Board of Education Meeting 11-3-21 @ 7pm

001education teachers who support our program the health eco school social worker and antonia macklick our school psychologist who will share more about our program and its benefits that it has on all of our students very healthy michelle i think you have a sharing screen right thank you everyone um we are super excited to talk to you about our social enrichment program here at huckleberry once again i'm kim garcia i'm the special ed teacher who teaches in the social emotional enrichment program at huckleberry the goal of the social emotional program is to guide students to be responsible for their own social emotional health and independently maintain appropriate conduct throughout their school day so the classroom itself is taught by myself a school social worker and kim garcia a special education teacher and the spanish received direct

002teaching of skills around social skills emotional regulation strategies um and these are students who have been identified as needing extra support in their social emotional learning and these students are provided with with the reinforcement schedule that we'll talk about a little later on and each one is individualized for them and then we also really hope to create a safe classroom for students to feel if they're having a tough times come and take a break or check in with miss varsity or myself with the students of the social emotional enrichment program students are taught to advocate for themselves and we increase their independence as much as we possibly can many of the students in the program have para support but we like to pull back on some of that support as much as we can to

003make them feel for part of their own learning and to utilize some of the skills that they're learning on their own without somebody coaching them how to do that there's frequent communication within the program between home and school and then anybody that works with the student our mission statement is to promote the social emotional wellness of all students through fostering self-management and interpersonal skills we have five paraprofessionals in the classroom as well as a bcba that supports students and consults with the team as needed we rotate paraprofessionals between students to make sure that students are generalizing their information and their skills between the staff members um so one complement component of our program is our check and checkout system so students in the program check in in the social emotional classroom every morning and they

004fill out a worksheet that you can see in the left-hand corner and the first thing we do is we ask them how they're feeling and if they happen to be struggling or feeling in blue or red we probably solve ways to get them into the green to start their school day and then we also problem solve any unresolved issues they may have had that morning at home or possibly the day before they also set a goal for the day that they like to work on and then we go over a plan on how they can achieve that goal and we review any tools or skills that we've taught them um to help them achieve that goal they then come back to the classroom at the end of the day and they review their points and

005they're able to um pick out a prize from a prize drawer and we'll talk about points in a little bit and we really the most important part is you praise them on any positive behavior um and we talk about what tomorrow might look like they're always they always know what's ahead um and then if they are able to choose from the prize box that means they are contracts to being able to participate in our fun friday activity so our points are stems in the classroom each student is on an individualized point system based on four specific expectations that we're looking from them these expectations often include goals and objectives from their iep as well as maybe just some behaviors we're kind of seeing pop up within the classroom setting or socially with peers that we

006want to just kind of target and work on so every half hour there's our little sheet up in the corner um students review with their para how they did with those four expectations that really helps hold them accountable and recognizes their accomplishments these um points connect to our checkout that michelle is just speaking about and they earn their prize box which they are super motivated by they love their like little tangible toys that they earn so these points um reflect their expectations and what they get to earn from prize box and then fun friday everybody loves fun friday so every friday students reflect on their entire week it's really a place for us to encourage that even if you had a rocky part to your day part to your week there's always times and opportunities

007to turn it around and we really encourage um turning it around so students earn fun friday and that can include you know something as simple as just earning some extra recess time the students also like to have special lunches with mr garciano sometimes a movie day last friday we made putty so if you take a look at those pictures you can tell that was a huge messy hit so we had our beloved stack cart this happens every friday and it's not only students who are in the social emotional um program it is also any student um in huckleberry it might be a student who might need some extra love that day or they show really positive behavior um by collaborating with classroom teachers were able to choose those students um and not only does this

008help work on their math skills because they go to each classroom and sells the teachers and school staff but they're really forming positive relationships with teachers and staff that they might not get to know otherwise it really helps to increase their self-esteem students are so proud to go to each classroom and kind of show off to other classmates what they get to do on that friday and then what's also really nice is a lot of our staff members will pay it forward um so the next step member gets to pick out a snack based on what they paid for them and it not only shows not only contributes to that positive school climate but it really just shows our students how kind we are to one another another component of the program are student mentors

009so often i will take an older student in the social emotional enrichment program and during a writing lesson we plan out an art project with very detailed step-by-step directions that the younger students can follow the older mentor student gets to work on this art activity with the younger guys and it's really a great experience to have that connection it promotes positive self-esteem encourages social skills and then positive interactions with peers our little guys really look up to their older peers and then when they see them in the hallway and they're like hey that's you know so-and-so who made this turkey hand with me um it makes them feel like really special really important so this is a great program so we also collaborate with classroom teachers to incorporate some social emotional lessons in the classroom

010as a whole this is throughout the whole school where we push into second third and fourth grade classes and we have whole group discussions about some social skills such as just to list a few problem solving skills some coping strategies that we can use in the classroom and outside of the classroom and some self-regulation skills like taking those breaks when we feel like we really need to get out of receipt for a little bit and just making those positive decision-making skills so just really reflecting back on some problems that we've had and what are the decisions that we've made in that moment as a smaller group we meet mrs fico and i we meet with social skill groups so those are called lunch bunches where we meet to play some interactive games and we read

011some stories and have fun activities like recently we did some arts and crafts for halloween they seem to really enjoy those and just have whole group discussions and reflect back on those some problems that we may have faced throughout the week and coming up with some solutions as a group we practiced coping strategies in this groups that were able to transfer those over into the classroom and also throughout this whole school day we practiced some conversational skills some play turn taking skills and um really identifying some the some problems and determining what the size of the problem is and how that should equal the reaction as well so some of the de-escalation strategies that we utilize we teach our students are listed here we teach many many different strategies what works for one will not

012work for another so each student has their own toolbox of strategies that work for them when they're feeling that they need to use a strategy so here are some of our little kiddos sharing some of their favorite strategies i'm not getting audio on them did she meet because she muted herself it's because she muted herself hey um whoever's sharing your screen is that michelle sharing your screen you're not sharing your um computer audio so you're only sharing the video can you just undo your share and redo it and check that box to share your audio while i figure out how to make sure it doesn't die i think if you just unmute yourself like that i know i just shared sound so let me know if it works okay here we go or do jumping

013jacks when i'm in the blue i like to use sorry you want me to play it okay i when i'm in the sad moment i like to play when i'm in the blue i like to draw and i tell mr mola when i'm in the group i like to read in the being that shirt when i'm in the blue i like to draw and i tell me i'm not let me go to the [Music] so we also collaborate with outside organizations such as family therapists and healthcare providers so that there's a homeschool collaboration and we can practice those strategies in school and also out outside of school so it's really carried over throughout environments we all we've been organizing thanksgiving drive at huckleberry to really help those families in need and we get the students

014involved by having them help us organize these baskets and collect items and sort out those donations that we have received from other families and students so we just want to give a big thank you for everyone's support um in helping our social enrichment program does anyone have any questions for us very nice any questions i just want to make a comment yeah i think i'm on i think i think it was it's just nice to obviously these are students who struggle with emotional regulation and i just like that the title is the social emotional enrichment program so we're not going from a deficit model um that this is enrichment to um to help them with probably the things that they struggle most and because of that enrichment they'll become more regulated and then more out

015to learn so the title got me i loved it i thought it was really really a great way to emphasize such a positive thing about kids who potentially really struggle and it's a way to keep kids in the schools too imagining if you're dysregulated you may have a difficult time functioning in a regular school and may have to seek uh ad placement so so that's very impressive thank you thanks for emphasizing that um jen that was something a number of years ago we started the program and uh was with all of your help so thank you for recognizing that thank you questions all right any questions thanks everyone great job huckleberry we'll see you tomorrow thank you thank you good night thank you bye-bye so our next item is our student representative report all right

016so to start off with some events that we had in the past just recently on saturday october 30th we had the homecoming dance so a number of students showed up from 9th through twelfth grade and we all had a lot of fun there um and then just before that we had uh the friday or the night really the day before at school we had a lot of students come and show up for halloween with their costumes on so a lot of people were dressed up during that day into some administration stuff we have basically for referencing back to last meeting when i was talking about the lunch process there's been a lot of improvements so both staff and students themselves a lot of students that may not necessarily have leadership roles in the school are

017now stepping up to like become bigger leaders and working to streamline that process so different procedures are being made we just got the like ropes put in place for people lining up in front of the lunchroom so that's helpful um and a lot of upperclassmen especially who are kind of taking the lead and saying like no no get in line don't cut stuff like that so um and also just trying to lighten the mood with obviously covid is still lingering around even though we don't want it to so a few things like we're trying to use different words so saying the dining hall instead of the cafeteria or reserve seating instead of like assigned seats little things like that well said but well said reserved seating i like that and then um a few benefits

018that we've seen from the reserve seating is that there's a lot more engagement now than in past years so like in the past or at least last year especially when the desks were literally separated apart and you looked like you're in rows and columns people are talking a lot more at the tables and having one-on-one conversations with their peers so that's good to see and then going away from lunch a bit just wanted to talk about individual learn individualized learning time ilt which is kind of a new period that was put in place this year so it's a 30 minute advisory period kind of in the middle of the day and every student at the high school has it at the same time so in the past we've had like flexes that are all at

019different times so this makes a little easier if students want to meet with teachers they know that that teacher is also going to have ilt with their students so they can meet make a set up an appointment and then kind of you're not interrupting class time or anything like that some other benefits clubs can meet during those times so if there's like the leaders of the officers of the club need to meet and plan for whether an event or a whole club meeting they can meet during that time since again they all have that block at the same time and then also just moving certain things like the loudspeaker announcements to that time rather than they used to be the beginning of second period so that way it's again not cutting into class time and

020misheidi now can talk over the loudspeaker during that time to make any announcements necessary moving on to clubs we have national honor society coming up on monday november 15th we're running a blood drive so we're planning to donate 35 units as we have in the past of blood to the connecticut blood banks and then also unicef club is currently partnering with a citizen from tanzania which they're working with to plan different developments and talk about locally owned homestay and tour company that this citizen is kind of in involved with and they're the students will create a website fundraise to support his purchase of the items for the tours and homestay as well as assist in social media advertising and they will develop environmentally friendly and conservation focused educational materials for the citizen and his clients

021and this was actually built off of a fund for teachers grant which was received by heather beyoncary the advisor for that club and she got it to investigate and support sustainable eco and ethnotourism in tanzania and rwanda so that is everything that i have right nice job ben any questions for ben i have one i'm just kind of going back to what you were saying about ilt time um how are students liking that time and how are they most utilizing it um definitely they enjoy the fact that it's all at the same time so that they can meet with the teacher if they need to going back to the social and emotional learning aspect um kind of like once a week as we call a mentor monday the teacher will check in with the students

022and especially those that may be struggling or their grades are kind of low they can check in and say like oh is there anything that i can do to help and stuff like that so they like that part um and then kind of just like some some do use it as a time to get their work done which is also helpful if they are called are all caught up and everything's fine and then others can meet with teachers to kind of have that one-on-one time while there's no classes going on and you like that better than the flex generally yeah yeah i think a lot of students definitely have appreciated it more because again going back to with flux it was like you'd have a flux when a teacher has a class or during lunch

023or whatever so it was hard to kind of coordinate with that but now since everything's at the same time it's a lot easier great any other questions for ben all right thank you thanks ben okay you've written correspondence okay jason master paolo wrote regarding facility use fees aaron scalera wrote regarding policies and procedures andy correa wrote regarding the cheer investigation process and an foi request and kim rachel wrote regarding public comment okay approval of board minutes i'll move that the board approve the minutes from the regular meeting on october 20th second okay all in favor aye okay that's unanimous uh the superintendent's update all right thanks rosa um so a couple of things earlier this week we put a school message out to families uh dr sullivan asked us or the health department asked us

