001um i'd like to call the regular meeting of the brookfield uh board of education for february 16 2022 to order let's start by rising for the pledge of allegiance i pledge to the allegiance for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all right so we have all seven of our board members here this evening both our superintendent and assistant superintendent had uh were out uh today so they won't be joining us i do have uh dr burrell's report which i'll read uh on on his behalf when we get to that part of the agenda um so first up on our agenda is the student spotlight for brookfield high school so uh mr melanda why don't i uh turn it to you to let you introduce it a little bit
002all right just making sure we are on all right we're good so uh this is an odd board meeting to be out with no superintendent assistant superintendent it's a whole new world for me um so i want to thank the board uh for allowing me to come here tonight and uh turn it over to some of our fantastic students just to give you a bit of background you're going to hear from two different sets of students i thought it was really important every year as you recall recently in the last i mean it was two board meetings ago you approved the program of studies and we're always looking in our work through the cape subcommittee to bring new courses and new opportunities for students to to experience at brookfield high school and there's two experiences
003you're going to hear about today one of them is the human rights course which is a new course it's semester eyes course and it really highlights some really ongoing and important and relevant work that's going on in society today but also it's one of the yukon ece courses which means students that take it can actually apply and get credit uconn credit on their transcript for taking this course so that is one of the fantastic opportunities that we have for students the second course you're going to hear about is our emt course we are very lucky to have a teacher on staff who is also a volunteer volunteer ems in sherman paid in brookfield does a little bit of everything all over the board and she has been approved by uconn as well it's another uconn
004ece course so students can also earn credit for college taking this emt course but also it's the first course of its kind here at the high school where students can actually leave with a certification to be an emt if they pass their tests which is an amazing opportunity there's a lot that goes into both these courses but i'm really going to turn it over to them um students because you don't want to hear from me really anymore you hear enough from me so i'm going to call our human rights students these are students that took the human rights course last semester i've asked them to come up and just give a brief talk about the course and what they've experienced so i'll have them come up first see how excited they are and i'm gonna
005have them introduce themselves so you know who they are um you can just come up and say your name grade and then um you can just while you see that it's like sitting in the back row high it all right so hi it'll start and then when it's time to go through the slides you just have to push to the right and it'll be your slides okay all right so all right hello my name is hi youssef i'm a senior my name is ben i'm a senior hi i'm alexis i'm also a senior um i'm kira cummins i'm also a senior so basically this is just kind of what why we chose the course that and why we wanted to do it so me personally i chose to do the course because partly i was
006interested in learning about certain rights that i didn't know that i had access to and when taking that course i realized there was more of that than i had even thought there was and then also because it was something new for me to do at the school and i've always really liked social studies and i'm not gonna lie to you part of the reason i took it is because of who the teacher was because i had mr buckley my junior year and he told me he was doing it so i wanted to look into it and i didn't fully realize how much i was going to appreciate the course but after i took it it was really something that i wish i could have had long like i wish that it had been a full
007year to be honest with you because i felt like the semester wasn't long enough because it wasn't just learning about like my rights myself but also like the rights of people in other countries and people that come from different cultures that i had no idea what they didn't have access to that i didn't even realize i did either so it was just really cool to see what rights i was exposed to and what rights other people were lacking in that i had access to the reason why i chose human rights is because i actually did an internship like a small internship i would say with turnip activism and they taught us about how to like be activists and we learned about issues and stuff like that and i really wanted to learn about it in
008school so that's why i signed up for it and i also signed up because mr buckley as well um yeah i signed up for the course mainly because i want to learn about how to like advocate um we see a lot of activism throughout our society especially in 2020 we saw a lot of that which is when we chose the courses and it was mainly about just because like we see a lot of activism like i said but we don't really learn how to activate for or how to like promote ourselves and how to activate for ourselves so i signed up for the course mainly to focus on that and learn about what our rights are and like our rights as children and students in school i signed up for the course mainly because i
009have friends who are in the human rights club and to be honest they said you could get college credit so that was why i chose the course but i'm actually really glad i did because i'm like the person who if i have a doctor's appointment i'm getting out of there as early as i can but this class i was like i'm staying till the end like i will be here until the bell um because and i didn't really know what human rights was like what it encompassed until this course and i'm really glad that i took it and like alexis said i do actually wish it was a year-long course and i also am just really glad that we were able to incorporate it into like clubs and the curriculum for this year um so
010this is basically just what we did in the course um the post the picture up there is actually from a project that we did based on the crc which is the conventions of the rights of the child which was not something i had heard of until i took this course and i found out that they're actually not required to teach it to us because the united states hasn't ratified it we just signed it and we're actually the only country that hasn't ratified it so that was something really cool to learn about but that's a poster that we made because a lot of the projects we were given were like in the form of getting to do like things that would be considered activism and so this is actually hanging in mr buckley's classroom now but
011it was based it was a poster to raise awareness on um trafficking of women that were minors but i really this was just an example of something that i really enjoyed in the class because i was not only did doing the project exposed me to um i was able to learn while i was creating it so that was super fun but it was also a way for us to ex use like our own sort of creativity and expression in a project because we were allowed to do it anyway we chose some some people did videos we chose to do the poster but i really just enjoyed getting to learn about things that i didn't even know were a problem for people especially people who weren't like me so it was really cool to see what
012was going on in other countries and in the united states and it was kind of weird for me because when i was doing this research it was kind of hard for me to find out that this was things that like happened to girls every day just like me so it was kind of it was an eye-opener really but i really enjoyed the projects we did solely because it was really centered around real world issues so a lot of the so not just this project but another project we did after it was i got to see like how it really affected people who were just like me throughout the class we learned about our rights um and we use the udhr which is something that we learn about in class but we don't fully go through
