Board of Education Meeting

001good evening everybody um i'd like to call the regular meeting of the birthday board of education for september 7th 2022 to order uh as a first order of businesses justice for all [Applause] all right so we have five members of the board uh mrs greenstein and mr murphy had uh conflicts this evening joining us um so first on our agenda is introduction of the new certified staff members and see the wall in the audience but i can't wait to say hello but let me turn it over to you thank you mr belden uh this is absolutely uh has been a fantastic first week as you will hear later from the principles but we're really excited to get our new staff certified staff our faculty introduced tonight to all of you and each principal will come

002up to the podium and introduce the staff and allows the staff the faculty to come up give a little bit of a wave dr pepsoski is incorrect you don't have to give a full speech um but i did want to share because it's important for the public to be aware of the very rigorous hiring process that our faculty or the faculty goes through is from the posting of the job through the rigorous application itself that they must fill out through the resume review team that we have in-house the interview selection that goes on and then the three-step step interview process which is an initial interview and a second interview usually with a demonstration lesson or performance task and then a final interview which consists of two finalists that come to the assistant superintendent and i

003and then from there we actually have the right of refusal and so it is a very rigorous process um these folks have really demonstrated professionalism making a cut in brookfield we are always looking to hire the best most highly qualified teachers that are the best fit for workfield so we are very proud of them we're really excited about them no i don't want to forget significant reference checks and background checks as well i'm really proud of them i'd like to start with center school i think deb's over there if mrs ferriss could come up and introduce the team good evening i'm very excited to introduce three incredible new staff members to our amazing team over at center school so first i'd like to introduce our newly hired preschool teacher amanda andrade and i'd also like

004to introduce our remedial reading teacher sarah monaco and i'd like to also announce that we've had rebecca lyons joining as a social worker starting on september 19th and she's not able to join us this evening but a round of applause for her thanks dad dr pepsoski would you take photography so just echo dr brother a very rigorous process we had nearly 100 applicants so we had a great pool for mr jews and we are so thrilled to introduce the father of awesome people to yolini aries world language shailene baker shannon's coming from [Applause] casey bell second grade teacher an important collective fund to get her uh young friend our patriot jersey nicole dwell third grade teacher aaron einstein who gave me a glimpse sorry of my future who has three sons on three different teams

005playing in three different towns husbands away but she's still kevin mcnulty's our music teacher cannot be here tonight uh due to illness kayla o'sullivan the third grade teacher cindy phillips is a special educator who also couldn't make it uh she was very upset that she didn't have a conflict that you could know come as his needs okay i'm still going to keep him with recognition kelsey sullivan is our sro who was not able to be here tonight harry you will and i'm just taking the glimpse to make sure i didn't forget because dean renna gave me a very hard time all right dude i'm sorry are you feeling okay now with that feeling better it just said it's not a glimpse of your life it's a glimpse to your poor wife um i am very

006very excited many years we've i've had at least we've had five six seven eight nine stack through staff certified status said this year we only had a couple that we had to do interviews for we had more uh some of our non-certified staff but for our certified staff we have four teachers um i first like to introduce mary ellen powers as our occupational therapist [Applause] [Music] here that is a vhs alum right there very special we also have carol nielsen who is our school psychologist could not make it because she had a prior equipment tonight um but we wanted to make sure we recognize her we're very excited because last year we went a good part of the year without even being able to fill that position and we were able to fill it and

007we were stacked for that last person is we have one of our teachers out on lead for the year we hired jennifer o'connell who is brandon from sacred heart university and i told her she was a little nervous about this i told her about coming tonight and she couldn't because she lives in long island and she needs to get closer and she signed release tonight so i told her she had to do it because that was too far behind for her so she is our social studies for um [Applause] thank you dr barrel and get the sentiments of my colleagues and how excited we are with the process and the amazing number of applicants we have this year it was like it was quite refreshing um that we've had so many people interested but um

008didn't have to fill as many positions i felt the same way as dean i feel like i've been up here way too often uh in previous years but i am proud to introduce our new addition so i see over there bianca paolello she is our new school counselor i see kim rothen who's over there she's our new math and the red shirt cracker is josh de bella our new world language we have our new chemistry teacher sam varma and our new technology education teacher john new house owner joining us tom robbins but he is uh girl dad um [Applause] well on behalf of the board welcome to all of you it's i'm looking forward to a uh excellent year and uh only for a great night so congratulations on coming to brookfield and we'll meet

009my grandkids with you at central public especially so thank you all okay um but i do know everybody has a very busy life you can sit through the rest of our meeting if you'd like or you can get on and you know go do uh do whatever you need to do this evening so don't be shy take a second so okay let's move on with the agenda um the next up is i'm gonna switch so the next is our uh you bob uh why don't we start with i see mr belland why don't we start from the other side we're gonna left check the podium in there mark i'm sorry i want to start with first week reports uh from each of the principals it's a tradition here in brookfield and mr bolando will start

010with high schools thank you mark all right thank you dr grill it's a pleasure to go first which never happens seemingly in my role as high school principal so a great start to the school year just a couple updates in terms of enrollments since july we've had 16 withdrawals just so you know and 36 new registrations since the beginning of july uh that puts our numbers uh 12th grade 217 students that means we're down uh nine from the previous year from 11th grade moving to 12th grade we have 227 11th graders which is actually down three from when they were 10th graders uh we have 229 10th graders which is up to from when they were 9th graders and then only 199 9th graders so fewer than i expect it gives us to about 872

