001[Music] foreign [Music] I'd like to call the regular meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance 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 okay we have six of our seven board members present Bob is feeling well under the weather hi Bob we hope you feel better okay um next is public comment we have four people signed up um but they're just general public comments so that will be Revisited at the end of the agenda fortunately we don't have our student representative Ms zezza so we'll be skipping over that next written correspondence okay Ron Jaffe wrote with a policy question Deb cassase wrote regarding FERPA
002Chris Divino wrote regarding special ed Aaron sclera wrote regarding tonight's agenda Nick Schmidt wrote regarding library books and Irene Korea wrote regarding school safety failures okay approval abortments I will move that the board approved the minutes from the budget Roundtable on November 16th and the regular meeting on November 16th second all in favor hi any motion passes next up superintendent's report update all right thank you Mrs Greenstein so I have two relatively brief updates and then I'm going to turn it over to a brief presentation from Mr Lasser from the Brookfield Craft Center regarding our after school Grant in just a second so a brief security update uh checked in with Chief puglisi the high school afternoon armed school security officer position is still in the interview process and background check process so that's still
003going on hopefully we'll be making so they'll be making some decisions soon in regard to that at the high school regarding security we also just hired our daytime security Monitor and we are working on continuing with interviews for the evening security monitor that would work in concert with the asso um in addition to that just a reminder I think we talked about it with the task force report at the last meeting that all of the sros are in place and adjusting quite well to their school settings the next piece is the Task Force meets next Thursday morning the other piece is at our next board meeting on December 14th I will be presenting the budget for next year prior to that I believe we have two Finance subcommittee special subcommittee meetings scheduled where we'll be
004vetting the budget in preparation for that presentation and then continuing to vet the budget as a board through as a full board and as a subcommittee throughout the remainder of December and January before submitting it to First select woman Carr at the end of January so that's coming up and obviously a lot of exciting times and also managing inflation and Rising costs at the same time so we're working on that any questions on either one of those updates all right Mr Lasser I'd like to invite you up again Mr Lasser is here representing the Brookfield Craft Center The Craft Center is one of the places where our middle school after school uh Grant students are spending a great deal of time learning who have signed up for that and he's brought a slideshow and going
005to talk a little bit about it floor is yours Mr Lasser [Music] told Keith we breathe so I will start by just saying if you have questions I would just encourage you to give me a call or send an email and or come visit the Craft Center if you haven't already one of the things I wanted to be sure you were aware thank you one of the things I wanted to be sure you're aware is we are very concerned about safety at the Craft Center so when we have kid classes with kids we have assistance in the classroom and our education director Valerie Culbertson has recruited several volunteers from the high school to be assistants in our school and in our classes this is not just a safety thing but it also allows the artist
006teacher to focus more on students one-on-one they get more time that way they don't have to worry about who needs to go to the bathroom or any of the other issues that would come up when you're dealing with 12 year olds um but here's an example you know some pictures here uh the assistants are there at the bus when it comes to drop the kids off they align them up in the right places and then they walk them across that dangerous crosswalk that everybody complains about uh to the various Studio Studios that are on the other side of the road we've had in this first session we had 47 kids in eight different classes I've got a brief some pictures of each of the classes here's our uh in our weaving Studio the kids did
007felting where they made felt dragons and you can see obviously they enjoyed themselves the picture of them with their dragons on their heads um they they all had a great time in our jewelry Studio the kids made Rings they made pendants uh just to tell you how great the kids felt about the program um one of the jewelry uh teacher sent me an email um about the class and she said they were the nicest most thoughtful group of girls one of the girls gave her grandmother one of the open lockets for her birthday that we made in weeks one and two she told me she glued a picture of her and her grandmother in the locket from when she was a little when she was little and her grandmother cried when she opened it I
008mean you can teach the art but that's you know you just can't can't get that feeling that was that was just a great great feedback and we love to hear that the kids are having a good time and I think you know just you know the teachers are having a good time too um here's our actually that's Valerie um teaching uh the old Master techniques and drawing and when we can when the weather's nice uh the kids went outside and and Drew some really wonderful uh pictures uh one of the things that struck me when I went over there to take these pictures is one of the children was drawing the building the mill building that you're probably all familiar with if you drive by and the perspective from an 11 year old was just
009amazing to see that I mean I'm no artist I do I have taken our history and so on and it just being able to get perspective uh in a drawing is is incredibly difficult to see that was really really gratifying um in our Clay Studio uh we had Joseph Heller teaching the kids and Joseph is a great teacher and he's great with the kids they did slab work where they rolled out the clay and made hand uh hand bowls and things and then they also worked on the Wheel we have a center for modern craft where we have 3D printing and CNC routers this particular class was fundamentals of digital photography and again the kids were very much engaged as you can see in working with Lightroom the Adobe software which as as Terry the
010T the artist teacher told me you know when I complained that I could never get into he said Howard we had these 11 and 12 year olds doing it so you need to take a class um in our Forge unfortunately I had a video here but we didn't come across when we transferred the pictures but this is the in our blacksmith Forge and the kids made um you know Forks they made hooks uh this particular time they were making triangles you know dinner triangles um and um you know again this is one of those classes where it is uh you know I'm not going to say you know it's challenging because of that we're working with metal that's been heated but the kids had a great time and um and as far as I'm aware
011there were no injuries which is always a good thing oh wait here the video is working yeah look at that so you can see they first had to indent where they're going to bend it and then they back and then they uh they bend it into um into their triangles uh and then on a glass studio the kids were making pendants um and again this is an area where we're really cautious and like to have that extra pair of eyes because they're dealing with torches that are at 1200 degrees Fahrenheit these are oxygen and propane torches and again we've got a little video to show you I actually took a class size when I when when I saw them doing this in one class I said oh I got to try that and it's a
012lot harder than it looks but the kids had a great time and they made some really beautiful pendants you know you heat the glass and then you form it with colored dyes and so on and they make pendants that look like that and then finally in our wood turning Studio we had the kids making Shaker stools and again you can see the final product there and the kids had a great time and David who is the teacher there really enjoys working with the kids and we're looking forward the next session actually started today another 30 kids we have six different classes going this time David's going to be teaching making a baseball bat as well as probably some other projects so that's it for me I appreciate the time I think I kept it under