013every single write and learn about each one and in the human rights course we picked a couple for each project and we would focus on them and we would research the violations of those rights throughout our world not just the united states which is something different because a lot of times we do only focus on the united states and we got to learn about everywhere and then we would focus learn about solutions that we could take and as a class we'd have conversations about the solutions and then we would also focus on the ideal world and what it would look like there which is kind of like motivation for how we can do better in our world and the climate the conversations we got to have throughout the class we would have a class discussion
014like a fishbowl seminar type thing and we were basically you'd have to go in the middle and then there you could talk about what you thought about it and you could talk about your solutions based on your research and it was different because everyone could bring something different to the table like everyone had their own type of research their own violations that they found so that was something that's not seen in every class because many of the times you read the same article you look at the same thing but this is a thing where you get to look at everything differently and you each bring something and then you learn from each other so basically what ben said we learned about the universal declaration of human rights and we learned how to apply that to
015our lives but also the lives of everyone else and another thing that me and hyatt did outside of the classroom is we are part of the human rights close to home at the dodd center for human rights at uconn where we are helping them develop a summer program so that's something that we were able to take out of this course and actually apply to like our real lives so i think that's pretty interesting um yeah we learned one thing that i really enjoyed about this class was actually like getting like opportunities that i didn't really have in classes mr buckley recommended me for to like go to uconn to to make this academy and i'm really glad that i was a part of it because i now can spread my like ideas that i have
016for human rights and how we can actually connect to action to use um a project that i really enjoyed was the ripple of hope project where we created we had an issue our me and ben were partners and we talked about divert like um workplace diversity was it it was something along those lines but we talked about we talked about that and it was really interesting to learn more about an issue that connects to us and it was really interesting learning about child made in africa as a nigerian um i've been close to that like i've seen children who've been taken from their own homes and be maids and they don't go to school or they they're just there for they did not really recognize and it was interesting learning that in class um yeah
017so just sort of to wrap it up i think one thing that mr buckley had said to us when we were doing the class that really uh stuck with me and i'm pretty sure everybody who took the class was that like even like with this poster and like any of the projects we did like even if it was just the kids in our class or just him that was seeing it by doing this and just developing a better understanding and expanding our knowledge of these different subjects and topics even though we may have not covered every last thing it was a way for us to not just make a difference with other people but with ourselves because we were even if we can't we don't end up doing anything with this we now know this
018information and now we're exposed to it and we're aware that it's out there whereas before we had no idea that some of this stuff even existed so he always told us that like and even when we talked to mr like alessio because he was doing something with um two refugees trying to help them come to america and we got to actually talk to them like on the phone and stuff like that maybe it wasn't making a difference you know in the entire world but it was making a difference at least at our school and i think that this class and the club that he has helped run and create has just been able to really push activism at least within the school and i think even something as small as that made a big enough
019difference to us and the people around us anybody have board members have any questions for any of the students that took the human rights class you don't have to so um thank you so much to hear from i appreciate the four of them they all and you'll hear from a set of students that are also taking emt next but they all volunteer to do this i know wednesday night sure we'll come talk about it um so i'm so impressed with you and all the work that you continue to do they've made such a difference and it's just been an amazing experience so i thank all four of you so appreciate it thank you very much and i know i promised i was going to try to make this quick but i am a little excited
020we're in person again it's nice to see faces even though they're masked um i'm just excited also to talk about this next course which is our emt course we have a couple students here representing our emt course which is a year-long course and so our students here are going to come up and talk about that now all right so we just want to start off with a little introduction uh and getting to introduce ourselves to you guys um so i'm jack i'm a junior probationary member with the brookfield volunteer fire department candwig company i'm also a junior here at bhs [Music] and i moved here from fairfield in january of 2020 okay so a little bit about me is i'm sabrina i'm also a junior member at the brookfield fire department candle company i'm also
021a junior in high school i'm 16 years old and a little bit why i took this class was because i thought it would be a good background for law enforcement or the fbi which is a career that i was looking to pursue in the future all right my name is avidis i'm 17 years old and a junior at brookfield high school and i plan on being a doctor and a surgeon so this class was really going to help me out get into the healthcare and into like medicine in general all right so a little bit about this class this class is getting us ready to test with the state of connecticut and the nremt um it's training us to be real professional amts be able to volunteer or get a job when we turn 18
022with the ambulance department um and it's just really exciting because we're able to actually test with the state of connecticut and the en and our emt um when we finish the class and pass it okay so the goals that we have when we were signing up for this class was for me personally like i said was uh to enhance my chances at getting into the fbi or or basically law enforcement i know that there's other people like jack he wants to be a firefighter so he has many firefighters have their emt with it and then again with avadis he wants to pursue like surgeon and doctor so again it helps with having a background in emt to help further prepare you for your healthcare profession all right so a little bit what we did in
023the class is we started off in the beginning of the year the first thing we did was we had a in-school field trip where we got cpr certified so we learned how to give professional cpr as well as helping with choking patients so we just pretty much learned about respiratory emergencies toxicology emergencies cardiac emergencies and also how to treat them and how to administer some of the medications we can administer as emts like oxygen narcan glucose and epinephrine and pretty much the course just helps us learn about these emergencies how to properly treat them and how to be ready for them when we eventually do get certified as an emt all right so my personal goals after completing this class and getting my emt and testing with the state of connecticut is to be able
024to volunteer as ems in brookfield because right now i'm only fire department and obviously career fire department as sabrina said earlier um you know all these career departments they require that you have your emt certificate or some even require paramedicine um so that's what i'm looking forward to after completing this class so for now now that i'm still in high school i would like to get my emt certification within like the summer that way i'll have my emt when i'm also a volunteer at the fire department and then after high school for college and my career choices i was really looking forward into getting into fbi like i said earlier and having a background in emt will really help you with that because especially in like the detective field if you already have a background
