001[Music] i'd like to call the uh a regular meeting of the brookfield board of education to order for june 1st uh 2022. uh will everyone please join me in rising for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we have four members of our board of education uh here tonight this is a really interesting time of year because as as parents we also have a competing thing so we actually have two of our members off doing other family things with schools uh with their children um and uh we have one out in quarantine from covet so so there's the four of us you got the best four for tonight and i would say that
002on whichever four showed up on any given night you have the best four um this is a really fun evening for uh for us as a board and because the biggest part of our agenda is recognition and as a board we are so proud of the educators and the staff and the students in our district that we look forward to this event every year to recognize our teachers of the year recognize our staff members of the year and to meet the top 10 students face to face and get to ask them some fun questions so so i thank you all for coming tonight this is probably the biggest crowd we've had for the year um so we're going to start uh with recognition and we're going to start with the teachers of the year so
003um dr brill why don't i turn it over to you and let you do introductions and then we'll have the uh the teachers come up and uh get some recognition absolutely so um first i'd like to recognize excuse me um uh mr conklin and uh mrs gordon who is here tonight with us for all the work they do on teacher of the year and staff member of the year there's a lot of coordinating a lot of organizing of meetings and committees and surveys um and so we're just greatly appreciative of their work to make all of this happen um so i would ask when it's teacher of the year and staff member of the year time come on up we have scrolls we have certificates come shake the board member's hands we'd love to see
004you up here we're going to start with the high school the teacher of the year from brookfield high school stephanie vivas can you come up stephanie [Applause] congratulations wisconier middle school kylie evans kylie come on up congratulations our teacher of the year from huckleberry hill kim garcia [Applause] kim's taking it all in it's beautiful is garcia and not only the center school teacher of the year but the brookfield district teacher of the year sarah doherty come [Applause] on congratulations hold on so i just want to say a couple of words and i'll do this with the families and the students that are here um we're recognizing the teachers of the year who are elected by their peers as the cream of the crop in teaching for this year teachers are the heartbeat of what makes
005schools what they are right i think every student here probably remembers their favorite teachers whether it was as a kindergartner all the way up through high school and and teachers make such lasting impacts on on that they've made lasting impacts on all of us all of the adults in the room all of the students in the room and they are what makes our district what it is and uh and i'll talk about the staff in a second because they're the unsung heroes that make the district of what it is the uh but the um but the teachers i think we're recognizing the teachers of the year and all of you well done right i think it's so cool but the but you're representing all of your peers and uh and uh and i'm very proud
006and the board is very proud of the teaching staff we here have here in brookfield schools and this recognition is very well deserved and is a indicator of what the quality of our schools are so thank you all thanks bob [Applause] and now it's time to recognize our staff members of the year and we we started this a number of years ago because we have so many uh various staff whether paraprofessional secretary maintenance our nurses whomever it might be that to bob's point many times are either behind the scenes or just unsung and we wanted to make sure not only folks from the schools but even staff from central office have an opportunity to be recognized among their peers which is how they're nominated and then recognized publicly here at the board meeting so we're
007going to start this time i'll reverse it and that we don't do a district staff member of the year we recognize by location so our center school staff member of the year who isn't with us tonight is mr cordero so a round of applause for frank oh craig [Applause] thanks frank cordero from huckleberry christian ramos there he is mr ramos [Applause] from wisconsin middle school officer sean flynn come on up congratulations from brookfield high school you see her in the front office karen howe come on [Applause] thank you congratulations this is how congratulations and from the central office our special education secretary kristen lanice come on up kristen thank you mrs congratulations i'll also say a few words about our staff members of the year it's an organization like our school district is a lot
008more than just our teachers as i said the teachers are the heartbeat because they're the front of what is going on every day but as all of us have seen whether it's special education security janitorial office staffs and administration it is a it's to make the organization run well for all of us requires a lot of skills a lot of different skills and it is so great to see the staff members here who are also representing the other staffs um and have been recognized by their peers um you know get this recognition so congratulations to all of you and you are also the heartbeat of what makes brookfield school district as a district as an organization really run and run smoothly so thank you all [Applause] so next up we're going to recognize the top
00910 graduating seniors who've been sitting here patiently in front of us and saying are you going to get to us one of these days so so are you going to do this dr brilliant actually actually mr belton if you could turn it over to me and i'll bring it over to mr belanda to bring it up here to work with his uh eight of his top ten that are here this evening and uh the opportunity for the board that i know you look forward to all right so welcome everybody uh thank you for coming out tonight we celebrated a little bit earlier around six o'clock we had uh eight of the top ten as a parent uh which is eighty percent of the uh top ten which a parent commented would not make the top
01010 happy that they scored 80 percent they would certainly like to be 100. um but we'll take 8 out of 10 is certainly not bad but we had a nice uh recognition where students came up uh they're presented with a gift from the board of education i was able to share that a little earlier uh today they talked a little bit about some of their teachers their plans for college uh and one of the things that i think is resounding that uh came through and these are our top academic achievers but each one of them had something to say about the teachers that they had and i think the the one overwhelming piece was engagement and caring that these teachers cared about them they could tell they created engaging lessons that had them really connected
011with the content and then another part that most of them mentioned and i think they'd all agree is that they liked that they were pushed to go above and beyond what they needed to what what they had so whether it was differentiation in a classroom where kids were at a higher level and they were pushed a little bit harder or just the content in general was just continued to be challenging for them um so it was it was great to hear and i think our teachers uh well i don't know all of our teachers of the year that are here today i do know miss vivas over there and that's definitely a characteristic that she has which doesn't surprise me one bit that our students recognize that's the important part in teaching so now i'll
012turn it over to our students i'll introduce them one by one in no particular order uh they are ready to go uh so first i'll introduce shree who will come up and tell a little bit about herself where she's going to school and what she's planning on majoring and then we'll turn it over to the board so shruti come on up [Applause] um so hi um i'm shrewdy um i'm gonna be attending case western reserve university which is in cleveland ohio um and i chose that school because it provided me an opportunity that i probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere else they have a direct medical admissions program so basically even though i'm a senior in high school i've got a guaranteed spot in case western's medical school and i've always wanted to become a doctor
