001good thank you the brown one how interesting um so please join me in Rising for the pledge before we do the pledge I just will say to everybody that this is the 10th year anniversary of um of the Sandy Hook disaster and I think it's being the neighboring town to Sandy Hook I think it's important that we express our feelings toward that and our respect towards our fellow residents of Newtown and those in Brookfield who were affected by it so please join me for a brief moment of silence recognizing the Sandy Hook thank you on to the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right so we've got a
002pretty full agenda for this evening um and as usual at this time of year we have some special visitors so Dr bro let me turn it over to you for introductions thank you Mr Belden thank you for leading Us in the moment of silence um we really have a special evening and a special kickoff to the night we're so excited to have our guests here tonight um our first uh guest is the chamber singers from Brookfield High School led by Mr lamendola and they will have a number of selections tonight and then our band director Mr St George will be leading the jazz band with a few of their selections to kick off the holiday season for us and for us to really enjoy them here at a board meeting so Mr lamondola the floor
003is yours thank you for being here thank you very much um now that you're all seated we actually we'd actually ask you to rise for the city of God Bless America [Music] God bless America my home sweet home God bless America my home sweet home America my heart foreign [Applause] thank you for inviting us here for the banding choir uh tomorrow night happens to be our combined Winter concert Brookfield High School 45 Long Meadow Hill Road Brookfield Connecticut 7 P.M free of charge uh please come on out for just a really terrific night uh for these guys uh it really celebrates uh what we like to do at Brookfield we've got a historic uh past in the Arts here and we we'd love for you to come and check it out it's tomorrow night at
004seven o'clock we're going to give you a little teaser with Carol of the Bells thank you our counter Bell Sweet Summer Bells all seem to say Throw cares away Christmas is [Music] [Applause] a song [Music] [Applause] that is [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh so tomorrow night uh come on out and again thank you for having us this way and uh reveal the wonderful VHS for you thank you Mr lamendola and the Chamber singers thank you very much so again thank you so much for inviting us this evening uh this is the VHS Jazz Ensemble uh also known by some as Marcato for Life uh this group meets after school and we're going to present to you one of our concert selections for tomorrow called funky dreidel foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Applause] Ola reminded us all
005at the beginning tomorrow night here in the auditorium at 7 pm it's free bring a friend if you don't have friends make a friend bring them see you back here tomorrow 97. Mr St George Jazz Ensemble thank you so much chamber singers Mr Layman gold thanks so much for coming tonight we really enjoyed it foreign in the front room [Music] I wonder if this was sand nope that's the same one can't get tied up okay um so uh all our board members are here this evening um so uh next up on our agenda is public comment um we do have uh three individuals signed up for public comment they're all on uh agenda items so they'll be at the beginning of the meeting and just as a reminder each speaker has up to three minutes
006to provide input to the board at the start of every every regular meeting we set aside a maximum of 20 minutes so we should fit well within that for a comment on any item on the agenda and at the end of the meeting we deal with items that are not on the agenda or any rollover from the uh if we go over 20 minutes just as a reminder a discussion of school Personnel in any individual students or individual members of the board is not considered appropriate and uh and I need name and address when you start so first up is Mrs Scalera foreign sclera 5 Jackson Drive when I first looked at the agenda I was pleasantly surprised that the district finally decided to do the right thing and take a stance and commit to
007an in-depth look into the systemic problems facing our special education program but when I took the time to dive a little deeper it became alarmingly apparent that while this at first glance plan appeared to be a step in the right direction the plan provided within tonight's agenda under exhibit H is far from a deep dive or a strong stance regarding any sort of corrective actions as a taxpayer and a parent I have a ton of questions regarding the proposal from Cooperative Educational Services I'm asking each and every one of you on the board why was Cas chosen for this task was it sent out to bid CES is a state-funded entity which operates one of the most restrictive special education schools in the state I will also say that bringing in an entity like CES
008is simply hiring your peers to evaluate and investigate your current programs first I would love to know what has been determined to be the real pressing areas of concern affecting our special education program I am once again standing here before you asking for transparency about what the exact scope and sequence of this plan really is our entire special education program is in shambles and it needs to be investigated and explored in its entirety not a piecemeal plan like exhibit H reads the district should be committing to an to an overview of all policies procedures and programs ensuring that all Cur all our current and up-to-date and immediate analysis of our general education programs to determine our classes are meeting the least restrictive environment and our IEP compliant and even more pressing are we delivering meaningful
009inclusion and adequate progress to all students who are identified within District I was completely disgusted to see that Brookfield has chosen to focus on our high school life class of less than 10 children and our preschool which I'm certain accounts for far less than 20 percent of our identified student population overall how does this even sit well with the administration of the board this proposal is not at all independent or unbiased and it stands to leave eight grades of our children flapping in the breeze until sometime in 2024. change needs to happen now accountability needed to happen yesterday and transparency needed to happen for more years than I can count in this plan why does CIA who does CES report their findings to I strongly believe that anyone who is evaluating programs in districts should
010be reporting directly to the boa and not the administration if the district was truly committed to looking at special education whoever was selected to take on this task should be well versed in general education special education as well as educational and special education laws I would suggest the administration speaks directly to darianne as they had an investigation of this caliber completed in less than six months by someone who has tons of experience doing this type of work in districts all over the United States you can hire all the people you want but at the end of the day people solely responsible for compliance overseeing and implementing IEPs and Direct Services or not doing their jobs our children teachers staff and parents are suffering the special education department is absolute worst that I've seen it in
011the last 13 years and I'm here asking the board when is enough enough when are you going to hold the district and special education Administration responsible for compliance of IEPs the complaints to the State Department of Education keep happening and I'm afraid if you do not write the ship sooner rather than later outplacements and lawsuits will soon follow along with more of our staff abruptly leaving District I'm begging the board to commit to an in-depth independent audit of the entire special education program now not the Bare Bones plan known as exhibit H are children you could wrap it up our children need corrective action now not two years from now thank you all right next up is Mrs Rice Denise rice three old Hemlock Road I read the CES program that Brookfield is participating in
012and there are major flaws apparently this is Phase One there's no mention of other phases or the costs associated with them but I'll move on I see the students or specific programs are hand-picked by the administration they are talked to and consulted with about the students the parents get a survey so what I'm reading is that the people least around the children and who know the children least are the ones that will be Consulting with CES meanwhile the parents get a survey which isn't worth the time it takes to do I also notice a major piece missing the powers of the children who support the teachers are not even mentioned this is because our district places no value in them it was actually set at a PD day in the beginning of the year that
013they will not be consulted about programming because they will lie about a children's progress so they can keep their job at Seventeen dollars an hour getting talked to like that is demeaning and being a parent to a special needs kid is a labor of love they can make that money anywhere and honestly do less these people know our kids and many of them as much as parents so why would we be leaving them out if they can be so instrumental I'll tell you why because the administration can't manipulate the results in short what I see is Phase One coming out totally inaccurate because it's not all inclusive with the voices of those who matter as taxpayers and parents we are throwing away millions of dollars with this mentality and administration tons are being thrown into
014more administrative staff for special ed really to lighten up the job of what should be done by who we have and at the same time shorting the students of the support they desperately need or how about the Gen Ed teachers shorting them of the support they need so they can teach this better uh sped kids in their classrooms and learn keep the typical kids learning we are throwing Millions at what has been referred to as a world-class School let's call it what it really is a potentially great building with Administration superintendent and special ed director who put no value in teachers support staff without this we have nothing so while everyone sees special ed as a cost center I see our biggest expense as a district is the mentality of this Administration registration as a
015whole bad news travels fast once that happens it isn't going to make anyone's career look great our new school and District as a whole will be worth nothing which makes the new building just putting lipstick on a pig thank you and third up is Mr Correa and I see you add other items on your list Mr Korea if you could keep your comments to the agenda items I'd appreciate it I also um not support uh funding address oh sorry 45 West Wisconsin road I also do not support funding The Proposal that is put on the agenda for this engagement with CES um I agree with the prior speakers that what I'm going to focus on um is really is this the right organization so if you just scratch below the surface and do a little
016bit of a Google search you can see who their prior clients are in their brochure where they advertise their services they have a quote from a superintendent in Greenwich from 2012 to 2016. so you're talking about six to ten years old praising them you know anybody who has interviewed any candidates from Greenwich really should have known whether they're you know a prior client or or something you know somebody we might hire should be aware of what has gone on in Greenwich in the past several years in 2021 Greenwich did a comprehensive review with a group out of Boston called public Consulting Group they're also the Consulting Group that is doing the whole IEP Revision in Connecticut their engagement was thirty thousand dollars it got um increased to ninety eight thousand dollars 168 page report in
017the midst of that review the special education director for 24 years resigned she didn't retire she resigned essentially because of the results of the review um now we're about to hire somebody who just who's advertising a success story in Greenwich right Greenwich you know just went through a much more thorough review they had several reviews between that the the other reviews or audits very similar to the one scoped parents came back and said it's two Administration friendly they didn't talk to the Paris they didn't talk to the parents the PCG group work they had in-depth focus groups another client they had was Oxford came out after Oxford's review you know after they had great praise for the leadership and particularly the director of special education that the director of special education for CES was her
018uncle right um after that you know there was no they had some recommendations mostly procedural but it's kind of the book that a parent would learn after a few years of how special education should be run I suggested the district look into that and the board asked questions about the capabilities there because what happened in Oxford was there was more violations the Oxford parents sought out help from a parent support group called seek they reviewed documentation and found multiple violations and then hired the same lawyer that went to darianne and the results of the darianne review by the way was the entire Administration resigned or was fired same they found issues in Oxford and currently that special education director was is in another District because they were forced to resign so with the concerns about
019the capabilities of CES and the fact that the executive director is the former and super superintendent of Amity at the same time our current superintendent was in Bethany with the appearance of a potential conflict of interest I think it would make no sense to hire CES and but but I do think we should have a comprehensive review like the PCG review where there's in-depth parent focus groups how however the problem we have today are broken programs that got broken overnight with the new hire the board still hasn't addressed the violations that are coming in the lying to the public so was that you're out of time okay so it asks the board is solve the bleeding fix the leadership problem first and if you have the right leaders you may not need to spend a
020hundred thousand dollars but paying somebody's buddy to cover this up is not going to be at all useful or helpful to anybody thank you thank you okay that's it for public comment thank you all very much appreciate that I am sure those will become part of our discussion when I get to that agenda item um so next up on our agenda is our student representative report hi Caitlin how are you tonight it should be up yeah there you go okay I'm good how are you all um so I have a few updates for us today uh this Saturday December 17th will be the winter Cabaret and charity event hosted by student government there will be many performances such as the dance team uh Brookfield and alumni student bands and multiple singers uh it's free of
021charge to attend but donations are absolutely welcome National Honor Society held a winter workshop for Center School students today in the school gym complete with snacks crafts stories and little stores for them to buy gifts it was definitely a success I personally ran the craft station and it was so nice seeing the little kids faces light up as they created holiday trees and snowflakes for their families athletic advisory and student government gave a wonderful presentation this past Friday about our athletic programs leadership at Southern Connecticut State University our school continues to set strong precedence for the communities around us the boys basketball team has their first home game this Saturday the 17th we are in the midst of a smooth transition from fall to winter sports last but certainly certainly not least a member of
022the student government took the time today to lead an announcement honoring the Lost lives of the Sandy Hook shooting he read the list of names and our entire school had a moment of silence dedicated to them these children and staff members will forever remain in our hearts thank you so much and happy holidays thank you Caitlyn questions Tara Carr wrote regarding a WMS research study Andy Korea wrote regarding inaccurate meeting minutes and a request to revise Nick Schmidt wrote the cape committee regarding health curriculum and Communications and Andy and Irene Correa wrote requesting a no vote on the special education review I will move that the board approved the minutes from the regular meeting on November 30th second I might go here we go we're moved and seconded um are there any uh comments or
023suggestions for changes um yes the correspondence the written correspondence that I just mentioned um a parent requested a revision to the public comment portion of that um where it says that Andy Korea Monique Matthews Aaron scholar and debka case spoke about FERPA they felt that was not comprehensive enough so I would make a motion that we amend it that we they spoke about ferca FERPA violations and the district's response to give a little more clarity to that I don't know if anyone else has another suggestion I know I know his request was to actually put a lot more verbiage but we generally don't put that much detail into the minutes correct but uh what do you guys think about that Amendment I think that's a good summary brief do you need a second on the
024amendment I will second dip so uh any discussion on the amendment okay all in favor of the amendment please say aye aye aye is there any further discussion on the minutes okay all in favor of approving the minutes as amended okay okay thank you um there was a second request in there about um amending a prior meetings uh minutes similarly so this was on the 30th of the November 30th thing I wasn't at the last meeting and I think you guys all approved the November 14th I mean it was the 14th meeting 16th meeting minutes do you all have an appetite to amend your the minutes or you will let them stand as approved I'm not I'm for one I'm not a in fate generally in favor of going back and revisiting priorly approved minutes
025personally but I'll leave it up to you guys since you all did the approval agreed okay General consensus is to leave it as it so no motion on that okay um so next up is the superintendent's update thank you Mr Belden um given the um uh nature of the the lengthy items on the agenda night I have a very brief report but I I was hoping it would be okay I wanted to ask you if we could um we lost Mrs plew from Huckleberry Hill uh last week and I was hoping uh the board would be okay if we do a moment of silence in memory of Mrs blue okay all right all right please join me in a moment of silence thank you everybody thank you Mr welcome my children had Mrs plew they
026loved her so she's with the district from since 1986. wow yeah wow had a great conversation with her son yesterday it was very nice she loved Huckleberry Hill and her colleagues and the students and everything about it yeah she was she was a tough cookie too she taught them how to learn she sure did yep thank you for that so for my report um I attached a a nice summary I have to thank the nurses for putting the data together um just at this time of year people are hearing in the media and wondering you know is covet coming back or you know this is the worst flu season we've ever seen and so I wanted to share up through the data from the start of school up through Monday December 12th and so as