025in emt and you see a paper yeah you see a patient on the floor and there's like certain wounds you'll know exactly how it happened what caused it all these different kinds of things if it was like a drug overdose now that we as emts we would know how to figure out what certain drugs cause or does to the body so seeing that it'll just help me get a head start with that all right so my goals for the class is to get my emt certification and just to get experience in the healthcare field and just be ready so that when i become a doctor i can i have like a head start and i have a background in helping patients treating patients and knowing like causes and how to treat those causes uh and
026so overall emt class helps us and it uh gives us background in a lot of different fields um it allows us to get a feel for what we're gonna be doing in the future um like with avidis being a doctor surgeon and sabrina going into a law enforcement field it allows for employment um after taking the class with the certification and provides it provides real hands-on experience um that you wouldn't learn anywhere else so does one of you what about are you going to be writing doing ride-alongs how does that could somebody explain that uh yeah so does anybody else want to all right so right now miss healy who is our excellent emt teacher is coordinating with the town of brookfield to be able to get us on ride-alongs with the ambulances um so
027basically what's gonna happen is we're gonna go down there and almost take a shift with them and um you know wait for calls and ride along with them if anything happens let's talk about the pacing of the class how fast it's very decently paced it's um the whole year so we have a lot of time to learn about all the material because it's a very big book and it's got a lot of material in it so it's very good to you know have it spaced out so much and be able to learn the material at such a slow pace because i feel like because right now during high school we have a lot going on all the different classes it's nice to be able to take it slow so is there an exam or something
028that you have to take to to get the certification at the end of the class yes so with and i bump my nose into the mic but with mrs healy's um class we have to take an actual exam to be able to pass the class to be able to participate with the nremt and the state of connecticut to be able to test any other questions uh there's two classes there's one on the a day and the b day there's about i would say what 20 25 per class there's two classes wow so 50. so if you didn't have this class how would you get this training so if we didn't have this class um we would have to pay probably a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars um it'd be very fast paced a lot of
029them are you know quicker and it yeah it would it would be tough it would be you know financial burden but with the brookfield high school it's very nice that it was free provided to us and it's you know the real deal and are the classes outside of school for your age or would you have to wait till you're older yeah you can test you can um take the class at 16 and become an emt that's great just to comment uh yeah i i paid a thousand dollars for mine it's expensive uh i didn't get college credit no i didn't have a year to take the course i i think this is just a golden opportunity employment wise i mean it's good money you guys are definitely in demand right now so you're not going
030to have a problem no matter where you go to college or grad school or uh wherever you're not going to have a problem signing up with the local department uh the other thing is so i have i have three knucklehead kids and i'm not i'm no longer an emt i'd let it expire i should have done that but uh i used that training i had you know 15 years ago to this day so on top of all the professional avenues this this course just makes you more of a valuable person and uh you guys i think it's awesome thank you any other questions so uh in addition i'd also like to say that the brookfield education foundation has also helped out significantly um they were able to make uh we applied for a grant and
031they got us some are able to provide some money and resources for us to help continue move this this program forward uh for both programs where it's whether it's the emt or the human rights course i think you're seeing that hands-on realistic real world applications are the the most important for our kids you're seeing them into very different venues but i just appreciate that the board's continued support um for both of these programs and allowing me to expand and try new things and you can see the success it's having building our our young adults and preparing them for the next step so thank you to the emt students to our human rights students and to the board thank you very much thank you all the course open important all right so next up on our
032agenda is uh the student representative all right so with events starting off we have parent-teacher conferences scheduled for march 10th running from 11 30 to 2 and parents and guardians can sign up using meet the teacher and mr blend will send out more instructions on that um and also we have the school day sat which will be administered to all juniors between march 23rd and 30th and that will be computer-based more information to come on that and just looking back we had celebrated national school counselors week which was a big success because i know the counselors got a nice treat when they came in on monday and also just over the loudspeaker we were able to say a few things appreciating them also we have the school climate committee that met and reviewed a student
033survey that will be sent out in the coming weeks and the program of studies as you know is now up for students to view different course offerings for the next school year and the student registration process for those courses begins in march and an updated morning drop-off plan is being created and will be shared soon with parents and students to help speed up the process at the high school since a big issue lately has been students either not getting to school on time or something of that nature because of the traffic build up so just finding a solution to help mitigate that as much as possible um and then with clubs we have friends of rachel club issued their february um challenge so they've been doing like monthly challenges to get into the ilts and
034do this different stuff like this month they're doing a poster so every iot will create a poster that embodies kindness inclusivity and diversity and that can be displayed throughout and they have a little contest between the iots and then also outdoors club we are going on a hiking trip um in the upcoming weeks and we actually just got a bunch of apparel in so it was really nice to get all that um and also national honor society is holding another blood drive because um we usually do two a year but especially this year with the first one there was like a shortage with the um red cross so we're trying to bump it up a bunch and do almost like double the number of people this time around and then also a lot of clubs
035are ordering different chords for seniors that will wear graduation and then finally with student government um we actually had a meeting today and i had dr brill i invited dr brill to join us because just from a personal perspective i felt like the new program that we have going on is something that mr buckley actually brought from his old school and created there um just it's normally we would have like different meetings during lts and they'd be short and it was hard to really get stuff done but now we have actually during the school day a built-in block every like month where we'd all meet here in the library and go through different different tasks that we had to do but more importantly it made its i feel like it's more like official now where