013the 10 minutes yes and again I would really enjoy if you would come and take a take a tour show you what what we're doing and engage the community Howard really thank you for thank you for your time is there is there any questions from the board uh no thank you thank you for the update start is it the second session started today oh okay yeah we have 30 students uh today in the rain um I was going to set up a tent but uh With The Wind that wasn't an option it didn't it worked out I'm sure but you know Howard we really appreciate it and working with the grant the opportunity for the kids uh and using a town resource you know when I when I first I think you all know I
014volunteer and when I first got involved I understood that the Craft Center had a reputation of being really I identified as being working with high-end uh artists and the mission of The Craft Center is the preservation of fine craft and I came to it saying well you know you can't just be dealing with the old folks where else are the fine Craftsmen going to come from if we don't develop a youth program so we're really really happy to be able to do this I understand that we're going to get a visit from somebody from the Department of Education sometime soon and hopefully we'll encourage them to continue to help support it because I believe me I know I know how stressed the budgets are so thank you thank you Howard appreciate your time are you
015guys still doing the vaccine mandate to go to go there excuse me you have a vaccine mandate yes we do okay yes we do the other um thanks Howard thank you the the other community agency the YMCA is also part of the after-school Grant so we can talk with our friends over there and see if maybe they can come and give an update as well and that's all I have for the superintendent report okay okay subcommittee reports the first one is facilities that would be me so we had a very brief special meeting on November 14th and discussed the security task force recommendations it's important to mention that they will be funded by Capital project money or already approved and there's no need to add it to the proposed Capital plan we also discussed the
016proposed Capital plan specifically year one which was Paving and restroom renovations and we unanimously approve the capital plan to recommend to the full board and we'll further revise the capital plan after year one when the building condition study is complete I'd say it was very quick meeting special meeting any questions we approved that last last meeting so yeah okay thanks Troy Finance okay so we met on the 21st um we discussed this year's budget deficit which continues to creep up um we are looking at just over uh 740 000 due to the same issues that we've been bringing up heating oil diesel fuel special education tuition transportation and Professional Services and in addition to those we recently obtained cyber security insurance which is something that we hadn't budgeted for initially uh no surprise most of
017these will also be the biggest budget drivers for next year's budget which the finance committee will start to do their annual Deep dive in the coming weeks and just so that everybody's aware maybe the public and just a reminder for our board members when we do that as a committee we we meet more frequently weekly we scrutinize every single line of the budget and we go through how it was budgeted we clarify the rationale for changes in either direction and it's an opportunity for us to look really closely and maybe even get creative with some cost-saving ideas never hurts to have sort of multiple eyes and ideas doing that so that is what we will start in the coming weeks um and as Dr Brill said we'll probably end up having two stabs at that
018before the full board even gets a chance to see the budget um as a board we've heard recently a lot about special education so Mrs D Nicola Hickman was at our meeting with an idea to use some Grant funds to hire an IEP compliance teacher and that will help reduce some human error as well as inefficiency and teacher time away from students for PPT meetings we also discussed the cost implications for hiring multiple bcbas as District employees that would eliminate the need to use expensive outside services or contract with our risk um it would also have the added benefit of having BCBS in the district to build those relationships with students and staff we did discuss some creative ways to utilize our ABA Paris who may be interested in obtaining higher education and eventually their
019bcba so that would be a win-win for us so it's something that you know we talked about in terms of how it could potentially save us down the road and that was it any questions no okay on to the consent agenda I'll move that the board approved the items on the consent agenda which are new hires resignations and retirements second may all in favor do we want to say something I will actually uh yeah I'm going to say something too so I just wanted to say it's sad but congratulations to see Ken on here but congratulations on your retirement yeah we have a long exit ramp but we've teased Ken with his retirement which won't be till the end of September next year but um he gave us plenty of notice um and I can't
020thank him enough for all he has done our director of business and operations in really by the end of his tenure here it'll be seven years here long time uh employee he's led us through some difficult and dark times uh starting about eight or nine years ago in terms of Financial and Regulatory control and really led us through that and done a great job also with the town we're on the munis financial platform together that was a major Endeavor as well as many other uh things um he's also taken over the supervision of our benefits coordinator um and obviously that has a lot to do with uh HR and leaves and of course health benefits and the like so we're just really proud of them and uh Ken's setting up his timing um it really
021is in favor of the organization because he's making sure that that time of year we start the year-end audit we do year-end reporting of the the year to the state department of Ed but we've also got to convert and we'll be talking about that through the budget process this year is consolidating the center school and the Huckleberry Hill budgets into one Candlewood Lake budget as well as taking in the fifth grade obviously so that that's a major undertaking and then of course the physical trans transition into the school Ken's a part of all of that so Ken thank you for your service and uh we'll celebrate you along the way thank you appreciate it thanks for the opportunity okay new business 2023 2024 school calendar so it's just an action so we all received a
022draft copy of it proposed by superintendent if anybody has any questions so Joe's thinking I do a couple of quick highlights sure um again it's an action to receive the calendar and then contemplate the calendar we certainly could talk about it at our next meeting and if we if the board decides to want to take action to move forward on it or ask questions in between uh we certainly can do that or even tonight um so a couple of things with the calendar relatively pretty traditional um it's got the professional development days in there but one thing that is a bit different is starting the first day of school after Labor Day that was intentional and it was prior to knowing that we were we were developing this with the internal committee we're developing this
023prior to knowing that the January 3rd transition to Candlewood Lake has at this point been delayed and we'll get information on that at our next meeting uh starting after Labor Day gives us another week of Summer and with all the landscape and driveway and parking lot work that has to happen in addition to the the early demolition of Huckleberry to make that all work when I talked to the project managers managers at any any opportunity for us to have additional days is going to be helpful you know we could always use those and what's nice about starting after Labor Day we still end having 182 school days on June 13th last day of school so it's still very reasonable it doesn't push us deep into deep into June which is helpful in case it's a
