001[Music] good evening i'd like to call the brookfield board of education regular meeting on april 6th to order please stand for the pledge pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we have six board members present bob couldn't be with us this evening so first up on our agenda student spotlight center elementary school mrs diamond please come on up [Music] all right um will it just start excellent thank you okay good evening everyone my name is mary rose diamond i'm the proud principal of center school we're grateful uh to be here this evening to share with you our collaboration on digital portfolios that students in two of our first grade classes have
002been developing over the course of the year with their classroom teachers and with the assistance of jackie whiting our district integration technology integration coach over the last several years we've spoken about self-navigating learners and what that means children particularly young children are naturally curious and will persevere through tasks and challenges in which they are highly invested growing truly self-navigating learners though starts with intentionally fostering that curiosity by nurturing a growth mindset then providing the instruction and coaching that harness students natural curiosity and channels it this requires students to learn skills and strategies for goal setting action planning accepting and incorporating feedback understanding success criteria identifying appropriate strategies searching out evaluating and managing resources and self-reflection among others this work begins at home with parents and caretakers who are students first teachers and we are working
003hard to ensure it continues when students come to center school so the impetus behind the digital the digital portfolios was really the interruptions from kobit as we all are well aware of and dealing with it was an opportunity for students to show progress and show all the growth that they were making over the course of the year in a different format and also to build students efficacy so some of the work that you that you're going to see tonight is really about that efficacy and we're really working hard to make this part of how we do business and instruct at center school teachers like heidi natalino i think that's our next heidi natalino and michelle tuck are pioneering these goals with students by not only giving them the instruction and support necessary to grow their
004content knowledge but also providing the conditions within their classrooms for students to grow their self-efficacy their beliefs and attitudes were there toward their capabilities to achieve academic uh success as well as their beliefs in their their beliefs in their ability to fulfill academic tasks and successfully learn the content jackie whiting's support and innovation has made the project manageable sustainable and accessible particularly given the age and development developmental level of our students she has been working beside heidi and michelle and their students since day one so these digital portfolios have made students learning visible to them the students the teachers and also the parents and have increased engagement across the board students are engaged because they can track the growth they're making for the goal they have set for themselves and therefore they see themselves as
005agents of their own learning they might not be able to tell you that in those words but they will absolutely show you with their actions parents can watch their children's growth and see their excitement about the progress they are making on the learning goals they have set for themselves teachers and staff are gaining greater insights into students motivation and learning preferences so that they can modify and adjust their instruction everybody wins in our video we will feature james who is whose parents are here with us this evening and can attest to the growth that he has made um we'll see part of his portfolio as well as his self-reflection about his growth and then we'll also hear from two other students bella and thomas about the growth that the goals they have set for this
006year and that they're continuing to work on and then finally mrs natalino and mrs tuck will both uh be on the video briefly describing the process from their perspective so here we go spotlight on our digital portfolios [Music] so [Music] hi james so today we get to watch the videos that we've been making of you since way back in october are you ready yeah okay one two three four five six seven eight nine ten what would come next um that's so fun now i'm gonna pick a number and i can you tell me the number that comes next okay 52 53 oh my gosh let's try it again 67 one more time 99 100. that's awesome i'm looking forward to seeing you again james [Music] 130 all right on your marks get set go one
007two three four [Music] um nice job hey james two to twenty counting by twos ready two four six uh eight ten um goods keep going you're almost there good eight eighteen and honey how high are you gonna go all right when you're ready i'm ready go ahead [Music] nicely done good job maybe next time you will all the way to 200. you think all right excellent thanks james what do you think of everything you've learned this year um the twos are kind of hard [Music] and the yeah nothing now nothing else how are the five so the eyes are right yeah what about reading has your reading changed this year yes i know how to right now it's beautiful you know right now it's beautiful could you write when the school year started no it
008was messy but now your handwriting is gorgeous excellent and what about like your words or your stories were you telling stories at the beginning of the year uh no no but can you give me an example of a story you've written this year you've read that one yeah and have do you write stories also yeah wow would you write your stories about great life the story of your life wow that's so excellent so what do you think about watching all these videos of yourself um it's good because i never think um i've never seen myself doing videos really myself you showed me to watch my all my videos and then it's amazing what's amazing my video down here is track segments abc you've learned a lot this year yeah what are you most proud of
009learning this year um the most proud audition is why [Music] do you have any goals for the end of the year is there something that you haven't learned yet that you're working on yes what is that i um don't know how to do still i'm like writing words that is math oh like word problems so you're still working on that so maybe we'll talk again at the end of the year and you can show me how much better you are at word problems excellent thanks for talking to me bella there's a big word for that do you know what the word is persistence because [Music] and now what what list words can you read five four three [Music] um [Music] what's that do you try to make all this all of this the second thing
010is good for you you're so persistent i know that you will stick to it until you got it maybe we can make a video of that for me this year i have been using the video portfolios during conferences and it's been a great way to communicate student progress with families i've received a lot of great feedback about the videos and it's been a great way to keep our conversations focused on the child and not about the numbers or the data all right making the video portfolios has been such a rewarding experience for my students [Music] and it's easy to forget like where they started so we'll look back at these videos we're like wow look at where you started like oh i forgot like weren't able to do that or they see that they want
