BPS Board of Education Meeting 1/5/2022 @7pm

001and we're being live streamed okay good um go ahead i'd like to uh call the uh january 5th uh 2022 um meeting of the brookfield board of education to order um let's start by rising for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states and justice for all right we have a uh full complement of our board here tonight so uh we can go ahead and uh get going um is our student representative here just looking no all right we'll pass through that item um all right so next up is written correspondence okay um tatiana preston wrote regarding a brookfield craft center class debra cacase and joyce pacino wrote regarding kovites and quarantine marnie mcniff wrote regarding a climate counseling meeting elena loplaz wrote regarding a huckleberry library book nick

002schmidt wrote with questions for chairman belden joyce pacino wrote regarding in-person learning ben rachela wrote regarding books donna jordan wrote regarding adjustments for covid maria alessandro wrote regarding test kits and masks christina zimmerman wrote regarding current quote covid quarantine guidelines deborah ann wrote regarding the december 15th minutes irene korea wrote regarding the december 1st minutes and andy korea wrote regarding board and administration competency and integrity concerns and concerns with the 1221 board retreat okay thank you so much um so next is up is approval board minutes i'll move that the board approve the minutes from the regular meeting on december 15th second we have a motion and second any comments yeah i'd like to make a comment if that's possible um i just wanna you know make it very clear that the vote to temporary

003remove the huckleberry library book was not a vote to ban the book um in the minutes it perceives that way given the title so i just want to be clear you know for some individuals of the public and some individuals who are reporting to online sources that we voted on to remove it while it was under review um that no one is trying to ban the book and you know as a member of this board and as a parent and a member of this community i encourage parents to speak up and have a voice if they're concerned with the age appropriateness of a book that is in a library for seven eight and nine-year-olds i don't feel that this sets a dangerous precedent so let's you know encourage an open-minded communication and so joy in

004terms of the minutes themselves would you suggest that we add the word temporary yeah i'd like to make a motion to add the words add the heading to read you know while under review okay the the heading does read temporary removal but uh um and i would suggest that we also add the word temporary in the text because right now it says to approve the removal of a book from uh so let's make that a motion um so it's a motion to uh add the text uh while under review to the title of that section of the minutes and to uh add the word temporary before removal in the text of that section correct i'll second that motion okay and moved and seconded any discussion all in favor say show of hands and the opponent

005all right passes unanimously okay thank you and by the way just as an aside on that very point there was some confusion in one of the emails because the vote was to remove and we voted against removing so people were confused that of a two to five vote was somehow it sounded like we were voting to remove it instead of voting not to remove it temporarily and so i just for the public the vote in in in its effect was that we will keep the book on the shelves while we're reviewing it so for all the reasons we discussed it i mean um okay so next up oh with that with that adjustment all in favor of the uh the approval of the minutes and unanimous okay um okay next up is the superintendent's report

006dr barrel thank you mr golden um good evening everybody happy new year good to be back um i'd like to first uh before i start um thank um mrs labrochano for her service over the past three and a half years and wish her well in her new position in reading she is on a consent agenda tonight but i wanted to use this opportunity to thank her uh we appreciate her leadership uh all she has done in her commitment you see dean clapping there we're all giving a clap there for her um and uh and really thank her and wish her well um and let's have a nice uh next few weeks before she departs um i'm always saying not to put you on the spot if you want to say anything raise your hand otherwise

007you can stay on me it's up to you oh thank you so much it's it's definitely bittersweet i shared with my colleagues that you know we started as colleagues and now we leave as friends so um i've learned so much in brookfield and i just have so much gratitude for everything i've learned and that i'll take with me so thank you thanks melissa we'll miss you melissa and to that end i wanted to continue on the report with the update for the huckle harry huckleberry hill principal position we've had upwards of uh i think about 15 applications um we've had a nice turnout of those interviews are scheduled for uh monday january 10th and thursday in second round would be january 13th which is next thursday i want to thank dr ruby for her organization

008and leadership in helping and working with me getting things organized and coordinated and then certainly uh she'll be leading the uh the interview process with uh the makeup of that committee which is made of uh some administration board member uh parent several teachers uh from huckleberry and even one from grade five from from wisconsin so it's a nice cross-section of folks good representation um and uh we're excited to get moving on that and uh we'll let you know how that continues to progress um in addition to that it was important we talked about it at facility committee meeting tonight and a lot of people are interested in a particular very public facility project um and since there wasn't a facility committee report for this evening i just wanted to mention the wisconsin wall the winterization

009is essentially finished there's a one one more piece that needs to be tightened up prior to uh the end of next week we anticipated to be totally uh complete but it's essentially complete and i know mr renda the staff and the students are quite excited about that um in addition to that by january 21st we should have the specifications from the engineer uh so we could then uh get ready to put the bid together and get ready to see what the options might be for the entire project and get that totally restored transportation contract that's one we've been talking about at the finance committee meeting i just wanted to get it out there that it is out to bid as for a five-year contract typically and the bid opening is scheduled for january 14th and

010we've been going back and forth and i'm sure um rosa will share a little bit about that during finance committee reports you may share a little bit more uh in addition i wanted to just do some quick updates there are more um reminders of what's been sent out regarding covet specifically a covet update we all know we've seen a spike everybody's heard about it it's pretty much deleting and one of the only news stories uh going forward the last couple of weeks especially over the holiday recess a couple things we had to do over the recess athletics specifically we we shut down uh which was mostly practices we had a shutdown because there was just uh spread and infection everywhere going on uh so mr baldwin had to work on that and he did a

011nice job managing that with our parents and our athletes and our coaches um in addition to that over the break it was perfect timing for the entire nation the cdc came out with their updated guidance which put everybody to work uh especially over the uh the january new year weekend and we were working through to to really absorb understand and then be able to communicate out what we were doing with the new guidance on sunday this past sunday i put out update v as in victor v1 specific to quarantine isolation contact tracing and testing very specifically we talked about reduction in contact tracing reduction in isolation and quarantine times and a little bit about testing um and specifically i want to give a little update on testing i have to thank the emergency management team

012from the town they loaned us from their first supply uh 240 kits to make sure we had enough staff to staff our buildings and make sure we could test them we even handed some out on sunday later in the afternoon after the town distribution and then on monday and tuesday our shipment hadn't come in yet that's why uh the the town uh mrs carr lent those to us with chief purcell so what happened uh over uh yesterday is we did get our school delivery half of the delivery of tests from the state approximately 2500 for students and about 300 for staff and their different brands and we got direction on how to distribute those we don't know when our next allotment is coming but tomorrow we're going to do it today but we have the

013school closing tomorrow mr caldwell our facility director will be delivering um uh incremental distribution to each of the schools and we'll our nurses and our administrators will keep an eye on that and the students or staff who qualify to receive a test kit to bring home and do their testing are people who are either symptomatic or not have a known exposure so it's not for everybody to just have a as a just in case there has to be a reason and i always like to be emphatic about this none of our staff will be testing students that is to be given to the student or the parent and when they're either symptomatic or they've been exposed to to work work on at home we will not school staff will not be testing students that's the

014covet update oh and there is one more piece we are awaiting um some probably pretty soon we'll be receiving more cdc updates or guidance on the k-12 setting the guidance received over the vacation from cdc was actually general considered general population guidance it wasn't specific to k-12 schools so we are awaiting that guidance that may tweak some of the adjustments we've made in protocols this week um and certainly uh we continue to have daily uh principal uh either email communications um or actual uh meetings to go over these with the nurses as well so we can make sure we have everything um consistent and uniform and then cascade communications out to families and staff so that's my question one question for you on protocols is that does the ciac and the state have different protocols

015for athletes or so yeah so i can't quote every athletic protocol in terms of there's been some tweaks to the uh length of um return to play time and we're working on that dph was not in contact when they gave schools their information they did not they had they were hustling this past weekend they didn't give new information to ciad so we're working with the mid to late december ciac uh winter sports updates we expect some tweaks there too it's return to play versus quarantine or isolation that's where the difference comes in um and there's so you may have heard bob for return to play it used to be and we believe it's changing a total of almost 17 days away from play for students to return back quarantine time and then coming back not

