001wearing masks in the hot sun day in and day out taking the Pacer test running upwards of 40 to 50 laps my heart was in my chest praying a child didn't pass out or Worse from lack of oxygen on hot days I chose to keep my children home because of the Heat and requirement of mask wearing because it is unsafe and unhealthy for them I have experts here stating the same thing as many others have stated that I probably won't go through basically knowing that it has been flip-flopped from the experts in regards to transmission and lack thereof um the science hasn't changed nor did new science appear that supports mask wearing so we're putting our children at risk physically and psychologically for an ineffective tool used on them as if they're a science experiment
002I had to keep my children home from school to protect them on those hot days when I should be able to send them to school with confidence that they're being guided and protected this past year and a half has been far from that the lack of leadership and organization has made me truly think twice about the upcoming school year and what it holds for my children I reached out for guidance from the school district to the health department and was told hands were tied given the run around as to who makes the decisions and was unable to get a response from the health department as Dr Sullivan was unavailable and there was no one to answer my question in the interim I literally have an email from May 18th that hasn't been responded to how
003could we go on another school year this way we need a reopening plan now with that being said I'm here today regarding the impending possibility of mandating mask wearing for our children in the school district should I swear I didn't do it should there be a mask Mandy I intend to remove my children from the district science shows that school age transmission is well documented unfortunately it is uninformed decisions that are being made at the expense of our children as a parent I believe that we have a right to choose to whether our child should be masked or not I stand here today and I ask you to please advocate for our children and the education they deserve [Applause] foreign Lee see you back no okay Sandra Augusto hi Sandra Augusto from 32 obtuse Road
004South I have three children two of them are in the school district one is going into fourth grade and the other is going into first grade please keep in mind that my kids my husband and I abided by all rules followed what the school district set up believing that those protocols in place were in the best interest of our kids as time went on and school continued we became more educated on the virus itself transmission rates Etc and knowing what we know today that children do not readily acquire covet in are very low risk I feel very differently when it comes to mask wearing in addition to being more educated on the virus and transmission my Turning Point occurred on two separate occasions the first was when my eight-year-old got into the car after school
005one day and told me I couldn't breathe today those words went through my Heart Like a Knife I still feel them and I felt immediate panic secondly on a separate day my six-year-old got into the car after school and was extremely flushed it was a hot day and she told me she got very dizzy and she felt like she was going to pass out in the middle school again same Panic set in and I said to her well why didn't you remove your mask today and drink your water she wasn't told that she could and didn't want to break the rules quote unquote please understand I do not blame the teacher or anyone for that matter we teach our kids to listen to the teacher and follow their Direction I told my daughter in those
006cases to raise her hand but she said she wouldn't as she didn't want to upset anyone as you can see children are highly impressionable in the rare case that they contract the virus it is unusual for the child to get severely ill on the contrary I believe that mask wearing is what will cause the most harm to our children as many have shared not only are the masks highly ineffective once saturated that cause oxygen deficiency and a flooding of carbon dioxide causing headaches dizziness reduced ability to concentrate and reductions in cognitive function the neurological damage is more deafening and fatal than of the virus itself with that said I'm highly against sending my children to school and masks come September however I respect that we all take a different stance on this topic and are
007simply here to ask you to give us parents a choice of wearing masks for our children a choice to allow our child to breathe a choice to decide what is best for our family a choice for us to or for us parents to parent our own children and not in conjunction with our state and we are we the parents should be given that right to choose what we believe is best for our kids thank you foreign [Applause] apologize I can't make out your last name Hello Lord hello everyone I'm Wesley in men 13 South Mountain Road did you guys know came out today that only three states kindergarten below are requiring masks stated today did you know Nine States require Mass K through 12. so they were asked what is the difference how is the
008science difference in those other states they had no answers because it's all made up there there really is no reason um you have the CDC dictating that's led by fauci if you guys saw I think it was just today he was actually referred to Department of Justice for a criminal investigation so I don't really feel you know like I trust somebody lying under oath we have the APA who has a vested interest somebody else already said with Pfizer um Let's see we have Lamont his wife is affiliated with PPE mask producer so those are the people that are making decisions what you know that our kids should or shouldn't be wearing masks I personally don't trust any of those people to give us guidance um we've seen the vaccine works it doesn't there was some
009proposed regulations today that the even if you had a vaccine the kids may have to wear masks so doesn't really make sense Connecticut has 4.5 million doses two and a half million people out of three and a half million people were vaccinated and that's not to mention um all the people that have antibodies people that were sick we know they say follow the silence but the science says that if you were sick you have antibodies there's a huge percentage of the population on top of the people vaccinated so I think Connecticut we might even lead the nation in a highest percentage of vaccinations if the vaccination works then why are we one of the three states or one of the nine states still requiring masks uh the key point I saw was that there's no
010hospitalizations no deaths the kids are not susceptible every study shows the kids are not affected the 330 kids that did die 100 of them were shown to have pre-existing conditions there's no studies there's no studies to prove one way or another every study that's come out shows masks you know they actually like somebody said bacteria carbon dioxide there's various issues um with them I think one of the big things I took away is somebody mentioned the psychological aspect um people keep talking about the viral aspect of this illness but I worked in the medical field and when I worked the Middle Field the first thing they ask you how are you feeling today how's your mood to ask you a bunch of psychiatry psychiatry has been completely neglected in this situation uh which is like
011someone said our kids need to see facial expressions they need to see anger happiness sadness to learn and so you know we're doing psychological damage to them think about how many kids committed suicide because of lockdowns how many uh Mental Health crisis as we saw um and The Masks have just made it work every profession that has supposed to protect our kids has actually betrayed our children so I'll lead to my conclusion is what I wanted to say the board is as you know there are many components of Health in fact children adults go to their doctors they're asked about psychology really the viruses even have relevance do the right thing stop letting three letter agencies politicians lobbying groups big Pharma terrorize our children stunt their development the risk benefit analysis clearly says masks are
012more harmful than beneficial and this analysis can be Revisited in times of higher covered hospitalizations thank you all right that's everybody who signed up I have asked you who did I say you had to stop so you could come back so if you'd like to come back and finish your thoughts please do come back thank you [Applause] thank you very much um I'm not quite sure when Public Health became more of run and hide and be scared than it was to keep the public calm with suggestions and now it's become fear and mandates my children don't want to leave their school or their friends and given their increased anxiety issues due to the nature of this past year due to the pandemic lifestyle we would like to provide them with some stability but my husband
013and I cannot stand by and watch them lose yet another year of Education tonight I ask that you please update the reopening plan immediately let us know how Brookfield will operate in the absence of a state mandate or once that state mandate has been lifted and I am begging you to allow our students to thrive in their academics provide much needed normal social interaction and allow the parents of this community the right to make their own decisions about their child's health and well-being thank you foreign is there anybody who had not signed up who would like to speak hello my name ishi I'm on 49 Main Street Newtown Connecticut I came here for support but I do have to say that um my smile is my love that I can show humanity and I like
014to laugh a lot and a young child will laugh about 300 times a day and an adult on our age we laugh about 20 times a day so what happens to us when we don't laugh or smile with each other is our health fails and I've seen with masks I can't see what's going on with you and I think it's very important for the kids to see our smile I have been uh homeschooled and working with PODS of children from home schools and I have been unmasked the entire year and kids have been sitting in my lap they've laughed with me and there was one baby that came to me with the mother and in the beginning the baby wouldn't go to the people it was kind of scared and after the third week the
015baby started to laugh when I would laugh and he would come to us and hold us so the children are not learning how to socialize with each other with the adults around them and with strangers and I would really ask the Board of Ed to please consider not masking our children and asking the teachers if they're comfortable to please also show their smile and their love to their students thank you [Applause] is there anybody else I mean hi uh Rachel olagna 256 whiskey near Road um you guys have heard a lot of stories from all of us about the reasons we don't want our children to be masked um I'm not going to add to that I just want to say that I think what we're really looking for is for all of all of
016you to represent us um and to fight the guidance from the powers that be if it's not in the best interest of our children which a lot of us don't believe it is um and I didn't catch everybody's name up here but I just noticed that not everybody who's wearing masks is actually wearing them properly tonight so it almost seems like maybe they aren't the kind of tool that we think they are [Applause] thank you is there anybody else um I'm a newbie as well as well I teach four-year-olds and this year has been a struggle in the environment that you're describing on trying to teach them how to get along our anger issues our social emotional issues are all we've been able to work on in our classroom academics are you know to the
017minimal because we have to Smart them as social emotionally right now as for my own children I have an incoming ninth grader and an incoming sixth grader who at this moment is two grades below and last year brought him even further his IEP had to be updated twice last year to Encompass the speech the OT that he wasn't properly receiving because you can't do that over Zoom he was a rabbit in a cage at our house while I had to go to work and his sister's trying to help him and teach herself because our daycare stayed open all but one month where everybody had was stuck at home we were fighting on the front with the parents that had to go with other parents who just wanted our children to still play but my son