024to send out a message from dr sullivan regarding the um five-year-old to 11 year old opportunity for teaming up with the new milford health department for vaccination clinics in addition to that uh this afternoon i sent out a another school message regarding our uh this part of our district communication plan which is our coherence of communication and really an opportunity to effectively and efficiently engage with our families through following the proper protocols in the chain of command to make sure we could adjudicate issues as quickly and efficiently as effectively as possible so we wanted to get that out to everybody and it's a series of flow charts that we find very helpful for for parents and for staff another thing that we talked about at facilities earlier tonight and there's not a facilities report for

025this meeting but the ces part of the roof that's over the nurse's office and near the pre-k area was completed on friday and saturday so that's great there was a lot of leaking going on there and we've rectified that issue so we're really really thrilled that that is complete now and then finally just uh two highlights from professional development yesterday it was just an extremely positive day in general i got to spend the morning with the pre-k to 5 team and i really need to thank mary rhodes and melissa and maureen and the rest of the team and jackie whiting for putting the day together very positive was able to share the news about our construction update that we'll talk about later with candlewood lake but bringing pre-k to five the certified faculty together it

026was really enjoyable to see everybody connecting and starting to team build and getting really excited about things and then the other piece was um under mr post and eric um and joan the team putting the kronos time and attendance project together and doing a lot of training yesterday there's a lot of training this week but in general we did a lot of training with our paraprofessionals and that's all that time and attendance and payroll work so that's something we've been working on for a couple of years and so that was another highlight um that's all i have for my superintendent report if there's any questions i'd be happy to answer i was gonna say i happen to see the email for the coherence of communication that was really um helpful and a good visual i

027thought something that to help improve that would be to put the names of the people in those roles in their email that would be helpful yeah that's something we can consider for sure joy um uh think about how we can do that i want to be careful because it's you know a principle at one school is different for another principal at another school so we'd have to almost do it by school but it's something we certainly can consider and i hope people find it helpful so thank you you know the visual i think yeah very helpful [Applause] any questions for john okay all right thanks everyone um subcommittee reports we have none so moving on to the consent agenda i'll move that the board approve the items on the consent agenda which are new hires

028and resignations second all in favor bye okay that's unanimous on to new business we have the class size report um so dr ruby i'd like to invite you up and um we'll receive that good evening i think you have all received the class size reports for this year looking at the center school report with the boe class size guidelines of between 17 and 20 per class all 18 of our classes at the school are within the boe guidelines and you can see on there the breakdown for preschool k and grade one we have two preschool classes with a total of 38 students the three-year-olds have 14 and that's a warning session and most of the students in that program attend uh three half days um students will attend different numbers of days based on whether

029they're regular ed students or special ed students and what their ieps dictate that they uh the services that they are to be receiving and how much time that takes there are 24 four-year-olds currently that's in the afternoon session and most of those students attend four half days the important thing to remind ourselves of when we look at these numbers is that they change from day to day sometimes throughout the year because as children are reached their third birthday they go out of birth to three and into three and five to three to five so if they're students who are receiving special education services and they reach their third birthday they then are eligible to come into the program based on their birth date the same would be true for four-year-olds who are identified after their

030third birthday so these numbers do fluctuate this is the october first census in kindergarten there's there are nine classes with a total of 177 students and three of those classes have 19 and six of them have 20 students and for grade one there are 167 total students in those nine classes and you can see that two have seventeen two have eighteen three have nineteen and two have twenty so it's pretty straightforward as is the huckleberry hill report um the total number of students at huckleberries five twelve and none of the classes are below the class size guidelines 22 out of the 25 general ed classes or 88 percent are within the class size guidelines of 19 to 21 students you'll see that when you get down to fourth grade where there are eight classes and

031171 students three of the classes have 22 students and five have the 21 so those three classes in fourth grade are out of the range by one student and the other for the other two grades 180 students in second grade all the classes within the guidelines and 163 students all of the classes all eight classes are within the class size guidelines so i think we're doing pretty well in terms of our teacher-student ratio in in those grades but we will follow up with the recommendations from our earlier discussion on how to best serve those younger students and what models of best practice for paraprofessional use would be beneficial we still have gene renda here because his report is very complicated if you've had hopefully had time to look at it dean if you want to

032come up if you have i'm not going to read through this you can see it's quite involved because now we get into departmentalization and the students rotating through the unh specials and you can see where we're within the guidelines and where we're not in the guidelines and that's in bold on the first page of his report for his school grade five and grade six nineteen percent or of the class sections are over the class side guidelines and 30 in seventh grade there are large sections and 26 in grade 8. um i don't want to bore you with just reading through i'm not going to read the charts obviously but based on your having looked at these were there any questions that you had that were specific to liskenier and we gave you um as always

033the comparison from year to year for the uh previous two years okay that's what i was gonna yeah that's if you look at the top of the um this is the format that we use every year that the chart that goes from page to page to page has the greater the course and then the sections for 1920 2021 and now the 2021 school year and we provide what dean provides the number and the percentage for the um sections with regard to the class size target [Music] and how are teachers finding the manageability of some of these larger classes well actually this is a pretty good report for class sizes yeah um i think you'll you could notice that in grades seven and eight there's larger class obviously two hundred four two hundred so you know

034at least ten fourteen maybe more the difference is in fifth and sixth grade we have nine homeroom teachers if you want to say and 10th um excuse me 10th 7th and 8th grade we have 10 but even with 10 at times you'll notice um that you know like if you i think what you're saying is i look at fifth grade on the chart now i'm on the chart yeah and uh we have seven classes so it's more than we had last year but um you know it's it's still only 19 which is actually not bad at all compared to two years ago um the sixth grade is up again because that number is nine teachers where last year we had 10 teachers so that's where that number seems skewed a little bit but last year

035we had 10 teachers in sixth grade with 204 kids uh where this year we have um nine teachers with the 190 kids so that's where i think the number so even last year with more teachers though we were over for sixth grade yeah yeah but we were only over four of the sections if you look at the 20 21 section that's what that means this is part of the magic of what they do at the middle school in high school because and it gets tricky it gets tricky with certifications because we have teachers that are certified k-6 and then we have the teachers that are certified 7-12 and dean and his team have to with the fluctuations in the in the demographics from great when we have a bubble year et cetera et cetera try

036to move all those people around so that we you know don't lose teachers do we can't put we can't put people in classes that they're not certified to teach and so it's it's so is that what happened here there was just like a moving around of teachers is that why we're down and teacher there in sex well it was really it's because of class sizes okay with numbers okay you know again we try to be strategic in in that aspect and because we were down uh students excuse me and actually that number was even lower we we had that was a sixth grade is usually a grade that we do get more students come in we have students from ais come in yeah and for some reason that's a an average i think i've done

037it over the years i think it's almost an average of nine to ten extra students a year between ais and other students that's probably our largest grade uh with differences in numbers but um and then sometimes with seventh and eighth grade you'll see some of the sections it depends on if it's a high you know advanced math class sometimes those are a little bit larger it depends on some of our world language because we have french and seventh and eighth grade but when we have a teacher that's teaching the french class that means we have to have there's uh less sections for spanish in there so that means that those numbers are they go up a little bit that's all that means sorry i'm pulling up the spreadsheet any other questions on those i mean

038you'll see we do have a lot of zero percents yeah yeah like for our specials now there's an example but you see zero percent for special and that's because we have ten at every um at every grade level yeah well i never get we have 10 special teachers so at every grade level you obviously have 10 10 teachers and one thing if you notice that i'm excited about is the uh um where is it somewhere in here with abandoned course numbers they have gone up dramatically um from the past years because obviously last year they were down a lot and i apologize i gotta find that for you oh if you look at i think it's the fourth page yeah of course we're back up to 99 so we were at 152 a couple years

039ago uh we went down to 23 last year we're back up to 99 and then banned uh we were at 195 a couple years ago now we're back up to 146. okay so up another 20 so i think that's a that's a positive any other questions so i just uh this is it's a hard job to do all the scheduling and it takes a really long time and so we really appreciate the work that dean and his team do with this for the high school we had have a total this is the october first data of 904 students and you can see uh the way this is always laid out in this way by the uh content area class how many sections there are and then how many sections are above the class side guidelines

040which is 21 and you can see just right off the top with english 49 sections but 43 of them or 21 of those sections are above the class side guideline of 21 and the largest class has 29 students and so that's a fairly large class i don't know if you've since you got this on friday if you had any specific questions about any of the any of the sections and what you're seeing on there social studies has a larger class with 30 students i think there are music classes that have 49 students the pe classes the largest class is 29 students and the other interesting component we always get asked about how many students are in what language and that's provided here there are 557 spanish enrollments and 80 french enrollments and mark did prepare

041this but here if you have any specific questions regarding this report if we were to add teachers in order to address some of the class size issues at the high school do we have the physical capacity to schedule them in terms of rooms rooms and things like that it would be tricky i certainly think you know we're all going to suggestions and looking around and things but there's no empty spaces large empty places but certainly we could get creative yeah right now there's it's like a full hotel that's that's what i was thinking the answer was no more reservations no okay how many students are enrolled in american sign language this year i didn't hear that asl in asl how many students are enrolled in i do not have i don't want to make that

042number up i don't have it but we can get it because jules has her talking computer that is one of our world language classes and not mentioned right i was just wondering this might be a question for a different report but how did some of the new courses that we've offered over the last year or two phil and how did that impact class size at all we can get that information i'm sorry i missed the question i think it's 28 for asl 28 for asl the new the new classes that we've added that we added in the past year past two years um can we get information i don't want you to get it tonight tonight um information how did they feel and does that impact on class size so how are they doing overall

043the classes that were new yeah like the past couple years we've added a couple of new classes i know the research classes have technology been very um popular and if you ever have a chance to go to one of them you'll wish you were in the class really good okay any other information that we can get for you i don't want to put jules on the spot since she didn't do this report but we certainly can get you we can get the um this amended to have the asl numbers on it and we can find out about um your question jim yeah i think that's okay all right okay um don't go too far our next uh item is the el by grade report oh i'll do that so you have your el report and

044uh this year we have this is as of [Music] 104 students and you can see at center school there are six 16 students eight in each of the grade levels and the line we have four total languages at um center school when you get to huckleberry there are 43 students now this is significant and you're going to be hearing about this in our budget work this this year there were 43 students in grade 12 they're grade 2 there are 12 grade 320 and grade 411. so there are nine total languages represented at huckleberry but if you look at spanish there are 20. 20 is the magic number when you're talking about speakers of a single language in a school once you have 20 students in a school that speak the same same language you will

045require you're legislatively required to have a bilingual program in the next school year so next year we will be required to have a bilingual spanish program what does that mean it means that we need to advertise for a bilingual cert spanish bilingual certified teacher and we need to procure curriculum materials and offer bilingual services to those students so i'm not going to belabor that point right now because you're going to be hearing more about that when we get into budget uh wisconier has 29 students and there are seven total languages spoken there you can see that the highest number is in fifth grade with 15. and now think about this for the future when we have the pre-k 5 school all those numbers are going to be added together and more likely than not the

046probability is that we will always be required to have a bilingual program from here on in and so is it a separate bilingual program for portuguese and spanish when we if we have 20 portuguese yes because you add the well i don't know how many of them middle school are in fifth grade but that's yeah we started that's going to start getting closer yes so this is just something to have on our radar from here on in we will most likely in brookfield have at a minimum a bilingual spanish program at the um at the candlewood lake school and that was indicated at our last meeting in the budget priorities the brookfield high school has 16 total students with total of four language spoken there and you can see the breakdown so total languages when