016being able to be super physically active so what i've heard is that 17 days after the quarantine so yeah and and so to be very candid anything long it's very long and it would be um it wouldn't be appropriate for me to go into full detail because i just i don't have them in front of me and i don't know every little detail and nuance there um our ad and our nurses handle that uh however mark is waving he might have some information here he is mark you could wave in and dr sullivan has recently weighed in with mr baldwin so go ahead mark thank you yeah so you know to clarify it's great to have mark belanda back welcome back mark thank you thank you um you know so to clarify i mean the

017the big issue was the the 17 days bob you know as you said it was a long time um so the really the idea was ten days from um you know from that day zero of contact or connection it was ten days after that and then they wanted seven days um you know for additional and not just for um it was interesting because they're also putting that expectation for band and chorus and other things that involve the respiratory system and kids breathing hard and singing or perhaps using an instrument um so really and and john said it very well that you know there wasn't a lot of communication between dph ciac and what this new stuff looks like so currently what it looks like according to working with dr sullivan and steve baldwin so if

018a student that's positive and is asymptomatic after five days right they could return to school that's been our our policy given the new guidance um means they've returned to school they cannot yet return to athletics they have to sit out another five days for that ten full days they have to sit out then with a doctor's note or some confirmation or clearance from a doctor they can come back after that so that may be they may be out for just ten days total um back in school after five but out for another five because that's what athletics says right now it could be and then they go right back to playing if the doctor clears them they may be out for 11 they may be out for 12 but it really depends on what the

019medical person says so it's a little more flexible to some degree it's not that standard everybody's 17 days but um definitely for athletes that right now it's at least 10 days out and they can return um you know with a with a note so that's where we are at this point hard getting doctor's appointments these days so just saying so dr brill i have another question on the the quarantines i thought your message was very clear but i think i maybe either i am misunderstood or maybe there might be some misunderstanding in the community um are we still quarantining close contacts or because there's no contact tracing anymore so so essentially dr carter when he was advising uh superintendents and and health directors and so forth on yesterday morning he said if the school district

020uh goes with the option of not uh not contact tracing any longer you essentially don't have close contacts anymore that's basically what happens by default one of the things we are going back and forth on as a principal group and we're having some conversations um we're actually working with our nurses um i think they may have met actually this afternoon um one of the things we're talking about is during the lunch period where kids are closer and unmasked do we contact rates specifically at lunchtime because that's really the one place where we know we don't we don't have the coverage other than that we really won't be contact racing and we use the term routine the state used the term routine contact tracing and i included that in my update because as you know contact

021tracing became a routine for everything we we did and by pulling back on that um based upon what the advice is as well as our experience which we have had some uh this past fall that definitely most likely we had some in-school contact racing but lots of it um as we know when families know have happened during either travel type athletics or home activities or whatever it could be but in school we really weren't seeing quarantined uh healthy students who were quarantined actually coming down with positive cases so we're moving that at that direction so if we're not contact tracing rosa to sum it back up is then there really isn't close context so the one debate we're still having and we haven't made a final decision and that's why i asked for a few

022days for us to figure this out and again we're still waiting for some cdc guidance as well there's new k-12 guidance coming out which may change things from what i'm saying tonight is that lunch period and we we've gone back and forth the the four principals myself uh some of the other team or nurses making those considerations okay so all of the the emails that parents have been getting that says you know there's probably a kid in the class that's positive or something i mean all essentially nobody's quarantining vaccine vaccinated just correct exactly and if there is a parent that is concerned and wants to know that you know it was in x classroom or x grade level um and they they want to get more specific on if the person the infected person might

023have been close to their child they always can give a call to the school and the school could you know see how you know take a look to see how close the child might have been so was there a reason we stopped what's that is there a reason we stopped the contact tracing and the identification of close contact yeah because the the guidance is that we want to really focus on making sure our systematic children are getting tested we're focusing on them keeping students in school and the the resource deployment and the effort it takes of the administrative staff the nurses and other staff to do the contact race so that's that's really a big part of it and we want to keep the kids in school so that was the thought there and dr

024sullivan and dr garcia although admitting just like we do it could be more of a risk they thought following the guidance made sense okay and just keep your eye on it of course yeah so of course okay all right i'll move on from covet to uh another celebratory note um i sent uh we forwarded over to the to the board and dr ruby forwarded it to the staff uh we've tweeted out we're very proud of eric conklin our tech director who's on running this meeting tonight for us uh he was uh recognized and honored in the unsung heroes uh article in the news times so eric congratulations we want to make sure we acknowledge that and if you haven't seen the article already anybody who's watching please go on the news times and check it

025out eric you want to you want to say anything i see your mute is off i don't know if you would ask me no it was um thank you thank you for john for for mentioning it and um it was a very very well done honor it was an honor to be uh chosen as the unsung hero and um it's a pleasure to uh get to come in every day and work with the team in the group that uh that i get to work with and uh none of it's possible without the tech team um and none of it's possible without the um the support of um of everybody on this meeting um and beyond um so thank you you got it oh i love the term unsung hero so let's officially we're singing your

026praises here my friend so now you can be a sung hero good point there you go all right we're going to move on to the last piece um i wanted to mention i'm going to try to get to um the ptos and or the bhs booster club just to er those are formal meetings to engage with our families regarding the new school project and the budget uh we have two meetings scheduled i think we've got january we've got january and february scheduled already we're working on some of those other schedules um and as always i always have an invite uh out to families or parents that want to contact me and have any interest in those topics or any others to drop me a line and be happy to talk or zoom or or meet

027so that's where we're at that's the report for tonight um while we're at the this point you just talked about uh budget meetings and things like that through the ptos we're due to have a a public a formal public hearing for this group on the budget and if i remember it was supposed to be scheduled for tonight wasn't it yes we had it on the adopted budget calendar and definitely it was kind of missed through the holidays and everything going on with covet and icy weather um should we schedule a special meeting to to do a uh uh the public hearing sometime in the next two weeks or should we juggle around the cape meeting on the um on the 19th and do it just before our board meeting that day what do you think

028anybody have a suggestion we do need to have a public hearing they're not often that cape meeting is going to be hard one to juggle around because it'll be a long one next week isn't that policy on the 19th night yeah because cape isn't cape isn't the 19th oh it's policy yeah next week next wednesday and then next policies prior to the next board meeting on the 19th but we have cape next wednesday and policy the the the wednesday after that um and they're both at 5 30 or 6. i'll see that's the policy six rosie do you think cape is gonna go past uh or might uh do you guys think it's gonna go past the six o'clock that's the one where we're gonna be talking about the program of studies so it's going

029to be a long meeting sorry no it's okay i'm just trying to figure out how to how we fit in a public hearing as a group um how long does the public hearing usually run depends how many attendees we have yeah otherwise last year was like 15 minutes yeah last sometimes they can be really short sometimes they can go on but bob to your point last year was on a zoo meeting yeah so we also could move policy this would i don't know if this would work the policy committee but if we move policy earlier then we could have the hearing after that you know so but again it might be very difficult with work circumstances debbie d you have uh you have a big agenda for policy or a small agenda that week i

030mean you don't get feedback i think from the policies that we're talking about tonight right yeah we were gonna um dive into the cave policies that are up for you know the mandated policies that were not included in ours and start digging through those so it could be you know probably will we would use our whole meeting time okay the logical thing to do would to do it be to do it right after the cape meeting next wednesday the problem is it's a little open-ended time-wise yeah there's a lot on that agenda could we maybe do the public hearing before and start a little bit later because the public hearing is probably a little more containable time-wise yeah we could that could probably work would that be okay bob what do you what do you