018had no choice and so putting a mask on him he has a lack of social skills he has a lack of expression emotion so he can't defend himself and now he really can't even read anybody's faith so now he's even further blind than now our IEP recommended we see a neurologist to catch him up to see what they can help not even just the school anymore so we had to compile a 30-page IEP with now he has all his assessments just to try to see what we can do to play catch-up so if we go back masked we're going to set him back further amongst anybody else's kid who may be in the same position or if not worse because now my sons possibly he was already on possible autism now he's even further since
019reprocessing and a language disorder that he can't even make up for hiding behind masks the teachers this he's I can tell you he's upside down in a chair because he has no clue what the teacher behind the computer behind the mask is even saying he didn't even tell you what happened yesterday in summer school because he's tired he's tired of by time he gets the language barrier of expressing what the teacher has to say let alone the barrier in his brain of the information being processed he's done he's cooked and it's only three hours for summer school and he has to ride a bus back home and they say there's maybe five kids and the two of them sitting together are siblings so they're like why are we wearing a mask so they say you
020know what the bus moves we take it off for a few minutes we can't do it and I said fine you can't breathe you can't breathe you can't understand what's going on then you have to seek help but he's not able to get it when everybody's in school so I just wanted that to be heard that some of these kids are even on a worse the Special Ed's kids might even even not even be able to speak like he can at least speak but if he's scared he shuts down he will not defend himself he's been hid he's hid in the bathroom when he was in Huckleberry he's come far enough now he doesn't hide thank God but he doesn't have the words like if somebody hurts him he's not going to tell you hey
021I'm hurt if he falls off that slide he's not going to come and tell his teacher so if the T he can't even see anybody's face he's not going to know if they're mad at him he's not going to know if they're sad at them and I really can't afford for him to go any further backwards because I feel like I have a five-year-old not an 11 and a half year old and I already have a two-year-old at home and when I get done teaching four-year-olds I don't want to have to reposition 11 year old when I can come home he should be able to help me through dinner I should be able to say you do your homework while I cook and I can't because he's got so much one-on-one so I just asked
022for some help so they can succeed like some of these other children are trying to succeed thank you thank you before you leave we need your name and address thank you sorry [Applause] all right is that anybody else my name is Janice catino 37 White Pine Drive I wasn't planning on speaking tonight but I wanted to go on record with some of the things that campy picked up by the camera for people watching at home so first of all the air conditioner is broken and for how many of you if we all had to be masked right now would have been so willing to speak as an educator as I shared with you last meeting to teach for eight hours a day to really be doing the job well and facilitating learning it's hard to
023wear a mask in this heat I shared with you the story of my seven-year-old who was on the bus on a very hot day was so terrified to take down her mask to take a breath she described almost feeling like she was drowning but she didn't want to get in trouble so our our kids mostly in Brookfield are compliant because they're good kids but being compliant does not mean that you are cognitively engaged and an environment like this or on the bus ride or doing the Pacer test as we talked about or learning for eight hours does not create optimal learning experiences for our children um I also wanted to say thank you to the board last time because when we went home and watched the public comments especially to Mr Belden you immediately said
024we need to Advocate we we felt that you were really listening to us and I'm also proud of our community for those of you who can't see there's about 40 people here many different people than the last meeting and that just goes to show you how many people care but I'm proud of our community because everybody that's come up here has been passionate has been on task but they've been respectful and want to work with you we've all seen many clips of board meetings that have gone viral that have turned antagonistic or combative and that has not happened in our community and that just goes to show you how much our parents care about their children thank you foreign [Applause] I'll just say we as a board appreciate that um it's uh we're all parents
025too and we were elected and ran for this board because we are vested in the schools because we have kids in the schools or grandkids and for those of us with gray hair um so I appreciate it because we do need to work together as a community so is there anybody else would like to speak sir foreign Ontario I live at 17 dairy farm over here in Brookfield I wasn't going to say anything but everybody spoke so well and all the parents seemed so uh passionate about this that I wanted to say something to the board I think my recommendation is our community is clearly speaking very loudly and provided so many facts that we all know you know if we're paying attention to what's going on out there and uh I think it's time
026where it makes parents free to choose and we use just some common sense and give the parents the freedom to choose what's right for their child you know it's been a year and a half of just craziness and I coach a lot of kids athletically and I train a lot of kids in different schools Brookfield to Hanbury New Milford all over the place and with masking all the CO2 thing is a real thing the mental health issue is a real thing and the long-term issues with the social piece like they're going to be our leaders 10 20 30 years from now where is that going to put where is that going to put us in 10 20 30 years as a society and then the lack of motivation for them to learn I feel like
027motivation is not their learning in the classroom or online wearing that mask it's annoying I don't think it provides the protection um that is out there for these kids they are safe and I think it's time we just start using some common sense and again put it back in the parents hands to make them choose to wear a mask or not and wear a mask and I think it's as simple as that so that's all I wanted to say thank you foreign Mickey Durkin seven summer pasture Brookfield um it wasn't really gonna but I have a little something um we're just asking or me my husband we're asking and many of you here too that you are elected board not be dismissive with our request uh whether you agree or not uh I did watch
028last meeting when I was here uh there were some eye rolls as the parents spoke um I thought this was supposed to be more of an objective kind of thing I understand there are parents that don't feel the same way as I do um or as we do and that's fine they have the right to keep wearing masks if that's what they want them to or I just want us to be able to have that same sort of um right to choose for our kids what we feel is right for them so that's it [Applause] right public comment is closed and I want to thank everybody for very well thought out at one point seriously we don't have all the rights but the but the uh but this is obviously a very challenging discussion um
029with that I'd like to ask the board if you would be willing to move items X a plan in the agenda from its current position on new business to the next item on the agenda motion yeah second yeah all in favor of adjusting the agenda say hi hi all right so the next up on our agenda is the discussion on Paul opening the plan system recommended so what I'd like to do is invite um Dr Sullivan and Dr Garcia to joined us up here that way if we ask questions there's a microphone for you and I don't have to make you jump back and forth to the program so Dr Burrell while they're seeing themselves could you just give us a broad update on sure we are on the uh I'm sorry Mike my phone's
030been off uh broad update on where we are on the uh on the opening plan sure so um we are actually in an extremely um Strong place on the opening plan um and uh to answer your question directly I want to thank all the parents for coming out the opening team uh first of all the opening plan that was distributed on June 1st was under the existing guidance and mandates that were still in existence until July 20th this year and as many of you may know Governor Lamont extended his uh his executive powers were extended at this point through September 30th and I'm sure Dr Sullivan will share a little bit about that exactly what that means um having said that we have utilized a new template and our opening plan will be significantly reduced
031down to about 13 pages from 41 pages is very clear about every piece of mitigation strategy and logistic the main one that everybody wants to know about is the 100 in learn in-person learning that's where we were in the spring the fact that the state has mandated we have a safe reopening plan is based on some people mentioned funding there's Esser Grant funds out there in the state and one of the functions is that we have to produce a new plan the reality is we were in person ready to go 100 percent all spring we had the um there was probably at the high school a little more than 70 of the students in and as we went down the grades more and more children were in terms of a higher percentage while the remote
032option was still there having said that the new plan is is really almost ready to go we were waiting for a little bit further collaboration with Dr Garcia and Dr Sullivan who have already reviewed the plan um but just let me take you through the process a little bit the opening team which consists of a few board members several parents teachers other uh stakeholders uh from the uh the employee groups and some students they have all looked at the plan over the weekend they've given their feedback the principles and central Office Team and our nurse coordinator have met this week several times to go through the plan and really tighten up all the mitigation strategies mind you based on what we have from the CDC that's the newest released information that came out on July
0339th at this point we do not have any further Direction guidance or mandate from the State Department of Public Health or the Connecticut State Department of Education we were to have a meeting with them last week the meeting was postponed until yesterday Tuesday that meeting while they discussed mitigation strategies with superintendents and health directors and so forth they gave us no nothing in writing and they really didn't give us any direction on masks and where they were going to go in terms of a mandate or an option or whatever that might be we are we were waiting for that and then the plan was for tonight to actually share the full opening plan with everybody and then disseminate this evening or tomorrow we are waiting one more week the board has a special meeting scheduled
034for next week where we'll be talking about um the strategic planning process and also I will share the opening plan with the board in public once we go through that the board there's an approval process the board considers the plan and then votes to approve the plan um at that point I hope and pray that the state gives us further Direction on masking and we will do everything our can we can to give Clarity on some of those but one of the things people need to understand is being under the auspices of the state and the mandates that do come down we want to wait to get their information and so that's why we're going to give it one more week to see what they can give to us in terms of Direction and obviously
035collaboration with our health director and our pediatrician and from there get that information out to you next week so that's that's the process and the plan thus far Mr Belden I don't know if you have any other questions uh in terms of process and where we're at or any other board members so we have some questions putting the mask point to the side right uh for a moment sure so we're not going to let that go but sure the uh in terms of the basics of the plan is it a full reopening all kids back in school plan we are ready to go 100 okay and one of the things people did ask and Mrs um Greenstein is on the opening team so she's seen the plan um the um our former medical advisor along
