process mm-hmm so where is the heaviest need is it United States it's growing in both areas it's growing in both areas but um the secondary um certainly um requires a little more time right now um the services have gone up in that area um but we are getting our new preschoolers and kindergartners in um and so we're finding that we also need Services um in that grade level when you have the three where will you place them in the in the school so for the rest of this school year there will be we have our full-time employee at CES there will be another person

047at Huckleberry and then secondary will divide up on the other person and we would like some more flexibility in the days that that people were on site so we're looking for someone with flexibility who would like to do maybe Middle School in the morning and High School in the afternoon or a flip-flop so so that we're able to make sure that person is in the building every day okay yep okay good thanks Amy anything else any further questions so this is basically starting what you would put in the budget presentation for next year starting it now four and four and a half months early yeah exactly okay exactly and it's a savings which is kind of unique it's it fiscally makes total sense and it gives us four more days of support for our students

048you know it's incredible it is a great yeah so that um children more than ever need support other than a classroom teacher so the more support we can give them starting very young um hopefully I don't have statistics um it eliminates some of the problems earlier rather than later and I think anything we can do to help the children get through school and life you know they listen to the news too I think to me it's very important that we approve this thank you thank you you kind of did that as a as a living right absolutely yeah but I like the bad boys though all right any other questions all right all in favor it's approved unanimously thank you thank you and does that include the budget transfer is yes it includes the budget

049very good thank you to actually make a motion yeah I was just gonna sound like no we had a motion to add the agenda let me let me make a motion i i i i i i yeah but we approved it but it was the it was the add to the agenda so I'd like to approve the uh budget transfer as recommended by uh Mr Post in his email and the approval of two uh ftes as employees and as a as a headcount budget change as well second okay now all in favor thank you very much all right good all right okay we're moving on to Old business and these are uh continuations of uh discussions we've had in Prior meetings and just for the public who's listening in because the first three items are

050policy items we run a process where we do what's called a first read and a second read on policies the first read is delivered to the board so that we have a chance to read the policy in its depth the policy committee's had a chance to already go through it the into all board members have had a chance to do it and we give ourselves 30 days to review and have a chance to review that and give any input back to the policy committee the second read which these three tonight are second reads they are second reads right um is actually the approval of the policy so the as we go through each of these Debbie I'll ask you as I normally do what inputs you had gotten from board members and any changes that

051were made and you know and we can have any clarifying questions and then we will vote to approve them but for the public the board has had these for 30 days to have a chance to review them already and the Public's had a chance to see them as well because we do publish the first read with our with our agenda so so first item is new policy number 5145.53 on transgender and gender non-conforming youth that the board approved new policy number 5145.53 transgender and non-conforming youth for a final reading is recommended by the policy and communication subcommittee the first reading was on November 16 2022. second it's moved in second in Debbie any comments with any inputs you've gotten any comments you'd like to make no iterate like I did last time that this um

052this policy really outlines procedures that we are already following um it's recommended by Kade but not mandated but we feel that it's important to include it in our policies um attorney Murphy has reviewed it we've reviewed it and talked about it at length and I didn't receive any other comments okay any questions from the board after you've had a chance to dwell on this for the month okay then all in favor of approving the policy please stay high and just for the record um and this is to Lisa on page D of it it seems to be and just up in the top right corner it says 51.45.5 instead of 0.53 it just looks like we missed a three there and if you could just update that before it gets actually put them up in

053the document that would be great so I didn't think that needed a formal Amendment so okay next up is policy number 6115 ceremonies and observances I will know that the board approved new policy number 6115 ceremony and observances separation of church and state for a final reading is recommended by the policy and Communications subcommittee first reading was November 16 2022. second because moved and seconded Debbie um nothing to add on this one I didn't get any um comments this one really is pretty straightforward and just really outlines um you know the school's responsibility students responsibility to be tolerant and respectful of religious diversity and that it outlines how the district will recognize various religious holidays and observances and I didn't get any comments and this is a required policy yeah um all right any comments

054or questions from the board all right all in favor of past unanimously um and uh the last one is new policy number six one six two dot five one survey of students the board approved new policy number 6162.51 survey of students for a final reading is recommended by the policy and Communications subcommittee first reading was on November 16 2022 with further discussion at the December 14 2022 board meeting second okay moved in seconded Debbie okay this one is mandatory um we reviewed it we've reviewed it quite extensively at least two policy meetings we had a discussion about it at our last board meeting I did receive comments from Joy and she actually sat in on our policy meeting when we first before we brought it to the board um for the first read and I

055think we addressed all of her questions the major um really the only change that we've made is to take out reference to policy 6141.11 which references any experimental programs or research because we wouldn't we don't do that we don't have policy 614111 so there's no need for that to be referenced in this policy and other than that I didn't get any further comments so I actually do have because I thought I had messaged you about it but I think it was before our last meeting on this um I have an issue with two of the paragraphs that are in this on the very first page they clearly contradict each other yeah I thought we had talked about that in our last meeting well we talked about a lot but so that's why I'm surprised like

056this is relatively unchanged from the last time we saw it but um but I think like the issue is really kind of just it's a simple one to fix if we can agree on wording but I don't know if that's where it'll open it if you want to just direct us to the paragraphs you're talking about but so the paragraph that starts with prior to administering a survey that paragraph and the eight items there um I think that paragraph contradicts the one that says for survey is not funded in part by the federal government because the one the first paragraph I mentioned prior to administratic survey it's basically saying it all surveys must be opt-in then this survey down here says well for surveys not funded by the federal government parents don't need to opt

057in they should opt out so I think either the wording needs to be from this latter paragraph needs to be inserted into the top paragraph So that it's it clearly shows certain surveys need to be opt in and certain surveys need to be opted out I think what we arrived at at our last policy meeting is that anything under number eight so where number eight is the last bulleted item under what we would consider opt-in surveys everything under that is basically are basically surveys conducted by Third parties and all of those fall under the category of having uh to go through the superintendent first the superintendent would then bring it to the board to decide whether it is opt-in or opt out so that's that's for the so where non-funded surveys right right those are

058the ones yeah conducted by Third parties right right yeah right so those I yeah so I understand that those would go through this superintendent but then I think it just needs to be stated clearly because I just think like in practice it just looks like prior to administering a survey the Board of Ed must approve all that are received by the superintendent and in no way no student may take that survey without parents I think it if it said you know for surveys not funded in any part by the federal government blah blah blah then it at least it's consistent with both paragraphs I think that's the intent of the policy but I just think it is up to because everything under eight I guess I didn't group it together sounds like a run-on sentences

059yeah they are kind of all quotes it sounds like everything is reflective to everything and it's almost like you can't there's no blocking of it that makes sense so maybe maybe we should look at it this is what we did in our policy meeting paragraph by paragraph right so under number eight surveys conducted for other agencies organization or individuals must have the recommendation of the superintendent of schools and the approval of the Board of Education as to content and purpose right was that any surveys oh that's I would think that's including the eight items if it concerns above eight items so you're saying it it doesn't include those eight no I think the eight items are referring to the way I read it and I think Amy do you recall in our discussions the eight