031think about what do you think as far as a start time well i'm thinking uh that we could do um is you're the publication meeting in an in-person meeting or is it a uh is it a uh yeah it's zoom yeah public hearing um and uh to start cape at 6 30. or you know if we go a little bit long you can start a couple minutes late i mean it's it's it's a little you could work it that way schedule-wise what do you think the public hearing be zoomed to yeah we should do the public then do the public hearing by zoom dr ruby has a question um there's a lot of people presenting uh at cape that night so i would need to check and see what their other their long-term availability is

032you know usually usually start at six we usually start at 5 45 but mike has asked us to change the time of the meeting to 610 to so he can make it to the meeting so we're starting our meetings at 6 10 and we have multiple presenters our january meeting is always a very robust meeting because in alignment with the budget we have um the program of studies for the high school needs to be done because that the approval of that is uh paramount to the kickoff of everything that needs to be done for counseling and scheduling and whatnot for the next year we also have a program and new course proposals that come to cape and then the textbooks and programmatic purchases that are aligned with the budget that if everything happens in the

033january meeting because that's where it fits in so our but the agenda which has already gone out that we planned the meeting in the fall we always plan them several months ahead but this one has i think four or five presenters so just as long as i can contact them make sure that they don't have you know they've moved their dinner and they have families i mean i i can't speak for them let me suggest something then why don't um i'm mike obviously you're coming off the end of your work day and about getting able to get there if we could have the majority of our board and at least a quorum at 5 30 right we could do the public hearing at 5 30. mike you probably wouldn't you know if you're you're already

034juggling you might not be able to make that but we could at least get input from the public and then you know you will summarize it and share it with the board all right anybody who couldn't do it do that at 5 30 to 6 by zoom then we break and then you can start the kps schedule what do you think would that work for people yeah i'm okay with that that's fine good savvy joy okay yep all right good that's what we'll do let's let's work us let's work a special meeting at 5 30 on the next wednesday okay we'll do all right thank you sorry sorry to take the end of your thing are there any other questions for dr burrell while we've got him on the on his superintendent's report dr burrell

035i just thought it might be helpful i know you explained to us about this morning with the late call with the delay and then the closing if you wanted to speak on that for anyone for the public i thought that might be helpful yeah yeah just just quickly um you know for anybody you know that might be under the impression you know we were not paying attention um like like many of us in the state especially in this area we had rapidly changing conditions um we started at 4 15 i started having conversations with james doctor um from dpw literally he's in the truck so he knows the conditions on the ground we had those conversations um parks and rec was working with mr caldwell i was working with mr post we were you know

036on top of everything at about 5 45 we including the neighboring superintendents we were all in touch we all were agreeing that a delay was likely not necessary based on forecasts and everything we were hearing from our so forth and around 615 is the 625 range everything absolutely changed and we all started to scramble to get at least a two hour delay in um by that time uh that 6 25 6 30 time uh some of our high school buses are already rolling and uh bus companies shared approximately 50 students from the high school had been picked up on various buses and once we made the call they obviously went right back to the run right back to the house thankfully we had no student driver issues things were early enough we didn't have any

037family driving uh incidents there was a few families that had showed up and dropped kids off mr bolland kept an eye on those kids he happened to be in the office quite early uh on on wednesday and uh we did unfortunately have four or five staff uh accidents or fender benders um and took it was taken they were in the middle of especially our high school people i mean our folks you know they come from quite a distance some of them and they were on the road um and uh one story uh someone on the 25 highway connector park before you get into trumbull in monroe um actually was you know doing about 50 miles an hour and it just switched to ice and they spun out one of our staff members so it happened

038quickly um and uh thankfully we didn't have you know everything turned out okay um but we do apologize for any inconvenience to families and um you know we're up to 4 15 we're paying attention we're doing our best with this with just uh john we eventually cancelled all together and i think you told me that was because uh there was not enough staff who could make it to the schools is that so yeah so so while we already had we're going to be short staffed a lot of i think a lot of us you know there's a lot of dynamics at play a lot of us are overhearing in the media all these different closing because of staffing shortages due to quarantines and isolations because of covid we're not immune to that except you know

039the incredible dedication of our staff and the creativity of our administration to make sure things are caught so we were already going to be short staffed but we were covering things to make sure we can open school for our kids that's the the most important piece and then on top of it we start having staff members stuck in traffic i mean their stories of it taking three hours to get up that route 25 from from down the shoreline up to brookfield or to get dean dean renda himself was left the house at six o'clock this morning coming from west hartford and ended up stuck on 84 in uh waterbury at 7 15 i was talking to him he was only there it was really a crawl everywhere so bob that thanks for bringing that up

040that's the other piece we couldn't get staff in even if they were safe in their car they were they were locked up on the on the highways so uh amy thanks for the opportunity to say something about that so i hope people understand you know it wasn't for lack of planning and lack of effort it really snuck up on us and here's a reason besides the extra sleep for thinking about the the high school students and having two tiers instead of three for buses and moving the start time a little bit later because our high school starts so early i mean you're talking you have to back things up to 6 a.m for the high school folks and 5 30 for some of our staff that come from far away they leave their houses so

041um that's why we always i mean i always make the call by about 5 15 a.m i want to give everybody as much notice as possible this was something just just got away from us yep and it wasn't just us either i mean i saw not just neighboring districts but all over the state this was happening thank you okay okay any other questions for dr pearl okay let's move on to uh committee reports um so first up is the finance and there's two finance committee reports i guess you could put those together rosa yeah um so on 12 13 we had our regular meeting our regular meeting in december we went through the check registers over a thousand dollars there's nothing of note there then we went through the november financial report we are currently

042running still a surplus right now it's around 110 000 and that's due mostly to savings in leaves and vacancies but it's offset somewhat by increases in special education tuition then we reviewed a document that we will now kind of put together in the package um with our financial report something called emerging issues and that'll basically just highlight significant items that may impact our budget in either direction but have not become part of the accounting yet so it's kind of giving us little headlights on on some upcoming issues we discussed the winterization of the whisk in your wall which is now completed so that cost was around twenty thousand dollars and it was paid for by our operating budget so we have an ongoing agreement with the board of finance to run these large expenses um

043unexpectedly uh have those run through our operating budget with the understanding that should we have you know that shortfall at the end of the year that will they'll be there to help us out rather than cause you know spending freezes or reductions so we're keeping an eye on some of those things and that's another thing that that emerging issues document is going to help us out with we discussed the bus rfp which was posted online last month and the bids are going to be opened on the 14th of this month then we discussed the 2223 budget um and some questions that ken had answered from board members and um just that everybody's aware that document is still up and live and you can add to it and see what everybody else has asked and ken's

044question or answers as well and then we discuss the revised rpsr worksheet which has some shifts it shifts around some of the items so that it smooths out some of the transition a lot of those items that we are paying for with the arbester are now starting to transition into our operating budget so to smooth some of those shifts out so we don't have quite as large of a cliff in a few years um we shifted some things around so we went over that as well on 12 20 we had a special meeting but that was cancelled due to lack of a quorum um and actually the one the special meeting we just recently had is actually not on our agenda for tonight for discussion so that's it but we're continuing but we're continuing but

045we're just we're plugging along on the budget yep yeah okay any questions for rosa i was just going to add that um the whisk and near wall is nearly complete we dan told us tonight that there's still a little bit more to be done okay who who does the emerging issues document rosa uh so that'll be ken mostly um putting that document together so that the board has some idea of things that are coming down the road um so that we don't hear about them you know at the moment they're happening and then the process for moving our esser investments into the operating budget is that something that we're going to see line items or or is that yeah yeah there are actually already some of those in the 22-23 budget so yep we have

046to approve those in the budget submission right so that's part of our review so okay yeah we don't move them into the budget unless we approve it right right okay any other questions all right let's move on so next is uh policy and communications okay uh we met on wednesday december 15. um the first topic we discussed was a request from a local girl scout troop asking us to waive the fee that they pay when they use the building for their meetings and we had somewhat of a lengthy discussion about this ken brought a report to the meeting showing how much we charge for building use uh you know for non-school groups and how often the building was the buildings were used for those types of meetings and um you know we we we would