027you can see in the the information here and this will be this is in the board pack it'll be in the board packet published after the meeting covet cases were quite significant in September at all of the schools but have really calmed down as of Monday at Center there there was known these are reported by parents by the way we don't test students so it's what's reported by families six coveted cases at Center five coveted cases at huckleberry one at the middle school and one at the high school as of Monday so clearly the numbers have gone down there since uh since September where they were quite high in in terms of flu at uh Center School there are 19 cases of the flu as far as we know at Huckleberry 11 whiskey near eight
028and at the high school two so in spite of what you might hear right now so far so good the nurses are watching things closely parents there was a nurse letter a nurse's letter that just went out to parents with the same precautionary tales that we always talk about washing hands staying hydrated staying healthy getting enough rest if you're not feeling well you have symptoms please stay home and uh of course hygiene and and health is Paramount make sure as parents and older students communicate with the nurse's office if you're ill and let us know so we can help out support but also keep an eye on the public health of our buildings so that's the first piece on the agenda are on my report the the next one is just some fun things at
029holiday time Dr Mann and I are getting scheduled in the Elementary classrooms which has been a ball I was in Mrs Knapp's room today um some winter and seasonal and holidays uh stories are being provided and we're having a great time reading those to the kids and enjoying visiting with the students so we're really excited about that this week and next week um next uh as you know the budget for 2324 I will present the superintendent's proposal this evening the board as part of the process um always has uh public engagement one public engagement was the budget Roundtable at the beginning of the budget season back in November and in January our first meeting when we come back on January 4th prior to the board meeting we will have a budget hearing and so people
030will be able to offer their input on the proposal that I put forth this evening knowing full well and we'll talk about it uh Mr Bell and I chatted a little bit about it earlier today the process that goes through there's a lot of detail all that happens and a lot of work that goes on all the way up until January 31st when the board's adopted budget is submitted to Mrs Carr and then finally the free lunch update been over a year now we've had free lunch for all of the students across the country those funds are running out as of January 31st the free lunch is done and so we will not Brookfield and other communities across the country will not be availing themselves of those funds or here in Connecticut for sure February
0311st students will begin paying for lunch again Mr post office will be sending out a communication early next week as a update for everybody and then a couple of reminders through January we'll be going home to remind everybody to get ready for that that may be one of those that makes the three important things that's a big one for parents I know that um so that's all I have for my report Mr Belden okay any questions for Dr Burrell all right thank you okay thank you all right we're going to uh move on to our subcommittee reports um and given the length of the agenda tonight I just ask each of us to be rather quick on our reviews if we could so first up is policy and Communications Debbie yep we met on November
03230th and we Revisited two policies that are in your packet tonight the first one was the gifted and talented policy 6172.1 and the second one was the non-discrimination policy 4118.1 these had been sent to the board for first read back in the summer and then I think other pressing matters took over and we didn't get a chance to Circle back and do the final read so second reading so that's in your packet for tonight we also spent pretty much the rest of the meeting talking about the survey of students policy that's also on the agenda for tonight um so we can go into that in more detail later on in the agenda we had um several other items that we had hoped to discuss at the meeting but the policy discussions took over the time
033that we had so we tabled all the communications items to our next meeting okay any questions for Debbie I guess we're going to come back and talk to you about the specific policies in a bit yeah all right great um next is finance committee meeting um I can make this very quick this was a special meeting on the 5th of one of our first special finance committee meetings where we started to take a deep dive into the budget although we couldn't go that deep we will after tonight's meeting but we did start talking about organizing um um the sort of assignment of sections of the budget that each of the members will take a deep dive into and send Ken with a lot of questions and the creation of the Google Doc that will document
034all of our questions and so that was created and we will talk about the rest of the budget later so okay any questions for Rosa okay so next up is a verbal report on the strategic planning committee um if I if you recall at the last meeting that I was at at least that we had a report on the all-day session that we had on the uh on trying to narrow in on the key strategic planning initiatives we had a two-hour session um this uh on the what was the data that the sixth where the team got back together again and fleshed it out and exercised and Debbie and I were both there working on different groups as part of that it's starting to flush out and come come together very nicely I think but
035we got a lot of work left to do probably two or three more meetings to kind of make sure it has the right substance and meat to it which we will do again after the new year so John anything you'd add to that you know I would say just a timeline for people who are wondering when it might be finalized and ready for review here um or presentation here I would say probably sometime in March we will be looking at a finalized version um at the soonest um if it takes till April to have it ready to go we want to get it right rather than rush it a few weeks and the committee is gosh probably 25 people strong so not at every meeting not everybody is there so that's another piece with a
036committee that large I want to make sure we have all members there and really engaged in the process and giving their input yep okay thank you any questions guys Debbie anything you want to ask no okay you covered it uh next up is facilities okay okay we reviewed the school district reports so we just see and a mouse issue that's been addressed um one of the capital projects so the HVAC control system there's not much too not too much to report the system has control of almost all the HVAC equipment we have connectivity throughout the building however in the boiler room we found out that the valves are in failure um and they're leaking so we've ordered new valves and we're waiting for them it'll take about a day to install and we're moving forward
037so hoping to wrap up this by Christmas the boys lock firm project contractor has been in several times we're waiting for the mechanical equipment and materials the current recommendation was to hold off and wait till February when the HVAC was taken care of the original plan was to stage and deliver over winter break and start in January um just so everybody's aware and just to repeat the project is owned by the NBC and tecton is leading the project our specific contact is poll on the NBC and Eddie is our contact person so the contractor will be responsible for sharing this schedule to us and we're requesting a more formal timeline from Paul and Eddie and a more formal plan of action to hopefully start sooner than later the seminar room seating at the middle school
038unfortunately the company can't do it now so we're looking to get a new contractor to fix the seating in the seminar the whiskey near Jim wall it's nearing completion you'll see the scaffolding has come down we've received a few pictures which is good so there's some concern with the Finish or the stucco but the issue is really with the temperature we need 45 degrees or more for the painting so this may delay the completion they painted it by hand but the expectation was that it was going to be sprayed on so it's moving along quickly so that's good news school security we discussed we reviewed the proposed security projects the and it's important to note that these funds have already been approved by the board Bob made a motion and I seconded the motion to
039authorize the administration and proceed with the projects using Capital funds previously approved and you'll see that later in the agenda uh we discussed water testing follow-up so we have received three more violation notices from the state but all three of these violations were due to lack of testing caused by the sudden and announced relocation of the testing company and the Water Testing Lab dropping our service so um we do have till December 2023 to rectify we did have a lead and copper violation but again it's not because of not monitoring we did it but it was lost building condition study we got three responses to the RFP for the study one came in at 72 000 one came in at 65 000 and one came in at thirteen thousand we're thinking the last one may
040have not understood the parameters so the first two firms will be called in to present their plan and then a recommendation will be made we had some new business we discussed the cafeteria at the high school we have over four hundred thousand dollars in excess funds in this account so a lot of extra money so we talked with Woodson's to explore options to improve the serving area alterations to how to allow the students in and out and improve the flow because it's just really not a good layout so we have an opportunity to improve it and what sends it'll walk through with the firm and it was brought up that maybe we can use some of the money to offer maybe more food choices or better food choices the problem is the lack of Staffing
041in chefs so um one question that we also had that we want to follow up to is have we maximized the funds to move to other accounts and then we just discussed the date and time for our next meeting for miscellaneous discussion that's it okay any questions for joy okay hearing none we'll move on and the security task force is uh is mine again we met on December 8th we did have an executive session on a uh on a specific security matter where it you know which is covered under executive session law and that was about 40 minutes of the hour-long meeting and in the remainder of the meeting we got an update from Mr Conklin about the different technology updates on the digital threat assessment on securely and on the see something say something
042something app that is due to be implemented in 2023 and then the last discussion we had were was about the all hazards plan and for those of you who don't know there's a required book of uh of all hazards right so it's fire and and uh and uh armed armed entrants or you know different types of Crisis plans and crisis plans we need to do one for the new school right and it's different than any other school so we talked about how to get that kicked off and how we might fund it and different options but it's something we have to get done before we enter that school so that was a piece of discussion and then lastly we just got a status on the update on uh the uh police the resource officers the
043assos and the security monitors and the good news is the uh security monitor of the high school for the daytime has been hired and starts this week last week I was going to mention that in the consent agenda so okay there we go so it's in the consent agenda assos have proven hard right there are not many candidates coming forward for the asso and that's remember that's the after school program and uh so that one's still active and that's under the watch of the police chief to go get that filled I am told Bob just really quick he is making uh very good progress so please and the resource officers have been working out great in the schools they've been not only provided that level of security that we wanted but more they were engaging
044with the students and it's been real all the feedback has been good that we've heard so so that's it any questions okay are they in a specific uniform they they have um Brookfield shirts they're wearing black shirts or sweatshirts and they have the insignity and security on it does say Security on it yeah so the kid is very visible yeah okay okay so that's it for subcommittee reports um uh next is the consent agenda I'll move that the board approved the items on the consent agenda which are new hires resignations and the October financials moved and seconded Dr Berlin a comments you'd like to make on the consented yeah so just a couple of quick notes so Mrs Savage is our new security monitor for daytime at the high school she started last week and
045Mr Ferreira will be our new security monitor at BHS for after school he will be starting next week so we're excited to have those it's taken a while to get our monitors in place so we're looking forward to that and then I did want to mention our special education department secretary Karen Olson had left the district about two years ago and she was serving in a different District as a special education secretary and she has returned to the district to be with us again and we're looking forward to her know-how and her excitement arriving back again with us and so we're excited to have Mrs Olson back then you have a question yes a security monitor for after school at the high school is that to hold the place until we get the asso or
046that's additional no it's just with the assl that was one of the positions we had planned for we're gonna have the after school um monitor um doing um uh rounds but also working the door okay because remember that's one of the things down by the gym and the auditorium we want to make sure we have that's going to be the evening entrance eventually we're working on Capital Security plans to make sure that's set as a Sally Porter or Man Trap so we'll be working on that and then the asso would be more out in the out on the fields and or doing building tours and being around sorry one more question uh related to that so does that mean come January we should probably see some different protocols in terms of entering the building after
047hours right like for meetings like this exactly okay so we'll be working on that okay any other questions okay all in favor of approving the consent agenda okay we've got all the basic stuff done and now uh uh we're going to new business and the first uh item on the agenda there's some big items on this agenda tonight um the uh uh the first item is the Candlewood Lake Elementary School occupancy update and it's not emotion it's an action to hear from the municipal building committee on the on the construction schedule do you want to say any opening comments Dr bro okay so I will turn it over to you all I'll start with yeah we just switched tabs right here and I'll go turn the projector great that's great while he's doing that figure
048we'll start with uh introductions uh thank you for having me tonight my name is Dave kravenzola I'm the project executive from OMG Industries uh overseeing the the on-site team so I'm here tonight to uh to give you an update I want to thank Paul for the updates he's been giving over the course of the project and I wanted to come tonight to give you uh the full update as well as far as where we are so before we get into where we're going I do want to just take a quick minute to just reflect on a couple of key drivers on the schedule so far so you know with the project we've seen really some unprecedented things happen over the course of the last couple years and have really changed the landscape as far as
049how we're able to deliver projects with the materials that that we have at hand so um you know I know you've heard about the the when we had the roofing issue uh one of the ones that we're working through now is I think Paul you may have mentioned it one of the means the flooring as far as you know there were issues with because of the the freeze in Texas where we couldn't get the materials to make the terrazzo in the country we had to Outsource that so then it became the issue of getting the materials here so those are those are some of the things we're still wrangling with as far as you know getting the finishes into the building so You know despite our best efforts to date we know that you know
050we're we're not going to be able to deliver the Huckleberry School the um Kendallwood Lake for the end of the 2022-2023 school year so our sites are set on preparing things fully complete for the start of the 23-24 school year and and I want to thank um you know chairman Belden and superintendent uh Brill for the time spent you know talking about the details that we're going to go through tonight so um you know I I also want to preface it by saying that you know despite the fact that we've had some slippages in the schedule work really continues to go in place at a rapid Pace I think we have between 80 and 100 workers on site every day oftentimes six days a week there's a lot of work going in place in this
051building each and every day and we're getting there we're seeing a lot of progress so hopefully we can illustrate that for you so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through a narrative and I think some of the committee members have this that basically gives it chronologically by by month what are you going to see happen in February what's going to happen in March so um we'll talk about what's going to happen inside the building as well as outside the building and really what's going to get us to that the completion date of getting the students into the school for the start of next school year that's really our main focus here is making sure that the building is complete it's safe it's secure and it's done really to the highest of
052standard so that's that's our goal here so do bear with me as I read through the narrative the team put together a very detailed list and hopefully I'm not steering Paula stray here as I as I narrate so I I presume you know the layout of the building enough as far as what goes where okay so if we turn our sights on February we have the kindergarten first grade second grade third grade fourth grade and fifth grade all of those rooms are going to be completed so meaning that those rooms were in essence finishes completely done ready to start moving things into them uh that's the end of February also in February we're going to be finishing the second floor staff dining the art rooms that's the end of February going on to March that's
053when we start completing the second floor administrative and media center rooms that's at the beginning of March then the second floor staff dining and art rooms the corridor Terrazzo flooring and wall finishes will then be completed and that's one of the things that we're waiting for that material to come once that come that triggers a bunch of other finishes that have to happen after it because if we install these other finishes first we run the risk of those finishes being damaged and it's simply not worth doing twice uh the cafeteria multi-purpose music rooms that Terrazzo flooring will also be completed the end of March the first floor administrative art room and media center rooms will be completed the end of March uh sorry Paul I forgot to be switching between the first and second floor