011is what we're looking at right now uh special thanks to a bunch of people this is our opportunity and i know this is going to get redundant but thankfully there's not a ton of people sitting here but we really want to recognize the people that helped us as we got right into the school year so cindy wardman susan griffin and our school counselors jen julio deb birch bianca palello and caitlin mccabe for scheduling anybody who's ever done that work through the summer as a counselor and that's building a schedule knows how tough it is uh caroline angelo karen howard uc genovese reporting everything in the main office just going for the school year uh rosa hopkoff for handling to register our duties lisa zarya for staying on top of special ed services and ct said

012it's no small task um gladys cotto worked through the heat to rearrange the library uh this summer mary negri helping our athletic program get up and running uh cathy colavito uh seth greg and logan white certainly for everything technology not to mention eric but he gets his kudos other ways and uh our crystal deal maintenance staff did a great job with an aging building right um and they did a great job dave greg julio pedro leo ricardo brian and joe so kudos to them a few things about what's going on this year that i'm looking forward to we call it leveling up or raising the bar we certainly are bringing that to the table this year uh we have a new forensic science course two sections of that we're excited about we have the ilt

013our individualized learning time online scheduling system which will be coming online shortly uh three brand new bathrooms they look fantastic you know i've never been so excited about automatic flush here and all before we're getting back to psats and 9th 10th and 11th grade starting in october we have a fall ball coming um on october 1st to ease and allen excited that over the summer the board approved the civic social workers so we're excited to get that on board is that that's coming through nothing yet we have a school counseling intern for the first time in a long time so welcome to lily dickey we've also reclaimed some classroom space we rearranged the mail room much of the staff surprise and got some classroom space back which is great we're doing an adopt a bulletin

014board program [Music] updating attendance codes more accurate attendance tracking and we're bringing back midterms and final exams on certain levels which we thought was important from the staff and i'll give you my uh my my one funny anecdote i do have a show and tell here what you see is something that has been affectionately labeled as a lunchbox brought in by a student today this is actually the same student who also brought to lunch yesterday full-size watermelon in his backpack because he thought he might like it at lunch didn't have a knife for it but brought it and a spoon and didn't have the opportunity to eat it but you can imagine it was like carrying around a full-size watermelon for most the day um that came to us later on uh that same student

015then brought this today to school as you can see aptly labeled lunchbox um i took any identifying information off it so you wouldn't know who it was because the name was on there as well and inside the lunchbox is a um amazon you'll see like the amazon package right with cushioning and some tissues and [Music] an egg and i asked the student in my office you know they got sent to my office you can imagine a kid walking around the school with an egg what could possibly happen in a high school environment and the student said well i plan on giving to the cafeteria and they could cook it for me so that's interesting nowhere in your 11 year career after school have you ever imagined that you'd just hand over um and we got

016a conversation he admitted there was no ground beef or turkey or anything else in his bag he would you know or peppers to saute he was just planning and giving the egg and hoping that the cafeteria could cook him so we had we came to the agreement that tomorrow when he went to pack his lunch um that if it was too big to fit his bag like a watermelon don't bring it um it was something they could break and cause problems um don't bring it and if there's something that could end up in the assistant principal or principal's office to bring him to school don't bring it and he said he's going to bring peanut butter and jell-o so we're good for tomorrow thank you mr valencia much appreciated how about surrendering tell you a

017little bit um how who's gonna start the school year off again we will go through obviously uh so much work is done people don't realize the amount of work that's done in the background uh that has to be done to end the school year and then also to start the new school year as you know the amount of um ordering from materials scheduling state reports hiring of staff all these different things the amount of time it takes is really a lot so i want to make sure we thank our sec my secretaries we have mandy musco diane sierra solely lisa whalen is our new main office front office staff sandy reed and then also as you most of you know my special thanks to my secretary mary liz because she helps to keep me on

018track because i tend to see a squirrel and go in different directions so she always keeps me on track also special thanks to june and ed for all the work that they helped do this summer too i mean that crew of people right there um really put it all together so they were really awesome in doing that um to our staff that came in for interviews and and also very importantly the students that came in to do as uh dr brewer was talking about demo lessons um i did so we did the demo lessons and i told them when we get back to school i'm gonna give them the treat you know when they come back then ice cream so i asked another scene on the first day and then a couple kids go mr

019brenda she has to ask you something and i'm like she has a voice doesn't she and the student said mr randy where's the ice cream i'm like oh i totally forgot so i was at walmart at six o'clock this morning buying ice cream sheets which they absolutely loved and i didn't um custodians as always denis heil as a custodian but just all the work and time and effort they put in along with dan to get to get the building looking great and the amount of time that's put into that is will appreciate central office staff for helping us in the hiring process and trying to move it along as quick as possible i know we we sometimes try to push you to hurry up and get that person in for an interview because we want

020it is much appreciated to debbie jones from the bus company every year it happens we try not to happen that happens we had three that missed the bus this year um but debbie always is a trooper and she was able to get a bus to swing back around the kids so that was nice um before school started we we had some of our mandated training team level grade level meetings and just talking about what we're gonna do for the first day for students but i did want to speak to a little bit about something i was so excited about that this year dr bro put out an email his back swing on the staff around reset and relaunch one focus i know that we will have this year and it was in his email was

021talking about what sure why so we had some great conversations around what their why is and why they got into teaching and uh so we watched there was a video that we watched was called the calling if you ever ever met it it's on youtube uh to look at the calling it was about the importance of that one teacher that can make such an impact um it was a family that had dealt with their daughter having a lot of anxiety depression and that the girl had missed so many days of school and even had a hard time getting out of bed that was the gist of the person that was speaking um and i think the biggest thing that came from that was he talked about how important it really could be for you so