036with working with Dr Garcia who's our new medical advisor Shields are not necessary so those are not not going to be in place we still have the hand washing and some of the classic mitigation strategies sharing the materials is back less cohorting looking at our high school model which didn't cohort was very successful last year so the guidance is forth coming from CDC and if anybody can take it's up there and you can just look up CDC it's right there the K-12 guidance we are really in alignment with that right now we know the American Academy of Pediatrics came out just the other day some people referenced it today with masking for everyone that wasn't in the cdc's guidance the cdc's guidance was masking for the unvaccinated uh optional for the vaccinated so we're trying
037to make sense of all of this information coming out just like the parents are um I get it and again a little further collaboration with our our medical advisor and our uh Public Health advisor and from there we'll tighten up the plan over the next few days present it to the board for consideration and then disseminate the plan as updated as it can be based on the guidance we have or mandates that come forward one of the things that we do need to mention again I think Dr Sullivan is the best person to talk to the specific extension of the governor's executive order 12a it's now executive order 13. it's it has the power of law so we just need to be mindful of that in terms of how we're operating things at this point
038so those are some of some of the constraints but also some of the flexibilities and the layered approach that they talk about um is is what we're doing with mitigation strategies but as I said to some parents through email or conversation we had hoped for and we're seeing a relaxing of some of the mitigation strategies as well are you getting any signals at all that the state will decree on masks or will they give us flexibility we do not have signals either way yet or if there's a conversation on both sides which is very frustrating matter of fact Dr Murphy and I have been in communication on this delay feels like a delay and I know the state is also looking at the variant and other concerns and um they'll give us their guidance when
039they're ready but we need to be ready and by the end of July it's important for parents to know what's going on here so we'll have that information next week so let me turn to Dr Sullivan and just uh you know as you as you're talking to the State Department of Health and you're seeing what's going on in here in Brookfield could you comment a little bit on the state of what mandates we're working with and what you're hearing about and and then what and what you're seeing in the way of you know the facts of what's going on here in Brookfield sure can you hear me all right yep so first I'd like to apologize for the to the individual or individuals who've tried to contact me this past year and may have not
040been able to reach me uh they should have been able to reach our acting director uh I have experienced uh seven hospitalizations in the past year uh and oftentimes uh communicated with the board and with the town from a hospital bed so I apologize to that individual or individuals who was not able to reach me um second of all I'd like to give you a little historical background with regard to covid-19 in General within the state of Connecticut some may recall that very early on in the game March of 2020 the commissioner of Public Health was fired by the governor this put things in a very very precarious situation because the state had somebody to be a scapegoat for the number of deaths that were occurring in nursing homes and it happened to be the
041commissioner of Public Health thereafter the um State turned all the decision making over uh not to the remaining Deputy Commissioner of Public Health but rather to the Department of Economic and Community Development under commissioner Dan Lehman and all of the sector rules that you received or read about between March and perhaps uh early fall were written not by the Department of Public Health but were written by the Department of Economic and Community Development I know it sounds weird but that's the way it was and finally a commissioner was appointed as commissioner of Public Health who happens to be a physician and a an mph but unfortunately she was also the commissioner of Social Services so she was sharing the role and so we in the Department of Public Health were kind of betwixted in between
042as to what was going on at the state level and I want to I want you to realize that we as local Department of Public Health directors are just Messengers we are not the decision makers although our group the Connecticut Association of directors of Health petitioned the governor and indicated that we needed some input from local Health directors with regard to the decision-making concerning all these sector rules that were coming out recognize that the the in the past year and a half our governor issued 300 executive orders now the thing is he was operating under what is called the Public Health Emergency Response Act which gives him total control over all decision making and legislation so executive orders have the force of law so when we say that there is an executive order in place
043currently because the legislature has continued his control under fira or Public Health Emergency Response Act up until now September 30th any decisions that he makes and he makes alone are the force of law the legislature can intervene but it's not likely that they want to come back during the summer to intervene in any decisions that he makes he has relied on mostly somewhat particular advisors Dr Albert Koh for example from public health at Yale the former director of the FDA who lives in Greenwich and one of his closest friends uh and under some pressure a group of six of us local Health directors have had some influence over the decision-making with regard to moving forward with the new sector rules that will be governing uh covid-19 through September because excuse me through September 30th so
044that's a little better background I want to clear up a couple of misinformation uh issues that were fostered first of all uh the whole CO2 issue did anyone in this room actually read the journal article in Jama Pediatrics you did what did you think of it from a scientific standpoint duck it's not a backup it's not a back and forth it could be rhetorical it's not a back and forth with a oh okay thank you all right thank you uh the the actual article governing CO2 was retracted in its entirety some people accuse individuals of censoring the article but in point of fact I read 20 journals a month and I read that article in its entirety and I found a great number of fallacies within it with regard to the scientific nature of the
045study with regard to masking in general I think that the number of cases that we have experienced here in Brookfield would certainly allow us to suggest from the Department of Health standpoint from the Brookfield heart Department of Health standpoint that masking may not be necessary in our schools I want to make that very clear but I am not running the show so I want to make that very clear we have gone on record every Thursday night every Tuesday morning an hour and a half at each time supporting the idea that masking may not be necessary but what can supersede that vaccination the more people that are vaccinated the larger number within our community that are vaccinated will create what we call herd immunity and decrease the likelihood of the possibility of spread so vaccination becomes
046an extremely important substitute when we talk about the issues within the school the CDC has referred to the elite nine we say nine basic um prevention strategies which when layered one upon the other uh can promote healthy uh environments for kids in which they can learn in which they can socialize in which they can to gain or regain mental stability and this is extremely important and should be the number one issue at the top of our list bring these kids back to school unmask them if possible and enforce and create a situation where they will be healthy those other strategies include consistent uh physical distancing and it's interesting that the CDC has now recommended that physical distancing can be reduced to three feet but they're tying that to mask use and our governor is tying
047it to mass use for the unvaccinated so we out here in the boonies are in a a very difficult situation with regard to decision making screening testing the state is going to offer free screening testing it will be pooling testing it will be a buy a third party not by School nurses and it may give us some insight as to the um as to the um concentration of the virus within our school community so School testing is another recommendation that's going to be coming forward ventilation classic examples right here ventilation is going to be a key issue within our schools obviously it's difficult it's going to be difficult during the winter but we can crack windows we can get the kids outside as much as possible and we can basically uh use window fans um
048always pointed out not in uh and we can do other uh things such as having professionals check our units very frequently and make sure that they're operating correctly um hand washing and respiratory etiquette I don't know about you but my grandchildren taught me to sneeze into my sleeve it was not something I knew at the time but my grandchildren taught me how to do that and hand washing frequent hand washing is also a key um staying home when sick very important I realize that parents have to work and it's very difficult to have a child get sick and still be sent to school contact tracing very important to keep the spread of the disease down within the community for example I had a a talk today um with an individual who is a teacher in
049another area another District who went off on vacation and a three-year-old from another family with them came down with covet 19. she then became positive she was a breakthrough case because she had been fully vaccinated interestingly enough and remember moderna is only 94 effective Pfizer is only 95 effective so five out of every hundred individuals can break through so anyway in this case the individual has two children in the school system and they're not in school right now so we're doing okay and we don't have to do contact tracing with them but we certainly will deal with the family so contact tracing becomes very important to curb the spread within a community and the community rate is going to be reflected in the school rate whether or not a child tests positive or not they
050still can be carriers I don't think many of you are old enough to remember Typhoid Mary from New York she spread typhoid and was responsible for 24 deaths in the city of New York because she was a subtle carrier nobody knew she had typhoid and she was sweating so individuals both children and adults can be can be subtle carriers and cleaning and disinfection we don't have to go overboard of because of the fact that we learned early uh well relatively recently that it's not important to do as much cleaning and disinfecting as was previously thought what brought the initial cleaning and disinfecting out it was fear it was fear that the somebody was going to contract the disease when it was very popular and when it was widespread in the community so we've had well
051over two thousand uh deaths I mean well well over 2 000 cases in Brookfield um and unfortunately sadly I just received the report today that one more Brookfield resident died yesterday in North Westchester Hospital uh so that's going to happen but it is rare and it is the exception so the bottom line is that we want to layer the prevention strategies such that if enough prevention strategies are in place and we have enough of the community vaccinated such that there won't be any such thing as herd immunity we then have a greater opportunity to get rid of masks from a local Health director's standpoint it's certainly going to be our recommendation to the governor whether he will listen or not who knows someone mentioned we might have an answer in a week it's not likely