024rough winter so those are really the big pieces we did take a look at the April break Lisa did some research around the region and talked to different districts we are in a place where the majority of districts that have shared are taking that same April break some are not the same that have shared with us but right now the majority so we're trying to you know just be as consistent as we can with the region um and I think we're in a good place in general um I don't know if there's any questions but I wanted to let you know that's the question are there any um holidays or school closings that we had to Omit to move the start date to after Labor Day I was curious what we no everything everything falls
025the same including professional development day uh on Columbus Day as you can see on October 9th but it's a work day for staff but a day a non-school day for kids so the last day of school would be June 13th but if there are snow days then it gets added on like I said traditional so what we've done we would we would add them to the end of the year um if it gets to a certain point I think it's more than more than five days before February we start looking at taking them off of April we have annetta activate that and the whole point um and it's been this way in Brookfield and and with the superintendents I talked to around the region around Connecticut we really those who have the shorter February break
026in the April break we all try to keep the April break very you know sacred for families so they can really count on that vacation time we don't want to be tapping into that um have we do we have any data on the utilization of fall conferences um I'm just curious how many parents because I know it's obviously not a mandatory thing and I was wondering just how many parents actually schedule them um because you know it is um you know half days consecutive days so just wondering if there was any we could have if there was an opportunity to squeeze in more we could have we could ever come back on that take a look work with the principles on that so it means adding more um like if um you know like for
027Huckleberry I believe it's like three consecutive half days if there's not a lot of parents doing conferences can we squeeze it into two days um but I mean if people you know if if the schedule is packed and that's what it requires then you know so be it but I'm just kind of curious sure again okay so we'll just um so I think if there's uh we have one question you know follow up on the the utilization for conference uh parent conferences if there's any questions if we maybe by Tuesday if you could have them to at least in me we could then take them and do our best because we if we're ready as a board we can take action on December 14th to move forward with this okay thank you okay we'll move
028on to Devereaux student strengths assessment is that did I say that right Deborah [Music] just an action so so as there as Amy and uh Ann are setting up just as a refresher for the board one of the um in my year-end valuation the board had asked to have a focus on taking a look and getting some sort of uh Benchmark or assessment on ruler and on SEL in the district and how it's going this is an opportunity for us to do just that all right good evening thank you for the opportunity okay um just to present briefly to you an overview of the Dessa as it is as the acronym is known the Devereaux student strengths assessment system and really this is a preliminary overview as we are learning about this system and as
029Dr Boyle said one of the requests from the board not only to Dr Brill but also to me through Cape was to kind of have an opportunity to reflect on and review our investment in the ruler program specifically but also our social emotional development of our the the work that we're doing with our students and so fortuitously the state has also been interested in this information because um they've there's been a lot of investment across the state and so uh Misty Nicola Hickman at the beginning of the school year was contacted or found out through the State Department of Education that they are actually sponsoring a pilot of this of the Desa aperture assessment system and so we want to just kind of run through a preliminary presentation about Dessa and kind of show you
030the alignment that it can provide we think we're hoping it will provide to us for um for ruler and also the work that we're doing as with ruler is a part of that so um again we're kind of you know ruler as a reminder is a specific uh kind of framework um that it was is focused around developing student social and emotional learning um it was developed at the Yale Center for emotional intelligence through Mark brackett's work and it supports the entire School communities and entire districts right so as ruler has been around for many years here prior to the pandemic and through the pandemic um and it really allows us to work with the students and work with each other to understand the value of emotions and how that plays into our learning environments
031building the emotional intelligence of ourselves and of our peers and of our students and kind of working toward that overall positive School climate the program of ruler or the framework of ruler is aligned to the castle standards which is the collaborative for academic social and emotional learning it's essentially kind of the school counselor and support services standards that are national standards and this Dessa assessment is also aligned so that's the kind of connection um here is the acronym for ruler recognizing emotions in oneself and others as they are understanding the causes and consequences of emotions the U the L is labeling emotions with a nuanced vocabulary which is age-appropriate e is expressing emotions in accordance with cultural norms and social context and then are the final R's regulating those emotions with helpful strategies so really
032that skill based development so again these are this is all just a review of what the ruler framework is um and then again this just kind of speaks into um existence what I mentioned earlier that the State Board of Education is also making this a priority and they have identified through their pilot through their designation Dessa as a pilot program to give us information on that so Dessa is um from aperture which is again a national assessment uh platform and uh it is being supported by the State Department of Education so districts that signed on to do this pilot are receiving uh the platform for free of charge this year and through next year are you going to talk about this okay we're going to do a little dance we're doing a dance sorry um
033we basically went over all of this but we have they have uh state has partnered with aperture education it is at no cost right now the 81 districts uh were participating in the last cohort and the cohort for that starting now is what we will be participating in so again uh benefits for districts and schools um obviously social emotional skills and habits contribute to a positive School climate um uh the social emotional skills are all the skills that support our academic engagement and performance it always improves post-secondary outcomes with positive social emotional skills for students there are improved attitudes about school self and others improve classroom Behavior improved attendance and this is an extremely brief assessment tool [Music] when we start with strengths we end up stronger is the quote from aperture it's very um
034strength based this this assessment it reports on all of the positive things that children can do many assessments look at things that are missing in a student's education whether that be academic or social skills and this particular assessment really looks at the strengths that a student has rather than the skills that they are missing which is a wonderful way to look at students it creates a lot of positive teacher student relationships it measures the positive skills we said it was Castle aligned which is wonderful because that enables us to look at our ruler progress um it is research based and normed and it's whole child support so with these with this platform it also provides us activities and strategies that we can do for students who may or may not have that skill to the