060items listed there had to do with District sponsored surveys yes because it says in that in the following paragraph for surveys not funded and then the opt out you know concerning information concerning any of the eight protected areas listed above right well I would think any survey including these eight should follow the same process but I think that's where we got into the discussion about participation and you know this would basically only would affect like the Brookfield care survey so I think that's like the elephant in the room here but let's just call it out and just say so for example for that particular survey not funded in any part by the federal government correct so that according to this paragraph would be an opt-out yes however it also meets the criteria of this paragraph

061here which is it does contain those eight items so it completely con this policy is just it's not clear it will be given the opportunity to opt their child out of participation if the survey elicits information concerning any of the eight protected areas listed above so it does state that very clearly but that's for um all right that's for surveys not funded like which is certainly by profile pairs so assuming they're not funded by the federal government maybe just because I've looked at it so much I feel like this is very cool I understand like yes I understand what you're saying now districts in other states they have the basically this exact same policy okay that paragraph is missing a period by the way but other than that all right I see what you're saying

062down there yeah okay it would have been better if it was like blocked in terms you probably can't see this but in my notes from our meeting up here I put these are district sponsored and and then after number eight everything down here is not funded by the federal government or third-party surveys just when when we read it and made sense of it ourselves would it make sense to actually change our document and put those subtitles in there to help it be clearer well definitely make it clear it would definitely make it one thing I've always railed against is so policies that aren't clear will hurt us more than they'll help us so I think that we just need to make sure it is extraordinarily clear um well this is yeah and while this is

063real not that the policy committee wants to look at this again but well you know we need to be clear right it's an exercise we need to do and it's while it's a required policy we haven't had it for many many years here in Brookfield so another month is not going to hurt us either and and we have to make a change to take that reference to that old that other policy out anyway so we can definitely put subheads in there I think yeah and I had a period I think yeah I think maybe like just blocking out into two separate sections right like surveys funded in any part by the federal government and for surveys not funded in any part by the federal government and yeah maybe that's where your it would be a

064little more survey is sponsored by the school district school sponsored by others not federal government schools surveys yeah we can do that yeah I think it would be clearer and I would like the board of education's approval to not just be content and purpose but content purpose and opt-in opt out right if there's a choice right and we ought to think about you know our approval it's not I don't want to just be having us in a situation where we're approving the general nature of the survey but if we have concerns about how we're dealing with opting in and opting out I think that ought to be part of our consideration and we ought to be clear that that's part of our consideration and I also thought our last meeting we discussed that a lot

065of the issues that we saw surrounding what this policy would cover would probably fall under maybe something more of like a regulation or just general practice but something about I think if parents just knew about Hedges more than a couple weeks notice we would have avoided a lot of angst and I don't know if you can really put that in a policy if it's more just like a practice or if it's part of a regulation but you say minimum two weeks notice I mean there's you know or more but yeah yeah A month's notice whatever yeah yeah I mean it's it's not I think that that helps us it's rare that we give out these yeah it says here at least two weeks and weeks in advance oh yeah right but I mean that wasn't

066enough literally so I'm thinking maybe we need to make it a month right like just to well just say in the part that I think that's an important paragraph parent Guardian shall be notified at least annually at the beginning of the school year of this policy one enrolling students for the first time that's true so what is our protocol for that when you actually register your child this notification must explain that parent Guardians I'd have to double back on that trade but the um in part of the registration Posh is the um the I believe we I think we have the link for the policy manual because there's more and more policies we look at parents should be notified annually I mean you really can't do that to be honest it's not it's not practical

067giving out individual policies you need to maybe have a list of policies and then here's the policy manual please review that kind of a thing wow that's the thing there's just so much to do and the policy manual is publicly there for everyone but it is how the board communicates and it's important so I would suggest we table this one sure I don't think we not approve it we actually table it and bring it back after we've had a chance to do another round of edits and Debbie I would suggest that uh um you send it out with any suggested edits to what to us as a board okay and and collect inputs with on a schedule and then we can bring it back either at the next meeting or the first one in February

068I think you're right John we've not had this for so long and there's not in pending survey you know you know burning burning us burning the house down so we might as well take our time and do it right so um so I'd like to make a motion there's a motion on the table to approve this I would like to uh amend that motion by uh moving that we table this item uh for at least uh two weeks and perhaps a month second all in favor thank you Debbie I appreciate your entertaining to a continued conversation on this one okay um so next up we're going to move to updates on the superintendent's proposed budget so there was a number of items that we had talked about at our last discussion which I think you're

069going to bring us followers on those and any new news that you'd like to share with the board on with some of the discoveries that you yeah have that conversation kind of as a dovetail to finance committee as well from last night um two I would say larger comebacks uh for the the budget proposal I put recommendation I put forward um in in December uh the first was um discussing value results benefits of some of the spending on our besser and we have a major emphasis on our instructional coaches through our besser that was really the seed money essentially that got us going two years ago and last year was the inaugural year and working with the coaches worked with Dr Ruby and worked with Debbie farius and now this year are working uh exclusively

070for this year given our our transition to Candlewood Lake and deputy's position over at the elementary school over at Center and has really been doing a lot of great work with the coaches and obviously with our principals and with the teachers and you've seen some of the coaches actually come to the spotlights as part of the presentation with our students so that was one of The Comebacks and then we also per there was some interest in where we're at with the technology budget so Eric will be presenting later as well so um Anna and within his presentation she did share a Lisa sent it out yesterday a memo from her explaining in great detail her slimmed down PowerPoint yeah there you go all right thank you thank you so good evening thank you again for

071this opportunity um and as Dr Brill just said this is a follow-up to the memo that I sent or that was sent yesterday um to update uh on the instructional coaches their work and the data that we have both qualitative and quantitative that we've been collecting around the impact that they are having throughout the district some of this information is review from previous presentations to the Board of Education from years past dating back to the spring of 2021 presentations to faculty and presentations made to Cape both in previous years and as recently as our November meeting but I'm excited to share this information and answer any questions that you may have um so just as a uh as shared in previous presentations to the board and at other venues the tenets of uh instructional coaching

072include uh you know a partnership focused on student learning continuous professional growth and creating a robust ecosystem of professional learning um and which have all been and continue to be achieved through our instructional coaching model but over the past year and a half as we have been developing and rolling this model out Brookfield public schools have also been able to incorporate these following aspects through the instructional coaching team which include curriculum reflection and development data analysis assessment student assessment review and resource refinement and piloting to name a few things and Eric is going to go into the resource refinement a little bit more in his presentation but the instructional coaches have been integral with kind of auditing and giving us feedback on the various platforms that we've been using and so just kind of a

073A Brief Review of how we have built the instructional coaching team um over the past two years roughly there are seven instructional coaches as part of the team and they are inclusive of K4 Ela K4 math K-8 social studies K-8 science which were expanded from last year social studies and science were only five through eight last year and this year they are working k through eight each and then five through eight Ela five through eight math and then the K-12 into technology integration coach all of the ELA math and Ela and math positions were reallocated from existing positions from from content leader positions and were within the operating budget so they were reallocation the three new positions um that were originally funded through ARP Esser at the in at the Inception of the program we're