047we look across the four schools is 13 languages represented and so your question bob you can see that they're across the entire district there are 29 portuguese speakers and at the high school there are seven so if you subtract 7 from 29 you would have k8 and then we'd have to figure out how many of those students which we obviously have the data um moving forward we'd have to look at those grade levels in in the groupings of pre-k through five so i would predict that somewhere down the road that portuguese group is going to reach an n of 20 in the candlewood lake school because we do have a large portuguese population in this part of the state any questions on that no all right thank you for that um our next item is

048the homeschool report this is the most exciting report you could ever want this is a very difficult report to put together because parents do not have to respond to our inquiries and we are fairly diligent in the it's done in the human resources department in sending out the letters to people we we follow the guidelines the state guidelines and currently currently of current available data so that's really a loaded statement reveals that we have 35 students that are being homeschooled in our district and they come with these 35 students come from a total of 26 families and we send out the notice of intent to families who we know were previously homeschooling or who during the pandemic we had people that were homeschooling we sent them all the legally required letters and um some people

049send us letters saying we're not filling this out and that's the end of that we they are asked to fill out you know all their demographic data and what the grade levels of their students are and you can see the breakdown of the grade levels and then there are some people who will not tell us the um we had five people who filled out the forms but would not say the grade level of their students of note you sh that you should be aware of we have a policy a board of ed policy that addresses the res of a high school diploma from brookfield high school and what the attendance requirements are for being a brookfield high school student so when we carefully look at the forms that get filled out when they get sent

050back to us and when we see students that are in 10 11 or 12 we additionally send them when we i when i fill out the forms that i have to send back to them we write right eye right right on the form enclosed please see board of ed policy don't ask me what the number is i write it a million times but i don't have it memorized regarding high school graduation and we give them a copy of that in the envelope so that they understand that if you're homeschooled for 11th and 12th grade we're not going to graduate you from forkfield high school and that seems like pretty common sense but it is not universally understood by people so that's the information that we have from our attempts to collect data on home school

051children in the brookfield public school district questions remind me is the number up or down from what we've seen in the past it's about the same so even with the coven going on it's about the same yeah people came back the most of the folks who were homeschooling just uh like one or two and then we we lose people okay it's been fairly consistent okay but i can't attest to the fact that this is all the children right that's right we hear that we hear that speech every year okay thank you thanks dr ruby thank you all right the next item is the 2022 cave delegate assembly resolutions um so this is just an action and potential motion so every year cabe has a delegate assembly we are as a board we're members of cabe

052which is for everybody else that's listening of the connecticut association of boards of education and one of their functions is to lobby the state legislature on behalf of its members so what i have sent you is what they sent to me and really the board including you know the introductory letter regarding what the assembly will entail which is essentially a voting of their positions on several issues regarding state education so i also sent you the list of those proposed resolutions those are exhibit d and [Music] these are a list of the resolutions that have had substantive changes to them um they're not all brand new resolutions they're resolutions that have been around but they've had some changes those changes are in bold but what will be voted on at the assembly is what you see

053under belief so that actual statement of resolution so if you see belief or if you see the word resolution that's the wording that is getting voted on at the assembly so for boards that want to participate in the assembly they need to elect a delegate someone to represent that board and vote on behalf of that board at the assembly which is on november 11th in groton and so tonight was just to discuss the resolutions and if we want to elect a delegate that we would do that also tonight who was planning to attend the the cave event i think you were with anybody else nobody else expressed interest but you know it's you can every anybody can attend um you know it's not just the delegate who can attend any of our board members could

054attend if they wanted to and rosa really the purpose is to make sure that our local board is more connected to other boards and sort of the state in general so we have more of a voice or and more hooked into developments at the state level yeah exactly and one of the things and the reason why i brought this forward to you guys was in in previous self board evaluations we've said that we've wanted to become more involved in the state education process um and i thought that you know when i saw this this was a good way for for us to do that at all of the resolutions are lobbying resolutions urging the state to do with him an awful lot of things are urging the state assembly to deal with and most of

055these things again are their positions that they've held but in recent you know over the last year if any major changes were to be made um like for example there's a whole thing on remote learning so that became you know a big a big issue over the last couple years so now there's you know an updated resolution to that and i'll just add that the other part that will be voted on is their consent calendar so if you see this sort of like checklist this is these are a bunch of resolutions that are positions that they hold currently but they have not made any major changes to them so they'll be voting on them as an entire sort of package because there haven't been any changes so oh i see so this has been a

056standing package and we're just updating and adjusting it yeah yeah and i do have a copy there they sent it to me and i got it tonight too but um the actual resolutions that are in the consent calendar and then how often would you meet just once a year yeah this is once a year and we're always invited so i just don't i don't think we've ever participated you scan the issues it's not much controversial in what they recommend they're recommending now you know and most of the stuff i found was you know things that we've discussed things that we've um advocated for in our own community so you know it would be nice to have that voice at the state level as well and potentially get you know support from the connecticut state department

057of education and the legislature in particular well let's do these things one at a time um can i make a motion yes i'd like to move that we elect rosa fernandez as our delegate for brookfield public schools at the state delegate assembly the cave state delegate assembly a second okay um any discussion on that okay uh all in favor aye any opposed okay um so then do you want to go through um the approve we should probably approve the consent calendar um those are again enough feel free i can give you the packet but the list is that sort of look like a photocopy type of page those are the lists of the their resolutions any that they're deleting because they've accomplished them in the legislature or other things that they will continue lobby for

058but haven't changed their position on i'm going to do this generally and then intention to approve this whole document or so the first the the consent calendar would be these items these are items that have it and i think that's probably the simplest one to vote on first just because these are positions that haven't had any changes so they are positions that cave has took um and i if you want like the full wording of them you can look at them here i would need time to do that i don't okay feel comfortable doing that tonight okay how does everybody else feel about that we can be comfortable with a general general directional okay on these or i'd rather take time to thoughtfully you know read through this and win this on the next meeting

059so our next meeting will be until december so we won't meet again before we will meet again before and that's you know the the resolutions that actually have had changes those are the ones i sent to you guys last week um because i wanted you to have you know a good amount of time to read through them the consent stuff i didn't even get until tonight and those are items that haven't changed so even as even at the assembly as a delegate i will not be voting on each one of these things you just do like a consent agenda exactly to consent agenda approval on things that have not changed or on all of them on things that have not changed we'll vote on it as a packet and then what happens on the other

060ones that have changed then we can actually discuss and vote so considering that we've received it i would actually suggest that we authorize the chair to use her best judgment to represent us at the uh assembly as these items are reviewed and uh i'm just not talking about it's a bit of a delegation but it doesn't uh it's a question i mean as a group do we we're we would be saying we trust rosa to go in with a open mind and no less well enough to represent us i mean the only reason i say that is there's not anything really controversial in what they're proposing here i mean that's when you kind of read through these ideas yeah and i do want you to look at them as two separate things so anything that

061is new you know that those are the ones that i've that i've provided to you in detail and we can discuss those tonight we're not going to take the time to go discuss in the detail right i mean i'm confused on the deletions are they are the deletions replaced with anything no because those have already been they've lobbied for them and they've accomplished their goals so they're not going to continue to lobby for something that they've accomplished yeah so the first deletion it said proposed deletion accomplished in the 2021 legislative session right the second one was proposed for deletion issues already covered in the resolution and the consent agenda and the third deletion was it's no longer a statewide issue but i'm confused about the detailed description yeah like 11 like it's probably not 11.

06211.2 21st century skills is listed here under regular calendar oh right yeah sorry yeah so yeah so this is where if we wanted to go through each one of those resolutions and let's say you really don't like that resolution we as a board say we don't like that resolution then i would say i would check no on this box and then when i go to the delegate i would vote against it so on the consent calendar everything on the first page is stuff that they've already passed no there are they're not proposing changes right right so the only things we would really have to be concerned with are the news like are the things under regulatory calendar that are outlined here which are like maybe 15 things yes yeah [Applause] so is it is it

063worth looking at those 15 things and if there are any that like i agree with bob i think really most of them are not controversial i would feel comfortable having you represent us but if there are some that we want to discuss we don't i don't think we have to discuss all 15 of them right we could go to the ones that right maybe there are some that we just need to get some clarity on or discuss as a group right is there anything that jumps out to anybody you know i looked through these and you know i agree with bob i don't think there's anything too controversial i think these are things that we've lobbied for in our budgets year after year i think their positions we already hold it's just a matter of

064are we going to say that outside of brookfield you know i think that's that was that's generally the purpose of kate is to bring board boards of education together and say okay we're agreeing on the same things we're doing the same things in our district um you know should we as one voice say that to our state legislature all right so let's do this let's just do this and i'll help drive through it if that's okay with you um i will re and it's useful for the public to hear a little bit of what the what is being going on i'll read the belief or the resolution right not all the explanation language i think we ought to all listen to that and decide is that something we could generally support and then that'll give

065uh you can take notes rosa that's why i'm doing it instead of you and uh we can plow through 15 items and in a pretty quick time i think right and if we want to stop on any one of them we can stop and discuss it right so but if everybody's okay we'll just move on and go through the next one so so 11.1 was creating educational excellence i'm going to take this off if that's okay creating educational excellence through economic racial and ethnic integration the belief kabe believes that each child must have equal access to effective free public education and to the services of well-educated and skillful teachers boards of education working with state and local leaders and community members can play a key role in ending systemic racism then there's a variety of

066language below it um so this is about creating uh a balanced educational system we're already addressing this here with our equity we already have this deeply in our equity diversity it sounds like if i'm reading the explanation of the change properly that this resolution was already in existence and all they did was add a under number two exactly so we're not okay so there's a long long list for the public there's a long list of details and the ad was community conversations to build partnerships understanding and broaden support for diversity equity and inclusion initiatives and that is exactly what we are right yeah so the integrated educational programs are already in there infrastructure is already in there we're not creating something new i think i could support that that inclusion of what i just read

067that item a because that's what we're doing okay i'm okay with that all right i'm just gonna keep plowing guys if that's okay uh item number 11.2 um the resolution uh the subject is 21st century skills there uh it's a long resolution that's urging the state and federal government to support programs and research that focuses on problem solving creativity critical thinking and other high level 26 21st century skills that are important for success in global workplace the state and federal government should support school district capacity to provide the technology and tools necessary to foster innovative learning practices instructional methods and a mastery based grading system that bridges school and real world experiences it's exactly what we talked about in our round table and provide for greater personalization of education and prepare students for college and

068or career now the resolution change deletes this paragraph cave urges the general assembly to form a competency-based learning committee comprising of sitting superintendents and teachers school board members and deans of institutions of higher education to develop pre pre-k to 20 mastery based learning system that includes competency-based educational models to permit students to progress academically and that are not explicitly tied to a fixed amount of seat time as required under carnegie unit system and the reason for the change is the that that it just didn't need that last paragraph changes to learning models with online and remote learning will continue to be a higher priority than that right then that's very specific thing so i i don't know i don't have i i don't have a huge problem with that deletion because the first paragraph picked

069up all the things that we would want yeah right okay any issues all right 11 3 remote learning uh the issue was the need for a comprehensive online learning platform the resolution uh which is uh just updated to uh reflect current terminology so it's just a terminology change but i'll read it it's as a resolution as the cave urges the general assembly to require the state department of education to develop a vetted comprehensive remote learning platform for um offer the platform and courses contained therein at reasonable cost to districts and to provide training to district personnel to facilitate and assess student learning versus said platform and the change they changed the word online to remote and they change and they deleted for students in districts right that just was simple grammatical changes to me any