047love to to be able to say that anyone can use the buildings especially for kids activities um whenever they're available but we sort of got into a lengthy discussion about well is the building open and are custodians needed and how much time does the custodian need to clean up after groups are there and what are the fees covering so we had a lot of questions and ken was going to go back and do a little bit more research for us so we we tabled any decision until our next meeting pending some more information we also talked about the cabe policy audit and a very very large stack of policies that's sitting here on my desk to review um we decided we agreed that next time we meet we're going to start you know diving in

048to the first uh few policies that we don't currently have that are mandated um and you know just just keep chipping away at that it's it's a big project but we're excited to be diving into it and then the last topic of discussion was really um what we're going to be talking about a little bit later about policy number six 6563 regarding school library media so um i won't go to into too much detail about that because we will get to it later but um rosa attended the meeting and she brought some recommendations about what to add to policy 6563 since we don't currently have a policy for how the board handles reconsideration of school library materials so as i said we'll get into more detail on that later and i think that was it

049okay any questions for debbie okay um next on the list actually as a committee report is actually the minutes of the board retreat um so actually we probably should actually have that in a different category so i'm just going to make a motion that the board approved the minutes uh for the board retreat on 12 21 a second okay so it's been moved and seconded any discussion all in favor okay passes unanimously okay good so that's it for uh uh committee reports uh next up is our consent agenda okay i will make a motion that the board approved the items on the consent agenda which are resignations new hires and transfers second open second any discussion yeah just like thank you bob i'd like to just send uh you know we've already recognized uh mrs

050lavroshano but i'd really like to just send a congratulations and a thank you for almost a quarter century of service from uh for uh from over at huckleberry uh he's been a great worker and uh he will be sorely missed he's leaving us soon and just make sure he knows how much we think of him so thank you tasman any other discussion all in uh all in favor all right any opposed okay hearing none that's unanimous um we're moving along guys i just i don't know if it's a microphone issue i'm not hearing sharon or seeing her is she the sharing voting oh okay yeah voting yeah okay oh if you're not going to be on the video sharon you got to speak up when we vote okay okay thanks thank you thank you for

051pointing that out that appreciate that okay so new business uh we're back to you debbie on uh the discussion of policy number 6563 can we read the motion yep i will move that the board approve policy number 6563 school library media for a first reading as recommended by the policy and communication subcommittee do i have a second second okay so it's moved in second and so debbie let me turn it over to you and let you kind of talk us through you know what we have here okay so um as you know there was a request at huckleberry school to remove a book from the huckleberry library that um [Music] the petitioner believes is not age appropriate for for the huckleberry school students um there is a policy there is a procedure in place for

052how the reconsideration of those materials are to take place at the building level um the board has a policy outlining how school library media is selected um and how the collection is maintained and that's the policy 6563 that we have in our packet what we don't have is a policy for how the board addresses sort of an appeal that happens at the building level so if you know in this case um a special committee was formed at huckleberry to evaluate the request and uh the committee decided voted unanimously to retain the book keep the book in their library and so then the matter was forwarded to the board for consideration and because we don't have a policy on how to handle that um i rosa i think had referred it to the cape committee to

053um make a decision and cape asked that that a formal policy be written so um at our last meeting as i just reported rosa attended the meeting and after doing extensive research with um other district policies and as well as well as the american library association rosa put together some suggested language that we all agreed should be included in policy 6563 and much of that language is pretty much lifted from our regulation which is also attached 6563 regulation so it's really it's really just you know syncing up the regulation with the policy or vice versa syncing up the policy with the regulation and making it consistent with the steps that are um the steps that they go through at the building level when they um have a request for reconsideration and as i said the

054steps are consistent with what um the american library association recommends for um dealing with challenges of library material so the suggested language is attached to the policy and it really would just be another section added into that policy the way it's currently written so the the one that's titled 6563 is the existing policy and then the one that's titled appeals to challenge library materials is what would be indented into that i got that right okay um all right so um all right so let me just start if there's any questions for debbie on the process they've been through so far okay um the uh the normal process that we have adopted is to approve this for a first read tonight and take a month to um uh to review that come back you know send

055questions back to the policy committee in the interim and then come back for a final vote and we would probably do that at the beginning of february meeting we have in the past we've waived that timeline is there any strong feeling of it on anybody's part to waive that timeline and approve this immediately or should we take the time and give us all a chance to review it normally i would say you know let's try to expedite this so that we could have an answer for the parent however um because the cape committee is going to be so um busy with their january meeting i honestly don't think it's going to be an agenda item until february anyways so yeah all right well then let's take the time and i this is a this is

056these are always sensitive matters so i think it's good that we all take the time and read it so debbie when would you need input from us all what year before your next meeting i presume yeah and i uh i just have a date in front of me in two weeks next meeting is the 19th yeah two weeks two weeks from today so i would suggest then that uh input get to debbie by before that meeting right or at least the day before that meeting so that they can pull it together and uh look at all of our inputs on that um and uh and uh debbie i had i did have a question does the brookfield public library have a policy around this we do and uh if you looked at that one as

057part of your review here yeah it's roughly basically the same as the policy that the committee followed at huckleberry okay um both of them were really derived from the american library association i just would love to make sure that within brookfield we do it consistently right you know and i talked to our chairman of the um the brookfield library board and i had a chance to talk and she's offered any support that they can give right as a as a library board if we need it so and i appreciate that so and they are also reviewing their policy on this matter right to make sure it's current with the american library association that's exactly what uh what she told me so um so that's if there's help needed we should we through me or directly

058debbie you know all those folks right we should reach out and i also just wanted to add that in everyone's review process it might be helpful to reference another one of our existing policies which is 6161 and that's instructional material and within that policy there is guidance for challenged instructional material and that's where the majority of this language came from so a lot of the language that is being proposed for addition into 6563 already exists in our own policies so it just might be a good reference if you want to go back and forth between the two okay good thank you all right so what the vote tonight is to approve it as a first read which means we're accepting it into the process and we will do a final vote on it at our

059uh early february meeting um so unless there's any further discussion okay all in favor of accepting it as a first read vote hi hi any opposed okay it has been passed as a first read so thank you debbie um so if i can just have comments by tuesday the 18th that would be great thank you um okay um no we're moving wait that's it for new business uh old business the we had tabled the uh board of education uh cape and finance subcommittee meeting dates so there's a motion here yep i will move that the board continue its discussion and approve the cape and finance subcommittee meeting dates as discussed and tabled at the december 15th quarterback meeting okay so um at that meeting um we had two we had kind of we'd approved all

060the committee uh makeups and we'd approve the dates on all but these two committees um i think uh rosa we've pretty much settled we're going to keep the the time on the um finance committee as recommended yes that's correct okay and that's because in the end there weren't any other than one meeting which we i think we agreed that we would move it to a later time if it was a conflict of joy and and we'll just do that on a case by case basis okay and how about uh kate uh i uh i tried my best to move um bob sorry we didn't get a second on my motion oh i'm sorry i second thank you thank you thank you very much i was moving right in man um so okay and kate uh

061we're gonna keep it wednesdays and uh but we're gonna move the time from 5 45 to 6 10. give me the the 10 minute mulligan there okay all right so with those adjustments um uh all in favor of approving the uh subcommittee schedule as uh and as the motion reads sharon okay and the opposed all right we're good to go there um strategic planning steering committee i'll move that the board continue its discussion and approve the membership of the strategic planning steering committee as discussed at the december 15th board of education meeting second well it's moved and seconded um the the issue the reason we tabled it is that we had four members who raised their hands and said we'd all love to participate and uh i floated a note out to those members today

062with a recommendation mike i didn't hear back from you you probably stuck in your mail there after a busy day but what i would recommend is that we put uh two uh full-time members and two alternate members on this uh um on this committee uh that debbie and i would be the full-time members and mike and joy be alternate members and attend as their schedule allows um and the reason for that is that at least at the beginning when we have the consultant coming in from the uh from cave um there'll probably be daytime meetings and so what i've asked john is if he would be willing to get us some good headlights on what those meeting times were because joy you know and being in the classroom and mike with a full schedule um