013so that was just like a dream opportunity for me so i'll be studying biochem for the first four years and then going on to medical school there and yeah i'm really excited for all the opportunities um and you know getting my getting involved and like different things on campus and um exploring as much as i can so yeah yep cool so we've we haven't talked about what order we're going to go in as a board but we're going to kind of spread around questions i think we should expect two to three questions from the board for each person we'll try to make them fun and light who wants to go first anyway okay go ahead okay i have a i have a few for all of you guys but um what was the most meaningful
014assignment that a teacher ever gave you oh um i think um the most meaningful assignment i've ever had to finish is probably this year in ap lit we made a personal theory paper that was like our last assignment it was like a seven to ten page essay and it was um basically like we have the freedom to choose any topic and write about your thoughts about that topic so it felt like a very like sophisticated assignment to give seniors and it felt like very um i guess accurate to give to like seniors because it's um we're kind of like talking about all of our experiences throughout high school and you know presenting it as a cohesive you know piece of writing um so i thought i learned a lot about myself so i was writing
015about morality so i was using a lot of the stuff that i've learned you know throughout my years of high school and just like you know living and it was it was really insightful to um just like put that down all put that down on paper and it was i mean it's definitely a piece of um writing that i'm proud of that's great thank you so i'll go next i guess so um so how many years have you been and this isn't the question this is just to give me context how many years have you been in the brookfield district um i've moved here in fifth grade so that's great so you've experienced so all pretty much all of middle school and high school so you know we're we're a board of education so we're
016always always interested in the views of the students on what it is that either you think makes brookfield district special that we need to keep making strong or things that you think that we ought to be working on right to make it you know to improve it and i was wondering if you had any thoughts for us on things we ought to be working on right that is what is important for brookfield schools or you alternatively you know what made the schools just special for you yeah um i mean starting off with what made the school so special i moved here in fifth grade and you know i was scared as a new student um you know making friends and stuff but i think brookfield like it's a small district um but the beauty of
017it is that you end up having classes with someone um at some point in your life and i think by the end of our senior year i think i can speak for all of us when i say that we're all like very cohesive as a grade um and i think just like the environment that it creates like we have so many great teachers and um everyone's like kind of like pushing each other to do better um like i definitely don't think i would have like strived as much if i didn't have like so many peers who you know were challenging themselves just as much and you kind of like you just kind of like build off of each other's energy and it makes you a better student um in terms of like improving i think
018the district is already working towards this but a lot of like working towards like making everything a lot more like equitable i know we have a subcommittee relating to that on the board and you know the involvement of like different things about human rights and stuff i think the board of education the district is all already making strides towards that which is really amazing and i think that'll just make our students even more you know capable um as like citizens and like society so thank you so i'm gonna let you sit down thank you so much congratulations [Applause] it's my pleasure to now introduce nora so norah come on up hi everyone um i'm nora gravgaard i'm going to the university of michigan next fall and i'm studying biochemistry so because you're such a great
019athlete how has sports shaped you as an individual or as a student definitely um so i've been part of the brookfield swim and dive program since i was in fifth grade and i can honestly say the coaches and the team um really made me the individual i am today i've learned about perseverance and how to work towards a goal and definitely time management and then just some of the girls on the swim and dive team are some of the best friends i've made in my whole life we're all pushing each other in the pool and in the classroom so definitely that and i've also been a competitive gymnast my whole life since i was 2 years old so i definitely spend a lot of time in the gym so sometimes it is hard to balance
020my schoolwork and to balance my sports but it's definitely taught me that if you put in the time and effort and um you really practice and work hard you could do anything thank you speaking of like how busy you were how do you how did you manage that like the sports and the like what did you what would you say was your best like coping skill or support that's definitely um that's a good question i would definitely just say the people i surround myself with especially these people up here we're all very involved we all care a lot about our academics so just having other people to go through it with you and to motivate you is definitely a factor and then my parents they've always been super supportive of me they've always pushed me
021to do my best and they've also always told me that it's okay to be stressed out it's okay to say no to something if you have too much on your plate so i think just really finding that balance of academics and fun and extracurriculars awesome cool thank you thank you congratulations [Applause] next up is mr fox uh hi my name is william fox i will be studying biological sciences at cornell university okay um i have a fun question for you okay what is the most outrageous thing on your bucket list every single bucket list could be a place you want to go or an activity you want to do but yeah so um recently uh over the weekend i saw a top gun maverick it was very good by the way um and it really
022made me want to skydive either okay either skydive or um just be in like one of those small planes while having um someone else fly it um it's not really outrageous because i feel like that's like the common answer um but definitely after seeing that movie it's definitely moved up there on my bucket list so i'd have to say that yeah all right so my question for you is a little more serious so thinking about college versus high school right you're coming from a small town in in western connecticut and you're going to a pretty good size university what what is it about brookfield's education program especially at the high school that is preparing you for your college experience um i definitely feel like um the rigor of the courses i was one of the
023kids like the people here at the top 10 who kind of started that ap class track early and they had like a plan kind of going through high school um and i feel like the staff um were definitely very capable in their ability to teach these very hard subjects like ap calculus ap chemistry um and kind of just going through those classes with um just having a good teacher and you know going through a hard curriculum but also being able to kind of conceptualize it and just go through it kind of made me realize that i'm not really afraid of taking on kind of that more harder um class mindset like cornell is a very rigorous university and i know it's not going to be like a cake walk but i know that um kind
024of my time here and just going through these classes i'll be able to manage it okay thank you congratulations thank you [Applause] and well i don't know that i could help you with anything on your bucket list but i can share that i believe dr brielle is an experienced skydiver i think he's gone twice uh i believe mr bolando you're an experienced guy i went once but his son uh never again okay um but i believe you might have a flight instructor in the family and but if you ever want to get that steak we can you know it was good steak at the prom we agree on the food so up next is bailey mahoney come on up bailey [Applause] uh hello everyone my name is bailey mahoney and i will be attending vassar