054but it's uh the second grade fifth grade Wing multi-occupant restrooms in the corridor that'll also be done in March moving on to April we have the cafeterian multi-purpose and music rooms all those wall finish will be will be complete then the Pre-K kindergarten first grade and fourth grade Wings multi-occupant restrooms will be done and then also the gymnasium is slated to be completed the end of April the we're going for our final elevator inspections by the end of April as well as completing the installation of the main hall staircase at that same time moving into May the kindergarten and third grade Wing multi-occupant restrooms and Corridor finishes will be completed that's the beginning of May the first floor administrative gymnasium art room Media Center all that flooring the bathrooms that will be completed by the
055end of the month so really we're in essence we're working our way from the back of the building to the front um and then the playgrounds will also be completed by the end of May well some of the last areas of Terrazzo will be the the main hall Terrazzo flooring followed by the corridor wall finishes that'll be the beginning of June and then when we turn our sights to August and actually what I'm going to do is I'm now going to do we have the oh wait I'm sorry yeah we do okay so now now turning our sights to the outside of the building in August is when we're going to be completing the entrances the three bridges that cross the brook that's the brook Construction that that is August the south parking lot uh
056that's the end of August and I do want to say something there part of this plan too is I know initially we had we were going to occupy the building with I think 114 or 115 spaces something like that into the to the credit of the group of people that got together to figure out what is this plan going to be to get this the students into the the building for the start of the year we did find a way to get um up to that the magic number of 225 spaces for the start of the 23-24 school year which I know will ease a lot of the burden of trying to logistically get people to and from the building so they will be temporary and that's outlined in the the gray areas those will
057be completed for the start of school as well what will end up happening there is um oh sorry so that that happens in in August and then really um things um at that point the green areas that you see here will all be fully occupied by the school we will be concentrating our efforts in the yellow area finishing the takedown of the existing Huckleberry school and then completing the north parking lot the north parking lot and the main entrance will be completed in November so the idea is the temporary lot will be needed up until the point before the winter sets in and then really at that point winter is going to set in and we will we'll be back in the spring just to essentially finish any last Landscaping we did talk the other
058day some details about how much Landscaping can we get done before occupancy you know taking advantage of the Fall planting schedule but there will be some things of undoing the temporary parking lot replacing that field and doing some final did you show everybody that next slide sure that'll be helpful sure yep there you go all right so this is this is really as we are um you know when we get to the end in November of 23 that green area everything is completed and then the area where the temporary parking lot was uh will be restored in the spring of 2024. so that's kind of a quick quick drive uh through the project um you know I I do want to say that you know it's been we faced our share Affair fair share of
059challenges and we do remain committed to to turning over the building and making sure that what's what's delivered is really something that we can all be proud of are there any questions well let me just start by the obvious one the the supply chain has been the biggest Bugaboo right in terms of first the roofing and then the flooring um the when do you actually get the terrazzo flooring materials in hand right so you know that's not going to be an issue again so we have been given commitments that we will have all the materials in Hand by the end of January so from the end of January until like June when the flooring is done I think is what you said right that's all about installation it's it's about at that point it's just
060coming up with the most efficient way to get that flooring installed and making sure that all of the finishes whether it's paneling or Graphics or things like that are installed in a sequential order after that so we we have spent quite a bit of time with the terrazzo installer uh coming up with the the best approach as far as we're going to move our way from the second floor to the first floor down and out of the building with the terrazzo and you know really as we get closer to that January date we'll know with absolute certainty that material will show up we're you know we're checking with them weekly to get updates they're feeding us updates as they get them from their suppliers uh and it's you know we're we're staying on top of
061it and that's one of the last big Milestones but by January we'll know there's no longer an issue on that front correct are there any other supply chain type items that you're concerned about no that that's really the most that's the most profound at this point we're really behind most of them at this point okay yeah and will the staff have access to the building through the summer while you're finishing the parking lot in case they need to do setup and you know get the books on the shelves in the library and get their classrooms set up yes absolutely so the obviously part of this plan too is that we need to commence with demolition of the existing Huckleberry school as soon as possible after the last day of school so we've been in talks
062with Dr Brill about that that transition of making sure that we have a space where the Huckleberry Administration can can work out of the new building you know we there is a lot of work to be done in front of the building as we said but there the good news is there are enough entrances where we could stage access to the building from the staff while still maintaining construction activities so we'll make sure that there is a a place the offices are done for the staff before we take the existing school down now is the driveway space I you know as we've looked at it there's a you're using a temporary driveway at the beginning of the school year yeah let me go back home is there is there plenty of room in there to
063Stage the buses and uh and get the uh that's the temporary that's the temporary exactly that's the temporary this is the permanent um and the the way this is set up is one way in One Way Out two ways two point two right I'm sorry two two lanes but one way correct one one way to traffic two lanes in and two lanes out so much and Bob this is the this is an important Point um because we're all concerned you know I deal with Center School traffic every day in the backup but we've done with the backups on Candlewood Lake Road and even in the temporary plan um we have two lanes into the building one for buses buses will come in and buses will proceed up to the front of the school if we're
064doing parent drop-off they will come in and circulate through the lower loop so we don't want them crossing the two when they exit we will have two lanes coming out one for a left turn and one for a right turn so if that left turn does get backed up it's not impacting the entire traffic flow okay and you're confident that's probably you've looked at the number of buses and that they can stage in there effectively in those first three months well we'll be doing some dry runs over the summer okay that's good um to work out any hiccups uh we have a parking lot um you know we'll have to figure out how we stage them you know we do have five grades in pre-k coming into this building it is going to be the
065largest single building we're hosting the most number of grades and uh as we get closer to moving that in we'll go through this with All-Star in the district to make sure that the staging of buses and how we align School times you know Works to uh having a safe path for all the kids just out of curious is that red on the thing that's the existing footprint of Huckleberry that's a good portion of it correct well if it comes out and the actually the gym that's where the gym is is down there yep the yeah the the gym ends uh right adjacent to one of the the abutments to one of the the bridges to the building so you have to take the gym down quickly is that the is that the point yes and
066will that whole construction area be uh fenced off and safe for the kids yep just as it is now eight foot fencing with scrim on it so that keep dust down and minimize the distraction from the activities and then when the when the students return there will still be demolition activity happening on the existing Huckleberry school it will be the furthest point away from the school though we're working from west to east with demolition of the building okay and then after the buildings demolish it's about leveling so you can put a parking lot in there putting drainage structures in and making sure that it's graded correctly and prepared for parking okay and you said the the the bridge is are done like in by by by they're arriving this right they will be installed this
067summer they'll be doing so yeah because we have to get the building down you have to get to finish the abutments that the bridges sit on and we'll let you also clear out the the stream that goes under them will be restored at that point okay yep the intention is that we're not going back after the summer we're not going back to this part of the site with the exception of if there's a landscaping item or something obviously that there's a tree that has to get replaced or you know making sure that we're establishing grass areas things like that okay I've asked all the questions you guys have any questions somebody asked else ask a question um the uh John what's your reaction to all the students coming in at the same time versus the
068phase plan is that a better or worse situation for educational purposes to bring the entire student body and faculty together at the same time was was our original vision and during initial construction planning there was discussion about the phased in approach because of these space concerns I'm actually really excited that um necessity being the mother of invention Ong was able to really get a good team together and work through the space to develop a temporary parking lot and so that along with being able to Stage the buses uh we're meeting with All-Star actually the project manager is going to meet with All-Star with me on Friday with Mr post and we're going to take a look at this exact map and keep All-Star a heads up as to what's coming down the pike but we're
069really excited about I know Dr P is really excited about it bringing everybody together and as a matter of fact we're actually planning for the the PD day on December 22nd to have some stationed opportunities for teachers to start taking some I think limited tours because construction's still going on but get a good look into the school uh next week so we're really we're really fired up about it it's uh bringing everybody together so so if the teacher's not been in there at all they have not been in they haven't been able to get in it's been a full full construction zone with a lot of safety concerns so um we're really excited maybe groups of five or ten but we'll work with the project managers how that works and try to efficiently run them
070through what we really are excited about that and our Focus over the summer could really be working on that uh transition and uh all the logistics and other planning that come with it sometimes um you know as part of this project we purchased move Management Services so as the teachers are completing their curriculum for the second semester boxing those items up when they're ready to move it's not as if they're moving their items we have professionals who are coming in the zones will get boxed they'll be moved from their old classroom to their new classroom same will happen with the administration everybody will be moved over they'll unpack and set up in your classrooms so it's carefully coordinated with org with arcadis and the NBC and the district it's actually been in the works and
071been planning for about six to eight months now sure and the The Faculty probably more so at Huckleberry because there was more urgency with their uh impending move for January that we had planned last year the Center School staff as well they've been really working through purging and packing and organizing um and um that goes for our custodial team and our nurses I mean they they all have to move so we're working on all of that and that that'll be coordinated I know that uh things in terms of climate culture like what's the school mascot going to be they're starting to work on those things across the school and um uh other things we're talking about you know is their school colors and so everybody's starting to work together and get really excited this is
072actually going to be I think uh surprising news for some certainly but exciting news nonetheless and we will get a communication out hopefully by the end of business tomorrow explaining all this sharing the the slideshow from tonight so folks could really see all the information we'll be putting it out there okay Dr P do you mind if I ask you a question come on up there you need a bigger Podium yeah that's fine so so I guess my question it's just an on the ground question you talk to parents all the time what do you think the reaction to the the Huckleberry parents done on the delay is that going to be a disappointment or is it kind of expected I think actually after the first delay it was anticipated after January that April probably
073wouldn't be likely I think there's just such excitement with parents and kids that you know we this like Dr Burrell said it's actually a lot better we're all going together it's going to be totally done uh terrazzo floor will be down I'm losing my voice here uh so it I think they're gonna be okay we're all gonna be okay and if you know what if that's if that's the worst thing that happens we are very fortunate people that we're moving into a building a little late cool thank you and question for Mr checco um the fifth graders are going into the new school on the same schedule that's always been a concern I always have to make sure we make sure we're clear the current fourth graders will go to the new school they're not
074going to go to uh whiskey near Middle School Western Middle School becomes a more traditional Middle School right what's the schedule for taking down of the uh the Portables we're working with techton right now for not only taking down the Portables but hopefully somewhere in late winter early spring to have the documents ready for bed for the ball fields back there so the ball field construction is predicated on those Portables coming out and being taken down so we're anticipating right now that this summer it'll happen uh we'll wait and see if the documents what enough the documents are prepared and how they come out barring any other also we have Town approvals to contend with with site planning and we know what we went through with here so we uh you know cautiously optimistic that
075during the summer at least the Portables will come out um and that the ball fields will get constructed I'll speak for a whole generation of parents can I be the first to swing a sledgehammer if you have the proper Insurance absolutely there will be celebration that those that we we I remember as I've told I told a story the other day I'm my my oldest son was the first class in those Portables in 1991 I think or 1990 he's 40 years old today um and uh and my eldest grandson is a fourth grader who's going to the be the fifth grader the first fifth grade that's going to be at the elementary school so it kind of bookended my family right around around that whole subject so but you're not dating yourself and I'm not
076dating myself so thank you well and just you know so everybody knows and I know everybody does know this isn't a problem unique to Brookfield it's throughout the construction industry OMG has seen it on other project sites we've certainly seen it on other project sites we have another project with Terrazzo and we're experiencing the same delays so you know I know that's very little consolation but as Dr P said look if this is the worst issue we have we're actually in pretty good shape we're gonna have Dynamite building it's going to be opened it's going to be serving our students our staff our community very well and um you know if it's if the delay is the only thing that happens during this process well I can think of a lot worse well any other
077questions I really wish I knew how to do animals thank you guys thank you thank you very much Paul thank you very much appreciate it greatly appreciate it we're going to put you on the website so people can see this presentation because I think the families need to you know see that and I'm guessing this is going to be one of the top uh make three main points thanks Eric there's always the NBC meeting there is Tuesday about every every month where if people want to come and ask questions specific to the Project Specific to the financials of the project that information is published every month at the end of that month at the end of that meeting it's always available on the district's website there is a link to it please do come out
078to the MDC meetings I think Bob and Rose are the only two people we ever see so we invite everybody to come out [Applause] thanks Dave okay next up is the Board of Education subcommittee meeting dates I'll move that the board approved the subcommittee meeting date schedule from January to June 2023. second okay it's moved and seconded you all have had a chance to see these dates they seem to be consistent in terms of the scheduling does anybody see any issues with the dates okay hearing none I did want to do a related item on this and it's a special request um um Sharon's approached me and said I mean she's Sharon we put her on equity and inclusion in facilities and as we know equity and inclusion has been on Hiatus uh and and
079Sharon's asked if she could join the uh either the cape or the policy committee and uh and uh thinks she would be interested in and if any of the members who are on those committees would like to either give up a slot or trade um let me know and we'll see if we can do some swapping so we can give Sharon another meaty a topic to be in on and I know I I always know committees are hard right because we're all busy and we need to do it so I you know if you all have an interest in making that swap we should uh we should go ahead and do it and you just funnel that funnel it through me if you could um and is everybody okay with their assignments Down Below on
080the representatives to the other organizations okay hearing none all in favor all right next is capital funds I will move that the board requests the board of Selectmen and board of Finance to approve a transfer of capital funds in the amount of thirty five thousand eight hundred forty nine dollars from Project HH 201 the Huckleberry security upgrades and twenty thousand three hundred and sixty six dollars from Project ce201 the center school security upgrades to project Ms 203 the whiskaneer security upgrades second thank you it's moved in a second and let me give a little overview of what this is about because that's a lot of words um we have had uh with the support of the board of finance and the board of Selectmen a series over time of releases of funding uh for for