074following a two-year phase end for the operating budget so we have already Incorporated one and a half of those FTE into this current year and the last part of the phase-in is going into next year um they you know they will continue to uh you know all these are they they continue to focus on building staff capacity um specifically through tier one instruction so working with teachers in the classroom for all students the instructional High leverage instructional practices um that are helpful for all students uh you know really addressing that student learning loss that we've talked numerous times about um and that we will continue to be focusing on for years to come and um you know enhancing the focus around brookfield's four C's portrait of the graduate which include critical and creative thinkers communicators

075collaborators and change makers and there you're going to see kind of a thematic approach um over I would anticipate uh the next couple meetings throughout the spring as we begin to roll out our budding strategic plan that is forthcoming and so the um kind of the question about how do we know that this approach is working right like how do we understand that there is uh an impact to this investment um so I wanted to give you kind of an oversight of the uh the coaching model and then also share with you the various ways we are collecting data on those coaching models so this is where the quantitative and qualitative data is important and so this the uh the connect Hub which is the addendum that you got to my memo is kind of

076that quantitative piece so through that through the platform an online platform called connect Hub the coaches are able to log their interactions with all all the interactions that they have with teachers or uh with support staff and how they are using their time they tag those areas in those six different areas to more specific indicators to create kind of a comprehensive picture of their program so the the six general areas that are identified in Connect Hub which was built by the instructional coaches and the administration over the last year year and a half so the general areas are co-teaching material prep that the that the instructional coaches are working with teachers to prep the materials meeting facilitation uh meeting attendance which would include srbi or interventionist meetings or student data team meetings observation of teachers

077and of situations and then curriculum review work they also work meet with me bi-weekly so every two weeks we have a standing meeting to review and discuss and plan the various approaches that they are taking uh the possible ways that they are bringing to troubleshoot concerns within buildings within classrooms within you know student data and assessment results and we've also used our meetings to for their own professional learning time to gather feedback on various technology Platforms in which the district has invested so as I said earlier they are integral to providing feedback as well as to the administration as well as to our teachers um going forward we'll discuss how instructional coaches can help bring the Strategic plan to fruition you know what there they are kind of those that linchpin the liaison um between

078the uh the vision and the you know and the work that the administrators do with their school Improvement plans and what they will be basing their focus on and the actual kind of boots on the ground with the teachers um and uh they will work through the instruction assessment curriculum provision but also through professional development and a focus on climate and culture as we are moving very intentionally into these new school communities um so again I wanted to I provided for you uh that printout which has very very small type and I am aware of that and so I wanted to make this note while it's not maybe hard for you all to see over there I will share this with you so that you can and it'll be on the on the website um

079so this is I've taken that print out and broken it into two different slides so that they're a little bit bigger so I wanted to call your attention to a few different uh areas of the um the data that is represented the first is the educator engagement so on your sheets that's the top left hand side when I took that screenshot or printed that PDF it was before the holiday break and the coaches update their um their platforms on a fairly regular basis so this morning when I um updated or yesterday when I updated I think that there were 189 Educators that had been supported on your printout which again is going to be hard for you to see um the updated data after the break was 217 educators so they are working with the

080majority of our teachers in some capacity 75 percent of the Educators in the district this year between August and now have worked with an instructional coach at some point on the right hand side the pie graphs show you the different schools so the the left-hand side which is the larger pie graph are the four different schools in which the teach the instructional coaches have spent their time so just under 32 percent of their time has been sent at whiskaneer about 38 and a half percent has been spent at huckleberry with 23 and a half percent spent at CES and then six point five percent of their time spent at the high school as a reminder only the technology integration coach is K-12 so these are completely appropriate percentages and numbers this pie chart with a

081very small um different uh allocations are interactions by department and or grade level and so that's why it's all kind of bifurcated into all those multiple areas so this kind of gives us a sense of where their time is spent in with whom and and how the bottom half of the um of the printout shows you the different ways that they are spending what what the content is of their interactions so on the left hand side you see that co-teaching is the majority of their work that they're doing but material prep and meeting facilitation come in kind of second and third all the way down through that curriculum work based on those six various areas of focus but I wanted to draw your attention to the bottom right hand side which really focuses on you

082know shows you the specific indicators within those general areas so those tags of what are they working on when they're doing any one of these six areas their number one thing that they are working on with their teachers is student engagement which is the way to get student performance and learning and address learning loss that is the way as Sharon mentioned earlier you know kids need to be supported they need to be engaged and if they're engaged in their classrooms and in their instruction and in their various activities that's when they're going to be ready to to show us what they've learned and so student engagement is number one instructional practices comes in a very close second so 253 of the interactions are were student engagement 222 were instructional practices so again with instructional coaching

083that's what you would hope for and want to see and then I wanted to identify that um multiple of multiple tags in the following uh the middle part of that chart directly relate to our 4cs we have collaboration critical thinking communication creativity you know all of those relate to change making and so our instructional coaches are working specifically on uh the four C's and one of the things again that we will see in strategic planning is going to be a kind of doubling down on the portrait of The Graduate and really fleshing out that work and then another thing that they have you know is lower down on their scale but is still part of the work that they're doing is the social emotional learning which again is kind of the underpinning of all of

084that all of that work so that kind of demonstrates our quantitative um data but we also know that it's school and school is also about the relationships and the qualitative interactions that are all of our teachers have so I wanted to just kind of give you some visuals and again I know that it's kind of hard to see this here but I'll lower the mic so I can show you these um pictures were taken from the principles on the day before our holiday break on the 22nd which is the professional development day and as we know the original plan for that professional development day was when with its when we approved the calendar last year was a packing day and getting ready to move into the new school and best laid plans don't always go

085as we all know according to plan but it actually um you know has ended up being kind of a blessing in disguise because it allowed for not only the instructional coaches who were integral to the to that day's work but it allowed for these School communities that have to be built you know we have this beautiful new building that's going to be built and that is a huge part of the infrastructure but schools are communities schools are based on human interactions so you could have the best physical structure in the world but if you don't have a community you're not going to have the strong School structure that you want so the instructional coaches each LED um different workshops on the cles so these are the the four primary school instructional coaches so uh Julie

086Vaughn and Jim Fitzpatrick so this is Julie leading a workshop and Jim is over there Julie is the ELA instructional coach currently K4 she will be K5 next year um Jim Fitzpatrick is K4 math and he'll be K-5 next year and then Rachel Cohen is the K-8 science and Heather Bachelor whom you have met earlier this year is K-8 social studies so they uh were part of the rounds of the workshops that teachers went through um and it was it was a really it was really impactful um all of the different experiences that they had similarly at whiskaneer um Aggie Burns who is the five eight Ela and Mark DeWitt who's five eight math LED workshops on after reviewing some student assessment data and looking at the um the IAB work that they've been focusing

087on throughout they then took the faculty into and Dean helped with this into the cafeteria and um or cafetorium I should say and uh did some various games to help with that team building and and thinking about that kind of leading to that project-based learning focus and speaking of project-based learning on the far side there the High School faculty spent their day at workspace in Bethel and Mr belanda and Jackie Whiting the K-12 in technology integration coach who's actually been supporting Mark throughout the whole fall with all of his professional development days focused on project-based learning and really looking at you know very best ways to incorporate project-based learning regardless of the content area so she read LED workshops on that and so that kind of just is a brief qualitative demonstration of the not