025college in the fall what club did you find most valuable at the high school um i think one of the clubs that i found most valuable like throughout my time at the high school was probably peer counseling i actually didn't realize that the club existed my freshman year so i didn't join until i was a sophomore but i think the peer counselors were such a group of individuals that were really kind and compassionate and just being in that group i could tell that they really wanted to make the school a better place so it was amazing to be able to bounce ideas off of those individuals and we all had different ideas of how to make the school a better place and how to reach out to individuals and something i really liked about that
026was that we didn't just focus on larger groups like we did have big events like st baldrick's which happened recently where we raised a lot of money for foundations but we also focused a lot on individual which is something that i really valued we had people that if you saw someone at lunch that was looking a little sad or that the teachers knew was having a harder time like adapting to the school environment we'd have someone specifically go and talk to them and make sure that they were having a good time or if they needed any help so i think just being in a group that valued the individual so much and that really cared about the students was something that i valued a lot great thank you why did you choose vassar and what
027are you going to major in or if you're undecided what are you considering uh yeah so actually i was considering going a lot further south just because of the warmth because i don't exactly like the winters in connecticut but i chose vassar college just because it's a really small school there's only 2 500 kids because it's just undergraduate there's no grad students there but something that i actually really value about brookfield that i was hoping to continue at vassar college is just like how personable the professors are and how much like here at brookfield i really felt that i could go to my teachers and that i really had close connections with them individually not just in the classroom itself i a lot of times would go to extra help with my teachers or i
028would ask questions after class and that's something that i really value because one of the best ways that i learned personally is by asking questions and by staying after and making sure that i really have that understanding and that's something that vassar has that i think is really important is having the small school so the professors have office hours all the time the president's house is open at all times they said that she gives you chocolate if you come visit her and i also i really like the location because it's close to my home but more than that just vassar is known for it's a liberal arts school so it's known for a lot of people double major in hard science and also in art which i think is something really cool because those are
029both things that i value at the moment i'm planning in majoring primarily in biology because i'm interested in veterinary sciences i was actually a veterinary assistant over the summer which was really cool so that's always been my passion that's my goal right now i definitely could see it changing as i go through all the different classes but yeah that's where i'm at at the moment great great great congratulations congratulations [Applause] i i will say that when my daughter started applying to college her first four applications were to colleges in mississippi and alabama for the exact same reason she says i'm done with the winter and she's now living in burlington vermont next up we ironically have somebody that's going to a warmer climate so uh samina come on up [Applause] hi everyone my name is
030samita and i will be attending the university of texas as a national merit scholar in the fall and i will be majoring in finance okay what do you feel is the biggest need for students at brookfield high school okay yeah that's like such a like there's like so many answers i could definitely give um but i feel like the biggest need right now um i feel like so as our top 10 um fellow students have mentioned i feel like our grade is very cohesive um but i've noticed that like especially in the younger grades it's like because of covid i think there's been a lack of like connection and like just human conversation um and just like a development of friendship and interest in extracurriculars which i feel like is essential to the high school
031um experience and just like wanting to take that um first step and get involved in things i feel like just motivation to do that i feel like is lacking for some people so if there was any way to like just encourage more um like community involvement i'd say yeah that's really helpful thank you thank you so i get to do the more fun questions this time so um we just recognized the staff members of the year so other than teachers right who who in the schools has had the biggest impact on you personally and you can go back to middle school or high school or whatever whatever age group you'd like to um so i think this is like um this is a good question i really relied on the guidance counselors this year for
032a multitude of reasons i think the opportunity and like the process of applying to colleges is extremely stressful and overwhelming and i think that my guidance counselor just made the process so much like it was it was so much smoother and like you could always know like you could turn to her for guidance um and even um this year like i experienced death in my family and so i experienced a lot of grief on going through that and so like just having someone to turn to and like talk through my feelings and like even if i wasn't ready to go to class that day i'd be able to go to her and just like have someone to talk to about um experiencing hard feelings so yeah that's great congratulations on your national merit scholarship thank
033you wait i was going to ask to meet a very important question it's a hard one but now you could stay there who's your most favorite neighbor and what will you miss most about her my favorite neighbor is joy and i will miss your very cool care thank you up next is uh future husky so greg come on up [Applause] oh i'm supposed to say first and last name yep and what college you're going through all right major all right all right i can do that um my name is greg friedman uh i'm going to yukon stores and i'm also i mean i'm on the side as of now just general engineering but like i don't know i'm thinking maybe linguistics maybe computer science a lot of cool stuff out there you know very cool
034so i'm glad i get to go first because you'll be greatly missed on the youth commission i must say in addition to having a great sense of humor i thoroughly enjoyed our talks and value your opinion and all the input you have on many topics and i really feel like you have so much to offer this world so what impression do you want or how do you want to be remembered at brookfield because i think you have left a great impression on a lot of people i'm thinking okay you're never at a loss of words true but i don't know i guess as someone who um did things that weren't done before i guess like you know someone i don't i think trailblazer is a bit corny because you know it's a high school i'm
035not like you know going through the bushes you know whatever but like i feel like i carved out a distinct niche for myself that would be remembered okay i'd like to ask i don't know if it was rose or bob asked someone else but the same question i'd like another perspective on what you think brookfield does really well as a district and what you think could be improved on i feel like i mean i i mean i feel like there's there's obviously you know a few teachers that really like you know i think of in particular but you know um that really hold the school together um although i will say that the school is often constrained by bureaucracy um and i think that's something that very much like could be changed but it's something
036that could just in terms of a rigidity um if that makes sense um that you know i'm all for rules but i think they should be you know seeing whether they're useful or not whether they're helpful to education or not um i mean i'm a more flexible person or you know i like i prefer less structure um but you know there's yeah that's that's about it thank you congratulations go huskies [Applause] up next is trump come on up trump [Applause] hi my name is trem emplokio and i'm going to new york university in the fall i'll be mine or majoring in data science and minoring in biology trem as a leader yourself and you are one in so many ways um what do you feel the leaders of today and tomorrow should prioritize um that's