022he talked about the next year in fifth grade she missed zero days so that was in her fourth minute in fifth grade zero days he said because of her fifth grade teacher miss patton the dad said that miss patties single-handedly changed the game forever for his daughter and their family that we are all the miss patties of all the staff and everyone that works in schools we're all the miss patties that the work we do matters and our work goes further than our eyes will ever save it was a little bit emotional for some staff including and i think it really helped us to get uh to give a perspective that on our toughest day we can't forget or don't forget that we are still some consumption and there's a lot i think a lot

023of great conversations that came out of it so we welcomed 787 students through the doors the first day last year we had 790 students um we lost a class of over 200 we gained a class of about 185 right now we have two classes that are in the 200 still we also had 32 new students and we have two uh people that are filling out paperwork this week so we'll end up with 34. uh from as far as washington to florida uh and in the area around here we had 14 students from danbury a couple from the milford and come from bethel in the area so and then uh i think with six magnus school students um exciting i tell you one of the excited when marketers talk about what's exciting at school i tell

024you what one of the exciting things for our students is getting back when you talk to that normalcy is getting back into being in the lunchroom and sitting at the table it's the little things that matter as you might know last year we had to sit every other one and we had half the time uh really not half the time but partial time to eat and go out to recess but they are so excited i mean we had to like literally i was ready to put seat belts out a couple of kids they were so excited um my funny story of course it's around food um i sat down with a couple fifth graders at lunch and you know every year i do this and ask them you know what what do you like the

025most about the whiskey here some kids said that they you know they're really excited about getting some classes having different teachers and talking about their lockers all the home complaining they're skinny the lockers but my favorite was when i went to one table when i asked guys what's one of the things you really like here kid yelled at me and he said definitely the chicken nuggets i never had chicken nuggets this good another student looked at he said you've never been to chick-fil-a so of course that's a middle school humor but i thought that was a fun thing to share with us thank you very much thanks dean dr peter okay so it really was an amazing start to learn uh along the lines of mark and dean i really have to say thank you

026thank you to christian ramos and cosmic tennis soccer our custodians who are short-handed so you know mark listed a group of nine custodians at the high school we had just these two men and i'll tell you those fours look like glass like that they're like when they start some ice skates uh classroom sparklers so they really did an awesome job so huge shout out my hiring committee parents teachers interventionists and bless them the students that we brought in uh especially for the special ed we thought how wonderful i i had twins who were seven and their brother was five so what better way than impacted learning capabilities in a special demo lesson at one point i had a look at the teacher who was giving a lesson and say did you need to send a

027woman into the principal office because you can do that you know my mother's been outside just for such an event and she said he's mine i thought wow and we did enough uh thank you to the center school teachers they did an amazing job very thoughtful placements for our grade two students uh huckleberry teachers did thoughtful placements for our third and fourth graders i can't wait to work in blue lake i invited myself to probably three tours um and maybe i know you're laughing because i'm so excited with shoelock i actually walked upstairs in the stairwell and those we were all enough to remember dancing in the streets with david bowie and january and i'll be in those because that was dancing up and down stairwells as far as opening day enrollment numbers second grade

028we had 174 students across eight classrooms class sizes were 21-22 third grade we have 186 students across nine classrooms class sizes of 20 and 21 and in fourth grade we have 172 students across 8 classrooms class sizes of 21 and 22. we've had 35 new students come in and only nine we've got some pretty healthy numbers there popularity given our return to what the adults know is normal uh with a concerted focus on academics and rigor we have a math interventionist we're excited about we have a bilingual program focusing on our spanish multilingual learners and to support all of our students as their academic group will be called upon we have our school psychology and social worker and their extending ruler into what we're calling eq workshops so they're visiting all of our classrooms for

029a series of emotional coaching workshops so we're very excited to have that opening day we had dr burrell dr mann joined us i love touring with dr grill because the students always you know they're guessing who he is and someone said well he's the president and he says oh no he's the governor which everyone's like he's a superintendent you're the guy who does snow days and then all of a sudden you've got this little second grade kid who's like oh my birthday is march 7th but i couldn't put a snow down that day dr brooke was the hero uh dr man came around meeting faculty staff uh huge first impressions great first impression uh students and staff thank you i think so welcome as i walk into my personal favorite story i actually got a

030phone call about it today um we talked about normal in the cafeteria and the little boy went home because we have second graders and we're going to leave cafeteria so he described the food he's like yeah you know it's on a tray and they they kind of give it to us through a small hole and we take the tray so of course the mother's picturing stops where i can find them and i said no i assure you it's not like a snack bar size opening and you don't know me but you could fit 12 of me through this opening where they're getting traced and normally picking up so she started laughing just ah that makes sense makes me feel so much better and just the the last of the camaraderie even the table is just

031awesome uh one classroom doctor uh dr rubel got there provided so we talked you know i introduced myself what does the principal do and then you know we already know what consistency does and they kind of highlighted it one little boy said so really her big job is making you look good yeah i said yes that's that's accurate and then bless them and i'll never forget this child she must work a lot of overtime which i guess so either way we're very excited to be back and it's gonna be a great year january 2nd third here we come candlelit lake elementary so we're very excited thank you thanks david this is center school you know going on the trend of thanking people there are really so many dedicated staff members to thank for one of

032the most successful and joyful openings of school as reported not just by myself by so many members of the center school school community uh lisa dennis savage susan i just said lisa goggles and clarendon savage the secretary of the school did an amazing job in the excuse me of registering over 200 students and i cannot tell you how time consuming that really is because they touch base with each and every family of those 200 students and work with them on getting all the people work that's entailed to improve residency etc etc so really thank you thank you um to beth o'connor uh the school nurse who also was getting involved with the registration seth and technology uh our custodial staff barbara frank steve who um helped out for mr um brendan who was a newly