081each school and they released it school by school by school um into accounts that then we would pay for security related projects out of and so once it's released through the formal process we're just approving and moving on with individual projects like cameras or door monitor you know door alarms and things like and security film and things like that there is still money left at Center and Huckleberry um but the security task force has a series of projects that are that exceed the amount that's available in the current whiskaneer so what we all we want to do is move the money from Center and Huckleberry into the whiskey near bucket we know what the projects are and they will largely consume you know the amount of money that the that has done it's not like
082we have a lot of excess money amongst it but we have to go through a formal process with the board of finance and the board of Selectmen in order to do it so off the bat if approved tonight I will send a letter to them which you all will get a copy of that requests the transfer and the reasons why so that's what then we talked about that at the finance committee meeting and in the facilities meeting and in the security meeting so I think just about everybody here is in one of those or another so um so that's what that's about any questions okay all in favor okay I will sign that letter tonight so we can get that out um the next is the special education program review and it's an action it's
083that receiver proposal from superintendent parole to conduct a special education program review so Dr Brill I'll turn it over to you okay thanks Mr Belden so um the one of the things just to frame this for a second is the uh Board of Education there's an annual review that I receive as and annual goal setting process that we go through and we sometimes uh throughout the year uh periodically revisit those goals one of the the goals that came out of uh discussions uh during that review last spring was transitioning new administrators that might be coming to the building and also um with a bit of a focus on special education making sure we're serving our students to that end um it goes without saying it has been a challenging fall there's no doubt about that
084and um been listening and talking with some of our parents and I want to be clear that what this proposal is is not necessarily related to the issue that we talked about last month which was FERPA and student records that is separate and actually chatting with Debbie in our policy meeting next week one of the things we'll be talking about um in updating that plan and improving things looking at updating our policy moving forward with that regardless I think the timing is is quite good to examine and review a portion of our special education program this is a non-budgeted item that I'm bringing forward and um you know considering uh programs where we have heard from parents that we've had some concerns this year and they brought those forward um I certainly along with the
085administrative team and talking with them thought it was a priority to really dig in and uh and take take a look a close look at at the programs that are in there such as ELC our social emotional learning program the life skills program and our preschool and um what we will find what we don't know what we'll find we'll have a review the review is comprehensive it will give us an idea of where we need to improve those would be in the form of recommendations and um there will be areas that are strength for us what also comes out when reviews that and it's not uncommon for districts to have these kinds of reviews um what also comes out in reviews like this is some things that we may not have seen which then could
086impact where we might look next to improve things so while in this proposal it talks about at the end of maybe a phase two or even a phase three where we'll look at Staffing patterns and academic support and some other areas those may still be on the agenda when when we receive the report but it may not be the case there may be other things we want to look at in more depth because things might come to light with a third party review of our program timeline for the program uh if if the the board is uh comfortable and the board uh approves us to move forward excuse me sometime in mid or late January we would start with a likely report by mid-march or uh toward the end of the month and obviously any
087recommendations that come forward we would we would really start to move on for this year and add into the plan for next year um and the report is a public document so it would be shared out and presented to the board okay don't let me open it up to questions to any board members this phase one review special programs meet with building leaders special education leaders and key individuals involved so I know a parent had mentioned and it's a good point um does that include do those key individuals include Paras in that part of the fine-tuning of the process is key individuals it could be paraprofessionals obviously teachers case managers public forums are still an open option for that of course a survey we want to hear from parents we want to hear from our
088teachers we want to hear from our staff so that's all part and parcel of that and this is the the proposal as if we are going to move forward we sit down again with the folks at CES and work through exactly what they're going to do fine tune the plan so their cust it says customize and administer a survey for parent guardians of students placed in these programs so is it just they're just evaluating the ELC social emotional enrichment and the high school life skills in pre-k that's it's a limited scope to start and then the thought process was academic support Staffing levels and so forth would be a phase two that we would do next year and you're putting money in the budget for that we're working through with Ken and Amy on specials
089in Special Services where we're gonna put the money is that what traditionally did what is the the reasoning behind not looking at the whole entire special ed population well if we're going to move now it's unbudgeted so we're really going to have to dig in and try to find remember we all know our financial status right now there's an over budget issue right now so we're facing that budget deficit but if we want to get moving on this project we we're going to look and I think Ken is really going to scrub some of our grant opportunities as well as the operational budget to see where we might be able to find some Savings in different areas to pay for the 6500 now but a comprehensive study would certainly cost a lot more and would
090really need a year-long process to budget for and think through now if we're going to go through a very comprehensive plan of fifty to a hundred thousand dollars that would take you know certainly longer than this this initial start to a review if you could get the money to do a more comprehensive plan would you be willing to take that on absolutely okay and if uh if you were to do a more comprehensive plan would you do it with the same group we could do it with the same group absolutely and what level would you have to actually take it to bid um with the rests you don't actually have to go to bed with the rest so at Advance uh CES Cooperative Educational Services um Aces down out of New Haven you don't actually
091have to go to bed if you do work with another firm we would have to go out to bed useful to know um they're support staff do you know to what extent that is is are those special ed teachers General teacher like special education administrators um they they could be folks who've had experienced a special education teachers speech pathologists bcbas you know it's a variety of backgrounds so we're really just doing phase one and then phase two and three would be a determination after exactly it was really to take the you know knowing we have limited resources to work in bite-sized portions that we could we could plan over the course of the next year year and a half two years but as we get information back we could be putting a plan together and
092moving forward parents that are getting surveyed is that only for that small portion to for those the people if we're going to have a focus uh in this particular proposal would be parents in this this particular area that's the thought process how did we choose this particular areas just out of curiosity I mean so opposed to some you know using a different grouping sure sure so these are our self-contained programs and we've had some concerns brought forward uh from these programs and specifically to uh preschool um there is we're really looking at pre-k and the number of students coming in our model students our students with special needs the degree of concerns and issues that are being brought forward uh in terms of the uh the assets that the students bring to the table when
093they're they're with us and how we need to staff that and perhaps fund that going forward in the future because we're seeing the enrollment looking to start to creep up in preschool and I know we've had uh the ELC issues that have been there this year are there issues that the high schools life skills program not just I wouldn't say you know issues you know with the life skills program but we really want to make sure we're looking and if we're going to focus on our more self-contained type programs that was the thought was to start there this year and the SEL program evaluation is that that's our social emotional support that's kind of very Broad so it's students that that have um behavioral concerns and uh the programming for them okay so it's a
094specific part of the social emotional okay John I don't know if you if you looking at these special programs that would be included in phase one roughly what percentage of all our special ed population would that if I can do a percentage off the top half is it 10 is it yeah probably not I don't even know if it would be 20 of the kids 10. okay um Bob I know we've been um in touch with the board of finance and other um martian on the town side and Doctor really probably have as well um are they I know they're aware of our current financial situation are they aware that this is sort of so we would need to communicate they don't know of this at all no um it has not been one of
095the items on their radar screen correct and uh and just to recap we're like three quarters of a million dollars over our budget already right because of fuel costs and uh and special ed costs uh various Elks as the biggest single driver so um they've been very forthcoming in terms of trying to help us but they're staring at a very significant uh budget issue ahead of them um and I don't know what kind of money they'll be available right so um it's uh it's a hard discussion so so if we if we wanted to do this or perhaps even more what would be the plan I think we would have to take it out of stuff that that we have in our budget and not bring them a bigger problem right and Ken I think
096you have found a couple of uh I mean at the size you're talking about here it's the stuff that can squeaked out of different line items I think so he had you told me you had a a most of a solution there if not all of a solution for a more focused for this first this dollar amount that we're talking about and how much more would it be a very comprehensive total special education review We I threw out the number and please don't hold me to this between fifty and a hundred thousand dollars um but but we're a smaller District than some of the the districts that were mentioned earlier so perhaps it would be you know quite a bit less um but we didn't ask for that knowing we're in the budget situation that
097we're in with limited resources certainly could go and ask for a proposal on a a complete and total study I think we should we I think we I think as a board we should ask for what a full study would be and we should probably ask others you know there's a couple mentioned here today but uh other people who do this to see what they see what and learn what they might offer us I think that's a fair request and before we kind of give the nod to go ahead on this one thing I think gets us a board we have some decisions to make do we want to start small learn something and then go on to a next step or do we want to just launch right and full in and we heard
098some Advocates today for launching full in there's pros and cons to both of them right I'm I'm I've been a believer of learn what you can and then before you go spend a lot of money right that's tends to be my style of things but I think we ought to know what we're looking at walking in okay a personal one so and Dr Burrell you mentioned um working with risks versus other firms so I think we should look at both kinds of vendors as well right not just yeah in um I didn't mention this earlier I did reach out to two I believe they're both new york-based firms uh certainly larger than CES and they didn't get back to us and granted this is a short turnaround time and since our last conversation of me
099bringing bringing this forward to you um but we certainly I mean there's firms out there and we could we can continue to reach out now there was some commentary this evening about CEs themselves and I heard this story from one of the parents about that CES had a family relationship that was undisclosed with uh uh with the special ed director in Oxford when they did a review for them let me just ask forthrightly do you have any particular relationships or does our special ed director have any particular relationships with the CES people that we should be aware of um colleague you I don't know about Mrs Dina Cola Hickman she's more have been a lower Fairfield County person I don't know her relationship to CES I couldn't speak for her but I could tell you
100that the director Dr Demay and I were colleagues together in The Amity District he was a superintendent of Amity I was the superintendent of Bethany he actually was the superintendent when Dr Mann was an assistant principal at Amity High School that is a fact and he hired me as principal at the high school he hired me as principal at the high school at Amity so does that relationship were you at all uh it doesn't worry me at all we were working with Mike McGrath who I have met once in my 29-year career so listen to who's the director is not actually the one who would be doing the review no it would be Miss uh Mr McGrath and his colleagues at CES would come do you have any relationship with Mr McGraw I do not
101all right nor do you I've only met him through Zoom that the one time we talked to him about this he'll come or maybe at the very least um a part of the phase one maybe being a survey for the whole special ed population or doing two separate ones um if we can propose that to them as part of I'm sorry I'm not understanding what you're saying so the survey as part of phase one is just going to include all the specific groups in the special ed Department Maybe um extending that to parents and all the parents in the special ed Department yeah I mean if we're going to not go forward with this and look to do a more comprehensive plan than perhaps part of that when we end up determining a firm if
102we want to go in that direction there's a lot of process now that's going to have to happen if I'm understanding where the board appears to be coming from at this point um we certainly if it's going to be a more comprehensive plan then we will certainly survey our 300 and the the parents of our 360 to 380 students in the in the program so I'm thinking about what a uh if we went down there we talked about Billy's getting uh cost estimated sure big picture one would be but even if we were going down a narrow first byte right which is what this is I would want to come out from that saying these are the problem areas right broadly and so I'm kind of going and building on what you just said Joy
103I would love to have maybe a focused review of a couple of programs process procedures you know all the things he's doing with the staff so we can learn from that but I'd love to have maybe a broader approach you know reach out to parents with some focus groups and surveying of everybody so that it gives us insights to you know when we really go spend some real money here's how you would go it you know focus it right because part of the part of the thing is you you walk out of the first review you don't have a full view of this is the areas we really got to go bang around on right I think that's what I think Joy was suggesting keeping this narrow Focus but broadening parts of it the parent
104the parenting sure we can we can go talk with Mr McGrath and see what and not just surveying so Focus right sure um you know chance to let parents speak to Mr McGrath directly we can get an estimate on that and I would recommend on that I mean you're not going to be able to have that for all four or three to four hundred parents so you know random selection of parents that we could uh put into that equation um you know and uh and invite them to come speak right and a truly random selection sure um so you can you have you know people who are happy and people who are not so happy right so um but I think we need it gives us more information right you know frankly I'm energized by
105the conversation and look forward to going back to Mr McGrath on this if that's the direction we want to go to to that piece um I don't know that I can get a follow-up uh for the January 4th meeting given the holidays and the times but uh hopefully by the end of January I can get we can come back to you maybe with an updated proposal let's do it at our second meeting in January would that be okay with everyone yeah because I'd love to get going on this I mean even if it's a narrow review but we get it I mean what you ought to be thinking about is when we finish this review in March right we'll have some actionable items and some scope items that'll give us something real meaty that we
106can go say these are the areas of attack right that'll be the next wave um I am look I've always been uh trying to be a cognizant of how we spend the town's money right and and I I'm not wanting to go say just go spend a lot of money and go you know you know that's what you have to do I don't agree with that philosophically but I do agree with if you don't walk out of the first wave saying these are the era problem areas you have to go attack then you know we're not going to get anywhere right we'll just keep flailing around right and I think that would be the biggest single deliverable is knowing what the what the problem areas are as if we don't know what they are now
107but uh we do know I have some problems with some problem areas but getting a I want to have a third person who can actually say these are the seven things that you guys got to go fix that's the point right and if the answer is programmatic it's one thing if it's uh parent engagements is another thing if it's Staffing and individuals and stuffing that's yet another thing and uh and we ought to all know what all those are so um whether it's the amount of Staffing the engagement of the Staffing maybe individuals I mean it's who knows um but I'm not going to prejudge what the answer is like some might we actually have a more a bigger proposal I would love that it's going to be I invited him for tonight he was