063we would love to have i doubt we'll ever have all four of us but this is a way that i could keep us all in the in the process and then if we ever have a situation where all four of us would want to attend i'll just deal with that on a case-by-case basis um so if that's okay two regular and two alternate members if that's okay with everybody bob can i suggest that i just be the alternate i would be fine that would be fine i mean if it's okay yeah just so just so there's like a hey there's a solid three here and if this way it gives a little bit more flexibility for you or dead okay i would be okay with that all right let's do it that way then fine

064with that okay so three members uh debbie uh joy and myself and alternate member of mike is everyone okay all right all in favor aye all right any opposed all right we're done with that um and then one last item is a review of the superintendent's proposed budget um the action here is to continue our discussion um and i'll just remind everybody that at our next meeting is when we vote on the budget right so this is our our chance to catch up with dr barrel on any open discussions from the last time and any updates from mr post on things we've learned and then if there's any items we want the administration to bring in uh it's time to speak up so that they can get it organized for our next meeting we've had

065some two good discussions on these things already so i uh um i just will say that up front um dr barrel um are there any general items of update you want to give i think maybe we ought to talk a little bit about the health costs yeah i was i was going to say bob uh for for you and the and maybe rosa whoever like to chat a little bit about it and certainly ken can talk directly to it we based on our estimate for the insurance the health insurance increase uh along with the town because we're in the connecticut partnership plan together um the state has contacted us in the the there's a new estimate where we really are recommended to lower what we thought the increase was going to be so i could

066certainly you know if you would like to weigh in bob since the finance committee or i could ask ken to give a little bit of detail it's really going to help us out in the budget you know it's going to reduce our operational costs so be good to share ken would you like to share a little bit there he is sure but we started out using an estimate of a seven percent increase and that was based on the uh increase that the actuaries were using in our opeb valuation uh which is other post-employment benefits um they estimated they were using six and a half percent in their um uh projections and working with the the town controller mrs marion we thought we'd be a little conservative and add a half a percent on that which

067is the same thing we did last year uh so we put in our models we put seven percent and then we found out from the state that uh they were going to be using some of the the coronavirus relief money into the partnership plan and it would help us keep the increases lower so i emailed the person at the state and shockingly normally they they don't give you any information this early in the process they came back and suggested it could lower our increase by up to four percent so again working with mrs marion we thought being a little conservative we'll we'll lower our estimate by three percent so i put into my model four percent and obviously that's not in the budget that you've seen so far so we'll have to come back with

068a new version for you uh that decreases our budget ask by about 164 000 which is about 0.35 of the budget so it brings the increase down from 4.24 to about 3.89 that's good news and last year we had a big benefit to our budget fund health costs as well it was actually bigger than that um yes and i think they said they would they would be able to give us firmer numbers by sometime in february okay which obviously is after the board of bed votes on the budget but it's not too late to make adjustments thank you ken you're welcome so that was really you know the big substantive news in terms of operational costs was very helpful to us um if i may just just a little reminder from the december 15th meeting

069uh the principles presented on any of their uh new requests that would be kind of investment requests people might recall from center school we talked about the addition of some secretarial time in the summer as well as the um kindergarten uh paraprofessionals in lieu of an additional section of kindergarten to support um mrs diamond gave a report on that and we entered into discussion mrs lavrochano from huckleberry talked about the same thing with the additional secretarial support in the summer but also the um uh math interventionist and some off-setting adjustments she was planning for in personnel to make the ask the the financial part of the ask on that position less um and mr renda uh came forward with the specifics on uh some office staff support in summer that he could use uh we

070went into that in great detail it's a really good conversation there mrs holly our uh curriculum leader for world language and english language learners talked about the need for a bilingual program and shared a few slides on that so that was something those were the those were the key areas that were additional ass kind of beyond inflationary uh costs or beyond um anything that might have been phased in through our vesser um uh and those kind of things or status quo those were the new pieces um the board then after the conversation um i was asked on december 15th if we could have a little kind of a strategic conversation and a goal-oriented plan of where technology is going while technology has not inc we have not asked for an increase in the technology budget

071as it is in terms of status quo um in a significant amount we've asked for a total of eighteen thousand dollars more than what the current budget is so there's not a major ask in terms of increasing the technology budget for next year um one of the the five big goals for my buzz budget presentation in our how we set up our annual budget process is technology in a digital learning environment and how we support that so i asked mr conklin our now very sung hero to um put a couple of slides together for us and share uh kind of big picture uh where we're going with technology where we've been and kind of how he's building for technology and some of the work he's done not only with all the the staff and the

072nuts and bolts uh directly under him but with uh our technology integrator dr ruby necessaries our teachers you know everything around construction as well um as infrastructure so eric um this is the time uh i think unless bob or rosa you want to share anything else we can put we can share eric's slides and he can talk a little bit about technology tonight okay all right eric the floor is yours sir okay thank you dr burrow um so yeah as john had mentioned um i wanted to um in alignment with um dr burrell's budget presentation wanted to kind of give some detail over um how my budget ties in with the strategic plan um and and talk about kind of um a little more um as we've talked about in the um in the past

073a little more of the story behind the numbers that you have in the uh in the budget binder um that have been been presented um and so i will do that right now um so i kind of went over and uh through each goal so this is the overall goal provide the technology infrastructure that effectively supports student success in a digital learning environment um i i thought it was important for the board to know here and for the public to know that that eighty percent of the overall proposed technology budget um is actually for existing software and support renewals um these are the renewals that just keep business operations running um and and then continue the use of student support tools um i listed some examples here um i won't read every single one but

074but things like um you know our internet access our fiber connectivity between the buildings um being able to use munis for our financial and hr and payroll um you know as well as powerschool um and and uh then some of our student resources include um you know st math lexia ixl um classlink for a single sign-on solution so um you know 80 of the budget alone goes right to just keeping our existing services going um maintain support for digital curricular tools necessary for blended personalized teaching and learning um and again this is a little bit repetitive here um but here's here's some of our big ticket items um that we constantly renew um tools that we continue to evaluate that we pull reports on that we know are benefiting our students um and that we

075want to continue to use um to support instruction um and support students overall um so um you can see some of my examples here class link um single sign-on what this does is this brings all of our tools and resources together into one location um for our students to be able to with one click access that program so they go to classlink they can get to st math lexia ixl news ela and everything that you see down here um some of these you may have remembered recent budgets um st math is is our new math initiative um lexia ixl and news ela um we all got as a direct result of of supporting students during a remote learning um but we've obviously seen the benefits of that both remote and in person to support instruction

076um our result our rosetta stone software to support our non-english speaking students um for the higher grades naviance college preparation um and then of course for our teaching teachers um our curriculum development management platform that are that are all within the budget um continue advancing integration of technology and resources into daily instruction um this includes providing chromebooks um for students devices for staff to be able to use the tools and resources that i had mentioned in the previous slides along with that there's also maintaining our internet maintaining our wireless infrastructure and our network as we continue to increase the number of devices that are used simultaneously as well as support the idea of students bringing their own devices in every day our new technology integrator has been working very closely with the technology department um

077in providing support um additional tools and training um you know for staff um that that we just can't always do so she um jackie whiting she goes throughout the district and works with supports teachers in integration of technology um throughout instruction we support with um however we can with existing tools with existing devices and then she had also recently proposed the um the new ask which is in the budget uh request for approximately six thousand dollars i have that number over here um but the wii video subscription um a tool that teachers can use with students um uh to do individual and collaborative um video production um this um allows students to engage through video crew by creating videos um you know as part of their lessons um it's shown to increase student engagement um

078a lot watching youtube videos and and resources such as that um and then we also had really thought that something that um cles is getting is a tv studio um and this would be a great tool for students of any age to use um when it comes to video production and a great way to start getting that use of that new tv studio as soon as the school opens and i'll be meeting with the construction company soon about um what all the technology is going to look like in the building including that studio um continue to invest in chromebooks towards the completion of our one-to-one device initiative um chromebooks um have are being used in and out of the classroom more than ever um we know that now um by the district providing devices um