011to move to them [Music] so um we have a long way to go but the seeds have all been planted and we have the tools that we need the resources the knowledge and the will to nurture these seeds into even greater um learning and self-navigation for students so i don't know um mr mr capone do you want to say anything you don't have to um no we're just so happy we're new to the district um do you want the middle here sure do you want to come up do you mind coming up here oh god he's the educator mr phone we want to get it on record here so um yeah my wife and i we're very excited we're uh we're new to the dish we uh we moved back in and uh moved in
012in july and you know we were just talking a little bit prior and we just met you as well and um we weren't really sure we were going to move and we we ended up getting into brookfield and the housing market was crazy and uh you know we were fighting different houses back and forth and uh we ended up getting to brookfield and the number one thing and this isn't just uh preaching to the choir type of thing but the number one thing that's made us happy is the school district ms natalino has been great you know james loves it every single day he comes home excited there's no um pushing and pulling in the progress that we saw on there granted his own you know he's counting the numbers but like the handwriting and
013everything that's come way up and you can't document that in a seven minute video we see that every night you know credit to my wife you know i'm kind of like the fun guy that does the wrestling she works with him every night you know uh and uh you know james comes home and you know he's really proud of himself like he really believes in himself now and his handwriting is beautiful like he said in the video and uh he's excited about uh he's very honest kid and um you know we just want to thank you all and you know senator and mrs diamond we've had conversations about our future son coming into the district next year and um yeah i mean it really has been a joyful experience for my wife and i and
014our family and um we can't speak any highly more highly about brookfield thank you welcome to brookfield so thank you thank you appreciate it that's our presentation does anyone have any questions or anything i was just going to ask is it share how is it shared out with parents or is it or you're not at that stage yet um they've been doing them using their conferences primarily and then at the end of the year jackie i think we could send them the link right because they're all jackie is the mastermind behind all the technology but they're all in google slides so they'll each get their slide deck that they can i think it's a good tool too yeah i would imagine that some parents don't show up for conferences so you can send that home
015yes so there's lots of them feel good lots of benefits and we're very fortunate again it wouldn't have been possible i can't speak enough highly enough about the teachers oh we can speak and watch it again um about the teachers and really the collaboration between heidi and michelle and jackie has been really great to see so thank you so much and it's just important i want to reiterate it's it's a testament to mrs diamond's leadership and our faculty and the the work they put in their creativity but also you the voice you heard on there is mrs whiting and jackie's over there are technology integration specialists and she's had a tremendous impact on the district and she's just doing an incredible job so we're uh we couldn't be more pleased thank you joy yep okay
016student representative report ben all right so first of all today was the last day of quarter three um for the high school and quarter four starts tomorrow um spring break is coming up starting next friday through sunday april 24th and sat makeups will take place on tuesday april 26 through thursday april 28th and then i'll skip this one because it's a big one that i want to come back to and um so the musical grease took place wednesday wednesday march 23rd to sunday march 27th and that was their first production in three years so it was very successful and a lot of people were happy to come out and see it um national honor society continues to plan their annual 5k for mother's day we've hit a record high in donations this year from sponsoring
017businesses and that's great by record high i mean like doubled last year so that was crazy um and peer counseling is content is trying to plan for the return of saint baldrick's which got stopped with kovid and then with athletics i'm not going to talk about today but in general the boys volleyball team has been very successful and at least getting the program going and in a matter of two weeks of not even some kids not even playing volleyball before we're now a very well working team and much of that comes credit to coach will and jv coach chuck so just want to put that out there and then going back to diversity day which happened on friday april 1st for vhs i have a quick statement i want to read so on april 1st
018the students of the human rights club and the diversity club organized and facilitated the first diversity day at brookfield high school the goal of the day was to highlight the diversity of our own community and the ways that our students contribute to making the bhs community unique students and faculty were encouraged to create presentations that would highlight aspects of their identity that bring diversity to our school community student and faculty presentations focused on the upcoming holiday of ramadan and the impact of an individual can have on supporting refugees in addition to highlighting the diversity of the bhs community the goal of diversity today was to expand student knowledge of the internment of japanese cemeteries in the town of brookfield refugees and rights of farm workers and all the presentations were well attended by students and
019their teachers so that was a nice day to kind of since it was already an early dismissal so it was a way to take advantage of it and get a lot of keynote speakers in that the students really benefit from so great any questions given any questions thank you thank you for the updates okay written correspondence chris rink wrote regarding board meetings carrie swift wrote regarding electric school buses and monique matthews wrote regarding the special ed director hey approval board minutes i'll move the board approve the minutes from the regular meeting on march 16th [Music] okay it's been moved and seconded any questions all right hearing none all in favor all right okay anonymously approved all right next up superintendent's rep update okay thank you mrs greenstein um so i um actually on my superintendent
020report troy we talked earlier where to put this i forgot it's on my superintendent report right here our first uh item i wanted to introduce to the board mrs amy d nicola hickman who will be our new special education director and we're really excited to have her her here she is here with her husband dan and her daughter mia and me is probably not happy that i'm introducing her um but uh we're glad they're here with us and um uh mrs d nicola hickman will be starting with us on may 2nd she comes to us from greenwich with a great deal of experience pre-k through 12 and post high school originally started out as a special education teacher and um is really a highly quiet qualified person that we're really excited to have joining us