108not available yeah um oh I think I need to assess there may be a reason why it's not a la carte like oh we're gonna survey everybody but we're gonna do comfort you know a really deep dive into just this part there could be a reason why you do something for you know you do everything for very localized programs things like that um my alarm Bells kind of go up when we just start surveying and what does that really mean and does that data corroborate with any other data more objective data so I just would like to understand the process why if why he does sort of these reviews what gets put in together into those reviews and why but absolutely um I did share with the board uh I think last week a we
109took the the name of the particular District out because it's not my business to share their information but um uh Mr McGrath had shared that uh with me and I shared it with the board so you can see what a report could look like um but really happy to move forward on this I'll be giving Mike a call tomorrow and you'll reach out to other potential providers to see what their process might look like but if it's different so that we can make an objective decision you can make an objective decision on this absolutely in the end I think we all have the same objective which is to improve the state of what we got it's a question of how no I appreciate the conversation I really do in the input I just want to
110be clear that I I think it's important to look at other firms for both the narrower scope project and the bigger one as well so if we decide regardless of the firm we're not going to spend 50 to 100 000 because we don't have it I'd still like to see another option besides CES for the smaller scope sure and like I said I did reach out to two firms and in the month there's been no return email Oracle that's not a good sign usually there's a labor shortage everywhere unfortunately that's part of what we're dealing with okay so we're going to table this item until you've had a chance to do further research and then we're okay with that all right thank you all for your input okay thank you [Applause] all right um next
111up is our superintendent's 20 23 24 budget proposal this is another action to review to actually our job just before you start our job tonight is to just receive a presentation right we can ask questions if we want but we'll have we have a couple more meetings where we can go bang around I think I would just urge the board if there's something glaring that we need to him to put on the first week in January it's better to put it out there now right so so Dr Brook can get it organized right and we've used our January meeting you know our January we have two meetings in January and one year we had special meetings on top of that to actually exercise business items in the agenda right um I will just say to
112everybody we have kicked off the finance committee who does doing the line by line scrubbing to make sure that we do all the detail reviews of the of the budget like we've done the last couple of years um Joy's got some line items I've got some line items and Rosa has some line items um and the uh um and we have a month basically a month and a half but the holidays it takes up the first two weeks of it so it's really the month of January we submit our budget on January 31st the first selectment has to submit take that combine it with the town side and submit their budget on February 15th give or take to whatever the day unless it's on a weekend and on the first weekend March they submitted to
113the board of Finance so what happens is after we submit the it starts going it starts moving and there's review after review we'll probably have a big group meeting with the two boards in February like we've done the last couple of years Board of Finance then well uh is is going to have to go through a very detailed review of uh the budget and then they have to finalize the numbers that they will carry forward to the town for approval by the first weekend um in March I'm sorry first week in April um and the vote is in May so it's a long process but we have our piece of work is right ahead of us so and uh late I'll tell you just first inputs um it's gonna be a tough budget year because
114we'll see some numbers that make your eyebrows raise a little bit when we go through this and we're the lowest numbers that are floating around right now when you see them you'll say okay all the other pieces are higher than that you'll know that the board of finance will have their hands full this year they they really will so so that's all I have to say I'll turn it over to you Dr bro do you mind if I go around over here so I can see your character it's easier to come around invite you to do that and um Mr Belden I think you've shortened my presentation with that review of the process so thank you there's a there's a slide in there where we have uh the budget uh process laid out for everybody
115um but I really do need to thank um uh the the admin team our principals work with their staff and really do a Bottoms Up review of their school budgets and then bring them forth to the assistant superintendent and Ken and we work together Dr Mann this has been her first budget process with us so she's really asked a lot of great questions as someone from the outside I just can't thank Joan and Ken enough for all their work Lisa put your binders together so you've got all that that takes a lot of work to get all these all these not only the numbers the spreadsheets get everything right and tying up but uh and tying out but actually putting things together in a presentable form uh the presentation tonight is about 16 slides it's
116actually relatively brief I will certainly talk to the slides I'm not going to read over everything on the slides but it does tell a quite a nice story for for everybody in a very brief fashion it's important to note that the great work of our Tech Team Mr Conklin over there they will be posting the contents of the budget binder and this powerpoint online by the weekend by Friday they'll have that up I think Eric really wants to get it done tomorrow but we've got to give everybody time there's a there's a lot of material here so I'm going to get moving on things um the I say it every year the budget is the financial uh statement of our values about how we're going to educate our students here in Brookfield our mission is
117to inspire Challenge and prepare our students to live meaningful and productive lives one of the things we've talked about is strategic planning and among the admin team for months now is really starting to really Vision Beyond academics Beyond The Wellness that we talk about what do we really want for our kids at the end of the day but beyond the really important and lofty goal of super high achievement it's becoming our best selves as we create tomorrow it really is I mean always improving and looking to do better and set yourself new new vision for yourself and new goals for yourself off one of the things with the composite competencies of the portion of the graduate is it's really being worked on in great detail it will be further defined and certainly implemented throughout our
118Pre-K 12 experience and that's a big part of the Lion's Share of the work that Mr Belden talked about in a strategic plan report for our students on those four uh particular competencies of critical and creative thinking communicating collaborating and change making and it's important just to mention that the Strategic plan I know it's been mentioned a couple of times we anticipate completion by the spring and really looking at success in life work and learning Beyond School so some of you have seen this graphic before uh probably the first time the board has seen this although we've used it in various settings this year um was when we talked about achievement during the October meeting I'll be very brief there's there's detail here you can go back and look but it's important to talk about
119brookfield's context and what we've been through over the last couple of years when 2009 the this time of year in 2019 so three years ago we were convening and getting ready to start our strategic plan we had done tremendous work over the past the prior four years in terms of narrowing the achievement Gap really sharing up our facilities uh getting the approval approval for the new school all the great technology infrastructure financial and Regulatory control we all know that story and I certainly won't revisit that um and actually in in results our next Generation report card we had extremely strong results and like I said working on narrowing the achievement gaps we did some really great things and of course we all know what happened in March of 2020 with um that immediate change of
120schools were closed down we were in remote learning really loss of connection loss of community uh missed Milestones very challenging for everybody and we've really learned a lot about ourselves and as we move through that rising action the kickoff this year in August was really about resetting and relaunching let's learn what you know take stock and where we've been let's get excited about post covet and and where we can go work on a new strategic plan focus on learning recovery and and we're doing all of that and of course building new teams as we like to do and then finally what we're aiming towards obviously is the extraordinary we want to have a world-class school system we are really excited to help our students be ready for the future with tangible outcomes such as the
121new schools such as high achievement but also those intangible outcomes of believing in themselves resiliency trust Unity of purpose and and all those Pro social and really wonderful things we want for our kids so I'm not going to go over this slide because Mr Belden did a great job reviewing the budget process but real very quickly we start the budget work for the following year in October like I said earlier the admin team connects with the uh with their staff they do a Bottoms Up approach to the to the budgeting and then with central office we work that through and really are back and forth all of October and then in November start to really put that together the finance committee here in Brookfield has been the last few years we've done it this real
122this way really works as a budget committee to support the superintendent's work in developing the budget and we've already met twice and I really can't thank them enough they really Joy Rose and Bob take on an enormous responsibility with this task the highlighted area tonight you're here at the superintendent's budget proposal and to what Bob already said and I won't go into it you could see the rest of the process that goes through but soon and it will happen quickly we'll be into the holidays and we have one month to work through the budget and then get it over to Mrs Carr by town so I'm going to get right into the actual budget numbers I know I like to start with a little bit of background and then jump right in so people see
123the budget numbers especially those watching at home or on video or just looking over the PowerPoint presentation it's important to note that we bring forward what's called a status quo budget that's essentially conceptually for people to understand if we want to keep doing business exactly as we're doing this is what it will cost in the context we're in today to do but to to do school next year and so in this particular slide you see here the status quo budget is 51 million three hundred thousand dollars and that is a 5.42 increase over this current Year's budget and that's a lot we all have been hearing about over the last year inflation we've all we're all paying those gas prices the grocery store bills are unbelievable we are really concerned all of us with heating
124costs not only here in the schools but at our in our homes there is a lot going on in our country and around the world and Brookfield has not shielded from any of it in the status quo budget it includes anticipated increases more than the usual in heating oil you can see that's a large number there of 185 thousand dollars Transportation fuel with the new buses there's some changes to gasoline versus diesel so there is increases but not as significant as we had originally thought there's Transportation increases the transportation contract as well as with the transition to cles where pre-k5 will be going to one school and collapsing to the new school start times from three to two tiers we've got some increase in bus needs there but we also in healthcare have an extreme
125uh increase we are being told by the folks at the Connecticut partnership plan for the town side and the school side to budget for a 12 up to a 12 increase year to year for health costs and so the 274 000 number you see there that's above and beyond what we typically budget for we typically budget for about a six to seven hundred thousand dollar increase or an eight percent increase in cost we're looking at a million dollars with that 12 increase so Ken put in there uh it's 274 000 over the typical increase that we have what I just went over accounts for 1.43 or one and a half percent of the budget just for status quo again and so the other piece there that I've got another sentence there that we can't forget
126about negotiated salary and benefits increases in totality account for three percent of that status quo increase so that's your paraprofessionals your teachers uh Administration when you look at uh contracted increases through collective bargaining we're looking at three percent just on our salary increases for next year again for status quo to continue business as we are doing it right now then we've got some key drivers I'll start with the good news on the first one if you look at CLE s the transition to the new school actually fine we find some efficiencies there we're actually reducing an administrative position as we transition we are operating with natural gas which is certainly a cost but compared to the oil and electricity we've been using at Huckleberry and in the Portables and at Center School we've got a
127a reduction there but the increases do start the community came out in the summer and voted for security enhancements not only in law enforcement but specifically for the school budget five security monitors you can see the cost there of 228 thousand dollars that cost covers probably about 80 percent of the salary for next year of the security monitors the balance will be covered by the ARP Esser the arpa grant excuse me that we work with with the town the other Investments the art bester Federal funding we are into the second year of phasing in positions the instructional coach positions into the operating budget we are not facing a budget Cliff like some districts we really plan thoughtfully going forward with the funds that were provided two years ago and how we were going to roll
128those into the actual operating budget and you can see we are bringing in for just over 200 thousand dollars the salary of the social worker that we had added the science coach and the technology integration specialist part of this technology integration specialist and then finally to support um Stu our students with board-certified behavior analysts we have some services in the current Year's budget where we are paying for one and a half bcba positions and through some reallocation and some work we really want to bring on rather than spend to to bring in consultant Services we actually could find some efficiencies there and bring in two of our own employees to do that work so we could actually get more services for the the needs that our kids are presenting with a smaller investment by reallocating
129resources as you can see the investment of fifty thousand dollars there so when you talk through those key drivers plus the status quo we're looking at a proposed budget tonight of 51 million 480 452 or a 5.78 increase that's large the administration knows that I'm not comfortable coming up here talking about that kind of an increase where typically we're in the four percent range at this time during the year maybe just a little bit over four and we do our exercises throughout the year and knowing the history of budgets in Brookfield well aware of our economic conditions so let's talk about the value of educating our students in the good that we are doing and looking forward to do doing they're going to be four strategic Focus areas uh of our planning for next year
130that help all students implementing the Strategic plan certainly further development integration of the portion of the graduate has already talked about prior prioritizing learning recovery it's an enormous priority of ours supporting student mental health needs and then transitioning to Candlewood Lake Elementary School there are three key pieces in the transition to cles that we need to talk about and be very brief first of all I mentioned earlier the healthy school start times we are transitioning the board voted back in June of 2020 to move forward with the healthy school start times we're moving from three tiers of busing down to two and that is going to be implemented across the entire School District there will be a change from 7 15 to 8 o'clock for the high school start time the students at the high
131school will be on their own set of buses also starting at eight o'clock it's just a couple of minutes change for the middle school students they'll have their their own buses but at the same time so it's all one tier middle school and high school students will not be mixed for busing and then our elementary school at cles all the students will go to the school be picked up and go to school together for 8.50 so those are our collapse start times the Pre-K to five students are all impacted by the transition to Candlewood Lake obviously they're going to be going to school there and as you heard tonight starting school together as one staff we are really excited about that the other thing I'm really excited about for the middle school and for Mr
132Renda is Right sizing whiskey near Middle School I know he loves his fifth graders and so you could come visit them Dean there's no doubt about it you can come visit the kids that you're not going to get in the temporary classrooms that were there for 30 years but we're right sizing whisk and air it was never meant for 800 kids the whiskey air was built when you think of its Plumbing capacity and all the other things that go into building a school it was meant for about 600 kids and it's more traditional middle school so all the kids are affected by that transition those are our priorities for the coming year so let me talk a little bit about the budget goals and I'm going to have a separate slide on each one of
133these goals maintaining class sizes within our board guidelines but also adjusting Staffing patterns to reflect any of our changing needs or find efficiencies is something we always look to do in our uh budget goals the other one we look at is our curriculum instruction assessment that's our backbone that's what we do in school the third goal to maintain and continue our programs enhance our programs but be responsive to organizational needs that might be changing fourth goal is technology whether it's infrastructure digital tools making sure we are up to date and ready to go on that you certainly have gotten many many updates that are integrated into all of our meetings and presentations over the years and then finally providing the necessary resources to meet the needs of all of our students in alignment with state