035level that we'd like them to in that grade level so it gives teachers examples of those strategies and interventions for any child who's in the classroom which is wonderful it's data to drive our instruction um it is it's immediate and actually it is a one minute assessment so it's very immediate um and and it will allow us to look at our progress across students across classrooms across grade grade levels and then across the district these are some samples do you want to go with that I keep going these are some example questions that I was able to pull just off of the internet um it's just uh obviously for training they don't put out the exact questions for you but these are some things that we might answer uh for children so does the child
036remember import important information carry herself or himself with confidence keep trying with them keep trying when unsuccessful these are all things that children that children need to develop when they have adult when they're an adult sorry talking too fast [Music] um these are samples there are eight domains do you want to do this sure yep so Miss D Nicole Hickman mentioned the strengths-based piece and so it reminiscent to me of um the ACT Falls standards which are the World Language standards which are the can do right so as students are learning um uh they're working on progression through learning a language they go through the can-do statements I can say this I can use this particular verb it's similar um it's a it's a kind of a philosophical approach in um curriculum and assessment development
037right is kind of looking at what are the things that the student can do and then you're able to kind of see to what level and to what you know what level of efficacy um and in addition the standards aligned piece which is that castle connection is something that Brookfield has invested in for a long time our work and curriculum in our academic curriculum with Dr Marie Alcock is all about focusing on uh you know on the standards uh alignment state standards and National standards depending on the area of uh of focus and so this fits in line with a lot of the work that we've already been done been doing the needs will certainly be with training building level principles and then training teachers in order to do those assessments so just to be
038clear this is a teacher assessment of a student skill and so one of the benefits of it being less than a minute in terms of assessment is if I'm a third grade teacher with 24 kids I'll be able to get that assessment done in a relatively short amount of time but we are very aware of the fact that our teachers are going to need support in how to do that right we're not going to just throw it at them and have them do that however the data that is delivered through this assessment it can be really valuable from a very granular level at student at the student specific student all the way up to whole grade whole school and then we can gather information about the district so for example this is an individual student
039report across three years so this is data that we can keep on students to see their progress to say you know this student was really strong in resilience then there was a dip what happened with that student and then that after some interventions that student was able to shore up those skills again as an example um we're also able as I mentioned to see grade level comparison um this assessment provides up to three assessments interim assessments a pre a middle and a post assessment throughout the year based on where we are with our pilot with the state we will would only be doing two this year because it's going to take time for us to onboard people and to train we'll try hope to get a pre-assessment done by mid-winter and then a post assessment
040done prior to the end of this school year which again will say you know when you're piloting something you're piloting it for yourself as much as for the actual data that you're Gathering right so this is a good training option so then we can set it up and plan for next year um the areas that are am I doing this part are you doing this um the areas that are are being assessed I'll just read them aloud because I know it's difficult to see especially from that vantage point so self-awareness goal directed Behavior self-management personal responsibility social awareness decision making relationship skills and optimistic thinking and so all of these are kind of fit into much of the work again you've seen all of these things before with ruler but also the work that we've
041done over a variety of years of gradual release of responsibility for Learning and growth mindset and all of the things that are founded in that research-based work that we've been doing for many years for prior to the pandemic so this is kind of a where are we now in the next steps right so at this point um Amy has brought this to has brought us this opportunity and Amy and Eric and I have gone through the training that is requisite as part of the pilot um and really it's just been uh here's what it is and here here are the kind of logistics of it we have to onboard our you know we have to upload our our student information so that we can have all of the students in the system as Amy mentioned
042earlier um once the the assessment is completed then we can get printouts with all of our students so that they have to be within that the aperture system so that work has been done the next steps though are that the building level administrators have to be trained and there is we have a connection with one of the representatives from aperture who is our liaison who will provide that training or provide the setting up of that training um we'll also have to train the staff and let them understand what's uh what the expectations are um set dates for the pre and post assessments so we're planning probably the end of January and then before the end of May um and then looking at that initial assessment data as we go into the middle of the spring
043you know kind of seeing what we're what what data we're getting and also just seeing how the whole process went getting feedback from staff and from the building lover levels and then by the end of the year kind of determining next steps with not just ruler but also with any other programming or um you know even it is decimating our our needs as far as information that we would like to gain and that's a quick overview of where we are there definitely will be more information to come to the board as we gain more information but as I said we just wanted to make sure that we gave you kind of a step-by-step update as we move through this thank you very much are there any questions from the board sir I just had a
044couple questions so it's K-12 I assume so all the students I would think if it would be easier for an elementary school teacher to a minister we were just Pat as a middle school and high school student or what middle and high school teacher would who specifically is it their home teacher or the middle school or right well and that brings up a good point because you're not going to have every teacher assess every student because then you'd have multiple data points on every student of the same um of the same data so that's that is still to be determined we have to I don't I don't want to presume to say anything yet because we haven't even spoken with the building leaders yet um I would like their feedback and what they think is
045I mean I have my own ideas but well to be clear we have spoken with the building leaders right but aware of that level of decent but that level of detail has not been determined their training yeah okay our idea of who might be how we want to so who did your training we were online with aperture and went to a webinar so exchange lots of emails how come Eric I'm not not trying to oh there's a lot because the technology piece technology PowerSchool data privacy okay all those kind of things I think that's a that's actually a requirement through the through the csde that you're a technology coordinator is a part of it he was invested so that person was invited else okay so we'll never know you can't share the questions you won't