021in replacing mrs wygonic and um amy would you like to come up and just say hello to everybody it'd be great to have you say a few words and any board members if you have any welcoming questions you might want to ask her come on up amy make sure that hello everyone hello welcome everyone uh first i wanted to say thank you for such an amazing warm welcome everyone has been uh so pleasant um to me it has made me feel so wonderful i wanted to thank everyone for that i am really excited to be coming here to such a collaborative team i've heard such a great things about the group that works here in central office and so i am very excited about that i can't wait to start the work with this group
022i am um thrilled to be in doing that and um to be coming here to brookfield i am excited to be uh working with families here and excited to hear from you what it is your goals are for the group here and what you are thinking the department should be moving forward with so my door is open please come and visit me and let me know what it is that you think we should be moving forward with because i'm i'm here for you and i'm here for the children in brookfield you know amy i'm glad you said you're here and ready to do the work because we've got plenty for you yeah we're ready enjoy i didn't know if any of the board members might have a question welcome you know welcome to the brookfield
023community thank you and we hope and i'm sure you'll be welcome open arms bye thank you so much we're excited to have you on board thank you thank you welcome amy all right well we're really excited about that and again mrs d nicola hickman will be starting on may 2nd um i think she has a day scheduled with mrs wygonick for transition um next week they're going to be working together in person in districts it'll be great to have her up here next week um i in in regards to the special education director position um it's really important for me just to uh thank the faculty and administrators that were on the committee uh some of them are here with us um in helping uh through the selection process thank dr ruby for facilitating the
024process a lot of work that goes into hiring anyone whether we start at the building level with faculty and paraprofessionals or custodial uh all the way up through administration and uh involving mrs bhutto who was also on the committee thank you um i think that was your first one now that you're on the board right so um hope you're involved with another one with us that'll be great great to have you there um the other update i have is assistant superintendent hiring update our first round interviews are going to be on april 14th so that's next thursday we have a good number of candidates for the position and so we'll be running through the first round again i want to thank and advance those folks who are helping organize and serve on the committee specifically
025mrs farias who's here with us tonight and mr belanda they will be on the committee and also facilitating that process um next week as we begin things so we're really just pleased with everybody's participation leadership and contribution to very important positions here in the district odyssey of the mind while we haven't heard much about odyssey of the mind with the pandemic the last couple of years the kids from all the teams persevered this year thanks to mrs almeida's leadership our whiskaner team headed up by coach uh d'allesandros uh her team uh from whiskenier is going to worlds in iowa and that'll be may 25th to 29th so we have another group going we're really excited about that and uh mrs almeida is already filling out the paperwork for the lawn chicken fundraiser so if anybody's
026remembering that that's coming out so get ready get your pocketbooks open um so we're really excited for the kids with om and we'll keep you posted on what's going on there i know ben had mentioned it before um and we've talked about it but uh greece the musical uh we it was the first musical we've had since 2019 it was absolutely amazing cast crew the musicians all that music from greece was live played by our students it was just absolutely amazing can't thank governor of uh mrs lam mr lam and dola and mr st george enough as well as governor rel for joining us on opening night so it was really a special night a rowdy boisterous and fun crowd was there and we had a great time so um again very proud in in
027the first one in a couple of years so a lot of good spirit there uh another staffing update uh two of our beloved staff members have had some great accomplishments first of all our accounting supervisor mrs reynolds received her bachelor's degree this past month and so we had a little celebration at the office we're really proud of her and mrs kim and holly is now dr holly she defended her dissertation last week and so we couldn't be more proud of her so i wanted to make sure i mentioned that to the board i know you're proud as well quick update on strategic planning and then i'm actually going to invite eric up to the podium about the technology committee and how it functions under strategic planning and some of the things we're going to be
028thinking about one of my charges in working with the board committee which is consists of bob and debbie it was to reach out to parents i've reached out to the center huckleberry and wisconier pto leads they're looking for parents that might be willing to be recommended forward for participation and i've talked with carrie at the harry todd with the high school booster club uh and she's uh determining uh and asking around is who can who can participate might be willing to to share their time with us so we're really excited about that the principals are gathering up their school representatives may 24th we'll have a formation meeting just an hour meeting sit down with our consultant talk a little bit about direction and then we have a i think it's a august 18th actual kickoff
029meeting planned uh late in the summer so we're really really getting excited about that under that um are a number of things with strategic planning but one big one is getting our technology committee back up and running again the pandemic we mentioned that a number of times it's slowed us all down around the nation and around the world and eric's got a couple of big things coming up he'll talk about future ready and some of the tasks ahead for the committee and for him and also tied in a little bit to candlewood lake and getting ready for the new school so eric if you come up and share a little bit about what's going on sure good evening everyone so uh so yeah as dr burrell mentioned um we are looking to reconvene and bring
030back the technology committee that slowly got started just before the pandemic and obviously came to a screeching halt with all the other priorities that needed to take place um the the committee was formed with the purpose of providing support to the work of the district curriculum in regards to technology integration and support um and to support the overall strategic plan that dr burrell is talking about and we will talk about and that planning committee is actually convening soon um the committee is also going to be um coming back to um address regular technology needs goals concerns that happen in the district on a daily basis um it's open to everybody in the district to join um and so we what i hope to get is uh um a real um group of just different um