036i would walk into a meeting and we'd have like actual votes and um students could vote on which like issues we wanted to move forward with and approve different proposals so for example recently we're putting in place or at least trying to something where different clubs could come to the meetings and put forward like a proposal to get a grant or a loan for example so just stuff like that where it's making this group that was student government which seemed a little much a little bit smaller now into something that kind of incorporates the whole school um so yeah i just wanted to invite dr brill so that he could see how that functions and i called it a mini board of ed because it's really formal and official in that manner so and then
037overall we're just continuing to develop plans for senior and junior experiences that are unique for the upcoming months that's all i got yeah but what's an ilt ilt is the individualized learning time that's yeah in the middle of the day yeah okay thank you very much all right so next up on the agenda is uh written correspondence okay the capone family wrote regarding the brookfield high school program of studies class rank and s.a.t scores christina zimmermann wrote regarding indoor sports mass mandates jacqueline fischetto and stacy coburn wrote regarding the book drama laura orban wrote regarding school ranking and diversity monique matthews wrote regarding special ed discrimination deborah spinekia wrote regarding public comment marnie mcniff wrote regarding academic support logan sullander wrote regarding the changing covid protocols and we received emails regarding mask choice so rather
038than reading the 84 names they're all recorded and they will be reflected in the minutes so next up is uh approval board i'll move that the board approved the minutes from the regular meeting on january 19th and the joint meeting with the board of finance and the board of selectmen on february 10th second that's been moved and seconded any comments or edits okay all in favor all right okay it's approved unanimously um next up is the superintendent's update um uh superintendent barrel um isn't able to be with us tonight but he did give me a written report and if you're okay i'll i'll read that in um uh he he asked that we start with um some memory of two of our own who we've lost over the last week and he asked me to
039join him in honoring rosemary sarsfield and after receiving a degree in history from hunter college rosemary began her teaching career in the new york city public school systems after moving to new milford with her husband and daughter rosemary continued her teaching career in brookfield in 1976 where she taught until 2003 so a long-standing teacher who passed away this last week secondly uh dottie miles uh now dottie taught for 25 years in brookfield before retiring in 2000. she was proud to have been brookfield's teacher of the year in 1987 and was a finalist in the connecticut teacher of the year program always an advocate for education dottie then served on the board of education from 2001 to 2005 was a founding member and secretary of the brookfield education foundation from 2003 to 2005 and was a
040founder and coordinator of the hand-in-hand volunteer literacy tutoring program at huckleberry hill elementary school from 2007 to 2013. when she wasn't teaching and after retirement she was an active member of the brookfield community serving on the charter revision commission brookfield commission on aging and the brookfield library foundation so dottie was uh well for the my kids was very well known and she's actually a neighbor maybe six or seven houses away so i'll be i'm sad to see her go um next up is a covet update um the board held a special meeting on monday to discuss the department of health legislation legislative and gubernatorial decisions regarding executive orders and mass mandates i think we all are familiar with that meeting but for the public i'll continue to read this uh the dph and our medical
041health advisors recommending recommend optional mask wearing as of march 1st the covet cases have dropped dramatically over the last six weeks since we returned from winter recess on monday night the board thoughtfully considered these circumstances and unanimously voted to suspend the mask policy making the mass optional protocol effective march 1st as we transition to this optional model all other mitigation will remain in place including distancing cohorting where practical hand washing ventilation and staying home when ill students and staff who can return from infection on day six symptom-free will need to wear a mask through day 10 when in school masking on the school bus remains since it is a federal order and he asked that we remind the public that the best guard against uh severe ill severe illness and spreading is vaccination and to
042please consider getting vaccinated if and when you can the next up is the annual connecticut martin luther king essay contest we had a winner from brookfield one of only 15 students in the state to be recognized for their essay honoring dr martin luther king jr congratulations to lyden tessier we are so proud of her lyden her family mr renda and her ela teacher were in attendance last saturday as senator chris murphy celebrated all 15 winners next the college board connecticut women in science award from for brookfield high school brookfield high school earned the ap computer science a female diversity award recognizing the closing of the gender gap in ap computer science a brookfield high school has earned the college board computer science female diversity award for achieving high female representation in ap computer science a
043schools honored with uh with this award have expanded girls access in ap computer science courses more than 1 000 institutions achieve 50 percent or higher female representation in one of the two ap computer science courses or a percentage of computer science exam take takers meeting or exceeding that of the school's female population during the 2021-2020-2021 school year in 2021 in 2021 bhs was one of 199 schools recognized in the category of ap computer science a we're thrilled to congratulate our female ap computer science students and our teacher mr st scott zuka along with the stem teacher andrew hill and principal belanda on the step toward gender parity and computer science education next was school security planning and enhancement we're looking forward to working with three new police department leaders uh all who were recently promoted
044chief john pugliese major pete franks and youth officer mitch heller of course we congratulate chief purcell and youth officer grambling as their recent retirements on their recent retirements and thank them for their dedicating their entire careers to the brookfield police department and to the town of brookfield mrs farris and mrs white mrs faris and mrs wagonic joined me last week in a meeting with the new director of western connecticut center for school safety amory bernhardt from western connecticut regional services we're working to collaborate and enhance our crisis plans he's he is also providing threat assessment training that all administrators and their crisis team members will eventually participate in and lastly uh parent engagement uh last week i i'm meeting dr burrell i joined this center school pto where i was invited to discuss next school
045year's mid-year transition to candlewood lake elementary school next year's budget strategic planning and the recent change to the mask optional policy i will be visiting with a whiskeneer pto tomorrow night and i'm working to schedule visits with huckleberry hill and bhs i will also be initiating speak the superintendent parent educator advisory council focused on two themes budget resources and communications and engagement look for more information in the coming months so he kind of shot across the bow to let us know he's going to tell us some more about that one so that's what he gave us a lot of reading it was a lot of reading he told me he gave me a nice short report [Applause] okay so next up and i won't have to talk so much um are the super in the
046subcommittee reports and uh first up is finance and uh rosa why don't you do both of them while you're at it okay so on the first meeting i'll just go chronologically on 117 so january 17th we met and at that time we were still in the budget review process so at that meeting we had gone over we had just had our budget hearing our public budget hearing and so there were parents that had come out and spoken about adding the costs for boys hockey so we had talked about adding those to the budget at that day on that date as well as removing to student days from next year's calendar which i believe we talk about tonight a few other adjustments to the budget were talked about at that meeting and this was also the