088only how they are helping to forge relationships but build the relationships of the school communities upon which you know our entire programs are going to be predicated so then the question kind of becomes well where are we going right what does this look like going into the future um so we're going to continue to flex the specific roles of the coaches and so each of the coaches uh has has gone through extensive training and kind of you know with General uh professional or instructional coaches as I said they worked with on the Jim Knight model but we're also reeling realizing like School instructional coaching is a little bit iterative and we have to modify and adjust based on the needs of our school our district and our students and so each coach is trying to

089figure out the best way that he or she can serve the needs of their school communities and so that might look a little bit different a technology integration coach is going to have a different interface with uh with teachers than the K4 Ela coach the k40la coach is focusing a lot more on student assessment data at different parts of the Year whereas the technology integration coach has to work K-12 trying to bring those various Tech technology you know really making it as you've seen before with you know the Book Creator and those kinds of things making technology accessible regardless of the level so there are different needs just like with our students there are different needs based on the content area and the focus of their their work we are also planning on actually our

090next meeting which is going to be in two weeks we are going to have a joint meeting with the between the instructional coaching team and the building administrators and District level administrators for Content so that we can they can everybody can start really thinking about reflecting on the work excuse me reflecting on the work they've done as for professional development throughout the fall thinking about what the goals are in terms of the school Improvement plans going forward into the spring and really planning going into next year what is what are the kind of key priorities of those of the schools so that they can help support the administrators and again be those linchpins between the administration and the actual work that's happening in each of those classrooms um our curriculum review data analysis work and

091professional learning are always areas of need and they are the the key and the kind of the focus of our student performance um and as we have as I've mentioned in the past that Continuum um depending on the time of year and depending on the specific grade level and content area there may be a different Focus one of those might be more of a focus you know the instruction may be really really important in grade three reading but we might really need to be focusing on that curriculum review in middle school math so that's another thing as we go forward into the future we'll be focusing on and then as I said kind of the the largest thing that one of the things I was most excited about coming to this District was the opportunity

092to really re-organize and create and build um new comprehensive new comprehensive Elementary School community and a newly organized middle school because this although there's not a huge change in terms of infrastructure or building to the Middle School although we are getting rid of the Portables it's going to change the dynamic of that school community and it's going to be a different School community um so that's kind of what we're excited about what we're looking forward to so that everybody can work and have the opportunity to create our tomorrow together and that's it I'm happy to take any questions I don't know if you want to do questions now or if you want how would you like to do this okay can you um go into detail about um how the coaches are involved with the

093department heads principals and assistant principals so all separate what is their interactions or sure so as far as their day-to-day interactions they do not have they're not directly they don't check in with them on a daily basis um but they you know the the admin the administrators for Content at K at 912 for math or sort of science stem and uh Humanities and then the K-12 World Language have attended they we actually started having them attend our one of the meetings a month particularly when we were looking at the platforms and curriculum review um so they could also be part of those conversations um and so it's really been through our monthly meetings that they are interfacing with those administrators and as I said one of the asks from the instructional coaches was to have

094a more regular um ongoing conversation with the building administrators and So based on that and based on I think they felt last year that they were pretty kind of separated out and there wasn't that opportunity to have a regular dialogue so that they could best support the needs of the building and so that's what they've been asking for so that's what we are ready to start a more formal conversation and I think I spoke with the administrators about that prior to the break and they are ready for the 18th any assistant principles the assistant principals have not been part of that conversation that would be that would really be kind of the whole Ad Council um and certainly we could incorporate the um you know the assistant principles in I think that that um you

095know would be something that I would take I would ask the the principals and take direction from them if they felt like there was a specific um area of focus um or it's an instructional coach that they felt needed to be you know kind of linked up with one of the assistant principles or if there was a need at a particular building thank you sure so I the question I had was there's a conceptual leap and it's uh that says that by having coaches you make teachers more effective and therefore you're getting better the children are progressing better right how do you measure that you know the effectiveness of the coaches on the achievement of the children well as you say that it's um you know it is there's not necessarily a direct correlation that

096you can draw between student assessment data and a specific uh you know interaction with a coach through a coaching cycle or um you know maybe through an observation that a coach does or materials that a coach offers a teacher I think it would be more holistic that we would see we would and that's why it's going to take some time because last year was the first year of the instructor of the full instructional coaching model this is the second year of it we are also in the midst of a um you know continuing on the flexibilities for the teacher evaluation plan I would love to get feedback from the administrators all of the administrators who work with teachers and evaluate teachers and support teachers in their growth to see if they are one of teachers

097going forward are setting goals that are around instructional coaching which I think probably wouldn't have happened this year again when starting in August it wouldn't have been something that would have been appropriate for me to ask if that was something a focus but going into next year based on two years of work that is more where I think we would see we could we could draw that kind of correlation of teacher Improvement based on instructional coaching and then hopefully we would see that increase in student performance however um I think it's dangerous to say that students that only student achievement data is an indication of any one particular program success there are so many things that will impact a student's performance um in you know as we said social emotional what's happening at home what

098happens on the day of that assessment so really it would be I would I would say that it's more about the progress of students through their materials you've seen a couple of the uh well you saw the Aztec or the um Gold Rush Trail um there that the eighth graders did um I was in a two different fifth grade classrooms today and this was their second project-based learning on fiefdoms and uh you know the kind of the system in England and they had just finished about a month ago an Aztec similar game where they were you know doing work through game understanding social studies and social study Dynamics through games and so I think that again it would it would go back to how our how are we seeing students how are teachers seeing students

099connect those experiences you know like oh this reminds me of when we were the Aztecs and that was the you know on the Aztecs I didn't survive as an Aztec but now I'm the Lord and I'm able to survive at the end of a four-year game so I think that there's going to be as much qualitative assessment from teachers and feedback from teachers as uh and hopefully we'll also see a rise in our test scores but again I would never presume are we collecting feedback from teachers or in plan to collect feedback from teachers they would definitely the effectiveness of the the coaching so the instructional coaches offer surveys similar to all teachers when they offer surveys with for their students and or for their um you know for parents but the instructional coaches can

100certainly offer surveys to their to the people with whom they have worked at the end of the year to kind of gather some feedback about where what was most helpful what was more most important in addition I have started this year asking teachers to fill out forms after each professional development Day based on the workshops that they have attended and that we've offered in large part to inform the pdec the professional development and evaluation committee for going forward as we're building the Strategic plan and and collecting information about that and a lot of that feedback comes directly to me about the instructional coaches and the workshops that they've run so I am able to see that feedback directly feedback has been positive feedback has been great another thing um that actually I think that Debbie

101and Bob you have uh heard yourselves is in the strategic planning um we've heard a lot of uh various feedback about the the helpfulness of having instructional coaches um and in when teachers are trying to make sense of curriculum instruction assessment portion of the graduate all of the different assessments that I have to prepare for as a seventh grade ELA teacher and how you know they've really felt that that has been a a guide on the side and a peer support for them as they're working to make sense of all of these things so in the end you know it's a healthy investment you know when you look at everything we're doing the uh to me the um the nature of the feedback is is it is it a burden I'm dealing with as a