070issues with that one okay 11-4 this is about school climate culture safety and security um let me just see what the reason for the change again this is a long one and uh and it i'm just gonna i'm gonna hit some highlights if that's okay it it's it urges all school boards to address the influence of violence affecting children through school board policies parent education programs peer meditate mediation student assistant teams and the school district curriculum to maintain an environment that fosters learning and growth to develop review and maintain safety plans that present that address prevention preparedness mitigation and emergency response and recovery and to address environmental health and safety risks as well as potential security breaches in the coordination with appropriate local state and federal agencies i don't think anybody can disagree with those

071three items and it just the i'm going to paraphrase the rest it's urging state and federal government to provide greater resources to for doing this um and uh and that they delete the only change is they're deleting this last paragraph that says cave also urges the general assembly to direct the state department of education to develop resources for teachers dealing with students that have experienced trauma and they recommend that delete the last paragraph materials have been developed for teachers addressing trauma remains an ongoing issue man i i think i would love to have the state department of education develop resources for teachers i think i would disagree with that deletion anybody have a different opinion well and also but we i know we're we've done a lot of training not traumatic yeah but we were

072kind of taking that on so as why would we dr ruby have there been materials that are available to you that are you know and our teachers maybe that training for that yeah i know we've done a lot of trauma sensitive training but so if you go on to my website you'll see under social emotional learning it talks about castle which is the the major organization in the in in the world for social emotional learning and they have lots of materials on trauma that are research-based evidence-based vetted and some of the training that we've done in district com at all is born out of the castle so i'm not really sure what they're talking about but i would just think that just like anything else there's controversy and they're not ready to step into that

073right now because different people have different perspectives on that okay that's useful i see for me i don't think that as a first order principle you would let the uh you would you would step away from trauma right right first order principle right you would want to make sure that we are standing up and saying we ought to do something on trauma-based uh situations for kids so to me i would vote against this one or maybe you could just find out more information too about i can when even at the conference and you could uh inform it based on the discussion yeah right um yeah i think we're just saying we'd like it a little stronger [Music] okay everyone okay with that general guidance to our delegate okay um 11.5 student achievement and assessment the

074issue is the need to use student tests as teaching tools and not as part of the district's instructional program and to assure local school board involvement in assessment accuracy and relevancy of data used to assess the condition of education in the state of connecticut now this one is a adjustment from a existing resolution what they said in their explanation of changes they consolidated items number one and two as both address student achievement and they consolidated three and eight as both addressed assessment data i am not going to read this it's a page full page but to me just quickly scanning it it does look like the bolds are more about consolidation than they are about uh changing the the gist of it yeah i think we could support this one great any differing opinion on

075that no no um okay 11.6 drug tobacco and alcohol use um the issue is the need to eliminate use of illegal drugs and other substances tobacco and alcohol from our schools the resolution well first of all the reason for the change was updated to reflect current legislation on recreational marijuana and cannabis so um and uh um i'm just gonna read the resolution cave supports efforts of local state and federal level to eliminate and address the problems of inappropriate unauthorized illegal use of drugs tobacco and alcohol and other substances in the school environment cave and the highlighted words kay vigorously supports education about the recreational use of marijuana cannabis and its negative impact on children their education and development and the words vigorously supports education about the recreational use of marijuana cannabis and its and its

076negative impact replaces oppose the legalization of recreational use of marijuana because of its negative impact on children well that that that's that that that ship has left the left the court i fear so now we're going to be advocating for at least for education yeah so i think we can support that okay yeah i think we have to deal with the situation so that's 11. um six 11.7 technical education and career high school system the issue here's one that is the issues the need for a strong state technical high school program and the reason for the change um is just an editorial update to language um and it changed uh they just added the word it used to read cave supports a state technical high school system that and it gives four things and now

077it says cave supports a state technical educational and career high school system that i think that's not a significant change we could support that um 11.8 uh family uh health and wellness education so one of the changes that they changed the title of this one um and and this one the issue is the need for a program which deals with issues of family life education and human growth and development in the public schools so the change here is the title is updated to reflect the current terminology that's the only change so i would and basically this resolution is urged each school district to utilize a developmentally appropriate curriculum which deals with issues affecting family life child and human growth and development including lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer questioning lgbtq and to involve the community in

078this process so it's a broad based broad-based we uh looking for a program which deals with issues of family life which i think we do in our health curriculum yeah this was already in place they just changed the title to health and wellness education instead of family life education correct and we have this sort of stuff in our health program if i recall correct correct yeah okay um everyone okay with that one minor change next one is 11.9 educator evaluation and support and the reason for the change here is resolution language was updated so here the sub issue was educational evaluation and support guidelines and that cabe urges and i paraphrase that they that the state peac which is the professional educational advisory council continue to review the the guidelines and that the state department

079of education supports strong teacher induction into the performance program to retain new teachers so pretty straightforward things we've been very active on how we've dealt with our evaluation program so and they just changed the words to tie into the current language to include education or evaluation and support council ees so nothing significant there 11 is this working for everybody by the way yeah digest each one okay 11.10 performance accountability of contractors working in public construction projects and the explanation here is clarified language and that looks that like they have just what the resolution is is cabe urges the general assembly to hold contractors accountable for their performance on publicly funded projects by adopting the department of administrative services recommendation that the maximum retainage on a project be increased from two and a half percent to

080the previous level of ten percent and all they did was they changed the language to the previous level of instead of a parenthetical as it used to be that's the only change i think we could support that language and change um what is by the way what is retainage just it's not a big change here but does anybody know what retainage is maybe mr checko is the amount you hold back on a contract for each application for payment as a so it's a hold for performance performance okay the whole backward performance good thank you i'm glad you're here yeah right oh engaging mr checkout um uh lida item uh 11.11. i presume those are 11 or i i dot 11. i'm not sure which but this is public education funding and it's just editorial changes

081the issue here on this one was that borders of education are increasingly challenged to obtain adequate funding through the normal sources of state and federal grants and local property taxes i'm going to read this one because i think most of the public would be interested in it's not very long the resolution as it re will read is cave urges the general assembly to ensure that the primary sources of local district funding are protected from erosion through the development of biennial state budgets which maintain grant funding at the existing levels and avoid imposition of mandates or state tax shifting which might result in the transfer of state obligations to local property taxes cabe supports the concept of full state and federal funding on a current basis for any mandated programs cabe supports the passage of legislation

082making state mandates on boards of educational boards of education unenforceable unless fully funded the only change they made was where at the beginning it read cave urges the general assembly to ensure that it used to read cave urges the general assembly to take the necessary steps to ensure that so they eliminated the words to take the necessary steps which is a little stronger it just made it stronger and i think we would agree with that everyone okay with that 11.12. e-learning and snow days um this one is a new submission uh the portland board of education in in september of 2021 it's submitted this so i'm going to read it the resolution cave urges the state and federal government to consider the effect of weather-related events that affect setting graduation date the end-of-year activities and

083the beginning of summer schools and camps recognizing that whether events power outages and other man-made disasters cause disruptions to continuous delivery of education in america's public school districts districts want the discretion to choose e-learning days for those school days affected by weather events and other disruptive events the benefits of remote snow days would require districts to ensure all students than their three bullets all students have an internet connected device with access to the internet would require districts to provide professional development of tech skills related to e-learning and year-round learning would be enabled through remote learning including snow days that seems like an awful big uh unfunded mandate if you ask me so i mean it kind of i liked the concept of it at the beginning right that that you know taken take into account

084the the snow days but you know to require districts to have the districts all of a sudden are responsible for everybody's interconnect that connected device and uh year-round and year-round learning i think the way that meant about the year-round learning isn't that we would all go year-round but if there was year-round learning you could do it through remote learning so oh good i i read it as just that it gives it give districts the benefits of remote snow days would require districts to ensure oh see i i read this i read it like you debbie too where it was like we want the discretion but you know okay if you're going to give us that discretion we're promising to make sure that all the students have equitable access to devices and internet and all of

085those other things that's how i wrote it my problem is i think it went too far right i think if they had stopped it at we want the discretion and not have all the requirements let us decide on how what we what each district would need to do dr ruby did you want to add something sure yeah and sure ensures what set me off in order for remote learning to work we learn this i mean this is we already learned this lesson remote learning worked last year in the previous school year for the younger students because we made significant changes to how we brought children into school we had kindergarten come half day for i'm making this up i can't remember let's say six weeks half day so that the teachers could train the children

086with only having half of the students in the class like six seven eight nine because some people didn't send their kids so they could train them on how to use technology and so we had much more success last year with remote with remote learning this year children who had to stay out of school for whatever reasons in the beginning of the year were totally and continue to be totally lost because we didn't have we didn't teach those children how to use the devices and how to work with google classroom and zoom and everything else that we did we spent a lot of time last year training teachers you guys helped us change the um the schedule and the pd days we did a lot of stuff so in order for i i just want to

087voice my opinion as somebody who's working on curriculum and instruction to just be able to say we have a remote snow day so that it makes it very convenient for all the end of the year events we need to understand that that's just checking boxes for numbers of days and keeping our schedule okay at the end of the year but it's at a tremendous cost of learning because we're not going to take time out of our even if we train children in the beginning of the year on how to use all these devices if it's not ongoing and we get to december or january or whenever you have the snow day i forget forget it we just heard um the mom talking gonna say and we're then we're taking away from the basics so i

088think that you know you have to decide what your priorities are are your priorities are the convenience of knowing when graduation is and planning those field trips and which are all important i'm not dismissing that but is that your priority or is making good use of the instructional time that we have um the priority and you'll parents i mean we heard from parents thank you for the snow day you know kids need to be out we you know most of us have children kids like snow days um parents maybe not so much but we're never going to please anybody i just hope that we can stay focused on what our mission is what we're here to do and how important instructional time is maureen i think mary rose was typing something in the chat on

089the screen to add to that i don't know if eric can pull up her or you can i i couldn't read what she was trying to say i didn't know that um kaye was in for half days through the beginning of november oh excuse me even more time so thank you mary rose so we really did a lot of work with those children and you know uh the discussion that joy brought up it was like hat you know having only six to eight kids in the classroom for half a day oh sorry we got so much we were able to teach so much more with the lower student-to-teacher ratio and that's why the children were prepared to do that work so i just think you know there's no magic wand for oh we just give

090them a computer and they do remote like it does doesn't happen like that but i think we wouldn't want to bemoan another school district who wanted to do that option right like i think um that's true this is the you know light of discretion and we don't have to yeah that's not saying we have to do that i mean there might be other school districts but that's just logistically well it does say school districts want the discretion to choose e-learning days for those school days affected by the events if they had stopped it there right and not put all the requirements this could turn into the biggest mandate ever right i know but i think we're hearing from the team that we probably wouldn't do remote snow days right yeah the question is whether or

091not all districts would still have to ensure that these three bullets or only those who choose to use i'm reading it only if you choose right that's how i write that's how i wrote it as well but what i can do is during the discussion of this particular item clearly state that we don't like this part of it but if you're just trying to get districts to have discretion in that matter then i would i would actually i think you should go one step further which is no no i think we're not gonna we're not gonna fight against the districts having discretion but what we've learned is and then and then launch on the you know kids ability to deal with e-learning and it worked when you had lots of easing in i think that's

092a really good i think the cave assembly ought to hear that so um ultimately this could really hurt districts that are more financially disadvantaged than we are too and they're the ones who might need it you know so those requirements could really hurt them perhaps if it turned into a mandate that you know school districts all of a sudden are responsible for these bullet points down there it would be that's a big overreach in my mind so did you get enough for that one yeah yeah everyone okay with that okay 11.13 there's only a couple more so maybe there's more than a couple more um no it's just a couple three more um 11.13 is established establishment of prioritized learner competencies standards for grades k to 12. the the this is a submission from the