047meeting where we as a committee voted to recommend this budget to the board of ed we had by that point thoroughly vetted it and had gone through our review process so that was the 17th then we had a special meeting on january 24th and the goal of this meeting was just to review the bids for the new transportation contract so we had our town purchasing agent walk us through the process of sealed bids it was a very interesting and intense process i didn't know a lot about this process so it was it was really nice to be walked through it ultimately we sent about 10 pages of specifications that we needed that included everything from the types of vehicles that we needed employee qualifications etc and two companies had responded with their sealed bid packages
048that were then opened live via zoom and so at this meeting on the 24th we went through these two bids i looked at them side by side and both companies were really within one percent of each other so they were very close but all star did come in much lower both the first year of the contract as well as lower overall but there is larger increases year to year compared to the other company which came in more overall but had a slightly steadier rate of increase year to year so at that meeting the committee voted to authorize our business director ken post to award the contract to all-star and that's that's my update any questions for rosa okay thank you uh next up is uh um policy and communications debbie okay uh we met on
049january 19th feels like it was so long ago the bulk of our discussion really was to continue to try to formulate a policy for school library media and really what we were working on was the addendum to the existing school policy that addresses how we deal with challenged materials or reconsideration of library materials so we spent most of our meeting going over some input that we had received from board members as well as input from the district's library media specialists and there was a lot to discuss and we agreed that i would make these suggested revisions with lisa's help and um we reviewed them again actually in tonight's policy meeting but they are in your packet to discuss later on this evening the other thing that we voted unanimously on was to add the boy
050scouts into a list of groups that will not be charged to use our school facilities for their meeting space um we had received two letters from actually a girl scout troop and a boy scout troop in recent months asking if we could waive the rental fee for them so that they could have their meetings and after analyzing the building rental income that ken provided and seeing how many meetings they have on an annual basis we decided that it was the right thing to do to waive that rental fee for the boy scouts and girl scouts so that was nice is that actually a policy change or is that a a regulation change of some sort um i don't think it was a policy change it's a regulation okay i just was asking in case we
051had to put it up to the vote yeah no okay um so that was pretty much it we really we didn't even get to talk about any communications in that particular meeting it really was about the um school media policy actually we had a question so with that was there any like stipulations like if the if the meetings were like right after school and so the kids were staying after school those groups or was it really sort of open to any time um i believe we we talked about it being right after school we said if it was a special event like a dinner dance or something like that on a saturday that's different that would be different you know where if we have to bring in extra custodians or open the school on a
052day that it's not normally open that would be a different case this was really talking about meeting directly after school when staff is usually still in the building okay thank you for clarifying that okay any other questions all right next up is facilities okay we met on february 3rd we reviewed the school dude reports the update at the middle school we're doing we're going to let the system run for another month or two before we do another sample but the water has been safe all along an update on the capital projects at the high school the hvac the bid was friday february 4th and we'll hear more about that in our next meeting the boys locker room project jules was brought in and is working with the nbc ken post is going to reach out
053to paul and jules the building management system at the high school we're supposed to have a training soon um high school plumbing fixtures there's a walk through with the guardian group there's a full proposal for three restrooms to be fully restored hoping for it to happen sooner than later the security film on doors we got an evaluation and different options to restore or replace paving at the high school it's being lined up for the summer the front parking lot and the main parking lot which is the teacher's parking lot the middle school replacing electrical services we're beginning the design services and the maintenance vehicle no luck so far so nothing's happening with that with the uh wall update at the middle school the winter rising is done and complete and we are still waiting for
054specifications for the design work which we actually did receive today so we're going to go through with that building condition study we haven't been getting anything back from tecton so we reached out to fuller d'angelo our encore architect to possibly do a study because he's interested in taking the project custodian staffing update we have an open night position at the high school but we're in the process of interviewing two internal candidates so we're finally in a good place all right uh there wasn't any new business but during our miscellaneous discussion we did discuss the arpa funds and our three requests of the enrollment study the condition study and the ac handler so the opera committee has been through all the reviews and there's a list of 23 items and they put forth the top 12
055that they highly recommend they ranked r3 requests the ac handler was ranked number eight the condition study was ranked number 10 and the enrollment study was ranked 13. so we'll see how that i'll just add as a follow-up that it was presented to the board of selectmen at their meeting in uh in february and that's it any questions okay uh next up is cape we met february 9th we had deep pearson give a report well she gave a summary of the report that the ad hoc school committee gave on the book challenge she summarized and answered questions on those we discussed guiding principles for removal such as outdated text poor quality of books number of books with the same material sexual or violent material we moved on to the discussion of the canada wood lake
056elementary school library setup the library set up is going to be made up of two floors the bottom being k through two and the top being three grades three to five the two floors are joined by a staircase i thought this was pretty interesting that the staircase is only accessed by the library staff and teachers and the two libraries you actually have to go out of one library and go into like travel around to the other library so while they're joined they're only joined by the staff members uh and then we adjourned it probably okay any uh any questions uh i will just add that we the cape committee did vote um to recommend to the board that the book drama be retained in the hhgs library and that was a unanimous vote i see
057that i thought that was a new business i'm sorry yeah it's it's it's there i just it just doesn't mention the vote so i think we probably ought to amend the minutes to recognize if a vote was taken what that vote was yeah we should put that in the minutes and if we're editing my name is spelt wrong so apologies since we're already editing might as well just fix that so i just missed the word voted right and the account account should be noted that it's unanimous okay any other questions okay now i think the just for clarity we have to decide as a board first on the policy right right so that will be tonight's business item and once we've settled on the policy and we've all agreed on the policy then we would