052we probably won't have an answer for two weeks that was what the governor said yes uh yesterday um no no testing would be pool testing and it would be for well I'm sorry this is this is a board meeting and public commentary results thank you um testing will not be mandatory it will not and we applied the elite nine in our plan as we did all of last year to what Dr Sullivan was saying and I know Mr Belden you had a question for yeah I'm listening to the discussion which is which is very helpful by the way thank you um so what you're if we're given the option would you recommend that we lift the mask mandate in Brookfield and use all the other layering to to control the spread I would say I
053would say yes that would be my recommendation me how much how much power I have I'm only one of six Health directors on the advisory committee and uh I must say my experience uh being on an advisory committee has not been very good I was also on the vaccine allocation advisory committee for the governor and uh my thoughts didn't go very far there either right and and when you say lifted it's all ages young up through High School correct that's correct okay thank you um the disease is very real that's the one I'm important you know we've had 600 000 people die in this country um and uh it's significant and it does affect kids in some instance all one has to do is if you can get in walk through ccmc someday and look
054at the Missy's award uh Missy is uh multiple uh multiple organ syndrome uh in children and it's very real there's a study going on at Children's in Hartford right now with regard to the number of cases so if it's your child then it becomes even more important but it is somebody's child and that's my concern I have 17 I have 11 grandchildren and I don't want a single one of them to get infected that's for sure but the fact is that the disease is real and we have to try to convince people that it is real and it can't be compared to other diseases because it's so highly contagious and now we have this new Delta variant the Delta variants started in India we know that it's much more contagious we don't know who's carrying
055it that's the big thing you can even be a carrier and test negative that's another thing the fact is that the slightly older age group of children 12 to 15 who are being offered vaccination are the ones that are mostly spreading the disease 12 to 15 and then 15 to about 35. the social group that's out there partying on Saturday Friday and Saturday nights we do know that it's those two groups that are primarily carrying the disease and possibly spreading it and in many instances not even knowing about so children can have the disease and be completely asymptomatic but the disease is real I cannot stress that enough it's the worst disease that I have encountered in my entire career and that includes pandemic flu of 2009 Ebola in which we spent millions of dollars
056for six deaths within the country and now we have this particular disease that's killed six hundred thousand and if and point affect your mother or father or child are one of those six hundred thousand it becomes a very important issue and much more important uh awesome thank you thank you we'll come back I want to come back and have you give some more comments I wanted to give Dr Garcia welcome to the district by the way thank you your button has to be up if it's if it's off the phone okay good um do you have anything you'd like to comment on or add I just wanted to add about the incidence of um kovid I have uh just had the data from yesterday and so in the United States 16 of new cases were
057children 16 so um the data evolves every single day and if we pick a day a number from some time ago it would be 0.01 but it changes and I can only say the latest one from yesterday was 16 that's scary for me at least um we've been in the office in Brookfield has been open for six years we have we we do testing in the office we have tested a lot of children in the office this past 18 months um and I have seen some kids who were positive and some were not but it's it's definitely um something to to to in response to doctor as a comment for a doctor from Doctor what Dr Sullivan said um you can you can go to Connecticut Children's Medical Center they have a floor that studies
058kids who have had uh severe covid case where they've been hospitalized for several days and um they're conducting studies on what happens and but it's real it's there you can see it um before I turn to the opening plan a little bit let me ask the board members if you have any questions for our health professionals who were with us and then we'll we'll turn to back to the plan on you know how we bring it home Dr Sullivan Dr Sullivan wanted to say something may I had just one thing and that's with regard to masking on buses buses are considered public transportation and under a CDC order under the public emergency response act federally it's a federal law that masks will be worn on school buses so Federal all public transportation that's a federal
059law not a state law and the governor cannot amend that that is also in the plan yes and is that is that a law with a time and date on it um that it's for a period of time or is it open-ended it's law until they repeal it right now I hate to say it but it's 2024. 2024. my goodness wow okay Mike I have a question uh so uh Dr Garcia is my newest note here 16 of cases uh new cases rather are children uh which you say is a scary stat I I don't what does cases mean I think that's sort of cases well I mean hospitalizations no they just have sniffles are they you know because I see this word cases thrown around a lot and it just doesn't seem to be
060a very accurate number anywhere I've seen because I I mean I just kind of Google searched that and I saw numbers all over the place so I mean so I kind of want I just uh one was AAP of so I kind of Wonder where'd you get that stat and uh how would you define like what what qualifies as a case just a positive no matter what so what in what I said uh it was uh my source was the CDC website that's from today um and it was the total number of cases new cases yesterday um and so that's positive uh test and with the 16 PCR I that was not mentioned okay so Mike that's my problem with the case number the first comment um you know false positive on those uh PCR
061test has a less than two percent probability of false positive that's CDC or that's the machine the information from the machine all right it's called Abbott ID now okay so I've seen anywhere between like 20 percent of what's possible you're probably looking at the antigen test okay thank you uh also where I didn't see this is new to me the 15 to 35 carrying the disease where was that found just for my reference I like to follow the stuff either once Dr solver Dr Garcia say that again there was a Dr Sullivan mentioned the 15 to 35 carrying the disease where was that found just so I can yeah it sounds like a national number okay that's that's basically uh um they're basically known as the super spreaders and that was on uh if you
062look back on the data in the early when we saw the secondary Spike they and if you look at the data you see that the the age group and they break it down unfortunately 15 to 44. went up dramatically but it was so as carriers or as far as cases this is this is a contact tracing thing just I'm a hard time following just a contact tracing thing okay so these are people that are getting sick they're not getting sick these are people that are have basically tested positive okay if you're a carrier and you haven't been tested positive okay yeah thank you could I just ask one statistical question for Dr Solon could you comment a little bit about what we're seeing here in Brookfield and the two things I'm interested in is um
063how is our vaccine rate doing are we higher than the average lower the average or do we not know and then secondly how's our positivity rate relative to our peer communities or the rest of Connecticut are we on the in the mix or are we higher alone our positivity rate is about the same as our peer communities um in a population of seventeen thousand and six and that's what the state uses it's the 2019 population unfortunately we've had 1737 cases and 17 deaths now 18 deaths as of reported today so we've had 10.21 percent of the population uh have a positive covet test um with a death rate of 0.1 percent uh when you compare this to the surrounding towns it's pretty much close except for Danbury um and uh we've had 36 989 tests
064as of yesterday the 20th of which 2025 were positive which gives us a positivity rate of 5.47 percent but I think that's skewed because if we have 36 000 tests among 17 000 residents obviously many people have had repeated tests so the positivity rate is skewed the same with the reporting from the state they're basically looking at total number of tests and the number positive so it may be skewed by individuals who are having repeated tests trying to prove that they're not that's not positive exactly right so in point of fact our positivity rate may be slightly higher than the state average and that those numbers are from inceptions of reporting to now or to recent data how is the recent data looking that that's up until now yeah currently we're working with 13 cases
065for the month of July uh interestingly enough only eight have been reported through the Connecticut electronic data reporting system to me but my contact tracers are getting reports from 13. we had two new cases today both in youth so we are make basically copacetic with our surrounding towns with which we communicate often and do we have any data on vaccination right our vaccination rate um I do um foreign our vaccination rate um is showing basically that we have a 76 percent of eligible residents have received at least one dose good regrettably I don't have numbers for those that have had complete two two dose series and that's the entire age range who's available the entire age range right yeah including the young people who kind of became eligible later right okay and we we broke
066it down into three census tracts basically Candlewood Shores area uh Federal Road Central area and lake villanona side east side and it appears that the the least vaccinated uh in the are in the cattle wood Shores area okay so we're offering vaccine clinics okay uh we will be offering uh we had what we were supposed to have one Saturday night uh but weather postponed it until this coming Saturday night and we will also have one at Down the Hatch and we're offering incentives and we're offering uh J J vaccine single shot is there a breakdown by age too is there a breakdown by the like the young ages 12 to 15 what percentage of them have been vaccinated yes I can certainly give you that um total uh estimated population census 65 population 16 and
067above 78 percent um 1828 children are not eligible because of age um estimated 10 to 14 60 may have been vaccinated um ages 15 to 44 and we don't like this distribution uh 72 percent age 45 to 64. 77 percent and age of 65 plus 86 percent thank you so obviously early on when the older folks were dying more frequently they were more amenable to waiting waiting and getting the vaccine as soon as possible and we held multiple clinics first at the senior center and then again at St Joe's and uh my volunteer team I have to to credit uh directed by Maureen Farrell mph um has done a marvelous job as far as getting the vaccine out there uh at a time when it was most needed so we're looking at the possibility of
068eligible individuals about 3 100 eligible individuals 23 percent of the population still needs to be vaccinated first dose and as I say I don't have a breakdown as to fully vaccinated okay and is there anything we can do as a school district to make it easier for either parents or or students to get vaccines should we be advocating or offering clinics related to the schools and our connection with the parents and the families the problem with the younger children is that they're only eligible for the J J vaccine and a lot of myths have circulated about the J J vaccine a lot 12 million I thought it was Pfizer I'm sorry it is Pfizer I'm sorry it is Pfizer um you're right thank you um and it requires Ultra Cold Storage minus 54. and regrettably
069we do not have Ultra pole storage so we can refer them to the Community Health Center in Danbury or New Milford Health Department has offered because they have Ultra cold storage available and a number of our students have taken advantage of that um I don't have the exact number but uh but uh oh yes I do 712 uh children have taken advantage of that with two doses okay yeah Dr Sullivan can I ask a question on uh people who've gotten do you have any numbers on people who've gotten covered gotten over covered as you said 70 76 Brookfield that's a lot of Brookfield uh do you have any indication on how many people have gotten Kobe gotten over covid as it pertains to moving closer to her immunity oh sure um as I think I