033hired a night custodian dan caldwell with brian and joe coming and helping out for maintenance also getting the school shining ready after a very busy summer with summer school etc leaving maybe two weeks to get school ready after summer school teacher teams who contributed greatly over the summer on curriculum work interview teams and other planning teams such as our meet and greets and also i would be remiss if i didn't also express my gratitude for all of the support that i received from my tso family and my fellow administrative um building leader colleagues as well very supportive so thank you um i'm very appreciative of all these amazing teams and all of the support that they've given to our school community so thank you to all our first week of school was exhilarating and i'm

034not going to lie slightly exhausting at the same time as i shared in our center school the weekly school newsletter campaigns it was so refreshing and exciting to have hallways and classrooms and playgrounds and cafeteria come back to life buzzing with big smiles excitement and social interaction our learners are back to having jobs such as bringing the class folders to the office and lunch counts to the cafeteria in the mornings and they're adorable skipping smiling over to uh to do their jobs and it's fantastic to see we welcomed a total of 366 students 34 preschool students 157 kindergartners and 181 first graders our class sizes in kindergarten or about 18ish across nine sections each with the support of a halftime para which has been wonderful we have about 20 to 21 students in each of

035our first grade classrooms of course sections as well so after a two-year hiatus i've got to say it was awesome to welcome over 100 parents and guardians to an in-person pre-k kindergarten open house yesterday evening at center school this year in collaboration with our grades two through four huckleberry colleagues and leadership team in alignment with the district theme of reset relaunch and the skills that are articulated undergraduate we are relaunching our curriculum development work with marie hilcock in conjunction with our huckleberry uh colleagues to move forward with the inclusion of relevant authentic context in our units of study in terms of curriculum and talk about you know getting back to you know rigorous academics uh we're also excited to welcome heather batchelor and rachel cohen to the elementary grades as instructional coaches in both science

036and social studies and our teacher teams are excited about engaging in this curriculum work around all of these content areas as well so we are future focused and ready to go at center school and beyond excited about creating an amazing experience for all of our learners this school year for both adults and students alike and while i don't have all these funny little anecdotes i do have more of a sweet story and that is on the first day of school you know welcoming students into the school one of our new to brookfield first graders who i met that's at first grade screening over the summer and you know gave him the book the kissing hand and on the very first day of school he ran in he saw me coming off the bus he ran

037over he gave me a big hug and he said i my mommy read that book to me last night that you gave me and i loved it you were right and he was so so excited um and then another little little boy that i spoke to after this was during dismissal um also a first grader and i said so how was your day of school it was the best day ever so not funny stories more endearing and sweet stories because that's really what um well exciting looking forward to a great year absolutely there you go well thank you all um all right so moving on with our agenda next up is our student representative report what the welcome katelyn says our new student [Applause] okay representative everyone my name is katelyn zessa and i'm a

038senior at brookfield high school i'm beyond excited to be this year's student board of ed representative for my school i enjoy being fully immersed in our community as a member of the national honor society co-captain of the varsity cheer team co-president of the vhs international human rights club and a certified lifeguard i'm looking forward to giving you all updates on our student government sports clubs upcoming our current events and more there will be more information to share as the school year is underway thank you so much why don't you take promise anonymous reporting system wrote regarding health curriculum the cohen's wrote regarding grants jessica jessica wrote raising the first week at hufflebury rachel alagna wrote with a brookfield high school policy question linda jaquette nick schmidt arya youngjae and sarah emerald regarding school bathrooms and

039the nick schmidt and sarah anderle also regarding gender identity process okay thank you next up is board moments i will let the board approve the minutes from the board retreat on august 16th the regular meeting on august 17th and the special board meeting on september 1st next up is subcommittee reports and uh joy but there's only two facilities of the reports i'm sorry did i skip the superintendent oh man you tell me you have good stories so good to see everybody principals again thank you for the introductions and the the great uh summaries of the first week really appreciate it um and welcome so a couple of four four big ideas that i want to talk about this evening and um part of recently launched you heard that that theme i know joy and bob

040joined us for the convocation and heard from our complication keynote speaker smashed a little um dean alluded to a little bit of getting back to our why uh why we got into this and uh like lightwork personal life balance and a whole host of other issues that we're all contending with as we um hopefully at some point permanently exit and then so the relaunch concept is really kind of getting back to normal but knowing there's no snap back what has happened happened and we've learned a lot and we could do what we're doing here at brookville which is take everything we've learned from that turn it into a positive and move forward in an excited grateful direction and so to that end i really appreciate the principles and their leadership and all of our teachers

041and the great work that's going on in the board support that we've had that end there's some key priorities i just want to mention to everybody so not only the community but certainly our teachers and our staff members our administration the board is aware of this but it's important to remind everyone in the community that we have some focus areas for the year one is strategic planning we have kicked off strategic planning in mid-august right before the start of school our next meeting is on september 29th um with strategic planning we will be tying the portrait of the graduate to the strategic plan also the priorities that i'm talking about here a big push over the summer is obviously enhancing security at our schools and moving forward with security the sros as we've discussed are

042in place the asso will be hired by the police department they're working on selecting folks to be interviewed for that position and our some of our administration will be invited to be part of that in addition to that principles this week we'll be interviewing the applicants for the five various uh security monitor positions so they're already on top of that hopefully by mid october we would have folks in place so we're really excited about sharing our security in addition to that um mrs dean cola hickman will be heading up ct says that's the special education data system that is a entire state move from a platform called idp direct to the special education data system and so that is an enormous transition and all the districts in the state are going through this and we're