031stakeholders in the district um you know i need teachers administrators pair educators secretaries um some of the uh some of the it folks join as well um and so it's a nice uh variety of group members um the first big project of the group and we're really excited about this is actually working with the state of connecticut um in the future ready schools connecticut cohort future ready schools is a framework dedicated to student-centered learning and a framework built around integrating technology into curriculum and a commitment to do so whether it be from infrastructure to data privacy to student privacy to professional development and and also a whole commitment to leadership it's a really top-down approach you can't have students committed to using technology in the classroom if your leadership is not committed to the same
032thing and so it really involves everybody in the idea of continuing to integrate technology into the classroom and what a great opportunity to come off the heels of a time where we're doing remote learning and we're using digital learning more than ever we can really ride this wave and use this momentum to keep technology as part of um of the classroom um so um what the other thing that we're looking to do and i can go on for a very long time about what the future ready framework is and i'll have much more to follow as we get uh get into it uh but we just recently signed up with the state uh we'll find out soon what other districts are doing this with us we're going to be able to actually work with other
033districts and other teams throughout the state to help us and them develop their technology plans and then be able to update those as time goes on we're also looking forward to this concept and idea helping us as we start to purchase and look for ways that we're going to use technology at candlewood lake elementary school and so there's a lot of factors that are going to go into this and we're very excited to to get a team together work with the state and and and get a good solid technology plan good support for the new school and the other two schools as well um as we work with the strategic planning committee on that that's great eric thank you very much really appreciate that if anybody has any questions about it now or or in
034the future feel free to reach out anytime great anything thanks eric thanks for the leadership appreciate it all right so it's a a bit of a longer uh uh superintendent report than than usual um i have a little section here you know with only meeting once this month that i wanted to make sure uh some of the highlights uh that i wanted to bring forward were communicated with not only the board but for the public to to know about and um under wellness i talk about i have all three schools uh listed there the bhs diversity day was something i was going to talk about but ben took care of that and mr bolando wasn't able to be with us uh tonight so i wanted to invite um first up from huckleberry uh uh dr
035pepsoski talk just a little bit about the heart of huckleberry and something he's doing with uh with student wellness and recognition as well as staff wellness and recognition and then after that i'll invite mr renda up to talk about neurodiversity day which we all recognized but they celebrated a little bit differently at the middle school so dr p thank you very much dr barrow one thing i do want to say is the return to normal is such a wonderful awesome site and you know realizing my normal is not the normal of the majority of my students their normal is classroom they're normal as masks their normal is you know we can't play in big groups so just to highlight a couple of things dr bro now that we're back to a little bit of normal
036visits frequently he went into a math class as they were doing fractions so of course fractions i'm there i go right to pizza because that's the classic food for fractions and if we have eight pieces of pizza eight over eight is one and four before is one and the kids are like dr pio had us a pizza doctor bro said i'll tell you what in two weeks if i hear back from mrs morgan that you've done wonderful things you're mastering your fractions i'm going to come in with pizzas and go to his word april 1st dr brill visited with pizzas yes i went to the classroom before in dr p fashion and let them know that the pizza restaurant was closed and they would be getting salads instead and just before they attacked me dr
037will came in with this pizza that was awesome great fools that was fun along those lines of normal i mean our book fair was live we had parents and students walking around the buildings it was so awesome in huckleberry where the kids beaming holding their parents hands taken to the classrooms i mean it's been two years since since parents have been in the building so again what's normal to me is is not normal to them so it was awesome awesome uh fourth grade revolutionary war project and just and i i'll stop because i know it's not a spotlight on huckleberry but fourth graders dressed up as revolutionary warfighters and they sat around a table and other classes and grade levels ah grade levels got to mix with other great levels and second grade got to
038learn from fourth grade and they walked up and dr grill saw the museum they hit the button and the revolutionary war figure would come to life so if it was betsy ross she would come to life and talk about how she you know created the flag and her idea process so just awesome awesome things happening one thing that i'm really proud of we're doing the hearts of huckleberry award and you know when you talk about normal it gives us the opportunity to see kids in all different aspects and teachers and actually recognizing kids and other faculty members for what we should say is going above and beyond showing your pause practice kindness act responsibly work hard show respect and so we give these heart a huckleberry awards and since we've started the program 140 kids
039have been recognized by stupid faculty members as well as other faculty members just an example this young lady in fourth grade twice at recess aubry went to check on classmates who were sitting alone and asked if they were okay and wanted to play and just things like that that we can now recognize our students and it's just so powerful to me uh so that's you know essentially we're getting there we're getting back to what what i see as normal and it's just this wonderful place and i have to say digital portfolios [Music] i want my second grade teachers to have those next year what an awesome introduction to the first graders coming in that to watch these these digital portfolios the kids that they're going to be getting so i pulled jackie whiting on her