070mentioned uh we've had um 1732 1737 cases and 18 deaths obviously the rest recovered if there have been a number of hospitalizations uh probably 20 to 25 hospitalizations but they don't have accurate numbers because the hospitals have been reluctant to report it to me but we have had hospitalizations so with vaccination and previous exposure what would you say percentage-wise we're we're probably over 70 percent by the vaccination I'd like to see us uh I'd like to see us well uh over 80 percent of the population you don't think with the form of exposure went over 80 for um no it um if you're talking about the entire population correct you have to exclude the the children that aren't eligible yeah I think is the question if I could is um there's there's a contention in
071the world that because some a large percentage of the population has had been exposed 10 percent of our population has had positive right uh cases that they have antibodies right they're they do have antibodies well that question I think you're asking is is when you take that into consideration are we reaching that hurt immunity level the problem is that most Studies have indicated that the antibodies will wash out by 90 days I saw a UK study said two years pardon me a study at UK said two years which one oh at a chance it's been as long as two years but on average it's been as long as two years okay yeah it's been on average it's been 90 days and uh that too is another reason for breakthrough cases because they've been vaccinated and
072gotta they just didn't build up antibody not everybody has a good immune response that's why some of these studies that are done in the laboratory aren't very supportive measuring T Cell response and antibody response they're actually looking at other aspects of the disease in a laboratory setting most recent was Associated I think with J and J just came out day before yesterday if I'm not mistaken that was done in the laboratory and and so consequently if we take the average of the number of individuals who may wash out in 90 days and add those we still haven't reached her uh what we would consider full herd immunity 80 percent of the of the population of Brookfield being fully vaccinated okay got it so we've got to keep pushing the vaccinations and as I said I'm
073only reporting one the first dose they've had at least one dose I don't have total numbers on the individuals who have had been fully vaccinated and that's a little bit less okay any other questions for Dr Sullivan because I do want to turn to the the reopening plans I got one more because uh so at the very beginning uh you mentioned the study out of I believe was Jama again 2021 experimental assessment of carbon dioxide inhaled uh that which was redacted uh so not a good study uh are we still saying that carbon dioxide doesn't increase in people wearing masks I would hope not because I've worn them eight hours a day for five and a half days a week for 30 years you've measured and I hope that it hasn't caused the toxicity in
074my brain so so is there any if they've attracted that study or do are you aware of any other studies then um on the carbon dioxide thing yeah currently okay enjoy anything all right so look um let's talk a little bit about the reopening plan itself um and Dr brawl I want to aim this at you so we have that we've taken these tiered strategies we have an intent to open up fall right um and uh last year I recall we because of the scare of covet at the beginning and it was a real fear right we had actually I think the state guided us to have a quick trigger finger right people going into 14 days of quarantines especially teachers that became a problem for us if I remember in December kids being pulled
075out and going to hybrid actually rather quickly when when things were happening so in the reopening plan what have we built in in terms of this broad picture of quarantines kids being pulled out um and uh and moving to hybrid do we have triggers do we have uh do we have a structure around that we actually don't have guidance on a structure with metrics at this point we do not have that what we do know is we have our layered approaches we've discussed the elite nine as Dr Sullivan started to talk to um there is new newer information discussed yesterday at the dph call that I referenced there was a discussion of quarantine in close contact in close contact there I don't know if this will be the final decision we all know close contact
076has been that six foot radius they're saying three feet now so that would be less kids quarantined which we would hope for but quarantine is still one of the layers of mitigation and actually talked to Dr Sullivan about that earlier this week um I'm sorry Bob was there a follow-up to that just trying to get my head around what are we going to see when we see the plan is is it going to be one that keeps our kids in school as much as possible as opposed to last year which was a quick quick trigger finger yes so the the plan is and the powers that be are obviously supporting 100 in-person learning we have always supported 100 in-person learning obviously so long as we could do it safely we're not even putting in the
077plan an option for remote or hybrid that is not necessarily suggested or encouraged at this point so we don't even have that in the plan we know how to do it if we had to if there was some major emergency some major uptick that that that precipitate is such a decision um and again we have not gotten guidance on metrics so the thought process with the social distancing down to three feet um with the close contact down to three feet the layering of the strategies less um reactionary with the less things we knew in terms of the guidance about the surface uh contamination and those concerns we plan to be 100 in person let's not forget the biggest piece for this is Staffing it's staff are the majority of our staff is vaccinated so those
078issues where we had to quarantine staff that should be absolutely lessened where we didn't have Staffing to actually man the the building the other part of that is um the vaccinated folks as long as they're asymptomatic do not have to be quarantined so you start to you start to see how there's less opportunity for students having to be home and to be in some kind of um checking with the Google Classroom having a substitute ready to work with them we're going to have to do that there will be quarantines we know that but it's going to it should be we are planning for a lot less of that that's that's the whole and I and I think I heard you say earlier we won't have the Plexiglas Shields those will be a thing of the
079past correct uh will we maintain desks individual desks for each student yes instead of the tables yeah we have desks but we also have tables where we can if we can manage the three feet distance at a table situation then we'll do that okay and again we're working with Dr Sullivan um and and Mrs Farrell on on some of the class configuration especially Elementary where it tends to have more tables and things like that I would just like to clarify the three foot rule applies only to students it does not include apply to Educators and staff it applies only to students that's interesting that's interesting um and are there any other big changes that we would expect to see in this plan that in terms of the experience yeah all the experience I mean they'll
080be sharing of materials again obviously a lot of hand washing before and after so we'll see in the comments from our teachers that are on the opening plan where excitement you know more of a return to normalcy with the more layered approach and like like I said earlier my initial comments uh the cohorting piece is not nearly as stringent as it was and again we have we have a great experience with our high school model where there was never cohort is there um as far as lunches go in the elementary and Western Air is that will those be returned to the cafeteria it all depends on the individual Fizz building and how the principal and team schedule that so sometimes it'll be in the classroom others may be scheduled to be spread out in the
081cafeteria so it's it's going to be you have to maintain they're working at that to maintain the distance so um they may start out in the classroom and then find a way you know with our monitors to have some of the kids in the cafeteria as well um supervision is a big part of that too as well as physical distancing and how we can make that work so each School based on the development mental level of the children we actually say that in a plan we'll be making their plan for lunches and how that would work and snack and are there areas that we need to do things on ventilation that are beyond what we've already done ventilation we're doing what we did last year we had three different uh firms working with us in
082our maintenance department going through every single uh ventilation unit and or we have what are they called there's ventilation units and what's the other thing called the yeah yeah and different exhaust and um literally putting a sticker with their initials on it and the date that they maintain that particular uh ventilation one of the great things we've talked about this a number of times with having the older buildings is the fact that the ventilation while hot in here and everybody feels that tonight we actually exchange the air quite often because it's not as sophisticated where it's you know uh it's an old-fashioned situation but what that does is it Cycles the air more often and meets the requirements so that's what we did with last year and we fixed many of our ventilation units in
083our classrooms and and elsewhere gymnasiums Etc we're continuing to maintain them through the summer all of that's discussed in the plan that goes the the comment the elite nine everything's laid out right there and obviously from what Dr Sullivan said today um it sounds like for masking um we can put in that we will uh have optional masking uh unless otherwise mandated by State Department entity or whatever it might be so we'll work with Dr Sullivan on the language for that I think the other thing Bob if you don't mind me turning it over to Dr Garcia for a second in Dr Sullivan as well is you know they've had a collaborative um input to the plan and maybe Dr Garcia I know you know you being new to us you really weren't familiar with
084the older plan but you certainly went through it you see this more this plan that's developed with brevity talk to us a little bit about your opinion on the plan what you think about the plan and anything you need is to improve in the next week before it's considered by the board and sent to the families please um there was a part in the in the plan that I put a comment in yeah about um uh and I can't I can't of course I can't remember it right now um but in in general um the plan was definitely a good a good one and um I can't I just can't remember I can't recall that that one one comment we adjusted I know we took your feedback I'm trying to I can't if I had
085the Google Doc up I can but you actually like the plan in general yes yes okay and I do need to say that Mrs Farrell our lead contact Tracer that Dr Sullivan has mentioned uh she was extremely generous as a colleague and provided uh several pages of detailed feedback for us just for things to think about and consider and those were um those were uh placed uh and Incorporated uh this morning so we just continued to evolve it to make sure we have all of our health folks and medical folks helping us develop this so so I guess my my last question is what are you gonna what do we do if we don't have guidance from the state right so how do we write and release the plan if there's no guidance from the
086state I'm presuming the current Mandate of masks in is still law because it's a government you said that at the beginning correct through the end of through the end of September for unvaccinated for oh it's just for unvaccinated which would include most of the younger children yes okay and that would be unless they change it that's the law that we have to abide by that's the executive order number 13 reaffirming executive order 12a okay and uh just on one point here because 12 a I read 12a and it's it just mentions masks in situations where the population is of high risk or uh places that tend to contract a lot of I don't know if we can consider schools there considering current data Public public places anything public it doesn't say any public places though