102teacher right another check box I have to go do or is that really helping me right and B am I seeing as a teacher that it's helping my my students progress um and uh and man I'll tell you if that if that is you know at the at the bottom line it's about making teachers better and by making teachers better you make uh students better and uh and if we could find a way through your feedback model to show that it's not just okay I got another meeting with another person who I gotta go deal with which is the first reaction many teachers get when they hear I'm gonna have a coach right and uh versus oh man I want I want you know Bill or Mary or whoever to come in and help me

103right please right that's those are very different right so I want to make sure that when we're making this invest assessment it's in fact having that desired goal which is making students better making our teeth our teaching staff stronger well I will say that last year um I think what as the initial rollout year um the coaches were trying to find their footing and teachers didn't necessarily know exactly what coaches were supposed to be there for so there was more of that why would I add to my plate coming back from a pandemic all of these things um and I think the inroads that the coaches made last year was more educating the teachers on what they can the resource they can be and this year you know for example the fifth grade and eighth

104grade social studies teachers are inviting Heather in and saying please come help us plan this really interactive unit so it's not just the nature of the feedback it's the nature of the interactions that they are now being invited in Jackie started the year presenting to the high school faculty she didn't set foot in this high school last year and she now has been here multiple times I think she has more than a dozen teachers that she is working on across different content areas on different projects some very small you know some kind of a mini mini unit couple day lesson some larger projects and and then and she's she's also that you know it's it's a um it's it's going to be a snowball effect that she has seen more in the building so then

105people trust her more so then they invite her in because they hear from their friend in the faculty room oh I just had Jackie here to help me with this project-based learning or help me use this type technology or help me plan and so then she's able to kind of grow her practice here and that's happening across the board none of the feedback from professional development about the coaches has been anything but positive excellent so do the teachers seek out the coaches or the coaches so how do you just how do they disperse their time so it depends on um again if there's not one particular approach um it depends on the uh the situation so for example um with Ela and meth um depending on the time of year the the coaches may very

106well be working directly with and going to teachers when they want to review student assessment data and then help them plan you know ask them to go over the student assessment data and then ask them how are you planning on doing this what are the upcoming units let's let's plan together whereas uh you know they may in the middle of the semester middle of the you know the semester or the trimester um say you know okay so if there are people who are working on if you want to integrate a a particular type of instructional practice then you're I'm certainly willing to hear some of the things that I can offer you um and so and then that's so that's often how for example Heather Batchelor is being brought in you know she'll say here

107are the social studies standards I'm working with the fifth grade class the fifth grade team on the social studies standards in fifth grade so now how are you going to be you know how are you going to be making this come to life how are you going to be assessing these how are you going to be instructing these and then they say well and you know we'd like to partner with you on this particular unit and then that begets another unit so there's not really one particular approach that is happening and as I say it's kind of a snowball effect that is you know all of their different interactions will help Foster those other avenues in so whether it's you know the student assessment review helps then Foster a coaching session or coaching cycle or

108a coaching cycle then helps build that trust so that teachers are willing to say I've got these three kids that just aren't moving can you help me address the issues in a tier one instructional way okay okay any other questions thank you very much by the way I just want to I hadn't realized the importance of their role on the team building at clas and I'm so glad to hear that so thank you for your pictures folks uh I think Eric is up next yes he is thank you Doctor man hear from my teammates Mr Conklin our technology director is up next that was the second comeback the board asked for in December for this meeting which is to walk through technology and our technology budget for next year okay good evening um so what

109I wanted to go over tonight was um a lot of our software renewals the hardware a lot of the things that really drive the budget um so what I did was um I went over a lot of things I'm going to share with you here today kind of summarized um how much that costs and then I have a breakdown of those later that I can share with you of the cost of each individual software and I'll show that up at the end um as something I mentioned in last year's report um just about 80 percent of our total technology budget is for existing software support and renewals most of that are just the things that keep the district running I'll highlight a couple of the the main big ones up here that I uh um

110listed such as our internet access um you know among many other reasons the reason why we're live streaming this meeting right now um the fiber Wan connection um so the district's um data center is here at the high school and that internet connection has to get out to the other schools somehow and that's done through our Fiverr Wan a wide area network we also have our Fortinet our firewall that protects our district allows our incoming and outgoing connections and our network switch maintenance and support we've also got our munis financial and HR payroll services and support renewal um I can't trust how important that one is uh um and just some of the other ones that highlight some of the importance is PowerSchool our student information system our student health record system snap our Microsoft

111product licensing um Rubicon Atlas for our curriculum management document lock which is a repository for files and documents uploaded by parents and families in PowerSchool that was a big push during the pandemic when we needed to go to online registration for families and then finally all of our backup and Disaster Recovery Solution that we've had in for many years now again very important and then finally our big push on our Initiative for cyber security we have our cyber security awareness tool we'll be moving forward with to ensure that staff understand what to look out for in emails that may not be legitimate and then understanding how to address that the future how to report it anything like that I've talked a few times we've talked a few times about Cisco Duo which is doing our

112multi-factor authentication and then finally we'll be implementing a EDR which is an endpoint protection and response tool it's um it's your next generation of Norton Antivirus and it's a requirement of cyber security Insurance these renewals all of this stuff up here comes in at about 308 184 which is reflected down here at the bottom um and I did want to note that the three cyber security ones here that have the stars with them uh are requirements to retain and continue to retain ongoing our cyber security insurance that we recently got um and then the four up there at the top um are budgeted um at their full amount uh in the technology budget but as Revenue they are budgeted um at a 50 discount those are the four items in the district that are um

113eligible for e-rate reimbursement through the federal government we apply for those every single year we get that funding every year and that's um that's a big bonus to the technology budget and for the district um as we get into digital learning tools and support for that um again some of our big Heavy Hitters um related to the reading assessment we have the acadians Learning System we have our Lexia Rosetta Stone for ELA uh Learners uh our language Labs both our high school and our mobile one at Whiskey near we pay to maintain support and upgrade those annually so they always remain um in in best shape for the students a lot of investment went in specifically to the World Language lab here at the high school a lot of investment went in and we want

114to make sure that that lab is always available for the students we've got our Naviance um our College Prep uh for the uh High School in whiskey near our Renaissance our star math our star reading assessments and then some of the other programs um that that students use on a regular basis ST Math uh Lexia IXL some of our new items we video uh Dean who used that to make the uh whiskey ear Wii video uh Book Creator which has been mentioned um and then uh we are looking at a product called formative for a teacher assessment um of students um these proposed renewals as they stand right now come in at approximately um 800 187 373. um the reason why I have a number of these um in blue is uh these are actually

115uh tools and resources that are uh in review with the instructional coaches uh Dr Mann and myself um we have met um at least half almost half a dozen times probably during the bi-weekly meetings um to go over some of the reports uh about usage um some of the uh benefits maybe um negative frustration that's a good way to put it frustrations they may see in the software um so while that's not a snap of the finger kind of approach we are doing our due diligence and reviewing um the usage on all of those and determining our best path forward um you know for example and I'll get to this on the next slide um ST Math we found incredibly low usage um of it at whiskaneer and so the budget is already reflecting the