040way out and i said is this something she goes oh yeah we're gonna do that so that's it thank you dave great things happen at huckleberry we're happy thank you all and thanks for the heart of huckleberry appreciate that thank you and he was rotten with that april fools joke to the kids they don't love my humor mr renda mr renda worked with the students uh he and his faculty and the uh on kaleidoscope day and uh appreciation and tolerance and acceptance and um let's talk a little bit about the presentation for neurodiversity okay good evening i'm dean randa the proud principal of wisconnair middle school mr pepsoski you forgot that line um our day was kaleidoscope day the students uh came up with this day to talk about and what they came up with
041we tried to if you don't know it autism acceptance month is in april so we wanted to find a way to kind of celebrate that and what we came up with is as you can see the slides in front of you talking about neurodiversity letting talking to students about how everyone thinks and learns and processes information obviously in a different way and everyone's you know people have their brains are wired differently and they have their own unique way of thinking and experiencing the world really with middle school kids of all of you know the middle school level they try you got to be cool and when you're a little out of the box sometimes that doesn't always you know some lend itself to uh you know people think our students thinking that's cool so this
042was something i think when the student council and uh talked about it with our advisors we thought this was something great to to move forward um there we go of course we talked about respecting differences talked a little bit about neurodiversity again about recognizing and respecting this in the ways that we do learn again the brains how they're wired and also we tried to get students to understand that things that maybe we find easy other people may struggle with and obviously the things that maybe are tough for us or our challenges other people uh are very are very good at those things so we want to make sure to point that out then we talked about uh with students you know different ways of thinking learning interacting and some of the labels that come along
043with that they may have heard about adhd autism dyslexia tourette syndrome so again we're trying to get them to understand um this about understanding of the way that we all learn differently and doesn't mean that just because you know someone maybe um have one of these labels isn't really smart because we know that that's totally not true what can we do to help this is the big part right here what can we do to help acknowledging people's strengths and talents sadly these students can be teased and bullied for the for this for the differences that they have so we really wanted to have our students help our students to understand that that we try to we should recognize those things and go out of our way and when i hear dr p say that you
044know a student was was noticed for going out of their way to because other students were sitting by themselves this that's what these types of things i think really start to make a difference and um making someone's day by being tolerant understanding and kind and i know myself and miss gordon uh definitely mr gordon we talked to the students about our job is to pick pick each other up find the good in people and when we do those things they're going to feel good about themselves and at the same time it's going to make us feel good so we really tried to to hit that home and then that day april 1st was kaleidoscope day where as many colors as possible to celebrate neurodiversity i do want to say that we had a fundraiser called
045pack the piggies [Applause] this was the money that was donated for this we use to support families united in newtown which is a place that provides individuals with special needs and their families social opportunities in a caring environment so we raised over two thousand dollars for this the whole idea behind pack the piggies was um that they had to use money to support they could support their grade level or they could sabotage the other grade level and let me tell you those students found a lot of excitement in sabotaging the other grade level oh yes pennies in dollars with the green we called it were they would that would be the positives the negatives would be silver coins so i swear to you the last day we had um we didn't have lunch that day
046so during the week we had the the water bottle big water bottle containers in the lunchroom the last day i swear in the morning i came in and there were kids with like things of um with filled with coins i mean they must have taken their their home savings or something and they came in and i get because i was in my office and i heard an airport the coins into the bottles to uh to do but i really want to thank uh jessica reese uh kayla ryan and christy trotta they're our student council and our ruler crew advisors for putting the slides together and then counting every day to keep the students very interested so every day they had to make sure they counted and counted rights because then i had to post who
047was winning and of course the next day as soon as they knew who was winning that was the group that they were going to sabotage so um it was again it was a fun way to raise money for a good cause and i think the students um really enjoyed that part of it so any questions comments i did enjoy sabotaging something else you know you're a middle school kid you got someone actually said to me should we not do sabotage that doesn't they want to do penny wars like i don't know if i want to say penny wars right now and they came up with pack the piggies said good i like that pit little piggy noses on each one um but i tell you when we said sabotage yeah so whatever they find excitement
048it raised money for a good cause that's fantastic thank you thank you thank you thanks appreciate it dean how about a round of applause for all of our principals and the work they're doing it's amazing at schools and i believe i don't know if we said it i think both huckleberry and center on last friday uh wore tie-dye in recognition of the day so um just spirit all around really great thank you thanks everybody um last two items the first one is a capital referendum that was voted on a week or two ago it will be on may 17th in anticipation of the town meeting this may 3rd to vote to have the operational budget referendum on may 17th and i know joy indoor rosa will talk a little bit about that during the finance
049committee report but i just wanted to update everybody on that uh the last piece is on uh april 27th the week we get back from the april break um we will be wearing purple to celebrate the children of military families and we're looking forward to that um it's actually a really nice state department of ed initiative and so we're going to participate in that principles already know so we'll be getting the word out on that and as you can see a lot of positivity a lot of kindness a lot of joy getting back to normal and we're really excited about what's happening so i don't know if anybody has any questions but that's my report no all right thank you okay thank you okay consent agenda no no sorry subcommittee reports finance all right so
050last we met was march 15th um the let's see i don't know if you see it in here but in the um finance report um you'll see that we well actually the last time i reported i had said that we were starting to look our surplus was getting smaller and smaller and we that we would likely end with a death deficit and as of now our projected deficit is around five thousand but we are likely that it will likely grow as the um as the year progresses a lot of that is due to the cost of substitutes still running very high and additionally the cost for health benefits there's a lot more employees that took benefits and the demographics of those who did families versus single people has changed so we are going to be