134and federal law talk a little bit about goal one this this slide will probably spend the most Time on tonight in terms of these five goal slides just to let you know we need to adjust some staffing patterns so right now we do not have any planned additions to our elementary school sections you know there are years where there's a bubble class where we might need to add a teacher or something like that the way things look at the moment and we look at enrollment and projecting forward we look like we'll reduce a section in kindergarten in grade one but we would add a section to grade 2 and grade four the way the kids are matriculating through the elementary school and so that's one piece there but I mentioned earlier Candlewood Lake we found
135some efficiencies I'll talk a little bit about uh the the Staffing of Candlewood Lake we are looking at our world language program and with fifth grade being in the elementary school and looking at our needs we are going to find efficiencies in the sense that we will still staff the school the elementary school with two Spanish teachers for the upper and lower house whiskey near World language program will not be effective but we're going to reduce One World Language teacher that would be the fifth grade position what we plan to do in working with the middle school is we'd like to reallocate frankly that position to create a dean of students teacher leader position as part of our success Planning and Building capacity and working with our teacher leaders but really making sure we're ultimately
136meeting the needs of our students and the management of the school and so a dean of students position and I've shared a little bit about this in some of my goal work with the board at different times is really a student support position a student engagement position we would also have the dean of students working with the counselors and implementing developmental guidance absolutely helping to enhance any connections we can at the middle school and also supporting School operations such as cafeteria busing other student management needs this comes because we're looking to move an administrative position one of the assistant principals from and we've talked about this a little bit in the past from whiskey near to make sure Candlewood Lake is fully and properly staffed we'll get to that in just a second the other
137piece in terms of efficiencies with the new elementary school is taking a look at the leadership structure of both the cles and whiskey near and so we're looking to assign Administration to establish uh leadership at both schools and so we're moving the AP from the Middle School to the elementary school and I'll talk about that in my my image that I have next but net reduction we will be reducing one administrative position we're still in goal one by the way um so for Candlewood Lake you could see the people and the positions to manage the 1070 students that will be at our largest school Dr P will be the Principal as we talked about before um Dr rudel we talked about she would definitely be at Candlewood Lake in some earlier presentations I think last
138spring we talked about and she will be serving as the three to five grade three to five Upper School uh assistant principal Mrs ferius will go back from Center School where she is actually thriving doing great job as our Center School principal for this interim year she'll be back to our director of instruction position and house at Candlewood Lake really add a layer of instructional Acumen curriculum development and assessment work to support our students Mrs Gordon will be the assistant principal that will move from whiskin here to Candlewood Lake and she will be the primary K2 assistant principal and of course our special education super supervisor Mrs richardelli will instead of being at three different schools she will be housed at Candlewood Lake Elementary and we're really excited about our team so whiskey near I'll
139talk a little bit about that Dean's students again so Dean Renda will be our principal and Mr bedner will be our assistant principal and the dean of students would be reallocated as I talked about from that World Language position to support student engagement be there for student management School operations uh and and really be a connector with families in a liaison to support even low-level discipline that they could help Administration in students with so that's what what scanner will look like ultimately what's going to happen with this transition is the Center School principal position is essentially eliminated and not recreated and so Mrs ferius we'll go back to the director of instruction position that has just not been filled this year it's an existing position and so we will not fill the Center School principal
140position and it goes away that's how we reduce the administrative position so if you had some jotting ideas down or some questions that's fine we can answer them let's go to goal two uh curriculum instruction and assessment and providing that I'm not going to read everything on the slide but just to hit on the key points is obviously continue with uh continue with curriculum enhancement and development aligned to the standards really focusing on our social studies and science curriculum making sure that uh and Dr Mann is charged with this particular assignment is working through the legislation in the State Department of education's implementation of the Pre-K to three reading program uh uh initiative and working through that and how that's going to work and how we're going to fund that and she's already got a
141team together to work through the waiver process to buy us some more time so we could work together I know that uh Mr Belden and Anna and I attended the legislative breakfast so that was a big topic of discussion with our legislators just last week so we'll be working on that we also need to take a look at our math program k through eight we years ago implemented a new math program and we are looking at seeing if that tool is still relevant for us so we're going to be doing that professional development continues to be a priority actions involved with the Strategic plan and certainly actions if time allows depending on the program review that we just discussed in special education we would certainly Implement any program review actions or recommendations that came forward
142goal three maintain and continue to enhance programs while remaining responsive to organizational changes changing needs of the organization so we had a presentation at the last meeting about the social emotional assessment so we need to make sure we're staying focused on that talked earlier about the financials of the ARP Esser phase-in of the grant the positions from the grant to the operating budget the bilingual enrollment our MLL needs our multi-language learner needs we've got to keep a close eye on that we will be planning next year to fill our bilingual teaching position just like we tried to do this year but we had to work with those who had certification that weren't dedicated fully to the bilingual position to help us out to make sure we supported our students but we're going to be looking
143to fill that position fully and pay close attention to that obviously the consolidation of our three schools into Candlewood Lake and really supporting climate culture and community and some of the things that Dr P and I have mentioned and during our presentation tonight and then there's two other bullets here in our um uh budget priorities and assumptions we talked about the need and the facilities committee was really uh working with our custodial um team and the Hillyard group on custodial and maintenance needs one of the things that they recommended was uh a number uh uh I think three or four increase ultimately to our custodial Crews across the district we settled on taking a look at adding one custodian to the entire crew which would be housed at Candlewood Lake given this the the size
144of the status quo increase and the budget increase well over five percent almost six percent um I honestly didn't think it was responsible to bring that position forward so my recommendation is to actually evaluate the custodial maintenance needs once we're in the new building and come back to you if we need another custodian if we don't and we're doing well it's important for people to know that yes it's a large building but when we consolidate the two elementary schools we will have a total of seven custodians assigned to Candlewood Lake before even thinking about adding a new custodian I think with some swing shifting and some other things we can do I know Mr Caldwell our facilities director and Mr post are our operations director think that we can come up with some really good
145Solutions but we're going to continue to evaluate that and evaluate that and keep an eye on them and then in addition to that another opportunity for efficiencies at Candlewood Lake I had put in priorities and assumptions a document to take a look at a public information officer that also might be able to help with student registration public information responsing to FERPA requests or foia requests things like that that could get quite voluminous we're taking a look at our Candlewood Lake team and looking at some efficiencies knowing that we added the security monitors and security monitors are really doing a lot of work obviously at the doors that was a big piece monitoring the doors that takes some pressure off the secretaries which might be able to free up some time so we might be able
146to take a look at doing that so we're going to explore that technology infrastructure that supports digital uh the digital learning environment that all of our kids are in uh we've got to upgrade uh finish upgrading the presentation stations um at whiskaneer we have to continue to invest in Chromebooks to finish out our one-to-one device initiative we need to continue really continuing we just talked about this at our last meeting cyber security protection we need to make sure we're meeting all requirements for cyber security we need to ensure that the district is ready to go with uh annually investing to make sure we have the infrastructure so we could have cyber security Insurance because if we don't keep the infrastructure up we will not get the coverage very important and then of course hardware for
147storage needs if we're going to add security cameras if we're going to add other digital tools we need more storage capacity that there's a cost to that and then commit to continued usage of all the digital tools where Eric's department and Anna's department and our principals all work together to make sure we have appropriate tools for our students and then finally in goal five providing the necessary resources to meet the needs of all of our students in alignment state and federal law so um I think I've mentioned I've mentioned two of these three already uh really digging in on the pre-k-3 curricular program uh through the state legislation we need to be focused on that the other piece we're going to be working on I'll go to the bottom is the the board certified Behavior
148analysts and our reallocation from special ed services to bring in two individuals for that will become the fabric of our school rather than someone from the outside coming into support and the other piece is using the grant that we do have to support a IEP compliance teacher on special assignment if you will a teacher leader to support that in service to making sure we are implementing the um quite large State initiative across I think all the two districts in the state are transitioning to the CT saids platform and also making sure we are responsive to families with increases in planning and placement team meetings meetings given coming out of the pandemic and concerns and students presenting needs and all different ways quick enrollment slide here just so you can see the current enrollment it's from
149October 1. cr4 schools Center School at 371 Huckleberry at 5 33 whisking here at 788 Brookfield High at 871 for a total of 2563. this does not count students which we end up counting in our total that are outplaced right now and our projected enrollment for next year at Candlewood Lake will be 1070. whiskaneer obviously loses a grade that's 597. and Brookfield High remains similar at 869 or 2536 students just a quick year-to-date change that I'd like to note in these uh budget presentations uh students with special needs uh there was a decrease of four students from last year to this year 363 but there are many students as I was saying in the earlier slide that are presenting or we're working with families and they are undergoing evaluation or maybe getting looked at for
150serious interventions and so forth so we're paying very close attention to that our multilingual Learners from last year to this year we're at 101 we're down two um we'll see what registration looks like and move-ins look like over the course of the year and we'll continue to track that number free and reduced lunch from last year to this year's up 24 students at 563. class size averages are very interesting for folks it's always one place we want to look and I know Brookfield has always valued keeping class sizes at a very manageable level you can see white represents the fact that we're in the class size range red means we're just above the range or a few students above the range as you can see for the projected for the year we will be in
151range across the board with the exception of grade four but that right now is right at the the end of the range at 20.3 of course we don't have a 0.3 student that would be in a class that's just averages again I put at the end of the presentation I won't review the slide but this is the budget driver slide that I talked about earlier in great detail and that's the presentation thank you John so let me uh I think we have to do two things um first of all if there's any questions I know we all just got this book right it's a lot of detail in the book and uh Finance committee's gotten it a little bit a couple of days in advance we're going to have a lot of time to talk
152about some of those and and the kind of the line items and what's driving and stuff like that um so that's two things I think we have to do tonight first is are there questions that are top of mind that we want to ask John about the budget right we can I'll open it up to that and then secondly are there topics we'd like to Target for January 4th right that we can identify now so we can you know in the week before Christmas he can get it organized right so that we don't just walk in in the beginning of January and say oh I wish we could talk about something right so those would be the two questions I would ask so let me just start if there's any questions from anyone about the
153board that are top of mind that you all would like to ask John tonight [Music] I have one so um this is probably going to come up a couple of times throughout the process but um in terms of like these big increases in heating oil Health premiums um because the town has got or is in a different sort of financial situation than we are um do you think there's any way that we can maybe coordinate with them to kind of I know that like the health insurance right that's going to be a very sort of we're not going to know the final numbers on that is there any way that we can kind of you know cooperate with those on the town side and say okay we're going to budget at 10. and whatever it
154is after that they cover same thing with heating oil like can we do that with heating oil as well so Ken before before you kind of try to address that um it's important for uh those watching at home those will watch the video we really do work with uh Marcia and Tara we meet weekly and we do a lot of collaboration with the board of select on the board of Finance on these particular issues because to your point Rosa heating oil um fuel oil health insurance we're in the same boat together so we need to be in unison the other thing that's very important on that is uh Bob and I were working with with Marshawn drafting up a communication to the Connecticut partnership plan and I know Bob will work with uh with Glenn
155and Tara on that but really they're the timing of when they give us final numbers and I'm getting into the weeds a bit here Bob um is really terrible it's so late in the process to your point but I'll let Ken talk a little bit about some of the collaboration that we do with the with the town and some of those things sure as far as fuel oils go we actually we always lock in prices together with them we locked in for the current year and we're looking at locking in for next year and in the meantime we're both using an assumption that we're starting our starting point is the locked in price this year for next year so that's where we're at with that the discussions we had regarding the health insurance was that
156it would be better to start off at the high end of the range that the partnership Plan gave us although they said the 12 percent was the high end of their estimate it was not necessarily the limit there's a possibility it would be higher than that and the thought process was that it's easier to come down than it is to go up later on So the plan was for us to do 12 and the town will also be doing 12 but we do whenever we're working on estimates like that we always collaborate and make sure we're on the same page when are we going to lock in I said this in finance we have not decided when to lock in yet okay I would like to do it sooner rather than later I don't know
157that it's going to get especially for gasoline because that's been coming down I'm just thinking of somehow similar to the current situation that we have now where the board of Finance has cooperatively said you know don't freeze continue to find savings but we're going to work with you so that we don't have to you know have major Cuts in the middle of the year can we do that proactively and this way when we're actually submitting a budget to the first election we're submitting a much lower number because we've agreed with the board of Finance or you know others that listen we're going to present this at you know I'm making up a number but say you know a hundred thousand dollars over instead of 185 000 over and then if it goes over that that
15885 we've already agreed the town's going to take it out of contingency yeah I know Marsha's has been speaking consumption conceptually with the board of Finance about having some kind of a reserve fund where we would budget uh at a 10 number every year and if it comes in higher we take it out of the reserve if it comes in lower we put the money into it but that has not been established yet okay I think we ought to open that discussion with them um I think we need just knowing the board of Finance the question then becomes what level their concept has been simple it's easier to put a contingency amount on the town side and then not everything's going to go on the and you know in the wrong direction at the same
159time so it's more efficient to budget it all in one place and then picking you know you're over on this one you're under in this one you know I can I can balance that and make it work and this year it's worked out for them because they've had a windfall because of interest rates right that's that's how they're covering helping us cover the 750-ish Thousand overrun because interest rates have worked for them um so but they only had like three or four hundred thousand dollars of contingency so had we been in a situation where the interest rates hadn't happened that would have worked really against them in a big way right so I think that the trick of that is always where are the risks and where's the bad you know where are the risks