043taking the opportunity to look at it from a very positive perspective that we want to share up the quality of our iep development our ppt process and use it as an opportunity for special for professional learning uh you heard dr pepsosky quite excited about camden wood lake elementary we are really working hard on that um dr rudel dr pepsock and myself were able to take a tour on friday morning last week it's really the spaces are getting quite defined it's looking great we're waiting on the uh uh what i'd like to call a short term schedule from omg we don't have like yet i'm going the other focus area is communication making sure that we are staying very supportive warm and accurate in our communication and we're working on that matter of fact i'll be

044sending out a communication later in the week about the coherence of communications protocols that we all can agree to follow that really are helpful in terms of our district communication plan the other piece is talking to the staff with an internal email regarding email communication and some other pieces of etiquette that'll be very helpful i think for everyone and then finally and most importantly in a lot of ways is the academic work that we do and focused on tying to our four c's in the portion of the graduate and so school improvement planning is ongoing and you've heard the term rigor and ramping up um and uh stepping up the level up mark i think is your term so we're really everybody's looking uh excited about that refocus and re-prioritization and in the continuation of

045course of the hard work we need to be doing in our academic work and so to that end i'd like to turn it over to anna for a second before i do the other parts of my um uh update to talk a little bit about school improvement planning to set the table for the fall and some of the work with the principles and we'll be sharing in the next couple of workbooks thank you very much hello everyone it's nice to be here at my first official at the table meeting so i just want to reiterate back to the new teachers and we still have one more person to introduce a little bit later on we'll get to that but i was able to work with all the new teachers and i it was a help

046and actually each one of the principals presented to them which they really appreciated and there was a palpable energy in the room and they got along immediately and very authentically so it was really nice to to have that be kind of the first kickoff that we did even prior to the opening of school so thank you for that and it was really exciting for me to be a part of that um i wanted to be able to give you and i appreciate the opportunity a little preview of the october 19th meeting where you will be we'll be giving a joint presentation the principles and i um going over the student data from last spring and as we all know we were talking about the leveling up and i actually shared with mr glenda the other

047day an article about academic developing academic identity and our students and really using the social emotional that social emotional focus we have kind of honed over the last couple years to help develop an academic identity for ourselves and our students and so the goal of this presentation will certainly be to inform everybody including the board of the results from last year's data from our state standardized testing but also really to focus as deb said a really forward thinking approach and so the idea of how the school improvement plans will align with the strategic planning that we are going through and how we can really kind of bring all of these pieces to the puzzle over the last six weeks since i arrived i've really been able to kind of begin to assess all of the

048resources that brookfield that you have graciously provided for this district in support of all the work we do and um now i think the way forward we'll be talking about bringing those pieces of the puzzle together and so the instructional coaches be a part of that certainly the principles and the strategic are the school improvement plans um as well as that intersectionality of the school improvement planning process and the strategic plan based on our first season work that we have already established and so i'm really excited to begin this work and to share with you the work that we've that we are envisioning um and a preview to that will be next week at the cape meeting where we have our first cape meeting um and where we will talk about the review of the

049summer curriculum work specifically in health in the health workshop that our health teachers went to strategic planning instruction coaching instructional coaching model and the impending changes from the state department of education that will affect some reading assessments at the k-3 level and so i'm really excited about this and i can't wait to get to work and show you all what we're doing back to you guys thank you dr mannion welcome to the table so they have two more items um one is transportation it's important for the public to know and the investment the agreement the board entered into we have a new bus contract and with that came random buses so some features of the new buses which is exciting for people to know about are one just a generally smoother ride than newer buses

050but more cameras and in addition to that four emergency exits instead of two and the last one was more cameras more scary cameras so um we're looking for a smoother safer ride clearly that's what we want to do with our transportation um into dean's point we talked about three students who missed the bus on uh i guess that was the first day of school dean and david jones is so responsive from all-star she's she's great um really a smooth start there's always an issue apparently quality bus stop or something like that but really in general of students we um around with a number of buses around town a very safe and smooth start regarding transportation and then finally it's really important to remind our families and our staff and everyone in the public here in

051town that we are in in-person meeting mode when we talk about normalcy and relaunching we started once we got into the point halfway through the year last year where we were able to not follow the mass mandate anymore a mandatory executive order we started moving toward in-person meetings because we finished the year strong with them we are fully continuing in-person meetings with conferences ppt's other kinds of meetings open houses that just mentioned center school's open house last night which was in person so the first offer the first invitation the first choice is always in person um we will absolutely accommodate zoom meetings or if a parent has to phone in because they don't have access to zoom or google needs or anything like that and so that's also offered to parents if they would like

052that but in person is all of our first trucks of course to have those interactions and build bridges and build those relationships i'm really excited about that um anecdotally i was told a number of parents probably the majority of us are in the quick meetings have wanted to do virtual meetings which is actually i didn't think it would be that many but more have asked for hey can we just have a virtual meeting you know i've got got a break at work but i don't have time to drive all the way you know back back into town those kind of things so um anyway really excited about in-person meetings as well um and really relaunching with a lot of energy looking forward thank you all i took one question on buses are we observing that

053more kids are taking the bus than last year because we had a lot of kids being driven last year we're seeing a lot of nods it's good okay thank you dr brooke are there any questions okay so now we can do subcommittee reports uh joy isn't here to do the facility subcommittee so i'll pinch it we had two meetings just recently on the 23rd of august and the first of september as a board we have a special meeting to go through that stuff so i don't need to repeat it but i will do a brief update for the public um and for the board on one item so for the public we've had we have two big projects the vhs locker room project and the whiskey near wall project both of those have had bidding