051over budget in that item due to that estimation being slightly off so uh as you know you had you've gotten an email that ken has implemented a spending freeze and the count the accounts that that will likely affect are textbooks instructional supplies and extended duty for curriculum work on the plus side looking at our revenue so one item that is actually in our favor slightly is that we are actually getting a slightly more in the excess cost grant usually we budget that around 75 percent of our excess cost for special education and it came in at about 82 percent so that puts us still over budget but slightly less so um in addition to that uh we got word that we will likely be able to be reimbursed more from fema potentially 100 percent reimbursement
052on our coveted costs that were incurred between march uh 2020 and december 31st of last year so all the shields barriers cleaning monitors things like that that we that we had incurred those costs so those funds are actually flow directly to the town of brookfield and then to us so marsha and ken are working together to find out how best that will happen emerging issues this is going to probably affect that deficit as i was mentioning but um special education continues to be something that is a volatile situation we may see more out placements we may see some students that are outplaced moving out of districts so there's just a lot of ebb and flow in special education right now so that's contributing a lot to the to the deficit unfortunately we did talk about
053capital budgets although we hear a lot of those updates during the facilities uh report so we don't need to go over those again we did talk about the 2223 budget but we had actually reported on that during our budget update at the last meeting so as you know we can safely reduce the budget by about fifty thousand dollars um so that was what we had talked about at our last meeting and uh yeah i believe that was pretty much it so any questions do we want to mention the town meeting oh sure yeah uh town meeting is may so we had the thursday may 3rd yep may 3rd for the referendum to set the referendum date on the 17th may 17th and at that town meeting it's not just a convening to set the referendum
054date there's another yet another presentation about the town budget and the board of education budgets as part of the way the town charter is constructed they have to have these meetings okay any questions for rosa [Music] okay so policy communications debbie okay we met on march 16th and really in terms of policy most of our discussion was focused on the title ix policy that is in your packet tonight for a first read we just wanted to get some more background and information from dr brill and mrs wygonic on that policy so they clarified it it was very straightforward once we had that discussion and then we were able to move on to new business we talked about a new policy a transgender policy that really deals with classification of students [Music] who opt to maybe
055change their status and we decided in that conversation that we would approach our attorney dan murphy for an opinion letter on that to help us really craft that policy so we are awaiting that and we will discuss it more at our next meeting and then the rest of the meeting was really spent on the budget flyer i had brought a draft of the new budget flyer to the meeting and dr brill provided me with good feedback and the rest of the committee provided some input so we will review a final draft of that at our next meeting and that was pretty much it okay questions for debbie [Music] okay hearing consent agenda i will move that the board approve the items on the consent agenda which are new hires resignations and the february financials okay
056spins motion and seconded all in favor joy can you just take a minute sure absolutely i'd like to um the proud principal of center school who was just up there mrs diamond um who has been with the district as the huckleberry principal and center center school principal most recently for 13 years she's a beautiful person and has been an incredible contributor to this community we're all sad to see her go but also very happy for her and her family um mrd as we like to call her has supported hundreds of families and in turn thousands of students during her 13 years with brookfield i know the center school staff is still reeling at this time um we're certainly working on a replacement plan um but as you saw tonight her intelligence her tone her kindness
057her expertise her professionalism her preparation is all something to be admired um and it's been enjoyed by me for seven years now and i thank you for that mary rose and i also is believe it or not we'll miss your attention to detail um that we often tease mary rose about how detailed oriented she is and it's fantastic because it keeps us all on point and honest and she won't let us run over a sail over a waterfall she'll keep us from doing that paying attention to all those details but uh mary rose i just i can't thank you enough and i know we've got a we've got a glide path out of here until june 30th so we'll be doing a lot of this with you but uh i certainly don't mean to embarrass
058you but i wanted to make sure you were acknowledged and thanked publicly for everything you have done for this community and i don't know i saw on the video it said um mrs diamond a principal with with a vision i saw that in the credits i thought that's uh spoke volumes you always you always seem to have a vision which is so important in a leader you know it's been my um my very distinct pleasure to be here for 13 years i'm sorry i get very emotional but um it's it's just been an honor to be at both schools and um i can't say enough wonderful things about the staff they work so hard and the families are so supportive and it's just really been a great opportunity for me to learn and um become
059[Music] the the educator that i've been able to become by being here with with all of you and um having that kind of support so from central office and from the board and from my colleagues and from the families and students mostly the students probably they are they are certainly our best teachers um it's just been a real pleasure and an honor and i'm grateful for everything so thank you very much i just want to say one last thing i'm really going to miss your you know calm and nurturing demeanor it really was very much admired and i know you were admired at center school very much an so amazing place i wish you all the best in your new and your new endeavors thanks mary rose i just also wanted to say um sorry
060i'm not gonna let you go take it while you can get it i have um had the pleasure of working with you for a long time as a pto member and as a community collaborator between the library and center school but um your biggest impact was with my family so we will miss you and we thank you for all you've done i'll miss you as well i i still i still can vividly see in my head open house whatever day that was i think i don't know christopher was in fourth grade maybe and the boy scouts were in the back of the gym and all of a sudden i said and mr smith in the back and and he's like who are you talking oh no it was mr brooks i just so now i