093thomaston board of education and it's the issue is the need for standardized prioritization of learning expectations and standards k-12 the resolution cave urges that the state and federal governments to recognize the challenges facing america's public school districts and catching up for lost time and learning to covet 19 closures establishing a narrowed set of common prioritized learning competencies and standards within each content area would allow districts and educators to effectively focus instruction and alleviate pressure on students to learn more than a year's worth of material in one year's time assuming no further disruptions beyond the 2019-20 school year furthermore such prioritization would allow districts opportunities for meaningful collaboration with a reduction in curricular variance between districts and the statement of reason for the recommendation is addresses covid and the learning loss of students doing the timing

094with students returning the in person learning it may not be needed so i'm not quite sure what that means so i think what do you think about that one more so i think my thought is like wouldn't we do this sort of at the local level do we need the state to sort of prioritize well are there standards we have to comply with well we have the common core state standards the ngss standards the we have standards for everything but the state this um i was confused by the dates on this yeah because the state if you were to go on the state website the state has done a lot of work and they have done some prioritization of standards um so i'm confused so i think that's yeah i think that's why when this

095packet was sent out they're saying we might not even need this and it might be redundant i'm confused by this because they've done a lot of work we've gone to webinars we discussed it before um earlier that was the discussion that i had with the principals about do not launch into the curriculum when we have data that are showing us where where the holes are we need to work on that first and you know trying to really have teachers believe that we're not police we're not trying it's not a gotcha we want them to support kids and it ties into that whole social emotional piece if we're putting all this pressure on kids to do things that they're not prepared to do we're just gonna we're gonna shut them down and so we have to

096balance you know and the data are so important um for informing the instruction if kids can't do x and the curriculum for that for that grade level says you're supposed to be at double d or e or f some place down the the field you can't go there until you you teach them the precursor skills yeah so question so we don't need or want state and federal governments to tell us what to do on this because we got our hands on it or the state yeah from the states the state has provided us with a lot of a lot of resources um that are on the website and we have that in in what we're doing and what we're doing i think that that is the the beauty of the assessments that we do use

097when they're when the data are used the way they're supposed to be used so i'm thinking we're against this is not needed yeah i'd just also like to add with regard to the way we have our item banks in our standardized assessment and grading in the lower grades and we're working that up we have items where that the teachers use to assess mastery of standards and we can tell because of the way they're designed when a child isn't meeting a standard isn't like you almost met it or you met most of it it's all or none you either met the standard or you didn't meet the standard and we're able to look at using our item banks and see what the precursor skills to that particular standard are that the student doesn't have so that

098we don't keep hitting them you know with a hammer on what they didn't do we go back and we teach what we know they need to know to be able to do what they couldn't do for their grade level standard and our teachers have been like really working hard in k4 which is where we've completed the majority of that work for the past three years and that we did that whole big thing before the pandemic on the standards based grading you might i think as a as a parent rosa you might have been part of that and i can't remember who else's kids were at that very level but i think some of you were familiar with that yeah i i went to i went through this the thing with my grandchild i thought so

099thank you okay so um yes so that one's a no that one's kind of a no is not needed really it's yeah um um 11.14 out of 15. so uh the flexibility to employ individuals in career and trade fields as instructors this is a new submission from the waterbury board of education and the government relations committee recommends adoption and the issue is that boards of education education are working to provide career preparation opportunities within the comprehensive high school system but are finding it very difficult to employ individuals with both certification and trade experience our students will benefit greatly from learning from current practitioners of the trades the opportunity to explore career pathways combining education and training to prepare students for a full range of postsecondary education options including apprenticeships fits connecticut's educational goals resolution cabe

100urges the state department of education and the general assembly to take action to provide flexibility to comprehensive high schools to employ individuals in career and trade fields as instructors with professional certification in a specific trade similar to that that is provide provided to the connected connecticut technical and educational career system so it's it's basically saying you could do it with a professional instead of a teacher certified right that's essentially what i do that's what you do so colleges already do this yeah we're not considered a comprehensive high school we're comprehensive we're comprehensive we're not technical and that's the difference so what waterbury is suggesting which is in alignment with some of the feedback on thought exchange which is if we're going to expand options right in in career you need to find instructors you have

101to find instructors and we know with the teacher shortage and the difficulty in finding this gives an opportunity would be a good thing and it's not a requirement the way it's being proposed right right at least it's an option would be supportive of this one okay great thank you 11.15 anti-hate speech um [Music] this is a submitted by the cave board of directors and it's just a belief statement k believes that all students deserve to learn an environment that is safe affirming and free of bias and discrimination cave denounces the use of words or images that harass and directly attack individuals or groups based on race religion national origin sexual orientation gender or gender expression disability or any other aspect or of identity k believes that when students or adults speak explicit hate language at

102school it is the responsibility of the school district to actively respond to these incidents k burgess boards to foster school climates where differences are appreciated and not used to ridicule single out intimidate disrespect or exclude different groups we recognize that these injustices can have a negative impact on the educational experience that we expect for each child so it's about adopting that belief statement i'd like to see like political affiliation in there yeah i think that's a good good catch because we have seen situations in the schools where political affiliation becomes a problem okay noted okay any other suggestions on that one okay is this helping you yeah okay that's great can i talk about the deletions yeah i'm gonna do the deletions next so um deletion there are three deletions proposed the first one is

103vaccination of public school students and the resolution was about urging the general assembly to remove the religious exemptions from vaccinations to measle mumps and rubella and um it with the uh explanation of the changes it's already been done it's already law right yeah all right everyone's fine with that deletion okay no no one you can we can but um okay local local program policy decisions is i i i dot two um and the deletion the reason is proposed for deletion is the issue was covered in the legislative school board partnership resolution which is 1.13 and the consent agenda and and it was a the issue with local and regional boards of education are best able to make take local considerations into account in their decision making i hope so um resolution the cave supports the

104local development of specific subject area requirements to into course content requirements and staff and resource requirements that grow out of local goals and specifical learning objectives result from local policy decisions regarding program staffing and resources and result in local policy decisions regardless regarding effective and efficient practices so it was about us having the ability to make the decisions we need to make so as you've read the [Music] rosa the that this item 1.13 and the consent agenda does it in fact cover that so that resolution which is it's a little long but it reads cabe urges school boards to provide legislature legislators with objectively and with objective analysis of proposed legislation cave urges the general assembly to exercise restraint when addressing educational issues that impact local operations overly prescriptive law or regulation inhibits local capacity

105to innovate and best serve its public cabes supports a requirement that a local impact study be conducted before any education laws or policies are enacted by the general assembly or regulations that are or regulations are adopted by the state department of education the local impact study shall include costs and benefits of such law policy regulation so it's broadly written yeah so i mean i get so it's uh it's deleted i i understand that but i i just have to say it's probably that's i think that's terrible taking power away from local boards of ed to make decisions and policies i mean that's what we were doing in policy yeah i mean i i don't like because i guess it's already deleted so it is what it is but i can vote against the deletion but

106i think what they're saying is that we don't they don't they're not deleting because they disagree with it they're deleting it because they feel that it's these are the things that they are that they are also lobbying for and they feel that it's it's covered that it's redundant the language of local regional boards of education are best able to make local considerations into account in their decision making well why isn't that why can't that just be well do you feel that it's not covered by i don't think what you read is covered at all i don't okay i think it was that was more direction to the state that they can't implement mandates without doing local impact assessments right i didn't hear that strong statement that's in that's in what is written here okay which

107item was that number uh all three of those three dot two three dot two little just just issue a line that i i was reading but i also feel like you know we don't have the same challenges as danbury not the same challenges as bethel and i know you had there's a statement there that's a long sentence the need for a legislator nominate this one oh the best interest of all connecticut children well we live in a suburb we don't live in a city yeah no yeah this is this yeah so this is what they're saying the issue is the resolution is this is this is the the wording that they are going through okay i just don't think it's strong enough in what they're saying it's covered by okay and uh item 3.3 which

108is the last item that we need to talk through i think right is that the last one um they're deleting uh it's something because it's no longer a statewide issue and the subject was regional educational service center duties directed by the state so an issue with some legislative initiatives have utilized refcs which is the regional educational service centers to execute and evaluate statewide programs without adequate funding the resolution was the cave urges the general assembly to continue to utilize rescs for statewide programs to fund them adequately and refrain from mandating additional duties for rescs which would compromise their gov governance structure funding process or compete with time and resources needed for programs expect expected by local districts do we use anything from our escs we work with at advancement advances in our esc yes but

109that has to do with them specifically in their funding model that's nothing to do with us it really isn't that doesn't impact us it's no longer an issue it says it's no longer a statewide issue so i'm kind of indifferent on that we're voting against that no i vote for it i think we're leaving illusion it really doesn't apply so we can actually okay all right so it took a little bit of time but was that what was useful doing so okay so um so with that i would make a motion that we authorize our chairman to vote on these uh these items as guided by input that we've provided tonight second okay all in favor hi okay that's unanimous thank you all right um item e on our agenda is the brookfield administrators association

110contract okay i will move that the board approve the successor contract between the brookfield board of education and the brookfield administrators association hold on a second okay um is there any discussion on this or who is our who is our negotiating committee we have amy mike and debbie are you guys happy with what we negotiated we ought to probably just do a high level summary because the public does listen to this what what were the key changes on the uh in the agreement was there anything substantive other than normal salary increases and benefit changes the athletic director is now a 12 month position that was it i think that's the only thing i remember in the note that we received and the salary increases were within the bounds of what we have been generally budgeting

111correct okay right all right any other discussion on that schedule where is that those those secretaries yeah i've been confused sorry all right so all in favor aye any opposed no okay so that's unanimous the on to old business we have the canada lake elementary school presentation uh by dr john barrow all right everybody thank you um but powerpoint queued up and we also invited mr checko from the municipal building committee to be with here be with here be here with us excuse me this evening the late hour might have gotten me there for a second my apologies um so we're going to go through this presentation um just very briefly as an overview the presentation was uh developed at the request of the board members to provide an overview of kind of what the

112the moving and transition plan will look like for candlewood lake elementary for our staff and our students effect on our families as well as preparing for the budget for the coming year 2223 and that budget presentation as we've alluded to a few times will be at our next board meeting on december 1st a major impact on that budget would be any reallocations any new hires positions we need et cetera to really run the building at an optimal level having said that we're going to right off the bat talk about the construction schedule and importantly i mention that because that's going to impact our our ability to start the 22-23 year in candlewid lake elementary which as we back that up there's less of a budgetary impact on the 22-23 year and it moves forward into

113the 23-24 year regardless i want to acknowledge the uh construction piece also acknowledge and walk through the structure and vision for the school and that transition plan and then invite mr checko to engage with us on any questions about the actual construction project than the timeline and so forth all right so as we know we have the rendering of the new school that is kind of from the right side of the building where there'd be entry to the cafeteria and then you could see the roofing area to the entry of the building to the main entrance i'm going to go to the next slide which is actually about a 90 second drone video of the current construction just taken last week and eric you said this would just play automatically and there it goes so

114we'll just be quiet and take a look at things i mean the pilot's not narrating pilot and as you can see there the the as it's moving around to the left that those are the neighborhoods you're seeing there uh constructed and that's that side of the building that's closest uh at the bottom of the screen is the kindergarten side of the building you can see to the right the pre-k structure is not developed yet you see a foundation there for that and now we're the drone is on the danbury side of the huckleberry property or candlewood lake property and in the distance you could see the foot the the existing huckleberry hill school in the parking lot as the video goes around you can see that would be um i know you don't get an