046you don't know the questions that are specifically [Music] um sorry trying not to knock anything down they shared some um training questions on websites but the actual questions themselves are probably worded a little bit differently um just because you wouldn't share the questions of an assessment okay what we do know is that there are you know eight seven to eight questions because there are those so they are directly um you know linked to each one of those dispositions and so that's essentially you know I would assume it's a one-to-one correlation yeah do we have do we have any data before ruler started on on this that's a great question of which I cannot answer you because I was not here I'm not sure if we if anybody knows in terms of where students dispositions and
047right soft skills kind of were right so like you had the the chart of hey this person right was here dipped up um I mean imagine we probably don't we don't so probably don't have that level of definitely not that scientific research based so this was probably going to be a while till we see like hey you know this is like the start of the assessment We're Not Gonna really know how this is going maybe even like a year or two from now awesome absolutely and and the good news is we'll be able to I think pretty quickly assess whether Dessa is going to meet our needs um and so if it's not then we can pursue other avenues and we'll also be able to kind of put eyes on students you know we have
048a lot of platforms and programs to intervene with students who are struggling academically or who are way off the charts academically we don't necessarily have um kind of really specific uh data points to point to if a student needs some intervention with the kind of those soft skills um you know you get a sense and those of us who have taught in classrooms you know you kind of understand but you don't have that hard data to really look at that is more objective now this is Teacher Assessment so it is still the teachers observations of those skills but it will force a teacher to kind of think more objectively about student Behavior based on the you know the expectations outlined with the assessment so and I think too and we look at the full District's
049data we're going to be able to see if there's a certain area that we were working on with ruler that seems to be off from other areas as far as the data we're collecting on that first point um so whatever that area is we can take a look back and say what what else do we need to do to make sure that we're having students grow there so that I think that will be very helpful look a really good first step and when do the teachers receive training that's a good question yes we haven't gotten that far yet okay um but I'm hoping to use uh some you know weather I don't really know the extent of the training that is needed either um and so whether we do it uh during an early release
050day if it if it necessitates that length of time um or if we can do it during an after-school meeting or during a um you know kind of prep time or CLT I would imagine it would take a con a considerable amount of time actually given the brevity of the assessment um it's kind of takes training just to interpret a very broad question like that in in meaning anybody could interpret it any number of ways so without multiple questions about behaviors it's that would be difficult so yeah I'd be I'd be interested in if it's a pdj that I could sit it on absolutely and the norming of um you know and making sure that there's calibration yeah that's going to be super important right is to calibrate teachers um so even if the training
051proper doesn't take that much that much time I'm interested in making sure that we're going to do it with as much efficacy as we can now again that might mean we have to administer it a few times for them to get comfortable with it and know what they're looking for um and so we are going to be kind of training ourselves on and and that's the nice thing about having a two-year pilot right that this especially we're working our way through it through getting to know the not just the actual assessment but even the logistics of it and then um we can kind of support teachers and take the pressure off of them saying you know you don't have to have perfect execution of this right away we are going to be working through understanding
052it and and norming it and calibrating it as we go but to Dr Murphy's point that it might take some time then to really get good data for us over the course of a few years yeah thank you folks thank you very much okay on to Old business policy number six one six one point three comparability of service I will move that the board approved the deletion of existing policy number 6161.3 comparability of service and adopt caves version for a final reading as recommended by the policy and Communications subcommittee first reading was on October 19th 2022. second [Music] Amy do you want to combine that with the next one I can yep I will move that the board approved new policy number 6172.4 title one for a final reading is recommended by the policy Communications
053subcommittee first reading was on October 19th 2022. second um so I don't really have anything else to add because as as Amy said these were presented as the first reading October 19th and I did not receive any comments or questions about either of them [Music] all right so all in favor hi hi motion passes on to Kendallwood Lake Elementary school project update okay um so actually I understand that we have some um playscape photos and some progress photos that we might be able to share [Music] foreign this is something I'm so excited about um building a new school from the ground up does not happen very often but it does present us with the most amazing opportunities to make sure that we need to meet the needs of all students in our buildings and in
054our communities so we are going to present to you today what our idea of the universally designed playground is going to look like I met with Dave who I'm pepsaski sorry who is ill today and couldn't be here and Rob tenza who is working on the playground itself for us a couple of weeks ago and I'm sure you want to know what a universally designed playground actually look is um playgrounds are often designed to accommodate specific types of clay or a certain age group leaving children who are unable to play in the prescribed way left out of the play environment uh we want to make sure that playgrounds um are intergenerational social connections that we have sensory stimuli stimulation that children are able to do physical exercise have some access to Nature um and unfortunately
055typical playground design is a problem so the universally designed playground provides an environment where children with all abilities can participate these opportunities without modifications all students should have access to the opportunities from the Inception so that's what Universal Design does is that we never retrofit we always are providing the environment where everyone can participate from the beginning thank you so the playground will of course be in accordance with all the safety regulations that we need to and with all of the AGA requirements that are necessary but we're taking a step further we want access to all playscapes and equipment for all students which provides a range of sensory engagement and alternative communication needs for students for a range of needs um this is what the playground base for two out of the three playgrounds will
056look like um Pre-K and the K1 playground bases I am going to step over here just so I can point a little bit to you um and I do better talking when I'm moving so um this playscape um has ramps here so that anyone who maybe with a physical impairment could go up onto the ramp with whatever Mobility device they're using they're very wide and they are slanted at a nice level for anyone who needs to go there you're also large areas up top where children can play on the top of the playscape and there's all kinds of panels here and I haven't gotten to see them all yet that students can sit and play with one another with on each of those panels the the top here is shaded area for any child who
057needs to be in the shade do anything medical which is also a wonderful area up top for children to be in this is a sensory climber that's at a very low level but why so that all students can crawl up or fall down there there are two different kinds of slides um and of course there are I love these they're little tiny seats for for children to sit and talk and play with one another so that you don't always have to be on the ground and that's Pre-K and the K1 thanks [Music] this is the grades two to five playground and again you're going to see those ramps you're going to see multiple ways to play whether they're visual sensory with music they're different slides and different kinds of ways to get into the place