037a great question um i think the leaders of today should um focus not just on themselves but focus on motivating uh members of their team i feel like it's important to have have done something meaningful yourself but what's even greater than being a leader is being able to lift others up and help others out when they need it and i think that's really what being a leader is at the end of the day so yeah thank you you're welcome so um trim one of the things we stress in uh in brookfield high school for our leaders is community involvement um has how have you been active in our community and how do you expect to be active in new york city which is a big place oh yeah totally um there's there's many ways i'm
038involved in our community um i'm in i do cross-country indoor track tennis in the fall i'm in student government um i'm in national honor society we do i feel very connected to our school and i feel very proud of that and i i'm very happy with all the connections i've made and all the people i've gotten to know in these different lenses um in at new york university i kind of hope to continue the things that i've been doing here i want to get involved in in sports and and things like that i want to meet new people um i know we don't have too many like cultural clubs here but i'm hoping to get involved in like asian asian cultural union um up in new york university um just more opportunities to meet people
039and and get to know more perspectives about people's lives that may may not um be available here in brookfield um i think that'd be a great lesson to learn great yeah thank you congratulations thank you and our last student doesn't really need much of an introduction because i think the board knows him well uh he will embody once a bobcat always a bobcat realistically um so he's going to come up and talk but i do want to let the families know as well i did promise you you've been here for a while now so when you're done here you do have my permission to leave and i think the board would agree once we're done here that you you know you did a great job sitting up front but i'll turn it over to uh
040mr bogus [Applause] so in case you didn't know i'm going to quinnipiac university and i'm majoring in mathematics with a four plus one dual degree to become a like high school teacher basically so so do you think um you're fully prepared for college given the impact of covid um i think yes i am and partially because of like the way that the teachers stuck through things even when it was difficult and we were online um but also just like individually how i um handled things when that happened because i made sure to stick with what i was doing and like just thinking like in terms of mental health obviously we all took a toll with that um so keeping on top of things and making sure to stay like connected with friends and not lose
041those connections just because you can't necessarily see each other and especially going into college where you're not going to see somebody every single day so you need to like learn how to can make those connections on a more individual basis you've accomplished a lot so other than your service to the board what are you most proud of um i think one of the most one of the things i'm most proud of is the 20 000 grant that i got through voice for change recently because obviously like my main goal has been to improve education and obviously that's why i'm going into education um and like money isn't always something that's easy to get when it comes to education but when it's there i think it's important to take it so um there's so many different
042things that could be done and i think like my proposal in general just kind of compiled a whole bunch of different aspects to help everybody so okay congratulations thank you [Applause] and i i would be remiss if i didn't mention the two students that aren't here uh tonight unfortunately you'll be with us uh one of those students is jackson sharp who uh will be attending dartmouth uh in the fall and then the other student is samuel cotran who at this point i believe is still undecided that was the last that i heard but he made made a decision by now but i want to recognize those two as well so congratulations to that congratulations to all of you you've got some great futures ahead of you i love the involvement and the aspirations that you
043all have and i just will say one thing stay involved right no matter what you do whether you're in computer science or in the medical profession or even arts you know stay involved in your community it's what all of us have done and it is about the most rewarding thing you can do no matter what you do in life and and i'm looking forward to seeing you at awards night next monday and at graduation the following weekend so congratulations to all of you round of applause you're okay so that's uh that's uh our recognition for this evening and we're going to move on to the regular part of our agenda but i'm going to give it a pause right to let the room clear for those of you who aren't going to stay for the
044rest of our agenda thank you so much bye everyone congratulations bye tram oh yeah i feel like we could ask ben one more question he's still here he's still here we can ask him one more question all right so we're gonna uh we're gonna start up again so uh thank you for the pause for those of you who are watching next up on our agenda is the student representative report so ben you've just had a chance to talk at this podium and so we'll give you this is your last report right yes as far as i know i mean i don't know he may show up on the 15th depending on what there is to report so um just upcoming the we have a bunch of stuff going on for seniors obviously graduation is on
045yeah graduation on june 18th that's a saturday and the rehearsal the day before and then the grad walk is thursday of that previous week so that's getting the chance to go back through the schools that we like have gone to um since we're like little and seeing all those teachers so then before that we also have the senior trip to six flags which is wednesday and then also the grad party semi-formal at candlelight in on tuesday so it's a nice week of like events for seniors for clubs recently national honor society just had our induction to introduce the new members into the club so that was around 45 members we had and then also we had a retreat the other day to camp sloan which is a ymca camp and that was just doing a
046bunch of different team building exercises to kind of get to know each other and then also bond because i mean i won't be there but the juniors will be there for next year so and then peer counseling we had a very successful st baldrick's event so we had a few people come out shave their heads and then also a lot of donations were made in efforts of supporting the research for childhood cancer and then also we had an ice cream social today for students to grab a little bit of ice cream since it is pretty hot this week so and then future teachers we've had a successful word of the week program for this year this is our second year doing it which was kind of taken from dr ruby's program that she had for
047the district and is still going on so that was kind of our way of taking it and making it something that's more applicable to high schoolers because obviously the words that are complicated for kindergarteners don't always work for high schoolers so we made sure to help in that way because also like with the sat that was a big one where all these words help people not only understand what they mean but how to like the process of understanding what they mean and they can use that for other things and then also we participate in a community conversations program at the brookfield library discussing different topics around the field of education and then finally for the brookfield youth commission um i just wanted to say we're looking for more youth members because so looking for more
048youth members because a lot of the seniors are leaving and um just taking people to take over um and it's a great program for people to get involved in government before the end of high school so that's what i got good questions no i think we're good i just want to thank you this has been great having you at our board meetings keeping us up to date on what's going on in the schools especially at the high school my microphone's not on so just want to i want to thank ben for everything he's done with the board here this year i hope it was a good experience for you yeah it's been nice because like again going into education this is like my first step of just being involved so yeah i get a chance