116removal of that software from whiskaneer so that's just one example of of the review that we've been doing together as a team the nine of us um oh and actually there's been some department heads in there as well the department heads here at the high school have been joining us as well for that so those are continuing to be under review and some of them actually the licensing is going to change because of the consolidation of two elementary schools down to Cle s uh which I'll get to on a slide in a little bit um for the big investments in hardware and Equipment costs um we have the continuation of uh upgrades and Replacements to Chromebooks thanks to um the board Support over the the last few specifically over the last few years as we

117got through the pandemic um but also uh the emergency connectivity funds the RF Esser grants all of those um things that helped fund Chromebooks we have been able to offer a device to every student in the district uh we still do have a number of students who choose to bring their own but we do have the availability to offer a device to every student students in K4 keep them in school in the classrooms um in five through eight they can um participate in the one-to-one program and take the device home with them during the school year um but as with any technology uh we need to continually upgrade and replace handling damage devices that happens in schools and you know as devices age out we need to replace those as well we don't want to

118find ourselves in a cliff where we have all of our devices um expiring if you will at the same time we're going to continue our interactive digital display installation uh grade 8 was done uh this past year along with the finish of the high school thanks to a state grant that helped fund both the installation at Whiskey near and um the completion of the high school so now all that's left is grades seven and six so we're going to work down and grade seven is next um now I forgot to mention the Chromebooks are budgeted proposed at 52 250 and then the interactive displays we have budgeted for thirty six thousand um finally just as we have been replacing laptops and desktops and computers for teachers um every every on our on our device life

119cycle plan of every five years um so goes our district infrastructure equipment um and it is quite Beyond time to look to replace our PowerSchool server that's right over here uh our file server our domain controllers and um that's just that's just a server that manages user accounts and other various operations of the district which we're looking to uh to come in after a few servers licenses uh we virtualize those uh we're looking for that to come in around thirty eight thousand dollars bringing that total cost to 126 thousand two hundred and fifty dollars in the technology budget um there are some savings uh with the opening of cles uh right now we have a we uh license with a provider to offer our wide area fiber Network to five locations we'll be going down

120to four locations uh which does give a savings of almost fourteen thousand dollars um Eric real quick and yeah say five to four some people are probably thinking four to three why why is that oh uh because TSO the town hall uh the Board of Ed office is in town hall are is one of the locations that needs that connection thank you that's a good point um so it would be uh the um central office at Town Hall the high school whiskey near and Candlewood Lake Elementary School um that is eligible for the 50 percent uh e-rate refund um so that's a net of uh just under seven thousand dollars um well not exactly related to cles I did want to put up here that there is a savings we are removing the license uh

121of ST Math from whiskey near about a ten thousand dollar savings um the same thing will happen with the consolidation going having going from Huckleberry and Center down to Cle s will drop a license and give us a savings of ten thousand dollars there too a little bit smaller but we use Follet Destiny for our library catalog students can look up books uh we keep book records in there and all that um going down from two licenses to one saves just under 700 um sorry just under uh just about 850 um our Follet resource manager is our asset inventory managing system it helps us keep track of our technology devices who has them um who might owe for damages um it also tells us where the devices are located that one is just under 700.

122um and finally Lexia reading also using a site license um that's just over eleven thousand two hundred dollars and that's again we're going from Huckleberry and um Center School down to cles um so there is going to be a proposed savings to the technology budget of 46 666. um and then after we take out that e-rate reimbursement it'll be a net of uh just under forty thousand dollars and that's baked into what you've submitted already so uh everything except for the removal of the fiberwan connectivity that is uh hot off to press new information after talking to the provider and handling uh the every all the rules we have to follow with e-rate um so that will be reflected uh after tonight um I'll formally give all that number to Ken and I'll have it

123for the next uh Finance subcommittee on Monday yep um finally although not um all uh budget related there there is an impact um just a quick update on our work with our technology strategic plan which is um kind of running out the same track as the district strategic plan um just as a reminder I could come up and kind of give it a couple updates about this um it was a cohort with districts in the state of Connecticut through the Future Ready schools organization it was about a six-month window um with 15 school districts participating including us here in Brookfield in which they provided some tools resources sample templates sample plans basically everything we needed to help ourselves develop our plan the technology committee worked together throughout the fall on a self-assessment to see where

124we are now that assessment is going to help us do our action planning which is going to start later this month our plan is to present the five-year strategic plan for technology to the board of ed in the spring which is actually alignment with the district strategic plan and the Strategic plan and the reason why I bring this up is hey I'd like to provide an update but also um that um a lot of what we do in the Strategic plan um the software resources the infrastructure everything that you saw earlier and everything that goes into the technology budget is going to be reflected into this technology strategic plan and this plan is going to help support all of those tools going forward and that's all I have for my presentation I'm happy to take

125any questions I do have a full detail of the technology workbook I'll share well I will put it up on the website um the full detail this is what I submit to Mr post um which I can just pull up really quick but you can see I wanted to be able to provide a full detail of all the numbers that we don't need to take a tour um all of the numbers that are included in this and I'm happy to we'll post this up and I'm happy to share this separately afterwards yeah that'd be great yep yeah can I ask that you send your presentation and this in the email to all of us absolutely that would be helpful thank you change the date on the front 23. on the first slide yep the cover

126page of all that work oh you got that number you know what I'm I'm uh I'm pretty good at I'm proud of doing that like you know for the basically the month of January so I think I did that last year too thank you well let me open it up to any questions for uh for Eric very well laid out thank you Eric thank you one question I had was are the the smart boards that are going in from the high school down to the element to the Middle School are they the same technology that is being put into clas or are they different um they are they are now so starting this past year um we have had a very very good feedback um and very the probably the best luck with the smart

127brand model which is you know the name everybody knows um while we had great luck with a model called ViewSonic the teachers have really responded better to the smart brand um so that's the district's commitment going forward okay um so this past year it was smart everything going into Candlewood Lake School is smart and we'll be doing the same thing in this bid we go out to bid every summer for this we will be bidding for smart again um most importantly the teachers you know when the teachers respond to it better they use they use it more um and number two I think having that consistency across the district is incredibly important okay yeah thank you and the price on a lot of the costs on these uh has gotten much more competitive in more

128recent years so um where honestly smart used to be a pretty good amount well a pretty good chunk more expensive it's it's now gotten a lot more competitive so yeah any questions okay thank you Eric thank you thanks Eric now I know Bob um we had the special finance committee meeting yesterday so um I'm not sure if we want to ask Mr post to come up and talk about some savings you want to go there at least have a high level yeah we'll talk more depth about it next week um uh conversational piece comeback that we're bringing tonight right so we've uh as we discussed last at last night's meeting um Dr Burrell and I had a Zoom conference with the folks from Ed advance and the superintendents from several local districts to talk about

129special education transportation and with an advanced facilitating it we all sent them uh numbers of students and what schools they were going to and they did some work and figured out where they could combine multiple towns going to the same school so that we can split the costs and if the data proves out correct and everybody um decides to come together and do this this plan it could save us up to over two hundred thousand dollars from what we put into the proposed budget right now so we're we're excited about that Prospect we just have to continue to Circle back with the other superintendents to make sure everybody's on board with doing that the other thing we talked about that could be significant is uh diesel fuel and heating oil um I put in the