160and they can't just go say I'll just cover everything high and you can come in low that's not going to be in the Playbook but what will be might be in the Playbook is oh man if we have a real unknown like uh like the whole health benefits thing is a real unknown um that maybe it's a question of how you place the Vets on the table right I'm not so and I would actually prefer to be locked in on fuel rates and so it's more of a known than an unknown but it's just a question of whether they'll go down or not and then you'll be regretting it so um so I just uh it's a I think there's some really heady decisions ahead of us yeah angry and it's something that that Dr
161Brill and I have talked with uh when our Monday meetings with Sarah and Marcia frequently and as I said the the town side exposures are higher than what we're looking at so I know it's a hard equation to have that discussion if it's just you're benefiting and I'll take the and I'll take the risks so anybody else we'll have plenty of time to ask questions to us as well that spreadsheet that people need more questions over here yeah so um so I created a spreadsheet for or not a spreadsheet um a Google Document to compile all of our budget questions in one area that'll be part of what we end up sending over um to the board of Finance when they start their deliberations because it's nice for them to have this historical record of
162of how our inspection process went um so I think I can't remember how we did it last year if you guys submitted if I just gave you Google access to that dot to that document or if you submitted questions to me and I copied and pasted them in there but how would you guys like to I think we did that oh I thought we had access so that we could see other questions yeah maybe maybe that yeah it could have been that it could have been that yeah so I can I can share access to that document so that you can put your questions in there and the way that it's um organized is the first section is for general questions about overall maybe um items related to the to the goals or new programs
163initiatives and then there's specific line item questions and there's a specific table for that so when you're going through line items and you have specific questions about a particular account um you can put the question in there and Ken has access to it and he'll be answering them sort of as we go along good I had one more question and I think we ask this every year but is there anything that you didn't put in this budget that you would have liked to put in it is there anything you held back because you felt that it was already too high well the two items uh that I had brought forward a couple of months back um the the clerk um and the custodian um at this point uh to be very candid the principals knowing
164we had the Investments of the instructional coaches last year this year and for next year those were not only our public promissories that we weren't going to be coming back with a lot of asks we've really been focused on that and certainly Anna's been working with those coaches and Mrs Ferris once she's back in her director of instruction position we're really focused on that and that's obviously a big Focus you've seen some of the presentations and spotlights where those folks are really trying to work we're working with our teachers to ramp up tier one instruction so I would say the two items I talked about but that would really be it for this year okay any other questions is there any topics people would like to see on at our January 4th meeting I have
165one but I'll let you guys if you have if you have a suggestion [Music] and again questions will come through the Google Docs so that will generate conversation for the January meeting as well too um your thoughts more specifically about the K-8 math curriculum you're thinking on that Absolutely I'll defer to Dr Mann on that one talk a little bit about process so um the process that we I think I reviewed this a couple meetings ago um that we've begun is that we have three vertical teams that are working on um reviewing uh five different programmatic approaches um and that we are going to reconvene in January to look at the the kind of benefits and uh you know things that will really don't meet our needs on in each of these and then going
166forward uh figuring out what the flexibilities are of the various programs of the various resources to see if we can you know buy a few pieces like a portion of a program not necessarily in invest in a whole program if it doesn't meet all the needs that we need that we have um and that's really this year is the work that we're doing and then but I did mention that within the parameters of the what we have budgeted for of our current allocations we would not be going above that so that will also be a a consideration as we're looking into new curricular resources once we do decide on a curricular resource then we're going to have to adjust our curriculum because as we've mentioned before resources and programs are not the curriculum we're not
167just going to buy something and Implement that and so we will that's one of the reasons that we do have a reflection of the curriculum writing in the budget for each of the different schools which is where it is housed in the budget but there will be some adjustments to curricula as we move forward into next year and then professional development for the implementation of the various resources but there's no increase over time at this point if we found that there was a resource that we really really felt was would be really helpful um we would either figure out how we can adjust other things within the budget or we would roll it out over time which is a more appropriate way to do curriculum changes anyway so it helped if we can get maybe
168like an outline from you what we currently have and utilize sure that would be helpful in terms of and also cost correct right yeah I think it's a great idea just kind of an overview of and how much money we have in the budget for either material or or professional development right you know just kind of what's in the budget what's reflected in the budget right including um technological resources because that's one of the things 10 years is the combination of technology and curriculum yeah I told Eric one day he's going to become a curriculum because the way technology is working you better believe it I've got plans for Eric so my request is um I mean let me just if I could recap at kind of a high level the status quo was driving
169the bulk of this budget we have some say beyond the status quo we have some savings on the cles and we have some roll out of the you know a roll in of the into the budget of things that had been covered by grants by the arpa Grant in particular so the pluses and minus of those kind of offset give or take right so I think the number one Focus we're going to have is what's in that um what's in the status quo budget but the one item I think that's in the drivers that I think we ought to spend time on is the arpa items that are rolling in you know what's drop what is the you know what's the layout of the Opera rollout you know we have to we had to look
170at that last year but the question I have is that we've been doing them now for a couple of years and I'd love an assessment of the effectiveness of those different things you know so we we started the coaches how's that working right yeah I'm sure we just started the summer school how's that working right you know and just a little bit it doesn't have to be long and drawn out but just uh your assessment of the effectiveness of those programs with a thought in mind of we really have to we have to decide that we are continuing them in our own budget right that's what we're deciding right so I'd love to you to just kind of maybe Ken could do kind of here's a rollout of all these things are rolling in and
171what the next couple of years look like but then what I'd really like to hear is on each of those line items you know what's your take on right it sounds good are they paying off to the degree we had hoped and I think as a board we need to look at that and then at some point in January and we've done this every year I think we ought to dwell on the technology um and you know what are we spending money on it's usually a big budget dollar budget item and uh and uh and then and are there any changes in special education right that we have to be aware of right those are those are in terms of the teaching staff the the the Paras and and on and the outsourced education so
172I just think those are all topical areas that are important the the one we ought to get early is the arpa role in stuff right and we could do the the technology one either at either meeting and uh and the special entity they're meeting but I just think that they're just big big meaty topics that we ought as a whole board ought to do when we ought to do a lot in public right and then I would just urge everybody you know to take the book and read through it see what questions you might have and then just let's start feeding it into the process and we'll have a chance you know at the to have a q a at the January 4th meeting and again at the January it's at 18th I guess it
173would be yeah yeah January 18th meeting and if we're still not happy with where it lands we'd have to have a special meeting so you must not forget on most Mondays in between all those meetings the finance committee's meeting yeah which is digging through the real detailed line items that would drive Ken crazy over the next month so there's a great Focus areas thank you I just think the arpa thing is the only big plus you have on the whole uh the whole thing and maybe as a bcba change as part of that special ad sure you know you know what's been our why are we go bringing in an in-house instead of the vendor I think is a good topic so that's what the ones I had in my mind sounds good so and
174Distilling uh inch and a half binder of spreadsheets and data into distilling that down to about 16 slides um in 25 minutes I think it probably was um we do the best we can with that but we don't want to bore you with all those numbers and let you well at this point you're delivering a book to us more than anything so and you will be putting all that up on the website by the way anybody anybody could go to bang around on it traditionally what we do this is I think my eighth eighth or ninth budget with the district we put all this up as if it's electronic minor essentially everything's right up there you can get by by um table of contents area and Eric puts it right up there and cool all
175right any other final thoughts comments before we move on all right um so we're shifting to Old business we have some second reads on some policies and we have the school calendar which we had tabled after the last meeting so why don't we plow through those so the first item is policy number 6172.1 and I think we'll just do these as they're laid out Amy on uh and so we'll do them one at a time so Debbie can talk about each one of them I will move that the board approved policy number 6172.1 gifted and talented for a final reading as recommended by the policy and Communications subcommittee first reading was on June 15 2022. second it's moved and seconded Debbie do you want to give a since it's been a while on brief overview
176on this one yep um outlines our responsibility to recognize and promote students who may fall into the gifted and talented realm um one note of record keeping and I wanted to run this by Lisa we have sort of a conflict in dates here because it says on the agenda the first reading was on June 15th but I think right the second reading should have been July 20th okay okay because I was gonna say I had first read was the 20th okay so this was um presented back earlier in the summer it is not one that we currently have so it's not a revision it would be a new policy for us it's not required uh by K but we think it's important to have it in our policies so as I said it really just
177outlines the identification process for um identifying those students that you know demonstrate extraordinary ability whether it's through academics or creative channels um it also covers how parents will be notified once their students are identified as gifted and talented that's at the bottom of the policy and right now we are automatically um screening students in this process starting in third grade so we're already doing this but this just outlines the process that we're currently following yeah that was my primary question is this something we're already doing so we're already complying with the policy even though we hadn't issued a policy we are but we want to make uh one of the emphasis uh impetuses for this is and I gave it as a goal um uh asked Amy to take it on as a goal which
178is to look at the actual identification process which is not necessarily fully outlined here um you know to have a robust identification process here in District and so we're going to be that's something we're working on internally okay all right any questions on this one and I didn't get any comments back on the first read either okay all right all in favor aye this passage unanimously right next one on the agenda is policy number 4118.11. I'll move that the board approved the deletion of policy old policy number 418.11 non-discrimination and adopt caves version for a final reading is recommended by the policy and communication subcommittee first reading was on June 15 2022. second uh who's gonna give it to Joy you've had plenty already um um okay so go ahead and do it okay so
179this is our version of this policy was quite old it was from 1989. um and so we are this is mandated by cave and we are recommending that you that we adopt cabe's version which you see presented here 4118.11 and this really [Music] um just very simply States the fact that um our district will not discriminate in terms of race color religion marital status sex sexual orientation gender identity [Music] in terms of education and in terms of hiring so it also um about halfway down the page says that the district shall make reasonable accommodations for anybody with known physical or mental limitations foreign and that the district's Ada and Section 504 coordinator is in charge of making sure that those accommodations are met so it's pretty straightforward and again I didn't receive any comments on
180this the first time it went out okay any questions from the board okay I would just make one comment and at least I'll just pass something there's some funny spacing things there in that second to last paragraph there's some funny spacing things so down there I'm sure you'll fix those but you know before we actually publish it so okay all in favor okay it's approved the next one on the list is policy 6162.51 survey of students and policy 6141.11 curriculum research and experimental projects no it's in action um so was it this was an emotion didn't have a first reading on this we did we did but there was a a good deal for the questions and then and then yes and then the um policy committee reviewed it again so any so if there
181was any further further updates on the uh is it in first did we approve it for first review or do we just table it go to the minutes [Music] I don't remember [Music] I think it was brought to the full board on the 16th yeah and the corresponding policy so as approved for first read but there were more questions to be discussed before it would go for first I mean it could be voted on tonight and the board could always decide that or I just feel like there's a lot of confusion still on this second I'm sure kind of like what we're discussing so did we send a bunch of questions into the policy committee um I got questions from Joy and she attended our last meeting and we talked through some of them we
182were short on time and didn't really sort of finalize anything because we we just decided to discuss it more at this meeting okay and I think Rosa had some questions as well or and this happens to be a mandated policy that we don't have so which one of them both of them survey no there's two here no curriculum research experimentation is cross-referenced in the policy the survey policy and it is not a required or recommended policy and it'll be very Frank we're not going to do curriculum experimentations on our students no need to have a policy I'll just cut to the chase here move the discussion along we are not doing that so there's no need to have the policy um I think we did vet um joyborg a lot of great questions for some
183clarification I think we answered those but if they're not if the committee doesn't feel they're fully answered and we need to discuss tonight or bring it back to next week's policy committee for one final review before we bring It Forward for a final reading well if we're gonna not need the research and experimental projects couldn't we just strike that section of the uh absolutely okay so I I read that that was my I had more questions on the experimental research than I did on the I actually I actually broadly liked the survey of students policy because it forces it forces things into us I like the survey of students policy that's what it forces things to this board with some criteria um especially a survey that's by a third party yes which would include other
184third parties in the town right it would have avoided some of the issues or potentially avoided some of the issues we had the last meeting of the meeting before correct but getting back to the the point about the experimental programs or research and deleting that policy 6141 we can also then delete the paragraph in the survey that's what I thought too paragraph right would just get deleted so to be honest I I feel like a lot of the um confusion or concern over this policy really has to do with um underneath the list of eight issues in the middle of the page it it sort of tries to make a distinction between surveys that are conducted for other agencies versus surveys that are funded by the federal government or surveys that are provided or conducted
185by Third parties that section gets very confusing and I think confusing because they're we're saying in some cases we would need parental consent in other cases we don't and in some cases you know I think in all cases parents have a right to see the surveys but the the consent part is what is sort of getting muddied because of the distinction between third-party surveys and other types of surveys often versus opt out opt-in versus opt out so if anybody has any comments or suggestions it seems it struck me when I was reading it that that was they were trying to dictate whether it was an opt-in or opt out and to me I would think any survey that comes to the board for our review it should just be an explicit decision are we doing
186opt-in or opt out not a dictated by policy statement and I I didn't understand why they were trying to hardwire it though in the in the in the standard policy so so for example huh I think it's a law it's a law I believe so really and I'll do last night right about the which particular section are you looking at we're doing a lot of talking here that's right here this number one yes all of these if the school is giving out the survey it has to be parental consent and I believe that's a legal I don't think there's I don't think there's wiggle room with that that's on the federal one yes oh or is that no for surveys not funded by federal where's the federal one that would be yeah that's like a