049to see a little bit about the different levels of education you know with the board operates maybe at a different place than the in the classroom teacher so but you've been great so we wanted to give you a little bit of a gift so this is from the board and thank you congratulations like i said it's my favorite meeting of the year we get to give away presents um okay so next up on our agenda is written correspondence okay deborah spinickia ara yapoogian and nick schmidt wrote regarding the new statewide standards for health curriculum jen zen wrote regarding a letter to the connecticut general assembly and ray distefan wrote regarding school security okay uh next is approval aboard minutes i'll move the board approve the minutes from the regular meeting on may 18th second okay
050any comments or edits there was just one little thing um the executive board the executive session minutes i would just um move towards this present this doesn't mike marcus might not be super important go to the next line oh yeah oh yeah there you go um so that's the word superintendent needs to go to the next one yes so okay um so okay any other edits okay so um i'll uh propose that we approve it with a small amendment that uh uh that that that joyce recommends do we need to second okay that's fine all in favor all right okay um all right next up on our agenda is the uh superintendent's update so dr perot we'll turn it over to you thank you mr belton uh i'll be brief tonight i'm gonna talk a
051little bit about school security um give a brief update and also strategic planning and where we're at with things there so in terms of security it's very important that we recognize the school district stands in solidarity of course with evaldi texas and everything that happened in the tragedy last week security is on everyone's mind security is all of our responsibility um i mentioned i think the last couple of superintendent reports we talked about the work the ongoing work in some newly initiated work with the connecticut center for school safety and department of homeland security and emergency management services so we continue on that and specifically we've been working on the threat assessment module recently and i have to thank the administrative team and and everyone who's been involved and really being dialed in and engaged
052in that work uh and dr anne-marie bernhardt from western connecticut who is uh leading the work with the connecticut center for school safety to help us and uh assess our plans um and the work he is doing is is likely to be modeled off of the work we're doing right now with him so um we take it very seriously and it's important for me to note that this evening the other part there in reflecting on security i asked mr belden last week if we could put on the agenda to re-establish the security task force so that's on our agenda we'll talk about that under new business really with the essential question of is there anything we're missing and is there anything else we should be doing so those are those are big pieces that i
053want to stress for everyone the other part is working with middle and high school and our technology director and the youth commission we're working with sandy hook promise grant and we're going to be instituting at some point next year we don't know that it'll be ready for the beginning of the year but to say something apt which is 24 7 monitoring for emergencies anonymous reporting et cetera so we're working on that and uh making sure we're in concert with the police department on that as well uh in addition to that last thursday i met with the first elect macar who's actually here this evening and chief puglisi and we talked a little bit about security talked about the presence of the cruisers on campus for the remainder of the year at least as we um
054work with the manpower that the police department has at this point so we continue to work on that uh in addition to that uh today for candle with lake planning and i know rosa will talk about that a little bit later we actually spent three hours in a key meeting working on master keys grand master keys all the way through every one of the spaces in the school and a lot of security conversation of course happens happens there so it's really important to to let everybody know that it's always on our mind it is now obviously first and foremost on our minds since last week of course in addition to that we have some capital funds i think it's almost 350 thousand dollars and i can't get into every little detail about working on doors
055and windows uh in uh at the schools uh for the coming year and met actually with mr post and mr caldwell our facility director uh today uh in fact talking about a little about the giddy up and getting ready for for the work that has to be done there so um it's just important to put that there uh let everybody know that we're very serious about it we're doing a lot so that was the first thing and we could always look to be better and do more and we're never sitting on our laurels and if there are issues we are not necessarily always happy to know that we might have an issue or a concern with security or safety or wellness for that matter but we want to know about it so we can address
056it and it's important people come forward and that's why we talk about see something say something or any other concerns so i wanted to make sure everybody knew how serious we took that tonight the other piece i want to jump to is this will be very brief strategic planning last week we did hold our formation meeting with the entire group was about 25 strong a lot of parents a lot of teachers other educators board members et cetera and talked about expectations process and really getting ready to kick off mid to end of august working through about a four or five month process hopefully having a finished product for december so it could be in service to budget development over the course of next winter as part of that eric conklin our tech director was up
057a couple of weeks ago talking about future ready which is a grant program through tech with technology and innovation and technology technology integration and it really has a similar strategic planning format of process uh to be looking at that and those will be parallel tracks and obviously a lot of overlap and what we're looking at uh that we anticipate so that's my superintendent report so out of curiosity this technology work that's kind of more sounds like more of a regional or state level is that um does that time out on what schedule i believe that's a that's a five-year program so it's a five-year plan yeah well when will we have the plan to look at um well we'll we'll have we'll have inputs they're they're meeting monthly already all right so we'll start having
058inputs during strategic planning that's my question and with something we can incorporate into our strategic plans absolutely okay timing's perfect okay great and that is all i had okay i don't know if there was anything any questions for john we're going to talk about security again on the agenda all right so um all right there's no subcommittee reports i think that's a first um in my six years on the board that we have no subcommittee reports um and so next up is our consent agenda i'll move that the board approve the items on the consent agenda which are transfers resignations and retirees second okay so moon second john any uh discussion items well we always uh honor and say goodbye to those who are moving on um sometimes there's people who put in a great
059deal of time that we want to make sure we acknowledge and mrs gullich the secretary uh over at wisconier has been there for over 20 years and we had a chance to go speak with her last week when we learned of her her retirement and she's very excited to spend time with the grandkids and family and so it was great to see her uh talk to her a little bit and i just wanted to give her a shout out that we're really proud of her happy she served us for that long and really wish her well in her time uh time and retirement cool yeah cool thank you okay all unfavor of approving the consent agenda okay it's unanimous okay up to new business uh first item up is item a which is flexibility for
060implementing the ct guidelines for educator evaluation for the 2022-2023 school year i will move that the board approve the flexibilities for implementing the ct guidelines for educator evaluation for the 2022-2023 school year as recommended by the cape subcommittee and assistant superintendent dr maureen ruby second okay we're moved and seconded really uh you there dr murphy gave a report on this uh a couple of weeks ago um they really it we're moving forward in the same direction we are now there's really not much more to add to that report so there isn't any questions based on last week's report yeah we did get a good report from him on that so any questions okay all in favor unanimous okay next is re-establishment of the security task force i will move that the board moved to re-establish