058bring a specific vote you know report up from the cape committee to the full board at the following meeting since you guys have already met on it so um but i do think we need to have the policy done first with everybody unless anybody disagrees i agree okay all right thank you next up is equity inclusion okay we met on february 10th the results of the google poll that mrs hawley sent out was that the teams wanted to do a joint presentation both the stakeholder equity and the teacher quality group so they will be presenting will both be presenting at our march 16th meeting hoping for about five to ten minutes each and then after that we went into breakout rooms and the teacher quality group looked at the stakeholder slides and provided some feedback
059and comments and the teacher quality looked at the stakeholder is that what i said we each looked at the other slides i don't know what i said first and then we sort of made some comments on them and discussed the other team's presentation then we regrouped discussed the feedback offered some small suggestions on visuals um language vagueness specific specificity etc and um so we'll continue to work on those and then at our next meeting we'll do like mock presentations each group will do a map presentation to prepare for coming before the board on march 16th so getting close looking forward to that yeah any uh any questions for amy all right thank you all right so that's it for the subcommittee reports uh next up is consent agenda i will move that the board approve
060the items on the consent agenda which are new hires transfers terminations resignations and retirements second okay it's been moved and seconded any discussion no but i will just say i'm very sad to see dr ruby's name on this list and uh gina quagonic or she's not here tonight but her as well so yeah we lose two huge assets to the to the district um and they both have wonderful opportunities for themselves personally so i understand completely why they're why they're uh where they're pursuing um you know pursuing their next step um i've asked dr barrella in our next meeting he could have dr ruby stand up and talk about the teaching position she's taking i thought that would be very interesting for us as a board a little bit of flavor on what's uh what's
061going on and i think we ought to do that okay any further discussion all in favor all right any opposed okay it's unanimous okay so we're moving on to new business first item is a setting of the graduation date for the class of 2022 here we are again so let me turn it over to mr bellanda all right um i'm sorry before we do that you gotta make the motion yeah make the motion i remember that the board set the graduation date for the brookfield high school class of 2022 as recommended by vhs principal mark belanda second it's moved and seconded okay this is pretty uh relatively straightforward in terms of um recommending a date for graduation we do this every year this is the seventh time i'm coming to the board this recommend uh
062the graduation date be set as saturday june 18th time tbd but most likely in the morning we've had a resounding support for having the ceremony here at brookfield high school and we want to continue that uh tradition and a whole host of other things working on with grad party and things like that currently the last day of school is the 17th based on snow days we're not going to have any more and um we'll be good to go okay all right all right any uh any questions okay all in favor all right okay any of those all right i told you up and running good job um next up is the approval of the candlewood lake elementary school furniture and fixtures and equipment ffne i move that the board authorized techton to prepare documents for
063the procurement from the state of connecticut for public bidding for the purchase of furniture fixtures and equipment f and e for the candlewood lake elementary school as recommended by the municipal building committee second okay it's moved in second and i'll just say that uh last night uh they had a formal presentation at the municipal building committee meeting and i think at least six of us i think were able to attend last night and got a chance to see that presentation um anybody want to say anything about it uh you know while we're here i thought it was a very thorough and very thorough good-looking set of furniture yeah i spoke to my daughter's teacher at huckleberry today too and she's just like i can't wait like she's so she said that john shared the slides
064with the teachers today and they're like so excited okay yeah they really did involve the the stakeholders and the staff um whether it was the special ed teachers or the office leaders or the nurses or the nurses or the or the the classroom teachers you know there's a lot of input they had gathered on that and made a lot of changes i gather from you know the initial thoughts they had and the recommendation of the municipal building committee um did have a caveat that was one type of furniture that they were going to go do a uh more detailed review of all right but by us making our motion that we're following their recommendation we we incorporate that by reference so um it was the they were like little foam stools in the gathering areas
065at the end of each of the wings so that they could have informal events with the classrooms with a you know a smart board out you know to be able to you know get out of the classroom and do something a little differently and they were more like foam stools and they wanted to see how durable they were in particular and if they would tip them together they were only 14 inches i mean they're that tall they're not going to do a lot of tipping i don't think um jump off it i was just thinking what mike has been doing jumping off them yeah i was worried they were gonna there was once somebody said maybe well will they throw them the uh in any case that that secondary review is going on and otherwise
066the municipal building committee approved it so i think the presentation has been posted has it not yes i believe it has yes yeah it's on the candlewood lake elementary school uh website right yep it's on the website that we have so for those of you who do like to look at the material it's supposed to you can get to it through the brookville board of education website and there's a link there okay any discussion okay all in favor aye aye opposed all right we're off and running um okay old business um the we should continue our discussion on the 2022-2023 school calendar i'll move that the board approved the 2022-2023 school calendar as recommended by superintendent dr john burrell oh second okay it's been moved and seconded now if you recall we all have the
067updated calendar proposal in our deck um and uh um and what we had asked dr brill to do is to remove the additional three plc days and then move them from wednesdays to friday so that we weren't interrupting the middle of the week and he's done that so and this is then what the resultant calendar would look like that's i think the only change since the last time we reviewed it and um election day was incorrect on the previous one november 8th so he's although i feel like kids would have liked to have november first off the day after halloween i always found election day interesting it's the first tuesday after the first monday that's how it's written in the federal law the first tuesday after the first monday it's not the first tuesday it's
068the first tuesday after the first monday so which means since it's the first the monday the first november first is a tuesday it you can't do election day ever on the first i think they never wanted to have election day right after halloween are there any discussions on i just want to tell you i just want to say i don't support the calendar um due to the impact of covet and i think that we need to maximize student instructional time so i think that we can scale back more on less pd days or early dismissals so that's just why i'm not going to support the calendar okay given and the transition with the new school so what we're losing with that so dr burrow made some comments that he wanted me to share um he