058gauge and shade once again which is very very important and a lot of our playgrounds don't have swings everybody likes swings sorry everybody loves swings um this one up here in the top Corner those are round large faces more than one child can sit on there together to swing and it gives access because it's lower to the ground for anyone to be able to get on no matter height as well being so short I appreciate that um my favorite swing here is this one right here um which is a seat for a child on one side and on the other side a an adult any adult a grandparent a paraprofessional a teacher can sit on the other side and pump to swing with that child eye to eye it's amazing thing to see it's very
059cool the other thing here is that we have various grades two to five a fifth grader could be pumping for a second grader they're going to be swings obviously for students who require um some sort of um sorry support thank you um so we'll have swings as such so that all children can get on a swing and then this one over here allows for two children to sit and pump of course we will have some of our typical swings that everyone has seen in the past um but we are working very hard to make sure all swing all children can sway these are the grades two to five swings unfortunately the one that I love with the red seat does not come in the size for two to fives but I will keep looking because
060that's my favorite um we're also looking at equipment that has different sensory experiences um the cave obviously they can climb up and around there are lots of bumps and waves but they can also go inside which lots of our children like to do this is Pre-K and one we will have tubes to climb through bongo drums which are really cool this was a really fun assignment by the way and then the purple chair is actually awesome it's a spinning chair um and all of our kids like to spin and if you remember we used to have the the metal large Merry-Go-Round type things that we would spin in and everyone would fall off um and it was metal so you would burn your hands trying to hold on to it in the summer um so
061it's the same feeling without the danger which I thought was really cool this is for grades two to five we will make sure that we have other structures but Dave was so excited Dave saski was so excited about the drum circle and he and I are going to spend some time at the drum circle I think when that's finally installed and they have larger sizes for the spinner seats as well foreign this is the thing that I refuse to let go of and I insisted that I had to be at each of the playgrounds we have many students who require communication boards now that could be students who are multilingual it could be students with um communication disorders or it could be our very little students in preschool who can't just come out with the
062words to be able to tell their friends what they want and they're not supposed to yet so these are communication boards and it is a playground communication board so it has all of the pieces that they would need to be able to ask a friend to play to explain why they don't like that to ask tell people that they're happy or they're having fun and this is very very rare I've never seen it before in a playground anywhere in the area and I'm thrilled about it but I insisted we had to get that in there or I was gonna try to find another way um so right now those are all of our components that we would like they're going to be doing an informal layout for us so that we can then bring that
063back to you and then we will look to assess if there's any more available space for us to find cool things to put on the playgrounds and then we'll finalize the equipment choices but I'm very excited this was an awesome opportunity and I think it's going to bring so much fun for all the families different questions yes I don't know if there's any questions I I want to um it was a couple of years ago I remember one of the parents sent me an email and asked are we going to make sure that the playscapes are accessible we said of course and so we're starting to see the manifestation of that um Amy thank you for the presentation today and please stay there if there's any questions but we really um it's really exciting because
064like Amy said as we all know it's very rare to build a world-class school from the ground up and that's exactly what we're all a part of and the playscapes are just you know another tremendous component for the for the kids so I don't know if there's any questions for Amy or anything further no of interesting that was great yeah I just incredible wanted to say I mean I I'm so impressed with the level of thought that went into it and you know I think people tend to think of school playgrounds as sort of like a prescribed you know layout and very cookie cutter but clearly it's not and I I really appreciate the attention you put into it thank you I just want to say for my heart children learn through play adults learn
065through play like that Craft Center there they're learning so much more than making crafts so it's really important that the play areas enable the children to learn give them that base to do so so that's great thank you thanks Amy thank you and then Eric are we ready with the other slideshow so Rosa go walk us through that one um can you advance it for Rosa and then I'm gonna have a good answer for you and you can talk to her my care thanks sir I will just preface this by saying that these are these these photos are um two weeks old though two at least yeah at least two weeks old right um because they were supposed to be for our last meeting um so there's probably more progress um than even you see
066here um but what is nice and at least got to verbally report last uh the last time was um so obviously this is our front main entrance um you can see a lot of the exterior masonry work is getting completed just kind of um you can't really see it now because it's still sort of the driveway that all the construction vehicles are are rolling over but that whole front section will be dug up so that that dry bed Stream area is exposed and so there's a lot of finishing work that's still needs to go into the exterior obviously including like the the site work itself so this is where one of those playgrounds that we just saw is going to go and you can really kind of see it's starting to you know the site
067is really starting to look like it will eventually look um minus the playgrounds but um but that'll be really nice uh the has the stairwell gone in since the main stairwell as far as I know has not been installed yet a lot of that has to do with Terrazzo triple Treads yeah so that's that Terrazzo flooring that we are still waiting on it's kind of it's poured and it's got a lot of um you know just different dimension to it and they can add different colors and different sort of features to it so this sort of like stream that's kind of going through this main hallway past the media center there's a lot of Nature and water themes in the whole school so it's going to look really nice when it's done but um yeah
068we can move forward um you can see kind of the drywall in the um this is the multi-purpose space and the drywalls going in it's still a staging area somewhat but but it's getting it's getting completed can the cafeteria you can the what I noticed most about this cafeteria is the obviously all the taping has been done and some of those features on the ceiling some of those beams and stuff the architectural features are starting to become more visible so you see that here as well as I think in the next I think the next slide yeah this is the administrative area so that's getting the last time we showed you guys photos it was still down to the studs so everything's been sheetrocked and taped here which has got and then the gem the
069gem is probably the the lease progressed because it is still a staging area but um there's no sheet rocker taping that's going to happen in there anyways um the gym floor will probably be one of the last things to go in as well um so this actually though it looks very unfinished um there's not too much that's going to be um going in there anyways uh this was the other picture where I think you can really start to see some of the architectural features like those the big trees that you see kind of going up the wall and into the ceiling and you can kind of see those structures starting to take shape which is nice and then the um the kindergarten and first grade cafeteria is also kind of coming along um this is