115appreciation for the size of it until you when you see like the you know huckleberry next to this building and then realize also that this building is twice the height of it as well and then you're like wow you don't even have it all built down right yeah it's a it's a it's a beauty that one that the wing closest to us is much more finished than the others that's the cafeteria yeah they're working that way because yeah the pre-k walls haven't even gone up it looks pretty with the fall colors and the trees behind it that was the architect in the room they purposely set that up so there we go you get a feeling of like the size of it when you see like right tiny little i can just go a giant

116excavation machine all right i got it i got it all right so yeah i really want to address something very important for everyone um it's critical that people understand before i get into the what the transition uh is planned to look like and again it's the transition really is not going to happen next year as quickly next year as we thought there's there's a several month delay on things and so we're going to talk about that so we do have some supply chain issues uh specifically roofing materials are delayed by about three to four months uh this past friday uh mr checko from the municipal building committee had information from omg the construction company on an updated calendar we've been talking about that at several board meetings for the last month to get this accurate

117updated calendar and thankfully they got that to us at this point so it could help us in terms of the impact on uh budget and the like so the materials are delayed and the elementary the new elementary school will not be ready to begin the 22-23 school year so the impact everybody needs to understand is we will have a essentially for the most part a status quo year a status quo start to the year very traditional for how we move forward with our grades and it'll look very simple simply like this our current grade four students will transition and attend wisconier for grade five next year they will not be able to go to candlewood lake elementary school there will just won't be space because of the timing of the delay which will take us

118halfway through the year by that time they'll have experienced half of fifth grade there'll be wildcats at wisconsin it's just not feasible sent a ces grades pre-k to 1 will remain at ces for the entire year next year huckleberry grades two through four the current model will begin the year at huckleberry and it is anticipated the school will be finished sometime in december and we would plan for a very organized and intentional move-in after the holidays part of that will be looking at the school calendar next year and i'll bring a proposal likely at the december 15th meeting uh to help everybody over time understand the impact of this sovereignty could absorb it uh so i just said that in this in white there in january huckleberry would move in then one this is something

119that conceptually a lot of people didn't understand with the construction project demolition of of huckleberry the the building once it's emptied will begin sometime in january or february of 2023 so that's about 14 months away um not this summer as we initially thought because of the delay we need a place for the students to go to school at that point once huckleberry is demolished we have to build the other side of the parking lot in the driveways for buses and everything else and so there's only so much access to the building and so we wouldn't have been able to move in all students all 1100 students at one time regardless so there was going to have to be a phased-in plan anyway and then um the moving phase will be completed during the summer of

12023 and that's when the center school students would prepare and the teachers would move in and then we would have a full complement to start the fall of 23 23 24 year everybody being in the building and so that's how that and then we would be one school um ready to go so that is the updated schedule it's important for the board and the public to know that that was announced to our pre-k5 teachers yesterday at the beginning of their uh professional learning so just a sequence of events municipal building committee informed uh mr dunn and myself on friday i forwarded that information to the board immediately um and then updated the board with this information over the weekend and uh into monday we talked with our pre-k to five staff faculty i should say

121not all staff faculty yesterday morning uh to be very frank as i was saying in my superintendent report extremely positive in terms of one a well-adjusted staff understanding worldwide supply chain issue in addition to that there was so angst with people in terms of feeling like they were moving in fast and this gives them some more time to move in a little more methodically a little more intentionally and they could be thinking this through and that opportunity for collaboration and team building over the course of the next year and a half they were actually really excited about and of course some people were really excited to move and there's obviously some disappointment there um as mr checkout always says 20 30 years from now we're going to look back and what really matters is we

122build the school properly and of high quality for the citizens of this town and of course for our students all right so i have a history here i'm not going to run through word for word it's important for the slideshow when i put these together that it shows shows a story and tells a story for for the reader so um as i present this i'll considering the hour and the length of the meeting tonight i'll just hit some some highlights for everybody on this slide but it's important for those who aren't familiar with the project or new to the community to understand there's six years of history to getting to this besides the decades of talking about it we really got to work back in 2015 and starting to address how we might approach this

123we hired ultimately decided to have a building condition study to really analyze the the value and the the lifespan of our existing facilities and where were we putting our money where was it best invested ultimately the decision was made after focus groups and all kinds of community engagement to move forward with a new school we explored lots of options prior to that the new school was the decision to be made there was land utilization and all kinds of studies involved and that really you know we kind of did it in two-year segments over the last couple of years the continued design collaboration has been ongoing a lot of work with the educators on the educational specifications that's really the program and then obviously our our professionals really techdon and our municipal building committee working on

124the actual design of the facility um we bid the project start times were involved school naming committee was involved and as you all remember we were all there we broke ground last um officially uh we started we had a ceremony i think in march and then we really were breaking ground in in may so a lot of great history there with this project so the overarching plan for those who are not familiar with it at the end of the day we are consolidating the current the grade five model that is in the uh portables at wisconia with our center school students and with our huckleberry students so comprehensively pre-k through five we're joining three different uh faculty and staffs together and the original plan um our and i mentioned this earlier are rising fifth graders

125so students currently in fourth grade would have the opportunity um to be in candlewood lake elementary and because of the delay that that is not going to work work out so we had goals and and opportunities in this transition plan so this is important i do want to walk through these all five of these the first thing when we one of the big decisions going into building the new school versus like a renovated new or something like that was minimal disruption to staff and students we really didn't want to impact teaching and learning and we achieved that where the kids are in their spaces essentially not disrupted the entire construction process time we want to make sure that we're building relationships among faculty as they join together we want to use the design of the

126building strategically to create opportunities for establishing and sustaining a very very this was really important a family oriented culture support of student academics and connection and obviously continued consultation with the folks from yale as a matter of fact dr cipriano gave the keynote yesterday with our pre-k5 staff dr cipriano works in the yale center for emotional intelligence at yale develop protocols to operate candlewood lake efficiently and safely and ensure all the personnel transitions align with all contractual obligations so the process overview i'm going to go through briefly go through several slides talk about user group input organizational structure the upper and the lower houses and the rationale for that organizational structure the some of the pd that's uh commensurate with our transition how staffing will work so while it was the staffing was a big

127preparation for the december 1st budget we were ready those changes will not occur to the following year obviously school operations is going to be big how do we have the schools function in a house system but also together as one and where is that appropriate and as we've talked about principal la rochano and principal diamond in collaboration working together with their staffs and making that all work um and then the supply chain delay in the roofing materials just as a review of that other slide from before so in the user groups it's important to know right now we're preparing for bid on furniture fixtures and equipment something called small wares we think all the way down to waste baskets and flags and all those little details and technology which includes upgrading the phone system and

128simultaneously upgrading the phone system for the other schools as well it's not part of the project money's part of other funding that we've been working through and eric's working on that so a lot of that's been going on a lot of collaboration there and then as you can see there's a very lengthy list over the past uh several years where specialist spaces you know uh art music phys ed the collaboration and the work that went into that with tech on and having the staff there who are going to be in those spaces help with the physical design to make the educational specifications of program come to life library media center work resource rooms speech and language tutoring spaces the teacher work in breakout room break rooms the gymnasium all the technology administrative offices nurses offices

129storage custodial and maintenance needs um the cafeteria and the kitchen and certainly security and shelter and voting and all of those things all of that has been discussed over the last three years with tech on and that's called the user groups so the organizational structure we've talked about this several times upper and lower house and what we're going to do there is the structure would be one principle and one assistant principle in each upper and lower house okay and you could see in the i'm losing my sight there i want to make sure i get it there for we have pre-k in the lower house and that's so that's pre-k to two and then in the upper house grades three to five one principle and one assistant principle and then we have our grade five

130academy uh we worked with mrs lavroshano and she's starting to work with mr renda what that schedule can look like and some of the really interesting things we're gonna do and again this is going to evolve over time and it's gonna happen at an even more intentional and even slower rollout than initially planned both the upper and lower house don't forget in our spotlight tonight mrs baldwin had joined us she's our special education supervisor pre-k to five she is across three schools right now the way we are she will be housed at one school okay so she'll be there um so we have a lot of things to consider uh the one start time um we also have to look at the i've got to turn this just a little bit excuse me thank you

131i'm sorry what's that all better for you too oh good um there we're moving to we talked about start times right so a two-tier bus system is what we envision um and so what that would be is one tier for the elementary and then one tier for middle and high school but all parents with middle schoolers there would be separate bus runs for middle and high school we wouldn't be mixing them so that was something thank you jen we worked on that all right um the main entrance and the process for visitors is something we we're looking at where we're uniting that we'll be uniting the upper and lower house the separate neighborhood wings for each grade level and support services so in each grade level wing or neighborhood as we're calling it there are

132all the support services are built in so we're trying to reduce travel time as well so it really will make things feel small and intimate and back to that family climate that i was talking about before and then the upper and lower also have separate spaces so if you're in the upper you have your separate art and special areas and the same thing with downstairs and uh and health suites etc and then the leadership structure that we envisioned the the adjustment would be uh one principle remember whiskey is going to lose a whole grade that's 200 kids essentially you figure about 800 kids at the middle school the um it'd be one principle and one assistant principle right now there's one principle and two assistant principles so there'd be a reallocation of one of the

133assistant principal ftes from whiskenier to candlewill lake elementary remember canada lake elementary is going to be much bigger than uh wisconsin and bigger than the high school so we have to have the proper supervision and then we are envisioning um uh specifically due to the needs of middle school students and uh pre-adolescents uh a dean of students position and so we're gonna talk about how we can work on that with mr renda over time and we envision a reallocation of positions with some of the things we're going to do to match the needs and the change in the district but considering when you talk about positions you affect people's lives and we're not looking to do that at this point there's no need to discuss where that might happen because what we're thinking right now

134may change over the next year so i'm confused that's that's says you have three administrators um the dean of students is that we are envisioning that as a teacher leader position it wouldn't be an administrative position so you haven't really reduced it that's why i'm talking about there will be a reallocation but not announcing what that reallocation would be so it wouldn't it wouldn't be an ad it would be a reallocation of existing staff and again this is early in the sharing process so the rationale for the organization is we really need to make sure that the development developmental needs of our youngest learners are met and we want to make sure that we have that personal connection and providing those conditions in that close-knit family environment supervisor supervisory ratio provides a administrator to student

135supervision we typically have one administrator two it depends on the school between 200 and 300 students and so this model that i just went through will will continue and maintain that ratio the administrator to teacher supervision it's typically when you average it out and again there's pockets where it's quite a bit more and somewhere it's less but among our administrations uh they typically evaluate and supervise between 15 and 20 faculty members and that maintains the current ratio and of course family engagement we want to make sure that we're able to respond and engage with families and so it's important that we have the proper supervision in place proper administrative authority frankly in the buildings we also want to ensure that each house and neighborhood is structured to provide academic rigor i think that's something we

136heard tonight along with student wellness opportunities to build independence of course to be safe and secure flexibility for staffing in service to student scheduling needs so for example and when you don't have to travel between schools and somebody's assigned a majority of their schedule perhaps to the upper house it's it's much simpler process to move downstairs for a class or two that you might have to cover or student hours of need etc um in addition to that making sure that the grade five students uh transition to the middle school in a more in that traditional model uh for middle school which is the sixth through eighth grade because they would stay with candlewood lake through fifth grade the other thing we want to talk about is professional learning in the team building and bringing those

137three schools together i already talked about uh what we did yesterday with the pre-k to five faculty and in a real kickoff and initiating things we're going to continue that throughout next year and there's going to be a lot of opportunity one of the things that maureen and i shared in the budget priorities last last meeting was talking about really starting to examine our specifically our ela and our math curricular tools when you bring fifth grade into the fold now actually working with their colleagues uh in the lower grades that's natural team building they're working on authentic projects frankly together so that's important there's also some tentatively planned social studies work for the grade five teachers one of the things we're talking about is that in the academy the grade five teachers and the students