079we ensure that all of our students have devices available to them um to use in the classroom every day um students don't necessarily have to carry them back and forth especially our little kindergartners and first graders who have enough going on in their backpacks right now um so to have a device in the classroom ready for them to use um is very easy very beneficial when the district owns the device we get to manage it we get to put better controls over it make it easier for them to log in obviously and i say here better network safety and security when we manage and control the devices we've seen the chromebook availability has a direct impact on the use and benefits of some of the tools that i mentioned earlier when the chromebooks are available

080students can use lexia ixl and all those programs more and more um and um you know like any device chromebooks have a life cycle um google supports a device that's released for five years um we try to get as many devices as we can to five years but we deal with damages malfunctions um devices that do go end of life um and we um we we do try to use them as far as we can past end of life but like any device once it's end of life it no longer receives updates um it no longer receives security patches um and therefore the longer we use it the more we risk any um cyber security issues and concerns which is becoming more and more of a concern every day we use technology um so that's

081just something we have to pay attention to as well um we do uh we do repair devices as quickly as we can based on uh time availability and delivery resources um so we try to repair devices that are physically damaged in-house um a a for sometimes a quicker turnaround and b to uh to be more cost effective in um in repairs um upgrading of classroom presentation um and digital integration technology um the implementation at wiscons we do have a few classrooms left at the high school um that have kind of trickled in since um um our proposed budget um the uh some of the music rooms uh we uh we have the um um some of the business uh classrooms um some classrooms that used to be computer labs but are now uh classrooms um

082that we wanna complete um but then aim to uh be able to do one full grade at wisconier this year um obviously taking account for the fact that fifth grade will be leaving um we're looking to obviously do six seven and eight um and uh we will um start with one grade next year and then move on um you know this is all to replace ceiling projectors um where the lamps go the lamps break um they're not always reliable um as led is um led is also more energy efficient there's newer features in the boards that allow for multiple touch wireless connectivity you know screen casting from laptops and devices and um allows for more interactive um work inside the classroom by both staff and and teachers i'm sorry by teachers and students um and

083then just an important note once whisking year is complete and cles opens um all the classrooms in the district will have uh led digital display boards installed which is uh very exciting and finally this one um is not only the the last bullet point that was on the goal but also um in response to a question deb debbie had asked about the look at the district looking at a new website um our website provides a lot of information but on the back end i will be completely honest it's not the most user-friendly solution for our staff um and even even for our tech department to um to quickly and regularly update the information in there um and we know how important having up-to-date reliable and readily available information is on the website um so we're

084looking for something that um more staff can can easily do on their own there are now laws both state and federal that require district websites to be for um to be ada compliant you'll notice that on our district website there is a little um button um a little wheelchair button that that's the ada compliance that tool is going away um in october of 2022 um so we want to make sure we have a solution that is fully ada compliant and does meet those laws there are penalties if we don't um some of the websites that we're looking at and evaluating uh provide universal communication so right now let me use this morning as an example when we had to do the two hour delay um and the snow call uh we had to um post

085that notification on facebook separately do a message on school messenger contact all the news stations and separately do it on the website uh and then dr vero went and put it on his twitter um as he always does um what a lot of the new websites do is allow with one posting one click to update all of these platforms um and and make for one seamless communication um across all of our platforms and all of our media for parents and staff and members of the community to get access to um and then with this we can also reorganize the website to make sure that the most important and relevant information is available for users um and then um we are very interested um in implementing and bringing forward a mobile app um and and most

086of the companies that uh provide websites to schools now um it's sometimes it's an additional cost sometimes it's included um we'll look at that as we evaluate um but to introduce a mobile app we know that's that's the apps is a way that a lot of people receive their content through notifications um just being on the phone i i can tell you a number of people that don't even have a computer they just do everything on their phone um and so it's a great way to share information with with the public um and then something else i wanted to share that that we do um is free tools available to the district um there's a lot of tools and resources out there that we get either at a lower cost or at no cost because

087we're education um and so you know i i do did want to share that that um whether it's the technology department evaluating or um evaluating with the curriculum team or anything like that we we do look for um services and benefits that are provided to us sometimes it works out great um and sometimes you get what you pay for um but we we actually can sometimes use free tools for evaluations um and pilot programs to determine if it's something that works um and is it something that works but we need a little more so just some some examples of things we look at and continue to look at all of our google services um that that we currently use um when we actually log into the chromebooks and all the devices are provided to school

088districts at no cost we're looking currently at implementing securely which um recently just just announced a partnership with the connecticut education network which is our internet provider and at no cost to the district it allows us to web filter student google accounts from any device in any location not just inside of the school microsoft office 365 is a resource provided to districts at no cost so web-based versions of office just like google docs and google drive and then also students and staff can download a free copy of office on their machines our technology help desk system is an open source software open source is just is software that was built and available and free to the public at no cost under what's called an open source software license um and finally um and i do

089have a link to it there um when i share this presentation um we uh we are taking on um we are working with the state initiative called go open connect connecticut um which is for open education resources um basically it's tools resources materials programs um i could go on and on that um and the database is um is massive you can look for anything and it's any presentations or any of this stuff that has been provided um by teachers for teachers um by companies for education or anything like that um and and provided at no cost um through an open source license um a lot of great material can be found on that um you know so we do look for um these tools and resources before we um we start looking into the uh

090into the budget um so in terms of strategic plan and um some storytelling that's all i had for tonight i'm happy to answer any questions thank you so much eric really appreciate you putting that together i hope that's very helpful for the board and demonstrate the detail that goes into all the planning yeah well speaking of detail do we have in our packets the numbers that go with that storyline we i believe we we have everything in there right eric you can you don't have to walk through it tonight necessarily but it's in the details here's how much we're spending on chromebooks last year so much this year how many are we doing uh what are we spending on software packages uh what are we spending on proposing to spend on the website you know

091that level of detail and then how does it come what do we spend money on in the current year i mean we have a story we have to tell and i'm not sure i've seen that so yeah we have all that information we can put that together easy enough the comparison for you so and this was actually one of the questions that i had on on the the budget questions document was last year we got um similar to what we got for each of the schools we got a technology department like breakdown where we saw the past two years of actuals we saw you know and we could tie that out to what was actually in our budget book so we could because i know you know technology spread out all over in various line

092items so that was like a nice way that we could see and i believe we had one for the business department and a few others that i don't we didn't see this year yeah we do have all of those you know i can send them to the board yeah yep uh yeah i was just gonna say the same thing i have the detailed copy of each line item as each piece of software whether it's a renewal or or the new asks um you know which also then includes the additional you know cost to implement a new website i have all that in in detail i'd be happy to to share that if it's not already in the budget binder and and and the uh and i for one would like to be able to compare

093it year on year right you know so that we can see what's in and what's out and how that's changing and uh and and quite frankly i'm looking at it from the point of view of what's a new investment that we're making versus what is kind of a continuation of a program like for example this new website it's a it's it's something that i think is a finance committee we have to aid out and we is that a new investment or is it just kind of a revamp of our existing website right that's uh depends probably how much money we're talking about so well yeah right and and um you know for for example um the uh our website annual cost is is just about i mean this year was 3 300 um you know

094we'll find out very soon i'm starting to reach out to companies again to get more exact numbers um as i did last year to make the adjustments um and uh i'm finding out just in some conversations with other providers that um the annual recurring costs are about that um they're just around that that under 5 but um you know the the ask would be to implement it there's obviously going to be a cost for that time to transfer all the data and all that so that's the ask is is the actual implementation process not the run not the run cost right exactly well that's the stuff i want to understand in more detail right absolutely that's what a budget presentation is about so yeah i i bob i asked eric to put together the the

095more of the strategic approach to it and i i thought i heard from the board on the 15th that it wasn't a nuts and bolts about numbers i wanted to hear more from a strategic perspective some of the things were going on it's both jobs okay that i thought i heard it differently so hey eric uh i i just had a question so you know thirty three hundred dollars uh i i do know how expensive to run a website uh you know it's it's a lot with licensing and hosting and there's a bunch of other things i pay for i don't quite understand but i'm told i need them um what is there any way we could have like a student-driven project to kind of cut down on some of the design cost and data