070uh sort of more in the front of the building all the way on the left side the entry to the neighborhoods um still kind of looks it's probably progressed more since then with more um you know sheetrocking and taping and then the classrooms are really coming along they're probably the areas thankfully that are the most progressed you'll see a lot obviously all the walls and most of the ceiling grids have gone in the lighting and I think on the next maybe the next slide you can see the Cubbies so and that's really you know it's starting to look like Furniture going in it's really starting to look like a finished space minus the floors that was it we will have a further update um on December 14th I know that there was a significant um
071construction meeting yesterday afternoon and obviously taking a look at schedules and dates and so forth trying to schedule a meeting with Mr checo from the NBC next week as we prepare to understand where we're at and what the schedule looks like for our December 14th meeting where Mr checo and others have been invited to come and present and talk about the schedule and where we're at foreign moving on to next on the agenda's public comment so the Board of Education welcomes public comment each speaker shall have up to three minutes to provide input to the board at the end of each regular meeting time is allotted for comment on any item which is in the board's jurisdiction which also include overflow time for individuals who are not able to speak in the initial 20-minute slot
072discussion of school Personnel individualized students or of individual members of the board shall not be considered appropriate just please state your name and address for the record and you'll have up to three minutes so first is Andy Korea Andy Korea 45 West Wisconsin road so I wanted to stop by and discuss the event that happened at on November 16th at the last Boe meeting there was discussion regarding the improper disclosure of confidential student information and districts efforts to fix it this conversation was concerning to me because the true because of the truth behind the situation the topic was certainly worthy of a published agenda item as there was an external speaker that the taxpayers paid for to stop by and parents expressed a lot of concern my concern is that this was not on the
073agenda and if it was on the agenda parents could have come and spoke beforehand so it kind of prevented parents from coming and speaking um additionally there's not been truthfulness regarding the discussion of the violations the news Times article primarily consisted of quotes from two administrators most of the statements in that article can be shown in very simple ways to be false the scope of this issue was also not not disclosed to my knowledge of those recent disclosures over a hundred students have been affected and I don't know all of all of the potential disclosures so a hundred students is 30 of the special education students it's four percent of the student body of Brookfield a four percent Excursion rate is huge so by not disclosing the scope it seems like it's being hidden in
074discussion among parents prior to this becoming public there were dismissive comments but made by administrators belitting their concerns as well as making knowingly false statements directly to parents in writing that could be refuted by simple foiable evidence and knowingly false means lying the board of education has been informed about this prior to that meeting the six-point plan discussed uh last meeting just wasn't credible it comes across as a marketing effort with little substance that can be used to sell that something is being done when there's been evidence from the past failed efforts first of all there were only five points discussed second they included process revisions and training I'm aware of three prior training attempts and one process revision effort that were implemented because of violations in the past and I followed up on each
075one when the training occurred the original purpose was not stated and the underlying reason for the violation was not actually included in any of those three trainings and there was immediate violations after one of those was this past September the administrator in the recent issues told parents that perpet training was recently completed however that FERPA training was recently completed for a different item it was for a state violation by the special education department the training had nothing to do with privacy uh or the protection of privacy there were no discussions of redaction and the training occurred all before these improper disclosures happen so by stating the parents we did training was essentially functionally a lie history shows that was specific with this specific failure of organizational competency the school district should have and not have
076to go train eight years later that this is this reactive training as a public relations mandate to say something has been done generally the district fails to act competently in good faith and in this case line there is documentation to back that up that I've been through foia additionally utilizing technology was mentioned it essentially means PDF writer PDF writer is in use by the district a PDF is a 30 year old technology so really it's not a technology anymore and redactions just wrap it up please yeah the redactions capability has been there for about 16 years this is an issue about trust and competency right the records requests were primarily due to bellicose special education Administration uh driving parents to consider Advocates and attorneys these issues where parents do not trust the district and therefore
077they exercise their foi rights like the mishandling of two cases of coaches acting improperly one of those was it took seven months for the the district to separate a coach that used racist language right and all along the way there was efforts to keep the coach so you know of course there's issues about the lying with the violations right so there's there's trust loss there but it's incumbent on the board of education to address this lying and covering up thank you thank you okay Monique Matthews Monique Matthews 18 Road let me fix a lot of misinformation that was shared at the last Board of Ed meeting regarding FERPA when I received my child's file there was emails between a social worker to the guidance counselor sharing their caseload this included a list of names 15
078kids to be exact who see a social worker who also have the same guidance counselor none of that information was redacted then there was another email between a case manager and a social worker 16 kids which again shared which was a list of names not redacted none of the information that I received including pages and pages of Google Hangout chats between a case manager and a social worker regarding private information about other people's kids in this District again was not redacted pages all this not redacted then my child's log entries had two other kids information in it again information was not redacted I then come to find out Administration then shared those private log informations regarding my child without my permission to two other parents yes my child's name was redacted but the situation was
079not [Music] that log entry belongs to my child and not for the district to share with anyone else this era and lack of care of child's private information and the district has no right to share that information yes the district self had a self-report and I get that but to disclose their child's and to disclose their children's names were shared you could have done just that then an explanation should have been told to the parent that due to confidentiality we could not share that info the situation is being minimized and the district is not making it is making it seem to the public that this was just a name or two not redacted that is far from the truth yes my child's file was large but you didn't this was not a human error this