138would change classes uh by subject where uh and all the teachers would teach uh social studies and then they'd have their specific speciality so there's some pd that needs to be done there to support our staff so they're ready for that the staffing transitions we're talking about about 180 employees that would be at the school so moving them from three different buildings we have to make sure there's a lot of work that has to go again that was for next year we were thinking about that but now it's not going to be until 23 24. the real rule of thumb here is that if you're a second grade teacher at huckleberry right now when it's time to go to candlewood lake you're most likely going to be a second grade teacher you know unless there's

139enrollment shifts or something like that at candlewood lake or if you're a kindergarten teacher pre-k teacher at center or a fifth grade teacher at wiscons you're just going to teach somewhere else and essentially most people stay in the same s grade level and or special subject throughout their career but again requests enrollment retirement all those things get affected so again just going to the no new net administrator ftes and reminding everybody that two principles one in upper and lower two assistant principles upper and lower and then the special education supervisor so for approximately eleven hundred students we would have uh five administrators physically in the building and again i talked about the original plan and uh now we're gonna have to wait till 23 24. some other things that are very interesting at the bottom

140of that in the italics um it's important just to know that it's not just regular ed classroom teachers we've got para educators we've got special education staff we have all the special subjects to think about transfer the nurses the custodians the secretaries of the technology team i mean there's a lot of different support folks that are critical to moving our schools forward that support our schools and we have to have them there then i talked about the reallocation piece of the dean of students at the middle school and that would be something new although a reallocation and then in addition to that um working with chief purcell they're recommending the new town model which would be a school security officer that would be a retired police officer um at least when i was working with

141mr dunn the thought was that would that would be through the police department budget and then we'd have that person as a trained with us and working with us but trained by the police department specifically and then working there that also that position acts as a greeter so that'd be something we can have someone there at the door uh greeting individuals as they come in and being security and being a frankly an armed presence that could keep things secure with that many kids in one one space we really thought that that's what we need to do school operation so the original plan i've kind of gone through this of how we were going to move in and so forth so i'm not going to belabor that but what's important to know in i told this

142i've told this to different faculty members teachers are going to be responsible for for some packing will outline what that is but there's an actual bid in the project budget for moving so no one's going to be expected to pack these boxes and bring put them in the trunk of their car and move them over to their classroom one most of the materia the the furniture is or is going to be brand new and in the classroom um that's going to be all set up for the teachers um things that we keep such as our tech some chromebooks and things like that will be moved over there but teachers will be work we'll work specifically on um curricular tools how we want to pack those up label those and movers will be moving those so

143that'll be a very organized process that we go through and then of course we've got the new start times to be thinking about in the two-tiered bus system so everybody can recall just a reminder we're going to move to 8 a.m for the high school and the middle school and then move a little bit later to make the bus busing work 8 50 for the elementary school and that would end at 3 35 and in this power point so for the public that's watching they could click on the healthy school start times presentation that we did about a year and a half ago and then of course logistical planning has been underway how are we going to do a rival and dismissal and all of those things and that's been a big big source of

144focus for the um the principles and administrative teams thinking through all that all those efficient safety procedures just as i included here a drawing a schematic excuse me of the outline of the building which you can see on the left that we just saw the first part of the parking lot that's nice and clean where we could fit about half of the cars and that's why we would have had to have had a phased-in move and you can see where it says construction area in red that's the existing footprint of the huckleberry and when we knocked that down we would then have to build a whole new parking lot that would work with uh with the other part of the parking lot and again that takes time and so ultimately this rendering shows what the

145parking will look like as you can see very nice flow in now and then again i have this here i don't need to go through this with everybody but just a reminder of uh it was part of the initial slide about the supply chain delay and i think it's going to be important for mr checkout to join us in just a second here i did put at the bottom though that i recommend the board had voted that next year we start with the change in school start times considering the supply chain delay and everything going on i and and entering into a bus bid right now and likely a new five-year bus contract i recommend that we postpone and delay that change in start times one year and and keep it um the same for

146next year okay that's a that's that's a separate recommendation that the board will need to take action on and then finally next steps just so everybody knows the things we're thinking about obviously staffing is a big piece i talked about what we would have been preparing and proposing on december 1st for the budget for next year that is postponed and that won't be until at this time next year for the for the budget we have to look at security technology the grade 5 model all the logistical um and visitor protocols and the like all the features and the things we we need to do we're going to talk about that in various forums drop in zoom meetings all kinds of exciting opportunities where people could just check in and we could do little mini presentations

147or we could just have conversations like this and answer lots of questions um in addition to that uh protocols with building administration i talked about that uh spending plan um ken's working with technon on the energy savings and how that'll be impacted in the budget that's very important people forget huckleberry is heated by electricity so it's quite expensive and we're gonna have natural gas at the new school which is a lot less expensive all the moving and the bids that i talked about uh planning for the teacher assignments staff assignments and the transition and transfers accounting protocols we're going to be going we're downsizing whiskenier and we're taking two schools offline and creating one new school so there's accounting procedures and protocols that have to be worked on and ken's preparing that and then finally

148i talked a little bit about on december 15th i'll bring a district calendar forward because one of those has to incorporate when teachers move in mid-year next year when our huckleberry teachers move to candlewood lake they're going to need some time to set up the classrooms so we've got to look at our actual school days for the students and how we might make that work within our existing budget that's a lot of information coming at everybody but i wanted to get through that as quickly as i could and mr checko is here as well if you paul i think you might be able to join us actually at the table might be easier for you and um conversation time thank you very much so i i feel like i was trying to digest all that

149that's a lot it's a lot can you just sort of summarize because i'm not i think what i heard you say is we're still not moving even though there's delays in roofing materials we're still not moving all grades in at the same time correct okay so can you just tell say again what that staggered in time great question and i'll work right through that and and by the way i failed to share i sent out an email that lays this all out for all staff today right before uh this afternoon and tomorrow the powerpoint and that a similar letter will go to all families so everybody knows what's going on and it lays it out exactly as you're asking so to start next year it's a traditional start to the year the building will not

150be ready the hope is late november december we probably could get a certificate of occupancy and really be moving in at that point which would lead to an intentional well let me let me stop for a second so when i say traditional start center school goes to center school and is just going to stay at center school for the year okay whisken here the grade five students so current grade four matriculate to grade five stay at wisconsin huckleberry starts at huckleberry grades two three and four and let's say if everything goes well right after the holidays next year january of 23 the kids the buses bring them to candlewood lake instead of huckleberry and they go into their new classrooms okay and that's where you think you think about time where our teachers even though

151things will be moved there for them they need to be in a mid-year have to have time to set up their classrooms and the hope is that over the fall the building is in a such a a quality situation where on their own time hey your wing will be open feel free to go in and get excited and work on your classroom um on other time as well and what will then happen deb and this is where people didn't understand huckleberry is still standing it needs to be demolished that takes a few months as i understand it and paul could give the details on that but longer than just eight weeks to knock a building down we then it has to be removed safely and properly the area where the school had been needs to

152be constructed into the proper parking lot that takes another chunk of time that takes us through the spring of 23. okay so even if we wanted to force the center school kids in at mid-year as well there's no physical place for parking for staff busing it just couldn't work there's just not enough physical space and so fall of 23 we have the summer to get everything ready with the parking lot and everything all set right paul the kids will rise and move forward the the fourth graders next year who had moved in mid-year to huckleberry will become fifth graders at candlewood lake and new kindergartners will come in and everyone will matriculate over to candlewood lake so the start 23 with everything we know right now we would be able to move into the school

153with all students and staff and those fifth graders will just move to sixth grade and they will have a continuous experience at wisconsin correct there will be continuous experiences with here one of the things we talked about that with the pre-k5 folks yesterday and i indicated in my communication to the staff today is so this also gives us more time to celebrate the history of both schools alumni staff alumni students i know the ptos want to do some work with that so that's actually really exciting as well so i hope that breaks it down yeah okay thank you do you mind if i ask some questions tonight sure about please and so first of all paul thank you for coming i just appreciate that it's great to have you here again so and if i

154wanted to be here now and thank you for sitting through our long discussion on tape on cable resolution not a problem um so supply chain let's start with supply chain and uh could you talk just a little bit more about what we're learning about with the roofing materials and then and then secondarily are there other supply chain issues that are risks to us yeah okay when we talk about supply chain um you know everybody's thinking about ports and uh you know the port of los angeles and 60 ships out at sea and we're not talking about that type of supply chain here with building material particularly with roofing what we're talking about is the texas freeze last year now the state of texas is a hub for manufacturing for chemical processes so when you think

155about adhesives for roofing material you think about tpo thermoplastic membrane we talked about expanded polystyrene from bruce which is styrofoam those are all chemicals that during the texas freeze last year a lot of manufacturing got shut down now we had a very very high demand at the same time for construction material then texas kind of shut down for the freeze and we have low supply that's what's creating this backlog it's taken some time to get those plants back online the trucking industry obviously and covid didn't help much but we've had a such a big response in the construction industry over the last 24 months that both covid and the texas freeze just backed everything up the problem with the roofing and you know we all think about the roofing uh on our houses and it's

156just shingle you know it's a composite system that we put on these buildings so it consists of a base sheet insulation a cover board a membrane various adhesives and mechanical fasteners these all come from a singular manufacturer and they have to come from a singular manufacturer so we get a warranty on the system and that system is from the top of the roof deck to the top of the roof and it's that whole sandwich if we mix and match we're going to be left with a 1.2 million dollar roof without a 20-year warranty that we purchased so that wouldn't be good fiscally the so that that's the supply chain in a nutshell um we've been moving with concrete you're seeing that steel is going up we actually have interior walls going in electrical can't be

157run yet so we get the roofing on we do have enough roofing right now for areas a and b those two on the right which you saw kind of partially done right now so the interior work will continue there we are looking into alternative manufacturers and have been actually since july to see if there's any improvement we can make but right now all indications are the balance of the roofing is going to come in february unless we can find an alternative manufacturer for the systems okay so that's the supply chain are we pretty confident about february or is it is it just still an open-ended i think i can get it there look it's always um we did receive a letter directly from johns mansville who was the roofing manufacturer that february was the likely

158target date they've delivered part of the material to the site and that's when they're committing to supplying the rest now that being said i mean if you can protect the market as well as i can you know we wouldn't be sitting here um are there always those outliers yes are there any indications in the construction market and the construction industries now that we're going to see any other kind of ripple or residual effects not at this time and you know we trend that on a weekly basis and we knew about the roofing like i said it started in july we just didn't know what the total implication was going to be until last week and so we got a firm commitment okay okay now are there other areas that you're worried about for supply chain

159types of delays i mean that's that are on your radar screen not at this time we haven't been apprised of any from the construction manager um the roofing was a big one and again because we talk about construct consecutive processes right we need a roof on the building in order to do the electrical in order to do the mechanical that's why that one it really has this ripple it has a huge ripple anything else we can kind of move around the site and do you know switch things around but this really is required for building clothes yeah so that actually the other things are less risky overall yeah okay i mean even if we do have brick but even if we didn't have the brick we have the concrete walls you know we have styrofoam

160or insulation on the outside of the building we can close in the building envelope um it's it's a roof and that's really the issue at this juncture okay so the the two wings that we will be able to roof will we start seeing those actually look like the build the building's enclosed and then the construction will move indoors effectively yes we will that's uh been going on this week as a matter of fact and uh we've been working with the mason and the construction manager on the mock-ups of what the actual brick patterns will look like okay and start moving that forward so they'll actually do the facings on the building and things like that uh windows i believe are coming to the site being stored in trailers so we have other components to and