130initial budget the amount the prices that we locked in for this year and since that time the pricing has come down uh we got a price quote a couple of weeks ago which is stale right now so it would have to be refreshed uh but if if we were to get a price like that it would be about another 125 thousand dollars that we would be able to reduce the budget so we've been talking a lot with the town finance office and the for select women about when to to pull the trigger and lock in and I think we had a kind of a consensus last night that you know we want to do it together with with the town but we also want by the time the board votes to to adopt the budget

131we'd like to have some certainty surrounding the pricing of our fuel oils so we're going to Dr Brill and I will continue that conversation in our Monday meeting with the first select woman in town controller okay and obviously Eric has some additional savings coming to you too yeah I'll be I'll be as small yeah yes and then you also locked in gasoline for next year so that's another about thirteen thousand dollars that we'll be able to save right that's that's all I've identified so far any questions for Ken any questions okay thank you for the update Ken you're welcome we talked about these extensively at our finance committee meetings and keep asking them to find more um okay so that's it for your updates that's the updates uh to the board members are there any

132uh items that we need to ask Dr Burrell to bring us at our next meeting or in in light of these gener in general uh thanks because I think at the next meeting we're going to be spending time deliberating on what budget we're going to take forward right so I think the finance committee needs to bring in a recommendation um I probably can't will present it but the uh um and uh either we have to decide at the next meeting we're gonna have to have a special meeting right um later in the month right but we have to submit by the 31st of January correct um so we ought to prepare ourselves Embrace ourselves for our next meeting it's going to be a hard one because the rate of increase is high and John you're

133hearing from other districts they're also seeing the same thing because of all the inflationary they are um as we talked about before they present uh quite a bit later than us many in February but some this month um I know Monroe came in around the same number as us um and uh other superintendents I've talked to um offline they haven't presented yet are landing either at our number or just below or some are concerned that they might land above six percent um we're all facing the same drivers you know there's how you handle the phase in um coming off of our besser and those funds from two years ago and of course all the inflationary that's going up okay what's the process for just talking about you know sort of line item questions I know

134we've been submitting questions to that Google doc some have been answered like I just put questions in this morning so they haven't been answered yet so are we just waiting till the next yeah so well no so Ken is Ken is putting responses into the Google Doc as he's gotten to it what's the pile of questions he's continuing to accelerate but he's plowing through them as they get put in so uh we talked we review them but every at least the ones that at the very least the ones that the finance committee submits but will obviously you know follow up with yours and then um you know at the next meeting so obviously didn't make it in for this meeting but probably at the next meeting you know we can and once that document is

135complete and you know we're pretty much going to adopt a budget or very then we can share that document it'll be a publicly available document so everybody can see every question that was asked okay yeah yes I'm glad you brought that up Deb so the sooner people if they have their own individual questions not as part of the finance committee and want to get those questions into the doc or to you Rose I'm not sure how we decided I just gave everybody access yes okay um Ken and I initially look at those uh Joan plays a big role in those and then obviously we either have to get them to Anna or to the principals to ask the specific questions and people have their schedules and so it takes some time to get responses back

136and then put it in a coherent form um that is easily understandable and usually is in in Ken's voice as we get that together so it does take some time so if we're thinking about the 18th two weeks from now maybe by the end of this week if we can really get our questions that would be really helpful or at least through the weekend so then we have time to work on those I found for those of you who maybe didn't get through it yet or or put questions in I found it helpful to read the questions first because as I was going through the budget book a lot of the questions were answered were asked and answered already so and a lot of the answers are actually in the budget book as well so

137the binder is quite detailed well a lot um you know and sometimes it's just hard to find if you're not super familiar you know that's the same feedback I get from the board of Finance too they said they told me last year after they read through that document all their questions were answered right they didn't they didn't have any further questions and and that is a power right to the process of of how we work our way through these so this may be our fourth year uh third or fourth year third year I think yeah sure it's been fantastic for us it really has been helpful it is well it's fantastic for everyone in the town the budget review process so okay so that's it for the budget for tonight and thank you for your

138attention okay to put in questions I think the more questions we ask the easier it is for us to deal with the the budget stuff uh two weeks from tonight um so that's it on item D necklace next up is our update on Candlewood Lake I didn't think that visually it looked like a whole lot of progress although I know a lot has been done um so I was hoping um you guys have seen this picture because it was emailed after our last meeting but um I wanted the public to Tennessee the pictures of the smart boards or the they're really just the mounts going in right now we wouldn't put anything that valuable into that building site right now but um I thought it was nice to kind of show it and maybe do

139we have that video as well because it just looks like so much like a finished classroom when you see technology going in there uh yes so um something we're going to be doing differently with the elementary school just quickly um that um uh given the age range going to the school is um adjustable mounts um on the wall so the board's gonna go anywhere from 20 inches off the ground um all the way up to I think about 72 inches as standard so um depending on the the teacher can very easily grab the board they can write on it Mark on it tell a kid to come up grab the board with one hand pull it down and then the student will have it at their level um I'll share uh I'll share um that

140video in a second but um this is this is uh uh the 86 inch board that's going to be installed in every single classroom um and so uh is that kind of one what are you looking more for yeah video of him showing how it Glides yep that one will help to download this r b install is up uh celebrity now so I'm sure he loves that so um yeah you couldn't believe it oh celebrity yeah so uh you many of you probably have recently gone on a tour this board was really here just for uh myself the installers and uh Rob tenza to review and decide how we wanted it mounted um this board immediately came out because the classroom is not locked so that equipment their equipment is not there just the mounts

141to Rose's Point um but easy as simple as that one hand very cool that's how they're gonna look yep and those brackets to either side of that of it are for the black with the the white boards that are in the room or or pegboards they told us yeah um because that's not that's not related to that yeah it's a mix of whiteboard and Tack board yeah they're gonna they're gonna put those on and then put a molding over this metal that's going to be like a grayish um that's gonna a create the seam uh but not be so reflective too so that whole white wall behind it is also a whiteboard cool yeah so behind here because we did ask that girl if any questions on either side of these I'm not sure which

142one's which but each metal bar going up and over is a separation so it'll be like white it'll be like whiteboard behind this tack board tack board over there I'm not sure the exact layout but um they'll be able to do different things on each of those each material of board yep and then the only other update um I think Dr Brill you had a couple things to share the teachers were able to tour so yeah maybe share some of their reactions so I was I was going to leave that um great news um for for Dave to share a little bit so Dave you want to make your way up here I just wanted to share a little bit I think the board knows that um the the building Administration for um CLS and

143I um have a week standing Wednesday morning weekly meeting and we talk about the elements of the Candlewood Lake planning team agenda that we put together last spring um and you know gosh that that particular committee was 20 or 25 uh team members Pre-K to five and so some of the things we're really we're working on today and Dave and Danielle in June and uh and Robin and uh and just uh what's that yeah on Debbie of course um we're really talking through key things that we are tangible things that we need to get done that are also called You're Building because Anna really talked about culture building today Dave certainly is going to talk to that when we talk about the tour itself um from from which was part of the December 22nd PD