087I read it like four times it just says places and people that have been I mean flock of I can't remember verbena but problematic such as probably public transportation hospitals but considering child care yeah if if the numbers are there but schools thank God or are you say like that there might be room for us it looks like very carefully and working as well it's it's there it doesn't say School specifically but it does say areas that and and for people who are susceptible elderly um pre-existing conditions and then also certain places but schools weren't specifically mentioned it's just public places yeah I think we need to read we need to look at 13 which is the extension to see if there's any changes to that Mike and we'll go through this yeah let's take
088a hard look that's 13 is the extension of 12a okay so that's what we all want to go through well I could even have Council look at that to double check that yeah and we certainly have Dr Sullivan's advice on on the optional uh for um so so Dr Sullivan just for some clarity because we're all here the the the talking about optional unless otherwise mandated that is optional for unvaccinated optional for vaccinated optional for all do you have a sense of that in terms of any documentation or anything we can lean on or what where you're coming from obviously if if I was unvaccinated I would I'd want to be protected from the community um okay again it comes down to you know somewhat of a personal choice but my own feeling is that
089if I my personal choice is if I was unvaccinated I'd want to be protected from the rest of the community I'm protecting Myself by wearing a mask it's not that I may be transmitting it to somebody else but it is known that if a person has covid-19 and has a mask on it will reduce transmission to another individual who is within close contact now close contact is defined as 15 minutes in the course of a day within six feet of an individual they haven't redefined that three foot except for students so you may be somebody you may you know be passing somebody unmasked and that's perfectly okay but if you're going to be within six feet of an individual for 15 minutes or more in the course of a day and I'm unvaccinated I'd want
090to be masked to protect myself not necessarily because I'm worried about having an occult disease and transmitting somebody else I'd want to protect myself I I have three daughters who are teachers and that's what they're saying to me that's what they're saying to me so I'm just thinking ahead to the next week right it's what I'm hearing out of this discussion is our health advisors are saying we have a well thought out multi-tiered plan that masking may not be required as part of that except if the state mandates it did I hear that correctly yes okay I heard that that's kind of where you're understanding is that's my understanding is that what everybody on the board okay and we also need to get clarity continued Clarity because there's some different understanding of the ex the
091new executive order from the governor 13. which extends 12a to September 30th we need to get some clarity on that so the to me the definition of what public place means yeah to me to me it strikes me that if our own health director is saying that's a way to go we ought to be looking really careful at that guidance right and saying is there room for us to make a decision right or is it blocking us because it's law right so I would go at that very aggressively right in terms of looking at do we have the right to act right and need your direct input on that uh Dr Sullivan on do we have the right to act because you you you you represent us well so and I want to thank you
092for tonight by the way this was very informative but the uh but I think if that's our feeling now we got we have a kind of a basis for saying if we have the room to make a decision let's go make a decision right if we don't have the room to make a decision we're going to have to live with the law and that's what I think we ought to talk about at our next meeting is you know do we have the room in an Uber we might have new news we might have new news how do we how do we work our way and we will bring that with whatever new news we have and advice we have uh in collaboration with Dr Sullivan and Dr Garcia and Council and Council we will we
093will bring it I will bring it to you buttoned up for consideration in the discussion that's perfect is everybody okay with that and the governor stated yesterday that it may be one or two weeks yep those are his words if you listen to his conference but we could write this in a way that's like other districts have done if we do if we get if we don't get guidance here's what we'll do if we get strong Direction here's what we'll do and we you have to work choose those words really carefully we ought not be disingenuous and say therefore we've made a decision because it's we do have influence from online but I do think we can start working on it with that frame of mind sure off the back of this discussion is everybody
094okay with that unfortunately John was put into a position where he had to have a prospective plan in by June 23rd yeah there was no time and the CDC didn't come out there was no new guidance until the 9th of July and subsequent to that the governor didn't come out with the reiteration of 12a in executive order 13 until the 20th I mean the 19th so everything is moving along at a snail's pace and no one knows really what who the governor is going listening to that's the whole problem yep so so in any case in any case I think we have to go we have to protect what's happening in this District by going in and saying here's how we would behave in different scenarios that's right and I think that's how we Auto
095attack that would be wise yes okay and it's just the board any further discussion for tonight or we've taken a long time on this but it was a time well okay Dr Sullivan and Dr Garcia thank you for being here and parents thank you for being here thank you so thank you all for your input tonight and thank you for staying all right so that's it for that we're going to go on with a regular agenda we're going to take a brief pause so those who aren't going to stay and listen to the finance report can uh move on we don't have much along other agenda so thank you great seeing you man thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] via texts [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] spent even though it went on
096a while so we're going to resume with the regular agenda so next up is written correspondence Elena Lopez Sarah Amaral Ryan rodanus and Brendan Hill wrote regarding public comment kova data and the advocacy letter to the state Laura Orbin wrote regarding social emotional learning in the fall reopening plan and Howard Lasser Nick Schmidt Deborah spinikia Evan and Jessica jaska hollene gone Casey Clarkson Michael Emerson and Joyce Pacino wrote regarding the masking policy for the fall okay thank you next up is approval abort minutes I move that the board approved the minutes from the regular meeting on June 16th yes it's been moved and seconded any any comments or adjustments okay all in favor aye aye okay the minutes are approved next up is the superintendent's report thanks Bob um I will be brief the first
097one is board retreat is next week 5 PM sharp we have three areas to cover I will present the opening plan for board consideration and approval we will have a discussion uh and an update from the equity and inclusion core Committee in regard to process and direction going forward thanks to Ms Foster uh Miss Holly and Dr Ruby and certainly Mrs Layton and then in addition to that Jonathan Costa will be with us to talk strategic planning from a post-pandemic perspective and process going forward just kind of outlining process and things to think about not diving deep on what do we want portrait of The Graduate to look like or anything like that more process a little bit more surface but getting that out hearing suggestions from the board John's got a nice presentation he's
098going to facilitate for us a matter of fact Dr Ruby and I are meeting with him tomorrow afternoon to go through his PowerPoint and you know incorporate the things we're working on here in Brookfield some of the things he's doing around the state and really get a really thorough process like we talked about for the next five or so years as to what we want to do in Brookfield a lot of public input we're thinking about and things like that so we're excited about it um that's the first part of board retreat my second piece is uh just an update like I always do in the summer um Mrs diamond and her team really keep a close eye on uh enrollment in kindergarten but I thought I'd share a little bit about grade one as
099well very briefly because that was our kindergarten last year and there was people wondering where is that going to go um our our projections are spot on for this year's kindergarten we had projected 171 and right now we have registered 170. that puts us at nine sections at uh 19 students in a class there's three additional students pending right now so we still have a month to go and we know as school gets closer some families move or haven't shared with us that they're here yet and they register a little late um in grade one um enrollment this is important for everybody to know enrollment in grade one is currently and that the current grade one the kids going into grade one the projection for kindergarten was 190. last year remember only 133 actually attended
100school they went to private schools as they held out a year there was all kinds of different things going on obviously because of the pandemic so our projection um for the current grade one class last year was 190 it's at 202 so we have 12 additional students in comparison to our projection puts us at about 22 students in a class with nine sections you may recall one of the things we did is we have with our Esser funds we have an additional paraprofessional assigned to grade one and Mrs Diamond has a plan for that to help with transition social emotional needs obviously learning needs and so that's part of how we're mitigating get starting to get on the high side of the class size we'll keep an eye on it and we'll let you know
101and that's the report any questions he said One Professional for all the sections um she's looking at how he's looking at how she's going to do that one of the plans is to have it more focused on a classroom or two but things evolve the way students move in the way we need to look at schedules so we leave that up to the school and Mrs diamond and her expertise to work on is there any chance that we would have to add an additional section at the last minute um there's as there is every summer there's always a chance I will inform you if I'm getting a little nervous in the next couple of weeks and certainly if we ever have to call a special meeting to have that serious discussion let Mr dunno let
102the board of Finance know we would certainly do that at this point we don't think that's the case but you just never know okay things change I mean as much as we've done a lot of talking and meeting and thinking and communicating it's it's July 21st for families schools for some families like tonight School is right around the corner for others it's still six weeks away they're not thinking about school yet so some people aren't registered yet some people haven't made their move yet some people who are um you know in a rental situation or moving in with family so there's a lot of those variables you just described my entire family there you go you got all kinds of things Bob we're in the six weeks is a long way away I would like
103to think that for myself but but certainly that's not not how summer works all right let's move on thank you next up is subcommittee reports let's start with cape who's got Cape all right Dr Ruby the cape meeting we met on June 17th and we had two topics on the agenda the first one was regarding a communication that the board members received regarding firearm safety education and the discussion was held regarding the communication that was received and the information that um Mrs Fernanda shared with us that was received from the Connecticut Association of boards of education and the subcommittee discussed the importance of this topic and decided that more information should be gathered regarding how other districts are currently addressing this concern and possible formats for including firearm safety education in an appropriate and efficacious