187double negative right yeah right but it's only for surveys not funded by the federal government does that imply that anything funded in part by the federal government they need to give consent is that what I should read into that yes I'd rather say that right right surveys funded in part by the federal government require parental consent surveys that are not funded by the federal government they need not give consent but the board should decide is it an opt-in or an opt-out I mean to me that's very lot that would be the most logical way to say it right because we have some sort of I don't think we do a lot of surveying of students or do we I mean we might survey on mascots and things like that but we don't you know a
188consequential deep surveys like this are are very rare to be candid yeah yeah commission brought up that they were concerned the students do a lot of surveys especially at the high school um one example was I know was in covet but how they were feeling and whatnot what they were dealing with and suffering with during covet so they were thinking that that wouldn't fall that would they wouldn't have been able to give that survey given this policy consent yeah um and I guess some of the clubs do surveys two those those are obviously under the guise of being in the school but they're student-led clubs that are surveying their classmates and those kind of thing we might survey The Faculty um right Rel to be candid relatively informal I don't know that the board wants
189to spend their time getting involved with that but content on any of these things is a concern sending your kids I guess because it says you know mental you know number two I mean I'm more than happy to work further with the policy committee on that week we're meeting next week we could go back and review this again just we don't have to rush we want to get the language right it strikes me that we could write a better survey than the the policy I'm a better policy than our friends at uh they came in this case just be take their base and just write it to what we want right to me it's a question of what do we drive into the board and what decisions do we need to make right when we
190do it and what I like what I liked about this policy in the middle it really follows that those federal guidelines that all of those eight categories you have to get you have to go to the board anyway you know the the non-starter and then in the second part where they're not those kind of sponsored surveys or whatever the case may be there's a decision point to bring it to the board anyway so um yeah so let's so so the public knows what we're talking about there are eight items on this uh draft policy and uh that would require the board to approve it and one of them is mental or psychological problems of the student student's family that would catch your attitudes and behaviors type of surveys another one is about sex behaviors or
191attitudes that would also address that correct um illegal anti-social self-incriminating or demeaning Behavior right I mean we don't want you know any of those sorts of things to bring it up to a higher level is is good and then there's a number of them but you know religious practices political affiliations income levels uh uh lawyer whether your lawyers Physicians or ministers I mean they're legal they're they're Federal type of guidelines on on these categories so to me using those to drive in then the question is how do you say it clearly below right which is if it's a federally sponsored survey here's what you do if it's a if it's not federal but it's another organization here's what you do if it's uh if it's a school club right here's what you do right and
192maybe some of those we don't drive to us we drive to the administration sure and others you drive to us and if it fits any of those eight it has to drive to us I mean to me that seems very it's more about writing clearly and then the opt-in opt-in opt out language in there I mean just say it in simple language right if it's required if the federal government requires it it's not a decision right you have to comply and if uh and if the uh and if it is a decision the decision maker has to make that decision explicitly right so if it comes to the board we have to make that decision explicitly if it goes to the administration and they have to make that decision explicitly and when you have a
193policy in place what it drives at is the organization or the person who wants to conduct the survey better have a sharp rationale if you're going to bring it to the board level or to Administration with exactly what you're looking to do and what you're looking to accomplish and I love the beginnings to say they can be valuable resource but we always run the risk of uh over surveying and thing and we want to make sure it's well controlled I think that would be a good opening statement so [Music] um I think we could ride this is this is not really as well written as I'm sure you guys didn't love it either so this is why we ran out of time in our policy meeting that said we spent the majority time talking about
194the survey policy but we have another meeting next week so is that enough of a discussion [Music] help yeah I I think I I think there's a board well maybe we've answered it where we stand as a board on opt-in versus opt out I mean we know in general that you know if we have to wait for consent on surveys we have to wait for you know if it's opt in our our responses to those surveys are gonna be greatly diminished because people don't check their email or they forget to sign it or they didn't know or they forgot but I think what we're saying is that will be determined at the board level yeah and part of it is how much lead time you give people right I mean if you're going to say
195oh it's out there and you have this week to review it right and nobody's I will almost invariably go to you have to opt in right because you're not giving people enough time to go understand it right and whereas if you get Penny people plenty of time and you explain it well opt out isn't a bad solution I do it at my business I did a lot of opt-in opt-out discussions and usually it's about openness transparency and disclosure if you're open and transparent and disclose you can use an opt out model very well but if you're if it's I gotta hold this to you know close to my vest the more you're going to end up having to go to opt in more so it's just it's I think it's situational that's yeah I I
196agree I think if you want to codify the opt-in with these very sensitive topical areas us with something like there has to be two three weeks whatever you want to call it and you want to codify that in a policy I I would be supportive of that um but making all surveys that are addressing sensitive topics and opt-in I would be very much against not only does that diminish the number of people taking the survey but it highly biases it and I don't see the point in doing a survey if you're not getting usable data or informative data it really isn't informative if it's really a select people you know you you say here's this survey it's about sensitive subjects do you want your kid to take it you're going to get most people terrified
197to take it right so yeah I think if we want to specify how much information is involved how parents have to get that information and how much time they have to get that information I'm fine with that I think was a board we could make and I don't want to seek input from the surveyor right whoever sponsoring the survey about how would you handle it and what's your situ what's the situational stuff and let us have a lot of chance to ask lots of questions um and uh before we'd ever make such a decision I for me it's just I really hate um uh codifying it as this is the only way to do it right because there are too many different types of things that go on [Music] so and I think we might
198actually have a debate right on some of these surveys on opt-in opt out communication transparency openness what do you tell the parents in advance how do you make that so it doesn't bias the survey all of that could be a really good discussion for us as a board right and um I'm not a big fan of codifying it and you know in the policy itself other than these are the considerations you have to think about [Music] so we need we need to bring it back to the policy committee I think we have to bring it back to the policy Kennedy did everyone agree with that have we talked about it enough we did okay all right so we're gonna leave it on the calendar as a follow-up item still tabled next up is uh the
199school calendar I will move that the board approve the 2023-2024 school calendar as recommended by superintendent Dr John Barrow second okay it's moved and seconded we did he did present this to us at is it the last meeting correct last meeting would give us a chance to look at it uh did you get any comments from any of the board members no comments or questions Rosa asked the question uh regarding the early dismissals for uh conferences and if how well attended were the conferences do we really need the the number of days and uh the next week worked with the principals and they said that they are filled on all of those days they're really filled and so they really need them so that's the answer on that one but there were no at this
200point there were no other questions or comments on the calendar I did think of one um because so we typically have PD the day before vacation over for a break right the early release date early yes or sorry there's four in the calendar yep um I don't know if you can really answer this but is there a trend that staff tend to take those days off I wouldn't say there's a noticeable Trend we could we could check that data I don't have we had um PLC days yet this year and I don't think we have not to my knowledge but I haven't lived through it yet yeah because we haven't had an early dismissal P PLC Day this year as of this year so we'd have to go look at it until we could we
201could look at attendance yeah I haven't actually even if the last couple years data would be that's true that's relevant when things were done via zoom and you know and those are the orange ones on the calendar right so and they are all just ahead of long weekends right and early in my tenure here I was informed that uh and I think may have been in a meeting seven or eight years ago but also from various board members that one of the things was in talking prior to my time about the early release days while board members understood the value and people understood all that and the time for teachers to do the work they need to do whether it's training or collaboration and development curricula or whatever it might be um as kind of
202a compromise is probably the wrong word but but to help with the inconvenience of the early dismissal was to schedule it on Friday with families against long weekends where if if they were going to have to have the inconvenience of an early dismissal doing it on a Friday against a long weekend gives them an opportunity for travel and some get an early jump on maybe getting out of work and getting and that was legitimately you know we service our students we need to think of our students first but we serve as families so that was something early on and we can we pretty much continue that trend for the last seven years it's also fairly common practice across the state and that I think that grew out of when there was that attempt with to
203try to create more consistent calendars across risks um which has kind of Fallen by the wayside but certainly this idea of coupling you know longer weekends with earlier dismissals is something that is often common practice another common practice that you see on thanks for saying that Anna is uh many districts have the after-school meetings on Wednesdays like Brookfield does um and some of the early release many of the early release days um whether it's foreign a district in the region or around the state or even 10 some districts have as many as 10 early release days for this collaboration time they parlay it on a Wednesday with the after school additional hour that the teachers work to get a longer chunk of time in together for collaboration so another approach what I liked about the
204calendar was we've had in this board a number of times of you know how many full weeks do we have right you know because you get so choppy and the way the PLC days and the PD days were laid in which is really the places we have choices right um we're all right all around logical break points anyhow so to me it was like a best efforts to make sure we didn't have a choppy schedule yeah so and that was great you know putting together a broader spectrum of folks for an internal committee I think got us a better result on on the calendar great input from secretary's teachers uh you know other folks other admins um broader perspective always helps more input any other questions maybe we could just add like a bunch of
205served like as a little asterisks for dismissals what's that maybe we can add like lunch will be served or lunch won't be served on the calendar a little note like a little note I think that might help Lisa and I'll talk about if we could find some room in a margin or something like that so running out of colors and as simple as to use Lisa's eyes are rolling into the back of her head already so I get the opposite don't put any more colors I can't take it anymore but don't forget this board got a Communications award for this very calendar so we do a nice job in town on it all right all in favor of approving the calendar for 20 23 2020 please say hi hi any opposed all right we're approved
206and uh with a little edit that Joy asked for we'll work on that but we will try to uh again before the weekend try to get this calendar out to everybody along with the Candlewood Lake information all right that's it for our old business uh did you have anything you wanted to add to the Candlewood Lake presentation tonight no I don't think I could have done a better presentation all the most most important information is in there oh actually I can add one thing Eric told me today the smart boards that went into some of the classrooms so they're actually like in there and he took some pictures and so those will be up pretty you know on the website it actually has video of one of the workers who didn't think he'd be a
207uh movie star demonstrating how the bracket goes without a board on it but the bracket goes up and down so get very low for the students so they could really interface and that one has oh it has the board now yeah height perfect yeah so uh yeah a lot of brackets are in and then the boards are going in now so cool it's great yeah yeah I would love to tag along on the small group visits so like it's we're meeting Friday to start to work work through the details of that and so um grab a hard hat and jump in okay um we didn't have anybody signed up for the second uh section of public comments I'll skip that three main points that's right you did say I had some other items for at
208for after I'm sorry Mr Korean you were right I want to thank you for your patience it's been a long meeting [Music] Korea 45 West Whiskey Road um I sent the board my comments obviously in written correspondence more lengthy comments about the discussion item of uh the special education review um I edited my comments based on time I would like to add just for the public record um I do agree that we shouldn't launch into a hundred thousand dollar engagement I think we're going to end up there um and that's why now speaking out um I think the time for study right now it's it's just we're not there I think that the immediate need right now um from sort of a Maslow's higher need is really um you know what's going on today right
209we have Pro some of the programs you know that we're looking into we have immediate problems that are many public and semi-public comments have been made um regarding teachers leaving why they left leadership issues um we've brought to the board concerns about um not being truthful publicly I haven't heard back from the board about what was what's being done about that so we've there's been a lot of discussion about world-class School trust and and transparency but if you have administrators who aren't telling the truth right how are in in areas where you have a lot of privacy and involved where you can Shield issues you know between families and things like that um I you know you don't have a place to start um and then in terms of the The Proposal that was brought
210forward we already paid for it right I mean we just we just uh hired two administrators two out of three administrators you know based on the focus areas brought forth right that we have an administrator we just hired that that was their entire career you know we they have a fresh set of eyes are coming looking at the programs they've broken a couple of programs we need to fix it and then in terms of you know what you've learned I expect regarding CES I would go look on your own right but I think the board has enough right now to eliminate CES um and based on the experiences of other Connecticut towns right you will find the ones that have done major changes that have needed to that have the same problems we have right
211I mean ifoia from the state how many special education violations we've had since 2015. the answer is two right we had one the big you know beginning of this school year we just had one tonight there's a there's a pile of them backed up right it's very rare to get a special education violation from the state it's very hard to get through that they're very they're apologists for the district so there's a lot to do there's a lot of work to be done parents are going to continue to push right we will do a hundred thousand dollar study it's a matter of whether we do it now or later and what the following it follow is going to be between now and then thank you Mr Chris okay uh three main points I think we
212definitely have to include the update on the Candlewood Lake Elementary School and the discussion we had about a special education study um I think Bob you mentioned talking about the uh free lunch update but I think that'll Pro that will be sent out I know Ken somebody already sent it out as a um email I believe to parents wasn't there already a heads up on that I don't think so I think that might have been something different okay there's other ways to communicate that I think that's going up actually we got to put the budget I think the budget was is more important or at least more of a three main point and the lunch update will go out in another way okay that's fine until budget kind of would like specialized specialize okay let's
213put Candlewood Lake first on that list because I think that's going to be more it affects a much broader population so okay and John you said you'd get a letter out to the parents this week yeah so Debbie you don't have to worry about writing anything for Candlewood Lake because we'll get something else separate on that but it still could go on the three main points but I'll get that to you well I want to aim them at the presentation yeah right and and links to the presentation we'll put up there as well as the video discussion so then you'll have them for your three main points okay upcoming events okay all schools are closed for PD on December 22nd and for winter recess December 23rd through January 2nd the center school has a pajama
214day this Friday Huckleberry has a PTO movie night on December 19th here at Brookfield High School and December 19th is Spirit Week Monday's festive hat day Tuesday is festive sweater day and Wednesday is festive pajama day was ganier has a festive attire day also on Wednesday December 21st and the high school has the Winter concert tomorrow night all I have anyone else okay okay thank you so that's it for our agenda thank you all for tuning in thank you all for being here it was a long evening and we are without objection adjourned