069did say he understood that by the way you i know you and he have exchanged notes about that um he he says we don't really have a great deal of teacher collaboration time in spite of the admins and teachers being creative on the daily schedule having the uh the plc time gives them a sustained and reliable two and a half hour common block that they can use to collaborate um and that they plan for units data analysis curriculum development integration and technology and sc elder in those times um the having its schedule allows them to develop an agenda and dr ruby has coordinated that in the past and by having them specifically having four days that they can do it they can actually organize them in a in advance and it allows them to do
070the things they need to make the schools effective so that was his input and he says and he says to be frank the other thing that they always deal with is there's iterative issues that happen during the school year and so having those days throughout the school year allow them to react if they need to so so he is still would like to keep the four days so um so one more although he acknowledges the point yeah one recommendation i would have would be to even start august 29th um you know i know the first three are t new teacher orientation which is very much needed um and then the 22 25th and 26 could stay as is and then start school on monday because if you add up the number of weeks full weeks
071that the students have is less than um you know they're out more they don't have a full week they have less being in school for a full week then not so i'm and i'm and i'm not and i'm making the recommendation for this coming year not moving forward but given the impact of transitioning to the new school are you proposing an amendment or do you want to just take it to vote yes no yeah i guess we just take it to vote okay and then any other discussion points all right uh hearing none uh all in favor of approving the uh the calendar as uh recommended by dr burrell please raise your hand and say aye all right all opposed so it passes 4-3 okay the first time we've had a next boat in a
072while that's uh um okay uh next up is discussion of policy 6563 the school library media and there's a possible motion there's no pre predetermined motion but let me turn it over debbie to you and let you lead the discussion okay so as i said earlier um [Music] the purpose of uh amending this policy is that the previous policy 6563 really only addressed uh the procurement of school library media there was no clause within it to identify what the board's role was if any school library material was chat material was challenged so over the last couple months actually we've been working on this document that is now entitled appeals to reconsideration of library materials and this was pulled together with input from the american library association the connecticut library association and other school library policies
073and this really outlines um the steps that the board can take should take if a parent challenges or asks for reconsideration of school library material and the school forms a committee and the parent is not satisfied with the outcome of that committee review and in which case it would then come to the board so um you had seen this once before this is the second round because there were some changes so this copy reflects in yellow the changes that were made with input from board members as well as input from the school media specialists they were very involved in this process we've had several conversations and this reflects all of those all of that input so i don't know if anybody has i have one question so actually too um so the first is so
074this is the material here is going to be added to policy six five six it'll be an addendum to that policy okay um and then the other question was just on point number eight and on the la in the second page um the board reserves the right to remove material after all steps and proper review have taken place does that mean after the board has voted if there's again another challenge or i think it means that if the board's decision is that the material be removed then the board has the right to remove it oh okay how are you interpreting it rosa i i don't know i think i was confused because i was like well if all the if all the proper steps have taken place and one of the steps is that the
075board votes i guess i was just like confused like if there was i don't know well we could you know i think what's maybe a little confusing is that under number nine where it says the board of education shall render the final decision it doesn't really address what that decision could be so if we move oh okay you know what i'm saying if we if we say something like the board of education shall render the final decision and reserves the right to remove material after all steps and proper review have taken place does that make sense yeah i think so go with you so i'm going to make sure i'm clear so you're going to move the the words and eight on the second page to correct that's just a continuation of nine on the
076first one yeah yeah okay because it it really in number nine it really doesn't say how like what's the conclusion right when the board renders its decisions should we also add retain then to remove or retain the material sure yep and then that also just got me thinking and i apologize i didn't think of this before um should there be any language in here on like subsequent challenges to the same book do you know what i mean like if like let's say the board renders the final decision and then there's another challenge for the same book like i guess if it's the same concern like do you go through this whole process all over again or do we say no we voted on this it's a different concern unless it's a yeah like maybe should
077there be language that says like no this like if the concern is the same we're not going to repeat the process if the concern is different we do yeah we might need i think that's probably a good idea yeah so maybe add a number uh i would actually put that that thought at the end of number one on the first page the board may form an ad hoc committee to designate appropriate subcommittee to conduct the review the board also reserves the right to decline a review okay right yeah and that will cover that covers everything right yeah the right to decline a review of a book that has already been considered reserve the right to decline a review period okay yeah because you know you never know what our our board or our future board
078will be facing right so that's i mean you need to leave it flexible enough that the board can act appropriately okay and then there's just very minor changes on the corresponding regulation which is [Music] after that see says yeah let's see regulation c six five six quick yep do we actually vote on regulation we do not so was this just the consideration for dr burrill yes okay so what is a way that you've just added the words age appropriateness yep and i notice that it's an editorial chart right and why is our question mark the question mark and we actually talked about that at our meeting tonight um the question mark is because age-appropriateness shouldn't really be brought up at the weeding stage it if the book is already in one of the school libraries
079it's been vetted for age-appropriateness like it wouldn't be there if it hadn't met the criteria to be in [Music] say an elementary school library so it it really just doesn't belong in a conversation about weeding because it it's very unlikely that it would happen weeding is really what we do when a book becomes obsolete or it's in poor condition or it's not circulating because it's not popular so that was really what we were discussing tonight whether or not age appropriateness is even a factor at that point because of the selection criteria it has age appropriateness in the selection criteria already right so to the extent we were following the our own regulation it would it would never be an issue but right [Music] although if it's a it's a very old book the age of
080the age may may be very different than how we would you know what i mean a book that's very old that's or if an error was made right yeah you know i've never i've never believed in things being perfect i would leave in an age appropriateness if if there was a judgment that said oh oops you know that would be me is it it's not required that all of these conditions be met that's just these are possible true so if he's going to do it that's a possible criteria for weeding would make it a lot easier for me okay a little bit more open okay and the edit on the page before that so that that's weird when i was reading this that was actually like that was i think that was supposed to be