104manner in in the curriculum and we're going to revisit that as a committee next year the second topic on the agenda was regarding classroom library book purchases we understand that the board received several inquiries regarding the purchase of classroom Library materials so a discussion was held regarding the procedure for purchasing classroom library books which I led and we clarified the fact that these are not curriculum books rather these are classroom libraries those are libraries that are in that are in the classroom so that the children have physical access to reading materials and they are we would consider them to be supportive to the curriculum because the teachers in conjunction with the reading specialist and the library media specialist makes elections it's not one person just going through a catalog picking books make selections that are
105great appropriate and complement the topics that are in the curriculum content for that year that particular grade level and also we want to ensure that there are um diverse authors that represent the children that are in the demographics in our schools not only for those children to be able to see themselves but for other students to be able to learn about other backgrounds because we do talk about the authors not just the the books that we're reading and um the uh it was just really going over the fact that this is not curriculum that these purchases don't come through cape um they're they're done at the school level and uh that was basically the it was a short meeting and we are not meeting during July and August is there anything that you guys um
106remember that you would like to add to that the other two subcommittee members Dr Murphy or joy I think it's just worth mentioning the Firearms I was gonna say discussion was kind of pushed off until we kind of explored more what they meant by it yeah that's what I said yeah so uh I think we were talking maybe just like as an assembly not like as a yeah well I wasn't going to go into all the things that we discussed but we we want now that you brought it up we you know like comprehensive as far as like how to actually use a gun right more like general safety kind of like how to not start a wildfire exactly and it was a free um education curriculum the curriculum is free any other questions all
107right thank you thank you all right I'll do the next two um since I'm on the personnel and negotiations subcommittee and then we talked about the topic there and then we immediately went to the finance committee on the same topic and we can it's on the agenda uh a little bit later so uh personnel and negotiations met on July 1st um it wasn't a very long meeting we talked specifically about a specific salary question which we'll talk about um at our uh at the budget adjustment time and uh and that we also had a couple of Staffing items that um are also going to be on the adjustment and the committee agreed fully that we would support it so I'm going to hold the questions until we actually get to the budget item because we'll
108talk about it in a little more detail there um finance committee met on July 12th and we also talked about the same items and we reviewed it with the finance committee in terms of affordability and the budget adjustment that would be required so we're going to have a budget item on the item tonight more importantly we reviewed the financial statements we're right in the middle of the close for the year and all the news is good news right there's no major exposures that have popped up and it's actually looking like with this million dollars we spent on covet related stuff next year we're going to make our budget anyhow um given all the things that are coming it's not final yet it's probably another week or two away but uh both uh um Mr post
109and the town controller were very upbeat about how things are are working both on the town side and the school side so um this will be a good year-end close we also talked about uh and so we'll have those numbers probably this time next month we'll have the final numbers on how we'll end it up the other thing we talked about is the audit is starting and that the kickoffs were happening and they've met with the Auditors a couple of times and we'll be talking about that over the next month or two right in terms of that but not a lot to report there other than it's starting so um and we're and you might note that's earlier than we've seen in the past doing that right after the books are closed gets it out
110of the way long before we're into January and we're into the next budget year right this is a good thing that it gets done quickly so and we're very well organized so that's that's it on the finance report and we'll come back to the topic on the budget items if you guys are okay so pause to see if there's any questions okay all right so next up is the consent agenda I'll move that the board approve the items on the consent agenda which are resignations retirements new hires and transfers they don't have a second a second okay it's been moved and seconded any conversation from the board I just want to say thank you to Mr pomponio good luck in your retirement thank you for um really making a difference in my daughter's career as
111a math teacher who's very unique and real special to her he was special really special and unique to her um he's really sadly missed on behalf of our family thank you Joy you beat me to it so I appreciate that and also for Jim you know 35 years with the district so we wish him all the best in addition to that Laura buffkin our Pre-K team sure one of our Pre-K teachers over 20 years with the district so we're sad to see her leave but excited for her to move on to retirement and uh other things in her life to pursue so uh both to Mr ponio and Mrs buffkin we wish them all the best and thank them for all the years of service I just had a question about transfer um the the
112math the curriculum specialist does that mean we're not having that K4 the curriculum Specialists they're going to roll into a more of a coaching role okay no that was all part of when we presented Esser back in May and June and we're talking through there's just going to be a math coach yes okay to four and so a number of whether they were a curriculum Specialist or a veteran uh high quality veteran excited ready to go teacher in terms of coaching ready for the training some of our veterans are moving into those positions as well as some of the the new folks coming in so that's that's precipitated some transfers or new hires because you have backfills for some of those people so you can you can see the tracking of that um we'll have
113about 16 uh new certified people to the staff because there's 12 hires here and there's four coming oh yeah and so but this we have what's called an inout sheet um and so we have that for all of our position control I know there's a lot here today over May June July and August we will continue to receive you know we've had retirements announced earlier in the year we had these two you know on consent so there's uh there's certainly a lot going on um and we have to thank um Dr Ruby and Mr post Mrs Reynolds uh and Mrs Squires who I shared with the board is moving into the HR specialist position to replace Mrs Kavanaugh in consideration of all this work this is this is a large consent agenda it's been a
114little busy the last four weeks so we've um but we put the pedal to the metal and we've really we're bringing out some super excited high quality people oh document microphone not that you're not aware of this but just to give credit to to give credit to the people at the school because we have teachers that come in you know as you know Joy during the summer on their own time to be part of the teams at the schools before we even get the people that get signed up up to us and also parents provide their children for the demonstration lesson so there's a lot that goes on and without the teachers and the parents allowing children to come and play school we wouldn't be able to be as successful as we are and we
115also are very appreciative of the fact that before the um the budget was passed for the positions that we knew or goddess because they were Replacements we were able to post anticipated and that put us in a much better position than we've been in previous years where we're kind of late to the party on on putting our postings up and getting people in so you know that was really really helpful so thanks to all those people Ruby is our new hire at uh the social studies instructional coach is that who did our trauma training so I'm just going to brag about the difference it's amazing so we have had you know everybody looks through like a deficit model with this year we've had so many pot there's been a lot of things that have been
116really sad and we heard the effects that that the years had on families and whatnot and we're not diminishing that but we also have had a lot of wins and we've provided um PD to support um the initiatives of the board and to support the needs of the teachers and so two things happened one we were able to bring in technology integration PD and you heard me talk at the board meeting about how we needed to continue that and we were working with an amazing PD Provider from CES who worked with every single high school teacher and we got positive feedback from pretty much everybody who told us anything and they also I wrote a grant that we got awarded to to pay for her to work with our other three schools when we posted
117that position she applied for it so it's like a win for us because there's or when in coaching trust is so important and so the the teachers in the district and the administrators know and trust this person so it's even though it's a new hire it's like she's already been working with us for a year the second thing that happened is that the person who's been working with us with um cultural competence and helping us with some of the work that um the equity inclusion committee is involved with is somebody that Christine zapala and I met at a conference four years ago and she came into the district she's from Utah a professor in Utah and she came into the district and did trauma-informed training with teachers with very well received people really loved her
118and then we brought her back this year to do virtual training and she announced to Kevin and myself when we were meeting with her once before meeting she said I just want you to know that we're going to be moving to Northern Utah you know out of Salt Lake and I'm taking another position Another Universe City and then this was honestly when she goes but not until I got tired of scouring that Brookfield website every week before and I was like are you kidding and she said working with your teachers and your administrators is so amazing she goes the only thing that could bring me back to New England to that horrible weather is if you had a job in Brookfield and I could work there and so I couldn't say anything we posted the
119social studies position she applied for it and she sold her house in Utah and is moving to Sandy Hook and she's going to be our social find a place oh yeah like this good yep so and that's a credit not to us that's a credit to the people in the schools that these individuals have worked with they we have good people working here and they and people who work with our district like working with our district that's great so willing to relocate seriously so across the country to come here we're really blessed and um and that's another seamless transition because she's a known entity and there's there's trust there yeah so thank you thank you thanks Dr Ruby okay all in favor of the consent agenda all right uh moving on to new business um
120the we did the fall opening plan already we spent a little time doing that that was time well spent so the only other item is the approval of the budget transfer I will move that the board approve a budget transfer as requested by superintendent Dr John Burrell and Director of Business and operations can post second okay it's been moved in second and let me turn it over to Mr post to kind of describe what we're doing or do you want to do a doctor oh no uh Mr postal code Dr post I promoted today Dr post wow um the postman uh the uh let you kind of brief everybody on what this is about and uh both in the budget itself and what we're trying to get at sure so uh previously we had contracted