144um but simply putting up a beautiful large uh in the faculty room color floor plan it's already available electronically when you go to the website but having it up posted with the room numbers starting to talk about the process for room assignments and starting to really think about that what is the temporary parking lot going to look like we're ready for now we all know we're going in together uh September 5th right for Labor Day teachers would be in a week before what's moving packing really going to look like let's get a memo together let's get expectations let's start to lay that out so the work the teachers have been doing could accelerate and they could feel um more concrete frankly and more assured rather than something ambiguous that's out there um the other piece

145is um the project manager and uh working because um our Fuller our longtime CES custodian is part of the the planning team and really talking about what are some of the custodial moves that we need to make not the Staffing custodial moves but um we talked about a finance committee last night the cleaners and how's that all going to work in the new machines and and so there's a lot of things going on there that we're really excited about but uh I'll turn it over to Dave's talk about the tour and anything else you want to share today sure well just uh to reiterate what Dr Mann said we had uh the coaches facilitate groups and we were purposeful in grouping we had over 100 certified staff so four groups of about 26 equal representation

146as equal as we could you know we had I think there were 12 from whiskey here uh and then about 50 and 50 from the other buildings so we had uh each group consisted of what's near Center School Huckleberry staff so the coaches I thought hey what a great way for coaches to meet everybody that's going to be Kenwood lake so I kind of said Doctor man could they maybe facilitate some workshops when they did an awesome job as administrators we each joined a group uh so Heather Batchelor did this amazing Community circle with Rachel Cohen and uh I don't want to mess this up Julie Vaughn did gingerbread houses mine was horrific but again those are different houses we went into smaller groups and you had Center School whiskey near Huckleberry and just such

147a community build and then Jim Fitz ran uh gaming activities in the gym that were more Cooperative collaborative games and the Pinnacle of the day of course the tour and it was I mean I don't know Amy can't even look him in that giggle a little bit because she sees me on the tours and how excited I get with everything uh but what really made it powerful was we were Candlewood Lake Elementary touring the building we were at Candlewood Lake Elementary staff it wasn't hey huckleberry come and see this with all those mixtures in the groups and just even walking through the kindergarten classroom with the fifth grade teacher looking at the kindergarten teacher and saying oh my gosh look at this connecting room you have my students can come down and reach your students

148in these beautiful and these rooms are awesome uh so just that sense of power and and excitement enthusiasm and just collaboration already happening but really leaving that building leaving that tour like and I've been on four or five tours maybe maybe 12. uh that was my favorite because that was really this is this is the staff and just that excitement and just that energy uh was amazing and it really the cafeteria with the bricks right and we have classrooms that are just about completely done we giggled because some of the teachers are a little short and they say well how the heck are we going to get all the way up there to get this well figure that out we have step schools or step ladders you call me I'll get them for you uh

149but just overall it was a powerful awesome day of Candlewood Lake Elementary staff it wasn't three staffs it was one staff and it was really awesome it was great yeah it was great thank you David and you know Dave I know Bob was on a a group with Nate we took a tour and um when I was able to share and although it's been talked about before until you're there and it starts to really become concrete like it's really becoming now for our staff is talking to the kindergarten Pre-K teachers um with all the other grade level teachers in the in the group and sharing that the floors in that area of the building are actually heated for the students the envy that came from yeah I'm still here so yeah yeah the difference I'm

150getting a lot so it's yeah it's uh it's pretty exciting so yeah anything else Dave no I'm good it was a great day thank you thank you that's all I had that was great okay any questions for uh Rosa or Dr bro all right um we're back to public comment um and this is uh in this section it's the same basic rules as before uh three minutes maximum and uh this can deal with any topic within within the purview of our board we have one person signed up Mr Korea and you can come up and I know it's a repeat but name and address when you start so um 45 West whiskey Avenue um so I sent this information to the board but there's people that watch um and I just want to make sure

151although I wrote in they at least get some of this information for themselves I think it's important um and this is what just a way of background of employees in the district there's a small handful that have their own contracts and they're very specific to their position and a couple of those contracts have a provision where they're not allowed to essentially work outside their current responsibilities with a small exception and it's mostly around participating sort of in a professional environment and this is true of a lot of organizations particularly where there's an executive in the company and it's mostly about the duty of loyalty and to ensure that you're putting all your efforts into your primary job as well as if there's not a conflict of interest and I bring it up because after the

152meeting on the December 14th a lot of parents watched um and then got in touch with other some of the parents that spoke and one of the things that came to me was um I got a a text of a email or a web link to a bio on a company called Zeal education group be careful yeah you know the rules yeah I know the rules yeah and so I looked through and it was a um it was the bio of an administrator here in District and I was quite surprised that person actually has you know a limitation in their contract and the contract is limited to includes consultancy um it limits it to five days work and the Board of Education needs to be informed and approve so for the Board of Education to

153approve they have to have a vote and votes cannot be an executive session they all have to be public they all have to be in minutes um and this company was was founded in April of 2022 um and so you can go back and you can look and there's no public record of the Board of Education approving this relationship um or any work there's a public reference um of a work activity in August right and the contract was was signed within those two periods so it was a very recent in terms of knowing you shouldn't do this it wasn't an oversight the other concern is is the startup company and I happen to know I have a lot of experience as startup companies and a lot of uh founding members of startup companies they work

154a lot before they actually can bill out to a customer right it's a lot of work especially in Consulting coming up with methodologies templates there's a lot of QA with Consulting quality assurance with Consulting to making sure you come across the same way right so it's unlikely that an early stage employee of a startup company would have only worked for an hour right there's at least the work of of figuring out hey can I join your company and all this other stuff so so my concerns are really the of these this conflict of interest because this firm also engages in in special education audits they do they do um Consulting around board governance in the in the description of the board governance includes really how to essentially manipulate your board so I bring this up

155because I brought it to the board and it's as soon as I brought it to the board's attention immediately this came down right and the board had responded that they would take it seriously and to me taking it seriously means you know not informing the employee figuring out what happens first because there's been a lot of cover-ups with by the board of education so um I implore the board to look into this seriously because you will be watched how you handle it thank you um okay so that's it for this evening's agenda three main points what do you think Deb um I think definitely we should provide um some information about the updates that Dr Mann and Eric and Ken gave us about the budget comebacks and also an update on cles um like you're

156like no I'm sorry sorry um Mike Mike Mike uh so aside from that I'm I I was gonna think I was thinking maybe the whiskaneer wall update and the nice slideshow that Mr Renda showed us even though it didn't have music yeah um or I did think it was important to let everybody know that Dr Burrell gave us an update about the special education program review and the fact that he has um some meetings coming up regarding that so bcbas yeah I think pcbs I can do that so bcba's the budget update items and uh and clas okay all right cool all right all right upcoming events okay it's pretty quiet all schools are closed in observance of Martin Luther King Day on January 16th and just whiskaneer has a few things coming up they

157have a motivational speaker Jeff feely an event with him for families on January 9th from 6 to 7 PM they have their band concert here at the high school on January 10th and the chorus concert also here at the high school on January 17th that's it okay thank you all right that's it for our agenda tonight thank you all we went on for two and a quarter hours tonight it's a long meeting I know people have had a long day so without objection we are adjourned