161close that building at this point and so then this is a curiosity question not a formal question when do you think those uh those other those wings that we can do will start being enclosed and looking closed you know well they're gonna they're gonna start really in short order now we're starting to move through those as soon as we get that mock-up approved on the masonry and we can say to the mason go ahead move along he'll start letting the brick around those first two areas okay so we're really really close so second big area of question um so we're gonna do we're gonna move the kids in uh from uh from the uh current huckleberry at christmas time effectively or into the beginning of the school year the beginning of january into the new

162school and that's when we're going to start demolishing the existing building that is correct is that a how disruptive is the demolishing process the first portion of the demolition process is really going to be internal because we have some abatement to do right there's lead there's pcbs there's asbestos um you know that's hidden behind walls it's not out in the open and that's going to be the first month month and a half after that there's going to be some heavy equipment on there that's going to be knocking down the building disruptive the classroom wings so i don't think it's going to be disruptive to the educational process um i think it's going to be more inquisitive for the kids to see the stuff go on but at that age group that you can guarantee the

163second question same kind of question on the that's the huckleberry is up on a hill right now with uh i'm presuming there's some amount of leveling in order to get those parking lots in um is that a disruption a disruptive process that's also big heavy equipment i'm presuming moving a lot of dirt around no different than the site prep that's been going on from the new building and the heavy equipment that's been moving around yeah and we've had cranes on site picking steel and you know a lot of heavy equipment moving earth and digging for foundations and the kids have taken it all in stride okay they've been really good with us all right good good um and a question for dr burrell the traffic flow with just the one parking lot with parents and

164buses all coming in if we walked through how the flows will work and make sure we don't have the traffic jams up kendall wood lake road yeah so so like all of these things it's certainly not going to be perfect but we are going to make it work the best we can deb jones for the bus company has been out um rob tenz has been out uh in july or august paul sat down with the principals and myself uh along with deb and we started really going through with rob tens of the construction manager counting the the parking spaces for grades two through five which was the original plan to make sure everything that was 116 or 123. we landed on those a proper number so we'd have visitor spaces so we believe we'll be

165able to make that work um and uh continue to plan for that okay based on that um second logistics question is if i think of two three and four as the grades doesn't that put one of the grades downstairs and two upstairs yeah and we in in exactly bob so you know um three four five on the top is kind of the the alignment left to right we would do so it would be and then one two uh k one two on the bottom so two would be on one side if they to get through two and an empty five up above exactly three and uh you got your visualization four over and we don't wanna ask our you know teachers to set up classrooms you know two different times and that kind of thing

166so that that's that's the initial thought right now that's why there's downstairs administrative structure you had you've figured out how you'll be able to deal with that half a year exactly and and again we'll work with uh with principal lavroshano on that and and also with uh with the teachers you know the staff may say hey you know for this half a year we won't we don't mind having the classrooms adjusted and moved in the summer time we'd rather be up with everybody else so we could be together you know so that's part of the communications and working together with everybody is getting input because sometimes like i found out yesterday in the pre-k uh to five uh work some of the teachers were sharing the huckleberry teachers were sharing they were more interested in

167watching the welding than the kids out at recess and so they they were all through the fence looking at this great welding and all the sparks going off and the kids were like yeah we don't we've seen it already it's no big deal so um you just never know where people are coming from you need big heavy equipment you get the big heavy equipment the kids oh absolutely yeah it's fantastic um great thank you and then my my last question i'll let everybody else ask questions is it's actually for you and and mr post um does anything that you've described tonight impact our state bonding and we have to go do we have to go through a communications process with the state given a delay in this in the opening times or is that kind

168of a normal process paul you look like you wanted to start with the answer there well state bonding as far as the um financing yeah and the bonding no um you know we we've been in communication with the state uh we actually have a meeting with them i think on the 16th to talk about ffa and that budget process but they're well aware of the support of the supply chain issues i'm guessing we're not the only school with this uh no i'm not unfortunately we're not brookfield's not unique in this one this time i know where you meet i just didn't want to have a situation where timelines kind of got uh bollocksed up with what the states agreed to or not agreed to and we get into some sort of uh we promised you

169a big percentage of the cost of the school but uh but guess what it's you know you didn't make the dates no the dates weren't um the dates were really internal to our district the state doesn't sign off on you need to have this done by okay so there's no date no gate date guidance at all no i mean look if we got into a situation where they stretched out for six years for one reason or another the state would yeah start to look at us and say hey guys but um you know two three months four months it's routine for construction okay unfortunately got it okay that's all that's all the questions i have mentioned about the move management services sure please pull doc i will mention that we did purchase through arcade as

170our owner's project manager move management now we will do that now in two phases and you know yes there'll be a minor financial impact but they will handle that entire process for the district go in instruct teachers on what needs to be boxed provide the boxes how to label them you know teacher xyz grade two classroom they will move everything that that teacher boxes up bring them to the new classroom desks will be set up cubbies will be installed all the teacher will need to do is then unpack the boxes okay and exactly and that's why we would build in the time in the in the calendar for them to be able to do that sure that does that that can be uh that's the unpacking pack is it's a lot of work that's a

171big deal for a teacher um just out of curiosity what happens to the old fnf the old uh f yeah it just gets tossed yeah the district does have first right of um salvage for anything that they want to salvage use or reuse in any of the existing buildings the equipment technology desks everything that's going into the new building is going to be new and that's what the town yeah i know i just was you know the if there's if there's anything that was uh donatable sellable uh or the like you know there there's a lot of a lot of organizations out there who would love to have some tables or desks or chairs absolutely you know having an opportunity in that little window from when you've exited the building to do it to let

172your local charitable organizations maybe come look at what's there and and and take it before we throw it in the dumpster would be a very good public service and i i think another thing that's important for for the public to know is tomorrow as a matter of fact the the um mrs baldwin our special education supervisor pre pre-k to five as well as principal labrador and principal diamond are meeting with myself and uh eddie from tecton and we're actually going to talk about what equipment and specific furniture for all different needs is appropriate this includes physical education equipment right you're not just going to get rid of all that beautiful equipment you bring that over but a lot of the basics like student desks and things like that will be brand new in the building

173so we're going to go through a discerning process there and that's actually scheduled for tomorrow thank you yeah i think there was a particular to um otp oh some new equipment that you had purchased already in the past year or so and that equipment will be reutilized very specific equipment for specific student needs yeah yeah that would make sense that makes sense so anything that's relatively new you would want to say could we use it but i just keep thinking i we did this when i closed down a bunch of facilities with the company i work for and we made a public day it wasn't a long drawn-out thing it was uh bring your uh what we do on saturday they did a come walk through the building and and and if you're interested we'll

174put your uh you can claim it and you have to have it out there out of there by monday right you figure out your trucking right whatever you want to do and you know what file cabinets um uh and we let employees in there right when the employees wanted some of that stuff sure so um and so just uh it's just a really good will building exercise we just have to be ensured that every document a piece of paper is out there you'd be surprised at what gets left behind oh god yes not surprised at all you got to remember the company i work for it has very secretive documents for technical design and uh that we spent all we we actually had an army of employees going for everything and you know the filing

175cabinet you found the piece of paper down in the bottom right you know that kind of stuff so sorry i i've dominated the questions i apologize to the board [Laughter] no no no no dr burrow made me wait two hours you all better ask at least by the by the way i think it was one hour paul but but paul tells me he's hoping to come to 7 30. well i said really said 7 45 you wanted to come earlier we'll be moving through the suggestion he's going to make me he's going to make me present at the next nbc meeting now to pay payback so if um dr will's gonna quote me the the actual quote is um when i use it with my clients in three to five years nobody's gonna remember that

176the building opened three months four months they'll remember if it's wrong yeah so let's just kind of take our time but do it do it right make the move correct and move on how about this we're having a soft opening in january and a grand opening in september that's what we're doing yes that's how you explain it to everybody i think you might have the time to plan that event you can plan all those rounds what do you think you know does anybody have any questions we will be and i know rose has been asking me about walkthroughs and everything and we were doing it just before the nbc meetings obviously with the time getting short in the evenings we're going to try to schedule a saturday and fight the board event to start going

177through the tough thing is when the site's open it's an active construction site and we want to make sure that we're not impeding their progress and at the same time we're all safe so we'll let you know that we all saved our helmets so we're good that's good i'm wondering if um there's a way to involve the fourth graders who will not get to go to the new school um maybe i don't know i'm just thinking of like maybe have them design a mural or something that'll go to the school some i don't know help with um yeah i know that um both both uh specifically the the administration and the team at uh at huckleberry and mr renda and his team were thinking of making it very special yeah the tran the transition itself

178and and the other opportunities there so i don't know what those ideas are yet but they talked about that yeah yeah okay but uh the kids going to fifth grade in particular were expecting that being able to enjoy the new school and now they won't so we haven't that's that's where that's where there's not light exactly we can't forget that that's where my disappointment discipline something special exactly and um the portables at the middle school will be demolished once that fifth grade class then moves to sixth grade you bring up a great point after the building right is complete and we move fifth grade into the new elementary school then the portables will be taken down we have some all fields that we need to construct and realign at both west canyon and other sites

179that we're still studying in town um there's a lot more to this than just the new school building yeah so thank you for bringing that up that's important yeah and you know everybody knows that we haven't forgotten about that portion and another piece to this is the lead time not only for the budget but i did forget to mention as i was moving through the the slides quite quickly is you know there's a lead time that that principal renda needs in terms of building his schedule you know it looks very different when it's six through eight versus five three and so it's not only the impact on staff and families and all that there's that the schedule physically looks different and dr ruby was actually talking about the you know the way the classes break

180down so there's just this is a ripple on every level so it's a lot of logistical planning it just takes time yeah and and so we're going to take advantage of the time we have to be even more intentional all right any other questions no i'm dismissed thank you thanks for coming paul thank you paul i appreciate it all right uh our next item is public comment we don't have anybody signed up for tonight um so we are on to three main points and i would suggest this discussion that's a very hard really three main things on our channel um we had all of the all of the um class size reports yeah i was thinking we would kind of put a section for dr ruby with class size report um all the reports came

181really everything that dr ruby recorded in one you know one point i thought the huckleberry spotlight yeah that would be good to lead off that would be really nice yeah and then obviously the element which i would put first yeah i would do that number one okay that's a very important bit of information probably yeah you can't capture some of the input that we got and the flavor of it in just uh looking at a presentation or getting an email letting people go see the video listening to paul and this discussion about what's going on with chemical plants in texas there's some learning there yeah yeah all right um upcoming events okay uh center school has a pto meeting virtual on tuesday november 9th at 7 o'clock on thursday november 11th they have their virtual

182veterans day assembly that'll be stream starting at 9 20. on friday november 12th they celebrate world kindness day on thursday november 18th is picture retake and monday november 22nd is the community meeting huckleberry has tuesday and wednesday november 9th and 10th the second grade field trips to the firehouse and kids kingdom thursday november 11th they have their virtual veterans day assembly tuesday november 23rd is picture retake day and monday november 29th report cards are available whiskenier end of the first marking period tuesday november 9th wednesday and thursday november 10th and 11th is early release for conferences picture retakes are tuesday november 16th and they have pto on wednesday the 17th brookfield high school has picture retakes tomorrow and wednesday and thursday november 10th and 11th they also have early release for conferences and all schools

183will have early release on wednesday the 24th and close thursday the 25th and friday the 26th for thanksgiving recess let's see thank you um anybody else with any upcoming events i know sometimes we have like little drop in ones all right um so that's it so without objection meeting adjourned thank you everybody [Music] oh wow