080was a mistake by missing pages and pages and pages of information that I should have never have gotten the Board of Ed needs to look into this seriously look into how the administration is handling FERPA requests demand more training demand accountability and show the public and show the public that the Board of Ed takes these violations seriously students confidentiality within the special ed Department should be your top priority and currently it is not as it continues to happen over and over and over again I urge that you immediately look into this and hold someone accountable fixing the problem isn't hiring a person that is going to cost the taxpayers more money if the person that they report to doesn't know how to do this thank you thank you okay Aaron sclera [Music] Aaron sclera 5
081Jackson Drive I'm here this evening to discuss the recent FERPA violations in District I was shocked that this was addressed during the Board of Ed meeting two weeks ago and not listed on the agenda there's no doubt that this was intentional so no parents were here to discuss it I also have to bring up I was shocked to hear a parent State um or saying in public that um an administrator um [Music] made the comment that um parents are requesting information to Simply get the district clearly the comment was distasteful and offensive to any parent that felt the need to get work samples and information held by the school in order in order to determine what to do with their student I had to request this information to determine what to do with my son
082how he fell through the cracks for all these years I requested FERPA information to help him not to get the district I'm trying to get my son what he needs when requests by parents are seen as an attack it takes on an US versus them mentality which should not take place I've always thought of my children's education as a partnership and a collaborative effort but clearly that no longer seems to ring true with the administrators with the administration's recent stance I received 32 children's names and service hours in my son's documents I immediately thought I did the right thing and contacted the district and it and it was and I received a dismissive tone in an email to boot a week later I read comments made to the news times that there was some question
083if a violation happened a teacher's name was not listed on the top of it so therefore it may not be a violation but 32 names were exposed in their service hours there's no excuse for these breeches and they continue to happen a letter was sent to the parents of this of the students whose information was released to me that it was somehow printed at home I wanted to stand here and set the record straight all the documents that I received it was five packets of them they were about this thick we're not talking about boxes they were handed to my husband by an administrator in TSL they weren't printed at home the breach was human error as I was given the properly reducted paper and the original that should have never been provided and that's
084where the children's names were visible I've been stating that communication and transparency is a huge issue in this district and it just gets worse I am not sure hiring a part-time person to deal with FERPA and fi foia requests is the answer as the immediate remedy is to find out why our children's information is constantly being breached I deal with patients records and information on a daily basis and if I handle their information the way the district handled information I wouldn't have a job [Music] thank you WK case is that the case 21 Meadowview Drive at the last Boe meeting on November 16th you spoke about FERPA in fact had a guest speaker brookfield's vet attorney I would have it would have been nice that it was on the agenda um anyway I was extremely
085displeased over her discussion about the recent FERPA violations especially when she spoke about it had been inadvertently done she also said that she's never seen anything deliberate in all her years accidentally or not is a moot point and a clever way of diminishing the damage that was done I know because my child was one of the children that was not redacted the district has a due diligence to make sure that any identical information should not be exposed anything less than this is reckless and negligent I actually have a twofold um with this because I reached out to the board that same night requesting um it was spoken that training had begun I reached out to the board never heard back um a colleague actually had the information I wanted to know when training was done
086what was done who attended in September uh 2022 this year uh training was done by a specific teacher who turned around uh regarding FERPA who turned around on November and October not even a month later October 17th I opened up my child's Chromebook um a sped director case manager and there was the list of all the children their first names and last names on her caseload so again I filed another complaint and then and again another thing that the um sped attorney didn't mention that parents who's ever watching who's ever had this you can file a complaint at student privacy.ed.gov I urge parents when their information is breached by a district to reach out and file a complaint I also have a complaint going on currently something separate from FERPA in regard to my child's
087IEP instruction has not been driven complete avoidance actually and to this date I had my daughter's IEP let's see uh October excuse me November 7th they have five days to issue the IEP the revised IEP to me to this date I never received it I did however receive my child I don't know if anyone knows but when your child is a sped uh student you get a report card along with their spread report card on their goals and how they're doing their goals and objectives on octo November 4th I got my daughter's goals right how to complain about that sat with them at PPT a lot of things weren't addressed things were not introduced goals were not being met and after I filed my complaint on November 20th the district received it from the state
088to specific complaints that they have till December 9th to address I got what I thought I was getting was my IEP and I got again a doctored on the 28th I doctored goals and objectives so they lie the district lies to you so if you're a sped parent I urge you to watch and and really look over everything that they're doing and also speaking of um a little bit more transparency in regard to when we have guest speakers having it be on the agenda also like today tonight with the finance it was embedded but it was spoken about getting additional funding for someone to come in for IEPs and I am totally against that I think that it's a systemic issue across the board in all schools within this District I don't think having it
089hiring anyone additional would help in fact I think that those funds should go to be educating Paris they're the ones that drive instruction they're the ones that support the school they're the ones that are always there for our children thank you thank you okay next up three main points okay I was thinking that we should highlight the Craft Center presentation from by Mr Lasser and also the Candlewood Lake Elementary School update about the playgrounds and the slideshow that Rosa presented but I'm torn on the third main point maybe the devil yeah [Music] okay I I yeah I just didn't know since it's so preliminary if it if it would just raise a lot of questions that we can't answer at this point true so then I or Dr Burrell's security update because I know a
090lot of people are concerned about security yeah that's it okay sounds good okay thank you upcoming events we have just a few at Center School the third annual winter Workshop sponsored by the Brookfield High School National Honor Society is December 14th Huckleberry the grade four chorus is at the Stu Leonard's tree lighting tomorrow night and they have a pajama day donate one dollar to sequoit Canada support Connecticut Children's Hospital on December 9th that is also happening at Whiskey near on December 9th whiskaneer also has a holiday toy drive going on from December 5th to the 16th and at the high school the music department Winter concert is on December 15th that's all I have okay okay executive session anticipated I will move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing the
091superintendent's goals second all in favor all right okay this formally ends a recorded portion of our meeting thank you for tuning in have a good evening