061the security task force committee the dissolution was on july 15 2020 as recommended by superintendent dr john burrell second okay it's been moved and seconded um if you don't mind i'll make a couple of the brief statement on it um security is really front of mind right now and uh and security is very multifaceted and i think rosa and i what was our third on that was it collapsed colette was our third when we last did it and then we had members of the public the chief of police uh the administration right um so we had a very multifaceted group and it dealt with everything from physical security to monitoring to threat assessment we came up with a lot of capital projects that needed to be done we had a lot of hardening of school
062things i remember one was fixing a certain uh speakers right in certain schools where there were sound spots that were dead um the recent news in uvalde texas has that's brought this right back up the front of mind the good news is we did a lot of work already right and i would agree that the procedural stuff we put in place and that as part of that task force was strong right what we do in terms of what we do in our schools is good but as john and i spoke it is time to set back say what can we do better right are we missing anything is there anything that needs tweaking right so the thought here is it may not be a year-long exercise like the last time it might be six months
063of regular meetings talking through certain issues but it's time to just have a renewed focus on security to make sure our plans are solid right so that nothing like that ever happens in brookfield i mean that's all that's got to be the objective it's happened too close to home a number of years ago in sandy hook and it's happened again on i hate to say it a little sloppy in terms of some of the security procedures in that school and and so um i think it's good for us to be self-examining this way um there are things that should be first on that agenda and i think john you mentioned it earlier the first is about physical presence right up front in in the schools right now right and we you've been handling that fine
064i don't think you need a committee to do that but how do we take that and think about it for the next phase and and and and work on that and it needs deep cooperation with town and school to pull some of that off so um so the remit for us is a do we agree we putting it back together and then b who should our three board members be right and i know we have two of us have been on it before we could either have new members they tend to be daytime meetings i think that's important to remember because they do involve the police department because we have to bring in the police department in particular um and uh um i'd be very willing to be on it again i don't know about
065you yes you'd like to do it again either of you want to be on it i know sharon has said she would like to be on it too she and i thought i would but not just during the daytime yeah i know that was why i brought it up i know you have some interesting challenges with daytime meetings you'd like me we were doing it at 10 10 30 in the morning okay um sharon said she's available and we can make make her the third um member if that's okay yeah and uh she's a little light on committees anyhow but because uh one of her committees is kind of in hiatus right now so she's raring to go so i did want to add to this to uh this discussion though because i think it's
066important that we establish at least some rough charges for this committee because we had that the first time going around and i think when we dissolved that we had specifically said in the motion having met those objectives right so i think going into this kind of without a plan um you know just sort of might it might assume what we're going to do or i just don't want this committee becoming you know something that we um it's kind of like a rubber stamp committee for for some other agenda we don't want to have it be a rubber stamp right so i think this committee has to be responsible for what security actions were that are being recommended to the board and advice to the administration uh for the next set of actions for our uh
067for security in our schools so we'll be reviewing protocol right yep at least at the very least right um and what did you you said i was i would i would take all the topical areas that we had the last time and revisit them well with a very simple question are we do we think we need to take another step right that i would actually ask that the committee maybe after their first meeting they come back with a here's what we'd like to go look at and it and after no more than three to five meetings right come back with here's our recommendations right against that and you know i think john we had uh or rosa we must have had like seven topical areas yeah i think they ought to go through each one
068of them and say are we doing the right things or we do we need to do more right whether that's you know physical security capital type physical security or staffing or threat assessment or protocols or drilling right you know we went through you know how we do drills another piece i'm not saying this is one of the items but another piece that often uh isn't discussed and we're doing a lot of work on this already cyber security yeah it's another piece yeah but i think the remit of the committee is to take the structure we had before and make recommendations for the what we do in the fall right i mean i don't want this to be dragging off into something you know two years from now we're coming out of a committee this ought
069to be very focused on um uh are we you know i think john you would have you know our team bring in take each of the topics and run through them right and and then make a decision on are we going to recommend any changes right because in the end we're responsible for what goes on in these schools and i don't want to be that guy exactly where something happens in our schools right i'm sure there's others in this town who feel exactly the same way so but in the meantime can we say because there's a sense of urgency can we have assurance that at least there's an immediate message going out to staff and members of the school staff that you know little things like wearing your badge um you're not letting somebody in
070behind you um keeping the door shut right not propping doors things like that a memo that will go out maybe that's already happened i don't know it's something more immediate yeah and i could talk with each principal on that we they've had faculty meetings i think the faculty meeting was last week and they they i know they talked about security at each of those faculty yeah i think it has to have personal urgency personal urgency have some assurance too um and i think we ought to have a discussion at some point about what are we talking to students about right in terms of their role on security right because that's always a i hate to say it students are students right they're young people that are trying to find a way to skirt security sometimes
071so we heard bureaucracy as a concern tonight sometimes that's security right and so we better think it's important that we stress that so and figure out when the when and how is the right time maybe in our freshman forum type of you know session we have a module on that it really it takes us all that includes the students yep it takes us all okay um so we have a motion on the table any other discussion by the way okay it's a motion on table to reset the uh the security task force and i think with members of rosa myself and sharon um all in favor okay it's unanimous we will proceed with doing that john let's get uh could you reach out to the other members of the public we had on the last
072one and ask if they'd like to be part of that and uh tomorrow i think we have you and i have our one-on-one let's figure out and you know what the makeup it is so we can start social life chief get his schedule get everything exactly okay okay um next up is old business board of education budget estimate uh oh it's just an action item so we might have a motion um but the uh um but the the um we need to finalize the uh the budget um that we uh we have last approved our budget in january right and a lot of water's gone over the dam in the last in the last five months right including you know reviews with the board of selectmen the first selectmen the board of finance uh town
073uh a public hearing town meeting and a referendum in which it was approved at the referendum um we need to app we need to adopt that budget formally as a board right so that it becomes in the record that that's our that we've adopted because that budget number is different than what we had to do and it's different so i asked ken to um do a summary which he's uh kindly put here ken would you like to say just a couple of words about um what's changed for the public so that everybody can hear and then we can vote on i'll put a motion on the table sure so we had to add 208 000 onto the budget excuse me for the revised health insurance estimate that was back in march february march when we