054challenges right the bids came in higher than we had budgeted so we've been working through those bids making the decisions we've had to scale back the scope a little bit on the boys locker room project and we've uh we really discussed discussed what to do on the whisker wall but in the end we needed to go ask the board of selectmen for 117 000 more for the uh for the locker room project and uh 164 000 more for the uh wall projects so for the board we had the board selectmen meeting last night and joy presented with paul checkout and uh horoscope is approved both of them for the additional funding so the next step is that we'll go to the board uh finance next point instead from today and i think paul and joy

055will represent us as well in that presentation and then hopefully i'm not sure if that's the end of it if that's a first selection whether anything has to go back to a town meeting because he's voted referendum in the past but i don't think so but we just need to confirm the funding will go interestingly enough the funding for the whiskey near wall additional funding is actually coming from an underrun we had on one of our other school projects the control system that was here so they were able to just reallocate within a single bonding project so just project money that they reallocated so so neither of them is net additional money for the town which is good so so that's the only update i will say that dan caldwell so any questions okay all

056right uh consent agenda i will move up the border for the items on the consent agenda which are new hires resignations and degree changes second all right if i may i always want to congratulate our teachers uh and others with degree changes um and so they're on the consent agenda we can take a look at that there's a number of them this year so we're really proud of everybody who's had degree changes we're excited for them and then i'm going to be turning over the reins in a second to dr man to formally introduce our new world language and multilingual lingual learner curriculum coordinator that's rodrigo who will be coming to us from new town she's here tonight so can you say a few words about it absolutely i would like to um introduce catherine

057abraco who is here a little bit prior to her start date so um as you can see she's going to be joining us as the newest member of the administrative team um and before i get into catherine i just want to also as everyone has already done so thank everybody um for participating particularly um sharon and mr belanda mark um there we were able to have a rigorous process as we usually do and um we were lucky enough to be able to invite catherine to join us here so catherine has served for the last couple years last seven or eight years at newtown high school as a spanish teacher and recently a dean of students she also has experience serving on many school and district committees and brings with her kind of vast knowledge both

058personally and professionally for not only on world language but also for our multi-language learners and a k-12 perspective so we're excited to welcome catherine she will begin officially on the 30th of september but we're excited to have her with us so welcome [Applause] okay thank you welcome any uh questions on the consent agenda okay it's been moved and seconded by mrs fernandez all in favor all right it's kind of improved it's okay so now we'll get into the uh regular the core part of the agenda we have four agenda items this evening the first one is a technology update from the college of director all right good evening everyone i always look forward to giving this report at the start of the year i like to get to have the opportunity to go after the

059principles tell about the start of their year it's an exciting time um i'll share a couple of updates and things we did over the summer um most of this work um could obviously not be done and uh all who had a part in this seth craig who's sitting right here with us tonight cathy calavito our high school technician uh rich squires over at huckleberry uh barbara mccarthy at wisconsin and for a short period of time we actually have rejoining us for a little while susan schmidt who we brought out of retirement to help us start the school year um as we needed her so thanks to her for joining us for a little while um one person i don't always get to thank and i want to take the opportunity to do as well is

060denise walsh our information systems manager she handles everything power school we work very collaboratively together because a lot of what she does drives a lot of our other systems to give our accounts and roster our students and get our chromebook logins going and all of that good stuff along with everybody else who supports and helps us too the one-to-one project is a uh um it's a true team effort and so with the high school we also do have glad clatus kato help us out um and at wisconsin um steps in and help us out when we are able to and we are grateful because like i said the one-to-one program um in managing all those chromebooks and making sure that students all set is is a true team effort um so uh i decided to

061also go with the theme of re reset and relaunch so technology decided to also look at a way to reset and relaunch this involved redistributing our chromebooks back to the schools where they need to go if you remember during the start of the pandemic and during the pandemic we needed chromebooks at home we needed students to have them and now we have revitalized and reformatted our one-to-one program to be able to offer devices all the way through k-12 for the entire district devices stay home at center school and huckleberry we have a new program at wisconia that allows students to participate in the one-to-one program grades 5-8 and our high school program remains unchanged and students all have the option to bring their own device as well so we're very excited to be able for

062the first year to offer a full k-12 one-to-one slash byod program with that also we we looked to re-engage with some of our vendors um we had a little bit of a break from our data privacy law during uh coven in which we were able to work with vendors and so now we have to kind of reset our agreements with our vendors and we continue to work on that making sure that we're entering into our agreements and offering quality services to our students while protecting their data and information as well if you remember i gave a report back in the spring i talked about a cohort we were joining with the state of connecticut to develop a technology strategic plan the timing worked out perfectly this was a state cohort developed by the commission of

063educational technology with the state we are doing the district strategic planning right now through the fall and so we had an opportunity along with 14 other school districts to join this cohort we have a small group that participated here in district over the summer they volunteered their time to join the cohort meetings and it is appreciated the technology committee we had some people volunteer their time as well this summer to work through a district readiness survey that we're getting ready to submit ahead of the september meeting i will say they tried to get a cohort going some progress in the summer but with a lot of vacations throughout the state and time off it was slow and steady but we have a meeting next week with the state and we're looking forward to a november

064finish of the technology strategic plan as of now and so that's very exciting technology committee's excited folks that are on it very excited and we're looking forward to bringing that to the board this winter the other thing we focused on this summer i've been talking about it a lot cyber security i mentioned it during our security demonstration and meeting we implemented securely which is our student filtering and monitoring solution for chromebooks using student google accounts whether they're here in the district or at home provides better safety and security of not only our devices but also student activity online tomorrow's the big day we get to turn on for the staff multi-factor authentication we've been working since the spring to do that it is a requirement now of cyber security insurance uh it is very very