096costs or um even even some uh what am i thinking of just uh filler microphone term content content um uh you know i'm i'm that's a great idea um i'm i'm absolutely open to that you know the funny thing is it generally um to be completely honest i haven't changed website companies that often um um i know there's some districts that do it very frequently but i can tell you um just from conversation and and from the couple times we've done it you know the biggest cost is data migration um the biggest cost is transferring everything we have now on one to the other um they have to they have to move the data they have to work with the other company they have to format it to the way that they do it because

097everybody does things a little bit differently um you know and and one of the things i would look at to cut cost is generally that's done by the the quantity of content right well i'm not going to bring through everything that is there now we have stuff that's six and seven years old that's just not relevant anymore um and you know that's gonna help bring the cost down too and having students look and evaluate and clear things out or or or look at design is is a great opportunity for them to to learn how some of that process works so i'm all for that awesome i would let me just echo that we i'm on another board in town and we just rolled out our new website and we did it with wescon right the

098westcon students were always looking for projects uh that were ite or website-centric because that's what they were studying as you know how to do marketing and website creation and things like that so there's a there there was a we had got a great young man who did a lot of design work for us about how to you know how to lay out and uh and you you know they they taught themselves the tools and uh and they did most of the work and we were we as a group we spent time just focusing on content uh which was great i wrote that i wrote that down as well thank you um i might i might reach out to you and ask um um for any contacts at westcon that's a great idea too absolutely now

099we know the professor who runs the program so excellent yeah i can get you that information thank you any other questions for eric just one um something that just popped up when you were reading it didn't we finish the high school presentation things last year um yeah we um we we uh were we had done all of the classrooms um but uh through some conversation um there was some rooms that had become computer labs um that were computer labs that are no longer computer labs um and then we had some cases and situations where for example the um i don't know why i'm forgetting the name of the program the kitchen the the room the cooking um you know class they kind of um you know they they saw the boards in the other classrooms

100and kind of said oh i want that um i think that would be a great idea for the class and um you know i i want to make sure we have equal access to that digital presentation across the um those are those teachers um so these are mostly um like the non-core classes right so um so are those teachers given professional development in terms of how to utilize that kind of technology i mean it's just it's expensive technology if they're not going to use it to its full potential right oh yeah absolutely and um you know i mean everybody um is is and needs to be offered that professional development whether it's core or not um for that exact reason um it's not cheap technology to put in and um you know it's it's not

101it's disheartening to ever see us put something like that in and just be used as a glorified energy efficient projector right you know so um you know in fact our boards due to shipping and displays um there was a huge glass shortage which wasn't highly reported um back in the summer um that delayed our shipment of boards this year and we didn't get those installed until um you know the middle of november so and and now that mr bolland is back um i i want to work with him um and um mrs spencer the department head of um for english and social studies to work on professional development for those teachers um some of them have asked um and and we need to get going on that so um you know so that is we

102we have plans for professional development now um and and for ongoing as well um it's that's it's as important as putting the technology in is in in the classrooms is professional development is just as if not more important right to make sure it's getting used correctly and i mark you turn your camera and i don't know if you want to add anything no i think that's pretty accurate you know what the way eric stated it um you know i think you know at the end of the day certainly it's it's at the discretion of the administration to decide where we're going to put these boards and where we're not we really don't try to make it let it be up to the teachers um because then we want this here and that there and there's

103nothing wrong with that but functionality it's not their classroom because the it is the districts and the towns classroom they're using to as an instructional space so um there was a few lagging behind uh the the culinary teacher was using a just a kind of tv screen you know so she wasn't using um the actual smart technology in the pieces where it's touch screen is just a basic screen um which was suited her needs but then you know we really needed to get everybody on board the other thing is to eric's point um as we reclaim classrooms you know one of the great things that the board has been able to support is the addition of you know technology teachers but then like this year we have a new technology teacher but finding space for

104that person to work not just in the technology space but also in a classroom setting has been challenging so as we revamp our usage of computer space and change those rooms over to reclaim some classroom space it becomes a vacant area where it didn't have anything there so that's eric's got a really good and and the nice part about it um in terms of the the training piece um you know we're able to accomplish that um you know some in short short bursts we know that multiple hours of professional development sometimes becomes difficult but at the high school level um with our built-in plc's that we have the collaborative groups that work together particularly i think about the english department where there's three teams of three where they have some common time together we can

105actually do that and they can you know eric or other staff can go in and do some really timely in you know in person here's what your board looks like how it works um which is fantastic so that's that's just a little addition but eric's right on board with us yeah and the only thing i'll add is um is um you know we we don't hold boards or anything like that until we can do the training um you know so it's it it's you know just for example we put the boards in and some teachers said well you know um can i get some some lessons on how to use this and so we don't say to them yeah you know wait wait a month or two we're going to get some professional development meanwhile

106just leave the board there um you know our our tech our techs at each school but let's speak specifically about the high school um you know kathy calavito is fantastic about um going and spending time individually with that teacher um and and she's done it with a couple of them every year um but i know i know of a couple this year specifically in the fall that she worked with and so we do make sure that we work with our staff as a group and individually as we can okay any other questions for eric all right um dr bruhl any other topics you wanted to bring up this evening no didn't have any other topics bob um i know we have our regular finance committee meeting on monday next week but we'll also continue to

107discuss and flesh out and work through the questions as rosa brought up from the google doc at that meeting as well i would i think rosa we've got all the line items i've got questions in to ken and most of them many of them are answered already yeah and i think some of you have given questions into that google doc as well um ken is working to get answers to those so i would just urge everybody both to submit questions as you've been reviewing the budget um into that because it's proven to be a pretty effective method um and also read the answers of the ones he's already given um uh because i think it's a good communication tool so um can i ask a miscellaneous question so um i know la at our last

108meeting we talked about the school calendar is that i don't we didn't approve it at that meeting though right is that coming up again yeah i was asked at the last meeting to sit hold it for the 19th okay okay that's right yep thank you got it um okay um so look uh next meeting we gotta we have to vote on the budget um so what i think we ought to start with is that summary budget report that kind of showed the big drivers again um and can you can give us any updates including the health benefits but anything else that's come up through the finance committee reviews and we can maybe at the finance committee rosa we can kind of summarize you know places that we think we either ought to add or subtract

109right um and uh we should probably use that monday meeting to you know kind of have a strong recommendation uh but we ought to start with kind of here's the state of the art right um and then i think all of us need to come to the next board meeting with an opinion of do we approve it then as is do we what i would like to do is go through each of the investment items and make sure we have consensus on those um but then we ought to all come in with a view of the budget and the aggregate based on all the q's and a's and the finance committee reviews and everything else that we've done so i think it's uh it should be the primary agenda item at our uh at our

11019th meeting so yeah and uh because we have to leave with a vote uh which i think is important if we don't get to a vote we're gonna have to have a special meeting sometime between the 19th and the end of the month okay any other questions on budget in general all right so with that we'll move on to uh the candlewood lake elementary school uh update bob can i get just one question and it's okay if there's another answer what is what is the feeling because you guys you guys talked to the the finance committee uh of you know so around four percent right now what's what's what's the number that feels better to them is there just like an overall not specific the board of finance hasn't made any statements whatsoever i they

111haven't really engaged but more importantly they've got an interesting thing going on because they have the whole revaluation happening and so trying to absorb what's happening to the denominator of the tax rate is going to take some time to sort out how that all plays out right are we growing or is the tax base growing shrinking what's happening to the tax rate it's actually going to be more complicated this year than in most years because at once every five years we reval all the properties and so the board of the board of finance will get all better signals on their point of view in through february i think so um as we review so we ought to bring in the budget that we believe is the right budget i just i just was like if