074got information from the state which has since changed so we have to deal with that also and then we were also charged with finding fifty thousand dollars of reductions based on estimates refining estimates so we went back and look at our energy consumption uh at the um at huckleberry compared with the projections for energy at candlewood lake and believe we can reduce that estimate by 19500 uh copiers we finally had a full non-coveted year of copier use so i was able to refine that estimate down fourteen thousand dollars reducing the extended duty line at the high school for guidance counselors their contract permits up to 10 days per counselor and that's what we budget for but looking back at history we don't use nearly that much so we're scaling back the estimate similarly with the
075team mentors reducing the estimate on that based on history that was five thousand four hundred forty dollars and then eric got some firm quotes on some of this technology software so that was another one thousand four hundred sixty dollars which made our net adjustment an increase of a hundred and fifty eight thousand five hundred twenty seven dollars which gets us to the budget that was approved at referendum eight million six hundred and sixty six thousand one hundred forty eight dollars and these are all items we've talked about through the last five months right so these i don't think any of those are a surprise to me so these should be just things that we're approving the line items in our budget correct any questions for kev okay then i'd like to put a motion on
076the table to approve to for the board of education to adopt the budget that was approved at referendum with the line item adjustments as presented by mr post second moved and seconded all in favor aye aye okay it's approved say next up on our agenda is public comment but i don't think we have anybody to sign up for public comment okay um so we'll go and do the um candlewood lake elementary school building project update no i'm just going through it dr burr is going to say a few things and then we have a nice some photos yeah this is uh this is going to be for those of you watching and and uh from home the uh we have some photos of what's going on at the school which is kind of fun yeah
077so i wanted to share a couple of things that have happened over the last uh gosh ten days and um or since our last report two weeks ago and then rose is going to share a little bit uh the project manager rob tenza put this slideshow together um working with uh mr checko and uh mr pelton and myself to make sure we got this out for the board tonight we'll try to do this periodically uh if we'd like to do once a month we could do it every meeting we'll try to do it every meeting um when we meet more than once a month but it's just a lot is happening and it happens quickly you know you walk away from the project for a couple of days and things happen and there's even a
078picture in here that is not current uh that i was actually able to witness today uh some pr progress on but i did want to share that the planning team i share this in the weekend update but it's important for the public to know we have gosh about 25 people on the candlewood lake planning team uh from we have custodial representation secretary representation pera teacher administration we have we have the whole team uh a representation of everyone we have fifth grade representation from wisconier as well as obviously huckleberry and center school so we had a meeting we worked with the consultant from ed advanced jonathan costa he gave us a nice hand on facilitating the day and we work through really focusing on what do we want the mission of this school to be what
079are the value statements belief statements that we want for the school and worked really hard on that came up with a strong draft the admins brought that back and the teachers brought that back to staff on faculty meeting last week on wednesday as well as on a little bit of time on the plc day last friday we meet again on june 13th to go through the hot and cool feedback that we're going to get from uh from everybody and from there uh get to near final if not final draft of that and that is the foundational document that is what we stand on as we move forward with candlewood lake so we're really excited about that and then there's all the other things that we need to do we're going to have action teams on
080arrival dismissal action teams on the handbook i have a communication out to our pto leaders about joining forces as one pto at candlewood lake i mean there's a lot of things that are going to be happening simultaneously and don't forget the changing of the start times in another year not next year but the following year 24.25 23 24 when we when we have everybody uh enrolled there so there's a lot of great things going on 500 boxes arrived thanks to the nbc over to huckleberry one of the things the staff and faculty wanted to do was start packing units that they're teaching now because they won't teach them again until they're in candlewood lake so they wanted to start packing as they had materials out and not having to pack twice uh so dr pepsoski
081was to take ownership of those boxes and get those out to the staff so just a lot of exciting things going on rosa turn it over to you yeah so um these photos that i'm going to share um they came from from the municipal building committee and from our colleagues at tecton and arcadis who are working at the construction site daily um you're going to see a lot of progress in these photos and it's going to be very familiar to those who have gotten a chance to walk through it and dr brill it's probably changed even because you've walked through it through it the more recently we used to call it all this morning so when you see the gym floors yeah yeah so there's a lot of progress but it's interesting to note that
082we that these photos have been um taken throughout the entire construction process so we have um a nice archive of photos that will show what's behind the walls and so future maintenance will hopefully be aided by a lot of these very very well documented photos so here's the some of these schematic or the the representation drawings you'll see those on the on the left side and then where the construction site stands currently on the right um so this is the the main entrance you can kind of see do i have a pointer on this uh no rosie no okay so um yes i do okay so so um on this you'll see sort of this uh little ravine that is um still underground right now there's still construction vehicles that's still under this road right
083here but all of that will be exposed once you know the large construction vehicles don't have to be in that space anymore right here is the entrance to the cafeteria that's where this large machine is right now that's the main entrance which you'll see a little bit farther here and then there's the further entrance way down there that's the pre-k and nk entrance here it looks it looks like it's really coming along like i can really envision it you see all the windows have gone in this is where the the large handicap accessible play space is going to be all the glass that you see here that's starting to go in so um yeah this is going to be a really exciting space and rosa that's the cafeteria where you were pointing to the glass
084and then yeah all down here yeah fifth grade on top and k one two second grade on the uh look at that this is the main entrance hall so this is what they were calling the grand staircase it's just a very large staircase that you don't see the stairs yet but they're going to be going right about here and then right in this space which you don't see in the drawing that is the lower level of the media center the upper level is here so we have remember we have a two-story media center so this whole open space is really very big when you're standing in it and you can clearly see where this nice walkway is going to be there's light throughout i think i mentioned this before there's so much light pouring into
085this building you can see directly through the building pretty much wherever you're standing so it's really impressive this is the multi-purpose space so you can see how it's kind of looking really big here the large cafeteria is away in the background you can also see the stage so this higher floor level that's the stage there which you can kind of see in the in the drawing there this is the large cafeteria also a lot of light coming in through these front doors straight out to the back and you can see in the drawing there's sort of like a bistro they could they call it like a bistro uh type of um serving line or serving area where the kids will actually walk in and kind of pick out all their things for lunch and come