065important as we have the obligation to protect our data our systems and all of our operations um quickly multi-factor authentication for those who don't know requires a secondary device to acknowledge who you are and allow you to log into a machine device google anything like that staff i got to work with each school staff during our first couple days back um very very positive everybody certainly understands um it's an extra step to log in once a day to do this but we all understand how important it is um and so tomorrow's our big day to turn that on um throughout the fall we'll continue to look at cyber security protecting our environment looking at um new um endpoint protection on our staff devices and then you know more encryption within our network as we work

066through that ever-changing field and then finally the biggest thing we worked on this summer and i do have an update on it is i know the board is aware from um our meeting back on july 11th is our canada lake technology package um a very big undertaking by many people um especially i will have to give him credit um rob tenzen from arcadis um helped us out um very very very helpful um in helping get that technology package through um you also was in the package the bids actually went out on friday afternoon and so we've been sharing those outlet vendors they're public we have a mandatory walkthrough with vendors tomorrow at three o'clock where they'll get to see the school ask their questions we'll find out who's bidding on the projects um we're going

067to close all those on september 22nd and hopefully quick turn around make some quick decisions and then start scheduling and planning everybody to come in for the big opening on january 3rd so it was a big undertaking a lot of people to thank there um and frankly at this point now i'm just excited to see it all get installed and turn on and so that's all i have for tonight it was a great very busy uh but great start to the school year and we look forward to the fall and january third awesome thank you and i'm looking forward to that technology in fact if it was fun hearing all that fun stuff that's going to be broken into the school so yeah i think we'll have to find a way to uh to do

068some testing in december when uh we get to turn it on especially that blue system all right thank you um and just so the board knows and for the public area just don't step down for a second um another person with a degree changed recently he's getting embarrassed right now eric hoffman um earned his master's degree this summer in educational technology so congratulations [Applause] all right so next up is a facilities update and i'd like to invite dan caldwell up to the podium to give us an update on all the different facilities projects i just want to start off by saying that typically on wednesdays tara and i will call each other and decide what we're going to wear i want to start off by saying this is a busy summer around the district we

069have a number of projects going on i have 10 to 12 that i'm going to touch on this evening i'd like to start off by saying with the comments from the principals on startup school that they mention our custodial and meet the staff because throughout the course of the summer they do a tremendous job at rehabilitating rejuvenating our 461 000 square feet of schools and we'll just convert that that's about 10 and a half people for school that our teams take care of and dress up and get prepared for them thank you for thank you all for acknowledging the hard work that they put in for us so we have a number of projects probably a little help perhaps but give it a second it'll come there it goes um [Music] and that work included

070demolition of existing walls and floor finishes new fixtures and going back into restoration including insulation uh ceramic tile floors new wall finishes uh some painting masonry other forward placement screen like tile only plumbing fixtures with hands-free chambers bathroom partitions led lighting uh we've eliminated paper towels by installing electric hand grinders so it is a very nice addition to our bathrooms that have not reached aspirationally as we would like but they look terrific if you have an opportunity in their way or at night and take a look that project is complete with the exception of a couple of new pencils trim pieces that supply from supply chain issues that have held up the next project is also a high school project which is our hvac control project that is by far the largest and most far-reaching

071project that we have going on this is a project that's designed to give us control of our system and allow us to monitor what's working at better diagnostics and so that as we move forward we can give a better comfort a healthier environment for our students and staff um at the moment the contractor started working on that project as soon as school led up last year they've been working all summer now that students have returned we're shifting gears and putting a second shift on installation so we're not interfering with classroom work and disturbing the students as we proceed we're already starting to take over the control with the new allergen system which will run the controls we expect that we'll have full control of the heating system by first or second week in october which

072is when next on my list was the boys locker room bob had touched based on the status of that looking for proper funding and getting ready to continue to move forward with that much needed project we also here at the school uh did a roof repair over the main office it's a long time problematic area about a thousand square feet of roof was replaced it's taken down to the deck it has been restored that project wrapped up at the end of august uh it included new roofing um new flashing on the parapet walls and uh new installation and so forth and that will fill up was to take place also contributed to failed insulation which had created some cleaning situations winter we also have a guidance wing roof replacement project this project was uh was

073an alternate on a previous roofing project that incorporated the athletic area of the school it's moving forward now we have recently gone out to bid and as of today the architect is reviewing the bids and we'll be looking at the middles and getting ready to move forward with that a lot of concerns about supply chain issues with roofing projects um but in speaking with contractors we feel that there's a very strong possibility that we can move forward with this before uh before winter from the control of how close this closeness there's also a media sensor air conditioning project the air conditioning in the high school media center has been failed for a little over a year and currently it is with the design team getting specifications put together to go out to bid problematic on

074that is the availability of equipment we understand there's as much as a 14 time on getting air conditioning in the good news is that the heating end of the system is still functioning so as we move forward and when it cools off we'll be able to provide a little better level of comfort and we have been in the first first couple weeks of startup gymnasium floors here at the high school both a large and small gym or a brief order finish this was an in-house project completed by our maintenance and custodials they finished it looks like a mirror they did a fantastic job and that will make our athletes look better when they're on at the middle school it was mentioned earlier that there is an electric surface replacement project and our update project that

075project contract has been rewarded there is a almost a 12-month wait time on the switch here that we're looking for so a project that we hope will be done this summer looks like it would be a project for next summer however the contract was awarded so we could take advantage of some some savings before there were really large price increases so that project moves forward another electric related project that took place at wilson middle school is back in august there was a lightning strike an underground electric service between the street and the back of the building every source came in it is a primary airline so every source came in and replaced the underground service from the street all the way around buildings the good news for the schools is that that project was not