061call him mr smith whenever i see him but i just you know one of those things but i just yes you're it's just been lovely the families are i i've had most of your children not the pleasure yet sorry i'm gonna miss each other but um but it's they just are they're a joy so thank you very much thank you thank you [Music] okay next up on the agenda new business discussion of impossible action upon recommendations of the superintendent of schools concerning the institution of teacher non-renewals pursuant to connecticut general statute section 10-151 okay i will move that pursuant to connecticut general statute section 10-151 the brookfield board of education non-renew the teaching contract of all non-tenured teachers at the end of the 2021-2022 school year as recommended by the superintendent and further move that
062the superintendent be directed to communicate this action of the board in writing to all non-tenured teachers and that the superintendent be authorized to respond on behalf of the board to any request for a hearing if required by law or for other data which may be forthcoming from the teacher and or his her representative pursuant to applicable provisions of connecticut general statutes section 10-151 and that the superintendent be directed that any response to a request for a hearing if a hearing is required by law indicate that such hearing is to be before the board or at the board's discretion a subcommittee of the board second okay and seconded all in favor hi hi hi okay joey can i say a little something sure i think it's very important for the community um and our faculty to
063know that this is this is right at the top is one of the most loathsome tasks that the superintendent and the board have to engage in at this time of year during the budget process when we don't have a budget yet the tenure law indicates that that we refer to 10 151 that the uh faculty must be notified prior to may 1st so as a function of the calendar and and not having a budget hearing uh certainly earlier than may 1st um there's no town budget there's no there's no uh education budget at this time there are some 70 teachers that are non-tenured in our district out of our 400 plus employees having been here now for seven years along with my partner dr ruby we have brought in all the teachers that are in
064year seven or less of their careers we've brought them in this is very personal we get to bring them in we are train them work directly with our principals and the rest of our faculty teacher leaders and other administrative team members to help develop them and create that joyous environment we've all seen so i it's important for me not only to explain this to the board as a reminder it's an annual um task that that almost all districts have to engage in based on uh tenure law as a prudent financial matter that we have to do um it's important for the faculty know and message to them uh on whole that we've been in communication with the teacher union on this they understand the the the situation and the timing and we hope if we
065get enough people out to support the budget then we will have a budget on may 17th and on may 18th i would be able to rescind the letters that i'll have to send uh after the board's action so it's going to be a difficult month it's scary for some people um they get nervous it produces a lot of anxiety and we understand that and none of us want to engage in this but um we're with them all the way and um we just need to get through the budget process and that's the most important thing and then we can have uh all of our teachers feeling good about things back offer them contracts for next year and be ready to go thank you joy okay next up in the agenda the title nine policy i'll
066move that the board approve policy number 4000 5145.44 title nine for first reading as recommended by the policy and communications subcommittee second okay i'll turn it off to deb yep explain so um this is a lengthy policy there's a lot of detail in here which is why we wanted to get some more input from dr barrel and mrs wygonic at our last meeting but really it's pretty straightforward it's just a lot of legal legalese but it really deals with sexual harassment and um making sure that students and employees are in an environment that is free of sexual harassment um making sure that there are clear definitions of sexual harassment and that it's well known and very clear how people are to report instances of sexual harassment so there's a lot of definitions in here and
067we identified the policy identifies where to go to make a report how to file a complaint and then how the district handles it so again this is a mandated policy and this has been this is one that we did not have correct john correct we did not have this so this is coming to us uh from cabe deb one of the things that's important a few things important to know while we didn't formally have this policy and that's part of engaging with cave is to ensure that we're up to date on all of our policies uh we have we've we followed the law the title nine law so we most of the procedures that are outlined in here we follow almost uh to the letter frankly um there are regulations as well so the letters
068the sample letters and uh forms for filling out and so forth and we once the policy is approved by the board after second reading we'll bring that forward to administration it's also important to note that mrs wygonic worked with attorney murphy and he has done a series of trainings with the designated title ix representatives in each of the schools and that's happened over the winter so we're really in a good place even though the policy hasn't formally been adopted by the board we're in a very good place and and we'll get that adopted in the next month or two do you have a policy meeting on the 27th of april so do you want questions by april 20th or um i think you know we could probably do it the week of the meeting um
069like by the 25th that that'll get us through spring break week so by the 25th is fine i mean all policies are important but it seems like a really important one to make sure we look over and read and okay one question who is the title ix coordinator that is referenced in the policy the district the district title knight coordinator is the special education director okay they assume that role [Music] and that's always that's always been our case here okay so you said when dan murphy met he met with the building principles the either the building principles or their designee that is going to be the building level title ix uh coordinator for the building okay so we could we have direction directly at the school facility for staff and students [Music] any other questions
070okay so it's been second or motion and seconded so all in [Music] right favor okay next up old business policies new policy or so amy's going to combine all emotions into one single motion okay so i will move that the board approve policy number 3541.5 records and reports transportation for a final reading as recommended by the policy and community subcommittee communications subcommittee the first read was on march 2nd i will recommend that the board approve policy number 3542.22 food service personnel code of conduct for a final reading is recommended by the policy and communications subcommittee first read was on march 2nd and i will move that the board approve policy number 3542.41 food service school lunch service professional standards for a final reading as recommended by the policy and community communications subcommittee first reading was