086out a different entrance or exit so that's going to be plenty of space for all of the kids at least the two through five kids we have another cafeteria on the other side uh the administrative area you can kind of see we don't have at least when we were walking in there we didn't have concrete floors in there just yet but that's probably going to be one of the last things in the coming weeks to go in the gymnasium dr bill was saying that the concrete floors the base was poured so it looks a lot different than even what you see in this picture here but when we stood in this space it felt um it felt quite big i'm interested to see how it'll how it'll really feel once you know the wood and
087the bleachers and the hoops and stuff are in gross motor area so this is another space that can be used for gym classes in addition to the multi-purpose space so there's a lot of space for a lot of activities as you can see just a ton of open space what you kind of are seeing in the background over there and what's kind of over here is the other smaller cafeteria so this is where the little kids uh pre-k um k and probably one will will eat so that'll be in that space right there and here is that cafeteria so if you um look a little bit closer you can see kind of it borders that gross motor area so you see a lot of the design carrying over it's really fun and whimsical and it's
088going to be really nice for the kids the entry into each of the neighborhoods looked pretty much the same and as i mentioned in one of my previous updates so each neighborhood is going to have a theme that corresponds to a different ecosystem so if we're looking at let's say like the grasslands over here the color is yellow so a lot of those yellow accents are going to be down that particular grades hallway that's their neighborhood they're going to have this sort of presentation area where there's going to be these beautiful sculptures sort of hanging in that space that correspond to that ecosystem those sculptures are being designed by the same person who designed um the horses that we see at town hall um so a familiar artist um rosa one of the things we
089also talked about was we don't always have to have a teaching space in a classroom that's right so this this presentation station over here so at the the entry to all of the neighborhoods we have a teaching area we also have a teaching area at the end of each of the neighborhoods where where the you see the curves and the outer walls and they fan out and there's another teaching area there yeah so lots of space and what's really cool is that you can kind of see it goes all the way up to the second floor so when you're on the second floor you can see down into that space and when you're on the first level you can see up into that space so it really joins it's a very big school but it
090really joins every neighborhood together very nicely this is a typical classroom we felt that they were they're a really good size nice big bright windows um and most of the ones that we toured at least looked like this so the sheetrock is is up which is very exciting um and you know all of the the stuff that's underneath or above the ceiling is in place so that's really important i'll just add when we walked through that that we learned a lot about the fact that there's full air uh handling you have to refresh external air very regularly and very close it doesn't go through some big handling it's local to the classrooms in and out and filtered and then secondly um though that blue thing there is what did they call it that was a
091chilled beam so cooling is not done through blown air right it's got a what they call a chill beam up there that then will cool the classroom there and there is there is also by the windows there's a curtain of heat that's currently coming down by the windows as well so it really tries to balance the roof yeah so it's a it's a very uh energy efficient approach to uh building heating and cooling and air refreshment which is really important that circulation yep and we have um also wanted to point out because i remember joy had pointed this out too a lot of the rooms um are adjoining the the classroom next door so there's um always opportunity for teachers to collaborate work together with other classes and some of the classrooms that are at
092the end of the neighborhood at least there's one classroom i think in every neighborhood that has like a giant um the wall that is bordering their the hallway is kind of like a giant door that raises so if you really wanted to expand the classroom and make it this really really big space that sort of pours out into the hallway you can do that and kind of have um sort of multiple classes learning simultaneously or a small presentation or a guest speaker and when you couple that rosa with that the room with the we're calling it a garage door yeah concept that comes up you've got the larger space at the end of the neighborhood as well so you really have an opportunity for flexibility and collaboration yeah it's really exciting and i think that's
093it yeah that's the last one it's fun to see it come together i am right i just uh i we ought to we ought to do this i think they told us that the front the front sighting on the on the schools it was going i think late june they said they would start that so it'll start looking like those schematic diagrams and i'll tell you these walls are going up all the last bit of steel structural steel they told us was in so now they're working on getting things all the fittings in and getting the walls up and i think the next time we do this presentation we'll start having real visions of what the spaces are going to look like so [Music] okay thank you thank you um and thank you to the
094mbc for uh organizing this uh the show and tell here because i know that takes some organizing to do and they did a really nice job um so next up is our three main points um debbie's not here but she's watching but she's watching so we ought to uh we ought to come up with the three main points here teacher staff yep top ten the top ten yeah yeah i think that's a good i think the combination of john's update on security and the security task force would be a really good thing to feature yeah okay do we do maybe all the kids as well so we could do recognition as well recognition security and school i guess to school yeah yep i think those are yeah cause we can share this yeah yeah when
095we share this link yeah okay done did you get that debbie oh poor debbie all right upcoming events is a parents thursdays microphone microphone thank you at center school tomorrow is play day friday june 3rd is the pto spring fling tuesday june 7th is the first graders visiting huckleberry thursday june 9th is the smart's fair at huckleberry on friday june 3rd a pto sponsored circus is coming to the school on wednesday and thursday june 8th and 9th is field day monday and tuesday june 13th and 14th the fourth graders visit wiscons and wednesday june 15th is the fourth grade end of year celebration at the y at wiscons thursday june 2nd is the arts fest monday june 6 is the school-wide quasi-trip saturday june 11th is the eighth grade dinner dance monday june 13th is
096the eighth grade moving up at the town hall pavilion and wednesday june 15th is a fourth grade parents night and at brookfield high school this friday through sunday is the hershey park trip right the music department to hershey park monday june 6 is the celebration of excellence and awards night tuesday june 14th is grad party at the candlewood inn wednesday june 15th is the senior trip to six flags thursday june 16th is the grad walk saturday june 18th is graduation and of course friday june 17th is the last day which is a half day no lunch served at the high school in the middle school that's all i have all right thank you all right so next up is an executive session i'll move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of
097discussing the superintendent's evaluation and contract second okay it's moved in second and all in favor and for those of you who are watching uh this is the end of our broadcast and uh the board will be moving into a executive session at this point and thank you thank you for uh joining tonight and i hope you enjoyed uh hearing our teachers and staff of the year and the the top ten or top eight students that we got a chance to meet tonight and listen to so thank you all [Music] you