076never sourced the same storm also also also got a water pump at the middle school and that was replaced by our water system operator interruption to service based on that and the last thing on my list is the gymnasium veneer restoration project or the audio mass wall as we've all come come to know about and i mentioned earlier that that continues to be in the works we've been waiting for an engineer's report on some some existing conditions that we did not become aware of until they was completed so that report came in like this afternoon and i had time moving forward um we reviewed several sample uh rfps for public condition studies and we're taking peninsula right now taking pieces from several of them he's working on that and dan's going to be providing him

077with the floor plans for the high school and the school we're trying to get that issue within the next couple of weeks the way mandatory walk through the buildings and then he responds about two or three weeks after that so once awarded we probably wouldn't even start the actual inspection like deep inspection which so this is deeper than what techton did maybe five years ago yes yes and are there any questions for dan thank you for the very thorough update appreciate that all right next up kevin let me stay up there next two topics are yours except this food service food service contract for the 2022-2023 school year as recommended by director of business and operations so uh ken why don't i turn it over sure so the rfp template is actually provided by the

078state and we are not really allowed to deviate from it uh we have to fill in a lot of data on it we are about to make addendums to it afterwards this conference approved but it has to be all approved by the state the rfp uh basically the rfp response from the food center service management company becomes the contract so the rp was sent directly to eight different food service management companies and posted online it was viewed by five other companies besides those eight two companies attended our mandatory pre-bid walkthrough the uh whitson was the only company to actually submit a proposal um the term of the contract is for the the 22-23 school year with four possible one-year menus and then we would the contract has a break-even guarantee so there's no impact on

079the operating budget and we have been happy with what's in the service over the years and we're glad the prices of food in terms of what students are charged or grants are charged as the case may be uh did they go off at all in this contract or not we have not raised our food prices to our students in the time they've been here six years and that's more continuing correct great and the program has actually been doing quite well and the contract document's been reviewed by jewels um that's why and and more importantly by the state they say have the final say on the contract any questions any post so next up is the transportation hunt i believe that the board approved the five-year all-star transportation contract beginning in the 2022-2023 school year as

080recommended by director of business and operations ken post by mrs fernandez so in this case jules working with our old contract developed the rfp uh sent it out to six transportation companies uh four companies sent in questions in writing which and typically when companies send in questions we send the responses back to everybody who we invited to bid so that was done and those responses were shared with all six companies uh two companies submitted proposals uh all-star transportation our current provider was the lowest trader and we did go over those results with the finance committee back in the spring the contract is for five years uh as dr girl mentioned before with the fleeting new buses the increase in cost for the first year was six percent and then roughly four percent in each of

081the next four years so the contract we have is consistent with what the finance committee reviewed yes [Music] okay that's the end of our new business uh we have no old business uh there is no public comment um so right we're up to the kenwood lake elementary school building project and um okay um so in terms of construction all of the stairwells and some of this was repeating but uh all the stairwells except for that main one in the hallway um space is taking shape and it's important to note in case you guys haven't already saved the date the 20th of this month is when we will get to tour the facility with board of finance and border selection um in terms of technology also kind of repeating over here eric but the technology package

082has been approved by the state the bids already went out and then and the mapping of room numbers and the keying system for them are also currently being worked on uh in terms of furniture and equipment all of those items were ordered back in april so we are awaiting delivery for items that were procured during that ff phase and in terms of moving we are waiting on a schedule um but the moving contractor has been chosen and so we're just waiting on an updated timeline from omg very exciting questions i think the last time was around six o'clock because the nbc meets at seven usually at huckleberry um and dr p is well aware of that so we're making sure that is all worked out with that we're already talking about that and um by

083grade level i think it's something's working out so there should be a way to park down the elected officials to park down by the trailer okay okay thank you um daddy what uh i was thinking i would try to summarize the back to school updates from all the principals and dr grill and maybe really highlight that everything is really back to normal and in-person meetings and kids eating in the cafeterias and getting all their jobs back at center school and huckleberry so that was very exciting next i thought it would be helpful to recap dan's facility update because there was a lot in there and i think most people probably don't follow that when we go through our budget updates and everything so that was a lot of great detail and then third i would

084recap the cles update and the progress on construction because i think people are always looking to see that update that facilities kind of standing out just because there's so many like big projects that people are aware of so it'll be good to kind of maybe highlight that this week oh yeah okay thank you um the upcoming events okay at center school first grade open house is wednesday september 14th at 6 30. picture day is thursday september 22nd huckleberry has open house on monday september 19th um second grade is at 5 00 pm third grade is at 6 30 i believe with the exception of mrs shaw right and this is shot third grade class and all fourth grade is tuesday september 20th at five o'clock whiskey near house triads for fall sports taking place this

085week and next week the pto meeting is thursday september 8th at 9 30 in the morning in the seminar room and the open house dates for wisconner are fifth grade september 15th sixth grade september 22nd and 7th and 8th grade september 29th and school picture day at whiskey near is friday september 23rd and at brookfield high school open house is tomorrow night at 6 00. um wednesday september 14th and thursday september 15th are underclassmen photos and friday september 23rd is the homecoming carnival from four to six that's all i have thank you all right so uh last item on the agenda is that we're going to move into executive session for the purpose of discussing attorney-client privilege information and the superintendent's goals second second practices all in favor for everybody who's listening on the tv

086executive session is just the board we'll be stopping the broadcast at this point and there will be no motions made in executive session so thank you for listening this evening and we'll see you at the next week