081taken out i think it was it just somehow made it in yeah i think that was an old edit it was very old it just sounds something the edits are in yellow yeah we ought to probably just make a note to them that they'll fix and fix that i see that every now and then and the policies of strikeouts that you just left as a strikeout yeah [Music] so the real change here is this point and that's the point that said on review it goes to the superintendent yeah okay so do we need to bring this back again or can we make a motion with them is everybody comfortable with uh the edits as proposed yes okay everyone's okay with that okay so um i will make a motion that the uh the board um
082approve as a second read uh the policy number six five three with edits as proposed by the policy committee and disc and and the edits as discussed in this evening's meeting second oh go ahead amy okay amy seconded it any just formal discussion all in favor aye aye that's unanimous all right um so um this is a question because i know the cape committee was working in parallel as our ad hoc committee on this one the um did we follow the steps explicitly on on this so there's documentation that says we completed steps one two three four five six seven eight nine i think we probably went over it i think we probably went over it there you go we probably ought to when we talk about it at our next meeting about the book
083itself kind of walk through it by steps you know here's what we learned at each step of the way i think that would probably help we had as you saw in the minutes and mike mentioned we had d pearson attend our gate meeting and she provided very very helpful insight and so maybe maybe we might would it be useful to have dee come to our board meeting and give us share some of the same insight yeah was that that was influential to your thinking i thought it was very helpful yeah okay well let's let's uh let's note that we'll we should invite you to the next meeting lisa will you talk to uh dr bruhl about that okay good all right so uh the uh the next is a uh uh the board of education
084adopted budget it's uh just to continue any discussion on that um just an update to everybody the uh we submit the presentation i thought went pretty well wouldn't you agree when we met with the three boards together um i want to thank mr post for all of hard work and uh eric for all his last minute work on doing editing changes um and came together i thought very nicely um the just what's going on right now is the it went from us we sent the formal uh our formal submission on the 30 and the end of january the 31st of january it then went goes into the hands of the first selectmen who did her work in a two-week period it's a pretty fast turnaround for the first selectmen she presented her budget yesterday to
085the board of selectmen who are now doing a series of workshops for the second half of the month of february the as i understand it uh and i haven't actually i've seen the document that was sent out but in her recommendation she were making adjustments and uh changes and it would reduced our budget submission by 91 000 and change and ken did you find out anything on if there's anything behind that yet i asked mr post if he would talk to the town controller to find out if there's any mechanical adjustments that were in there because if you remember you know they had to update um the insurance premiums and there were some other some small adjustments they were going to do at the top and i don't know if they made them in our
086piece of the budget or they did it elsewhere so we'll find out more once we do that if you have time they're doing daily almost daily uh workshops at the board of stockman and they're televised so if anybody's interested um i don't know there's no particular day they're talking about the board of ed though so it's not like we're on the agenda um they the the board of selectmen then presents their budget to the board of finance on the first of um the first of march which is coming up pretty quickly um and board of finance then we'll go through a good solid month of deliberation so we are on their agenda on the 8th so please mark your calendar we should all plan to go if we can right to do it that meeting
087is just a q a discussion there is no formal agenda we're not doing a presentation um i've asked mr rooney if he could ask his members to send us questions by the first so we'd have a chance to staff them out if there are particular questions um i don't know if there will be particular questions so we'll find out so do you have a time for that meeting i think it's at seven o'clock all their meetings seem to start at seven but i will find the agenda once it's published and make sure we all get it in fact at least if you could just keep your eye on that when they publish that agenda make sure we all get a copy of it but i would block at seven o'clock because that's when they normally
088start their meetings and it would be at i think they're doing there's a town hall but i'm not sure they did uh two years ago they didn't hear yes so um i don't i haven't talked to glenn about where yet so that's what's going on with the budget um next up is an update on candlewood lake elementary school building rosa you want to give an update on yeah anything you've learned i think we've had some fun stuff yeah um well the obviously the biggest news is the ffne package that we just voted on tonight so that is that marks a really big milestone in the project marks the completion of that phase and so now they can actually start to procure all of the finishes and furniture for the new building the only other exciting
089update is that all of the roofing material is on site so as long as it is above 32 degrees they can work on that so this really good news we got the roofing materials when we expected to so now our late schedule is still on schedule and he did say that once the roof goes on progress then it then it goes really fast it'll accelerate because they have an enclosed building they can eat yes that's what he said the biggest thing is to be able to heat the inside so that it's a dry and workable environment have they said anything about setting up a walk-through yeah sort of an intermediate yeah i think they haven't yet i think they were waiting for the weather to warm up a little bit um and then for sure
090we should be able to do that and they'll probably return to having their meetings there so they can do their monthly walkthrough and we can probably join them on one of those exciting yeah okay next on the agenda is public comment thank you rosa um is a public comment we didn't have anybody sign up for public comment this evening correct okay so we have nobody signed up for public comment we'll move on to three main points so i was thinking of um the student spotlight presentation from my school students yeah it was very exciting and maybe the update on the last day of school on the graduation date and then um i thought maybe the school update on the ffa approval and update on the school progress would it be weird to put maureen ruby's
091resonation there or is that not yeah i think if she's going to come make a presentation at some point we should do that yeah i think that would be good yeah does that sound okay good all right okay upcoming events um at center school on friday february 25th is the community meeting spirit day and the kickoff for one book one read and the week of the 28th is read across america's spirit week and reading bingo begins at huckleberry invention convention presentations are due next week and judging will be on march 4th and they also kick off one book one read for read across america on the 28th at whiskenier there's a pto meeting tomorrow night at 7 pm that's on zoom and on sunday the 20th is family fun bowling night at strikers that's to
092raise money for the 8th grade moving up ceremony and activities and at the high school just coming up in the next two weeks is as ben mentioned the blood drive for the national honor society that's on tuesday march 1st and all schools are closed obviously on monday and tuesday for president's weekend the 21st and the 22nd that's all i have okay thank you um all right that's it for the agenda this evening any last comments all right to save for the fundraiser on sunday at the bowling alley it's not a drop-off event you have to stay with your child parents should stay okay there you go all right so without objection we're adjourned thank you all