071on march 2nd second okay it's been moving a second all in favor okay motion carries all right next up board of education's adopted 2022 2023 budget so just an action i'll turn it over to john and talk about the public hearing uh yeah so on april 29th last tuesday the 29th the board of finance presented the town budget which included one slide for the board of education uh dan divorces put that presentation on he did a great job thorough as can be uh joy and mike i think you were both there yeah it went well yeah it went really well the public comment was actually quite supportive there was clarifying questions from the public um so it was it was great to see and um we're really all of us are proud and i know
072ken can speak to this specifically too is the work the board ken myself marcia our town finance director uh the board of finance the board of selectmen all the work we've all done in collaboration for several years now um establish credibility and trust between all three elected boards and the work we're doing together it's it's it's really fantastic and i think when you step out of brookfield and you ask other elected officials or from different boards how things are going in their towns there's a lot of that tug and that push and pull um that could get negative in adversarial and we were there years ago you know it took some time to to build that up uh build the trust level up and um well by definition you know politics is negotiation over scarce
073resources there's only so much of the pie we all have diff there's various priorities in the community you have to you have to determine how are we going to spend spend our funds uh for our citizens we're really doing a tremendous job as all three boards together um and mr divorce has said mr divorces several times talked about the board of ed and the work they've done and we're quite appreciative so it went quite well also that was the presentation on the operating budget the other part of that evening was establishing and again i think i mentioned it earlier that may 17th is formally going to be the referendum for capital and then we talked earlier i think joy you might have mentioned may 3rd may 3rd there's a town hearing to talk about the
074budgets once again and at that meeting it it's highly likely that may 17th will be the chosen and um voted on uh referendum date for the operating budget so there's just a lot of process here that we have to go through but uh nothing else new to report no she's gonna say you know thank you again on the board of finance um it's really been a great working relationship and it's been very collaborative so yeah didn't have any questions for the board of ed and everything was positively received all right next up public comment but we don't have anybody that's speaking tonight so we'll move on to kendall woodlake elementary school building project okay i have a couple of a couple of updates nothing terribly exciting um except um that um so the the pouring
075of the concrete walls if you go there it it it's really starting to look a little bit more like the final product you see a lot of like the building in the foreground the administrative offices those walls are going up the the walls for the pre-k wing is going up so the pouring of concrete walls is still happening in some of those later areas but roofing which was what held us up for so long has now been installed on over half of the building and then in those parts where roofing has been installed framing mechanical the electrical rough-ins plumbing things like that that's all starting to take place in those areas of the building and just to remind you guys um may 17th so after you go vote we can walk through it so the
076nbc will host a walk through for us and the board of selectmen and the board of finance so that will be an exciting time for us definitely yeah and i think it's important to know rosa thank you um even when the elected boards have the opportunity to go on a supervised walk-through and i know mr cecco sent that email very detailed how you have to dress and everything else um it is a construction site it's extremely messy and it's dangerous and there are workers all over the place uh many times at all times a day so it's not we're just not at a point i'm excited to get in there i would love to bring some of the different faculty from fifth grade center huckleberry over for a visit it is in absolutely no condition
077for that kind of a visit at this time i would love to bring some parents through i mean there's there's just not there yet when we get there as soon as it's safe and we can have any even a virtual tour eric could fly a drone through the hallways whatever we can figure out to get people eyes on that giving you an idea eric giving you an idea uh maybe we'll bring logan maybe logan will be back for the summer maybe he can handle it uh but when we can get people in there we're certainly going to do that it's just it's construction's messy and dangerous and uh we don't want to be in the way of the workers we want them to have as much time as they can to get the work done
078um so we're looking forward to it i may be taking a uh walk through with paul putting on the jeans and boots and hard hat uh sometime next week so get in there soon it's very difficult for me to not get in there i can tell you that let me tell you that's all i have joy okay all right next up three main points okay um i think we'd like to mention again the center school spotlight yeah and i was thinking it'd be nice to give people some more information about mrs d nicola hickman and then i guess probably an update on the candlewood like elementary school project good [Music] there you go yes um at center school there is a virtual pto meeting next tuesday the 12th there is a spirit day community meeting
079and touch a truck on friday april 29th and miss diamond starting office hours on wednesdays and that will be from 11 to 12 a.m via zoom at huckleberry next week is spring into spring break spirit week at wisconsin virtual parent meeting for a support for raising um middle schoolers at 7 p.m that's via zoom friday is the end of the marking period the book fair is the week of april 25th and there's a field trip for the diversity coalition and the art club to the five points gallery in torrington on april 29th at brookfield high school the junior prom is friday april 29th at the amber room and all schools have no school next friday for good friday close for spring break the following week april 18th to the 23rd and wear purple for military
080children on wednesday april 27th that is all i have thank you amy okay uh next up is executive session anticipated i will move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing strategy and negotiations as it relates to collective bargaining unaffiliated salaries and attorney-client privileged communications second okay it's been moved and seconded all in favor aye aye okay motion carries all right the public broadcast session of our meeting has ended thank you for watching and we'll now adjourn [Music]