121for services of RBT which is registered Behavior technician with that advance to serve some of our students it was determined this spring that we would better be able to provide services to the certain group of students using ABA paraprofessionals so we're proposing to make the budget adjustment to take the Professional Services out of the budget and reallocate that money to fund to Aba paraprofessionals with health benefits at the same time we've identified the need to add an additional 0.5 clerical in the special education Administrative Office um and we've identified the need to adjust the salary of our technology director and we accomplished this by again removing the Professional Services money that we will save money hiring Mrs Squires as the HR specialist rather than a HR director and reducing the extent Duty curriculum budget back
122to the same level we have budgeted for this past year which is still a healthy budget and it all washes out all right so uh any questions from the board all right hearing hearing none all in favor all right thank you prove all right um so that's it for new business there is no old business uh next item on the agenda is an update on the Candlewood Lake Elementary School building project Dr Earl do you want to talk about our walkthrough where do you want me to Bob I can I'll talk about some details but I know you want to talk about the walk and taking a walk around and seeing everything okay so you can you can report on the meeting and I'll talk about the boring stuff you do the fun stuff I
123did get a picture of um um Jack Ludwig though walking around tweeted out last night so just so we have that from the NBC and thanks to the NBC but please so we were invited as you all know to do a walk through um I'll start by saying yup we ought to do this right it's worth walking around and visualizing the space from inside the space it's uh it's uh it's really an exciting opportunity we talked to the uh the building coordinators and said once it's built out a little bit more we ought to have some moments where more members of the public could go through a walk through of the construction site it's a little it's ahead of the curve they usually like to let people in have a grand opening where people go
124in but man you get a sense of the building and what it will look like even though it's the shell and for the members of the public who haven't got driven over to Huckleberry you're not allowed on the site itself but you can pull up next to it look through the fence it's dramatic what's going on in the back of that Huckleberry property um two things that stood out to me so right now they've built up the um the cafeteria right now it's just the shells of the building and so they haven't really built anything on the inside yet but they've built in the uh the cafeteria the all-purpose room the um some of the neighborhoods the grade level neighbors I'm sorry in the front of the building you know all that stuff on the
125right side of the plan is built out and then they've done two of the three wings um are fully built down they're starting the walls on the third wing for the classrooms um the when you walk in you realize how first of all how spacious it is it is the classrooms will be right-sized which and there's a sufficient room in there for um you know for both classroom size but also you know work rooms for you know special ed breakout centers and that and the breakout rooms for the teachers and things like that you really get a sense of how the space will come the second thing I walked out of was the space outside the building is bigger than I expected there are lots of space around the back of the building for playground
126areas and both in the far back but also on the sides in between the wings so um it's and they look like it will be just a very nice experience for our kids so that so one feeling of the progress is really good secondly that we're using some technology that is going to pay off I think for us they're they're using pre-cut pre-insulated forms for the cement walls so that you put out this you put the form in there you stick the rebar into the middle of it and then you pour the cement you never take the form away so no construction you have a form you pour the cement and then you just rip the rip the mold away in this case the old stays and it has that much insulation on either side
127of it so that will help with temperature control airflow control and all the things and they were they're they're actually the first we're the first school or public building I think in the state of Connecticut that's using this technology and they use it down south a lot and very positive reviews to the point where they've asked us if we would be uh um a showcase for that we'll wait and see how it goes before we agree to do that but uh but it's pretty impressive when you actually see it in person and you could see it from afar it's all the white styrofoam he looks at the look and stuff instead of just playing cement around the building so um really uh nice use of the site and uh and the progress is going really
128well and there aren't they seem to be right on schedule yep um so so and then we went and met with the MBC you know let you kind of so be very brief Bob you really picked up on some great things there um so reports to the NBC first of all thank you to the NBC they have done a tremendous job the the the volunteers like the Board of Ed and the time they're putting into our project is is incredible as a matter of fact Mr checo gave out of his busy professional schedule gave us uh about an hour and a half I think it was yesterday morning Ken the days are so long I forget um working with our principals um uh um on the elementary principles on what the um transition plan might
129look like and some of the options some of the ideas some of the thoughts because we really need to develop that transition Plan and there's going to be all kinds of new protocols from entry in parking lot and drop-offs and all of that all the way to how we operate the school um they're tecton arcadis and Ong all gave a report I'm really thrilled to see the collaboration of all three companies working together uh in in concert with the NBC a couple of comments from members of the NBC that I wanted to share um safe secure and clean they can continue to talk about that in the way the site is being done it's even safe it's been secure and it's been relatively a very clean project um you can ask Mrs labrusano she had
130one or two complaints of a cigarette at one point way far in the corner and we we put that out literally uh immediately I mean it is a clean site in terms of the way behavior is and everything else we're keeping very close tabs on that we're also really excited um working with Dr Ruby and the principals in developing a professional development opportunity Pre-K are you right Pre-K to five on November 2nd our election day professional development where we're going to bring Pre-K to five all of our teachers together at the workspace The Cooperative Educational Services workspace in Bethel for a team building and professional development opportunity in terms of bringing three schools together and we're bringing people forget that fifth grade is coming down you know and this is a big deal for transition
131for our fifth grade team as well so we're really excited about that and as you can imagine any Transit edition of one school to another school let alone three schools physically bringing them to a new physical plant but as well as for some very emotional their entire career has been in one school closing down two schools let alone demolishing a school and just bringing them together there's lots of nuances in terms of the the Staffing considerations the physical moving considerations in the in the morale and team building considerations so we're working at that we're very fortunate because we have the flexibility and the time to have to plan for a safe and methodic transition in a transparent transition to that end we're planning a putting together a comprehensive PowerPoint and we would pres I'll present
132that with the team talking to it a little bit with me um at the end of October at our second October board meeting we want to get through the transition obviously we've got emotions are high we've got to open the school got to get those schools in terms of this year get things ready get people settled in and then once our minds are settled in and we're used to the newness of school in the coming year we'll present this plan because we need to be ready uh for for move-in and transition moving over the course of 22-23 so we're excited will the teachers have a chance to walk the site oh they're they're we're gonna those opportunities you and I were talking about yesterday whether whether they're uh some of the folks in town were
133able to set things up we've got to be very careful because we don't want to get in the way of construction um and we also want to be safe so we have to figure that out but um I think once we have the shell and floors and their safe structured opportunities we might be able to take advantage of those uh on off hours or even weekend hours or something like that where there's less activity going on excitement yeah and we would have to work through just the public with the staff oh yeah the staff needs to start visualizing it yeah and see what it's really going to look like the other thing we'll be doing in the fall a couple of things people asked about these are the nitty-gritty details um it's called FF e
134Furniture fixtures equipment that's the telephone system how are we going to call in how does that work what are the numbers going to look like we talked about an upper in a lower house you know all these things all that'll be fleshed out in October we'll talk to you about that the fall we'll talk about ffne um some of our user groups will be a part of that the Architects will bring down um kind of a selection of furniture and you know what do you guys think of this get some input get some ideas um obviously bring that back to the end The Architects will bring that back to the NBC decisions will be made um so we've got a lot to do but we're excited about it in our our administrative team our building
135level administrative team is fully committed really excited and what what I am always um I guess I admire Dr Ruby I talk about this all the time is I admire their commitment to the level of detail to make sure the plan is going to work you know they don't want it's always I admire it but it drives me crazy but it's a necessary exercise as I always say it was a necessary exercise to go through that meeting because we really want to have the smoothest transition we can have um so anyway we're excited thank you okay thank you any questions okay uh next up is three main points what do you guys think new school definitely I'd say the update on the fall opening plan and our comments from doctors Sullivan and Garcia yeah I
136don't know I've got two I don't really other than that it's a pretty sure maybe welcoming a lot of new hires yeah yeah yeah I have new hire Stones yeah okay I will note that there's a pop star in the list too Katy Perry Katy Perry this this poor young teacher oh do you want to go to the mic you want me to do it doctor okay so so we we have a new teacher who the the person she's heard this probably for the last 10 years since Katy Perry has become a pop star her name is Kate Perry and she'll be joining us we're excited to have her as math teacher at Whiskey near um and uh she joins at the middle school don't forget a couple of years ago we hired Joe Walsh
137um a math teacher at the middle school and those of us who are at a vintage where we remember the Eagles that's one of the big time guitarists and the other is a one of our sixth grade teachers Will Smith otherwise known as The Fresh Prince so so we have a lot of rock stars and pop stars over at the uh leave it up to Mr Rendon to make of course of course all right so we got our three main points upcoming events I have at Center School the sweet dreams story times with Mrs Diamond continue on Thursdays at 6 45 and kindergarten screenings will be on August 9th August 13th and August 16th at Wisconsin air student walkthroughs are scheduled for August 23rd from 8 30 to 11 30 and August 24th from 1
13830 to 3 30 and the new to Brookfield and whiskin air orientation is on August 24th from 10 30 to 11 30. and at the high school the incoming 9th grade new student orientation is on August 24th at 6 PM in the auditorium that's it yeah thank you all right that's it for our agenda so unless there's uh any uh objection we're adjourned thank you thank you thank you for a long but productive evening so [Music] drive safe everyone [Music] foreign