112there was an answer i was kind of i i've gotten no signals whatsoever i don't know if anybody else has we do have by the way eileen koch is on our uh finance attends our finance committee meetings and is sitting through and reviewing every one of these items along with us it's been very it's been a good partnership with both eileen and uh and marsha marion our town patrol are sitting with us so uh and we're getting positive feedback as we go through our reviews in general so all right that's that answers the question i just wanted to see if like hey are we in the same ballpark or we just like on different planets it feels like i don't think they know yet that's the point so oh fair enough yep i think it's

113positive that we're not doing crazy spending things but it's not uh it's not gonna be soup until it's soup this year fair enough all right so why don't we move on to the candle with like uh school project update so rosa yeah so there's um again the same kind of report that i gave last time there's not too much of an update um actually if you drive by the building is starting to look in the foreground a look a little bit different so i think since our last meeting we had the preschool walls kind of going up so those are the walls kind of closest so closest to the front of the building um gymnasium steel is starting to um come together so they're still building actually the structural walls of parts of the building

114so the building itself is broken out into a bunch of different lettered sections and they work on you know these sections uh one at a time and they just keep kind of rotating through um as you know the roofing material which is sort of the next step for the parts that are completed so far um the roofing material is delayed um until probably a couple more months from now and there's a couple other things that are actually delayed as well but nothing's really holding it up quite like the roofing material so so far we're still on track as much as they can project um as far out as they can project but yeah so things are just kind of moving along they're going to start to pick um you know colors and material for the

115outside pretty soon so some exciting stuff and if i could build on that rosa uh two things um eric is actually one of our goals after the new year was to get out there with the drone and get some updated video to share with the public and share with everyone so we're excited about that um in addition to that right before the break i was able to uh take a walk through with uh and i hadn't taken a walk through in quite a while with a construction manager and to your point i mean there's walls up everywhere foundations in it's uh it's really coming along um and then the other piece is um techdon eddie from tech town contacted me actually you know right right as we return this week and he's like get one

116more meeting in before february uh with principals to make sure we are on the same page with the final classroom furniture um in addition to that uh nursing any nursing materials phys ed materials otp team materials fire retardant very expensive type cabinets that we have that we want to move over um you know get ready for that as well you know what's moving over um which won't be that much but those key uh pieces of equipment that are also quite expensive we want to bring over with us so we're really excited about it and we're gonna get some dates on the calendar for that cool uh any questions for uh uh rosa or dr burrell okay thank you thank you um i did notice by the way when i was reading i watched i read

117the paper every day and i was reading the article about the new fairfield schools and the first thing in the article was they had roofing material delays and uh and they found a way to kind of bring them in and keep the project on on schedule but it's a much smaller project physically than ours so yeah yeah and i think a lot of renovate is new with that project as well but one other thing i do want to add mr checko i think we talked about it at the december 15th meaning uh roseair or i might have mentioned it um we're going to work with mr checkout and try to get maybe a saturday where we can look at a projection of some decent weather and uh get everybody who's interested from board of selectmen

118or to finance the board um to uh take a tour and a led walkthrough so we'll continue to work on trying to schedule that well i look forward to that okay so that brings us to public comment um i was just reviewing the sign ups in the um uh in the comment section and there's only one person signed up for public comment this evening elena lopez um or allison lopez i'm not sure if it's elena or allison but the um uh i just want to make a couple of comments before we start so um we will uh open it up for the public comment um it is limited to three minutes um uh we really do like to get public comment it's one of the ways we stay in touch with the community and the

119issues that people care about but um we do and we can talk about anything that's within the jurisdiction of the board um the only rules are quite frankly that we don't talk about personnel or individuals right it's uh um [Music] it's it's just it's inappropriate in the sorts of meetings to do that and we like to keep things civil and on point and uh and we'll move on so uh when i call you um just i need name and address so for the record so uh so our secretary can you know keep the minutes correct so with that is it allison or elena who would like to speak elena elena hi elena how are you hi oh thank you for sitting through our meeting this evening on the floor is yours um elena lopez nine

120summer pastor lane um i tried my best it may be three and a half minutes uh my eight-year-old daughter brought home a book from the school library that has been described by book critics as the coming-of-age graphic novel that discusses crushes kissing dating and romantic relationships of middle school students upon my research of this book i discovered it was recommended for 10 to 14 year olds with a scholastic book recommendation for grades five to nine the principle of huckleberry which houses grades two to four informed me that books of higher reading level are often kept in school libraries to challenge our readers i decided to read the entire book and i became even more confused as the reading for this book is not that advanced i naturally concluded the mature content in the book could

121be the only reason for its age rating huckleberry conducted a review of the book and not only did they conclude it is properly placed in the library the school library but it remains there without warning or restrictions i was puzzled how a comic book with more mature content and illustrations of teenagers sneaking off to kiss in a school basement for example could meet the criteria necessary for children as young as six and i further appealed to the board the board communicated to me a review would be done and a vote by the board would be held after watching the december board of education meeting i became increasingly concerned about the possibility of bias among some of the board members it seemed like minds were made up before anyone had the chance to read the book

122and before the committee had met these concerns prompted me to email the board to ensure an impartial review would actually take place while i have not heard yet from the board i did read a news times article titled should brookfield schools ban a book a parent is taking an argument to the school board i would like to take this opportunity to speak very clearly i am not asking the publisher to pull the book from print i am not asking retailers to not sell the book i am not asking for its removal from a public library i am asking that its unrestricted placement in an elementary school library which does not meet the age rating to be considered this article included comment from board members and then it incited comments on social media that drew completely

123false conclusions about me and my reasons for the review this is especially disheartening as i feel that i asked these questions in a courteous and professional manner and honored the proper channels i would have expected the same level of professionalism from the board and i do feel the course of action they took is meant to deter parents from asking questions and from speaking up it is particularly bothersome to read quotes from board members such as quote i think there are difficult and unique situations that are represented in books and it's not our job to shelter our children from those topics but rather to have discussion about them end quote i have in fact broached many of the topics in this book with my children but i've done it in a way that i have found

124to be age-appropriate while it is the board's job to ensure proper curriculum and content is reaching our students it is not their place to decide what and how we discuss quote difficult and unique situations end quote at home i genuinely feel the book is not appropriate for young elementary school students with the mature content of this book dealing with the dating life and relationships of teenagers can the board honestly say that second and third graders have the social emotional development to process all of the drama of this book as it is so appropriately titled especially when it's available without a warning and being read during school hours and not always being brought home for conversation furthermore i am concerned that if the board takes no action this book and others that deal with mature content

125may be accessible to kindergartners and first graders when our new school opens i hope a reasonable solution to this matter can be achieved and i do thank you all for your time thank you thank you very much i appreciate you taking the time to speak to us directly which is always helpful um and i appreciate that we are as you probably saw this evening we uh we're reviewing the policy and procedures for uh reviewing this type of material uh that draft um while we didn't show it on the screen tonight is available on the uh board of education website there was an attachment to the uh uh meeting agenda we will review that and then that will then guide the formal review of the board and and uh we will be impartial about it and

126and so i can assure you of that that's what we have to do as a board so thank you for speaking tonight so that's the only person we had signed up for public comment this evening um so um and thank you by the way for uh the members of the public who attended this evening it's great to see people come to our board meetings so um so with that we're at the end of our agenda and uh and without oh well i'm sorry end of our regular agenda we do need to talk about three main points so i was thinking we would start with dr burrell's covet update uh all the information that he shared uh then i thought we would um [Music] go talk about the school media policy that we discussed because there

127seems to be a lot of um questions about that in the community and then the third point would be the budget and eric's technology presentation sounds fine with me sounds good that's good all right good all right uh upcoming events all right pretty quiet the next few weeks we have some pto meetings all virtual center is tuesday the eleventh at seven o'clock huckleberry is wednesday the 19th at six o'clock and wisconier is wednesday the 19th at 9 15 and all schools have an early release next friday the 14th and are closed for martin luther king day on monday the 17th that is all i have okay thank you very much and so without uh without any concerns we're adjourned so thank you all for attending tonight and thank you for the members of the public

128for attending