001rosie all set all right thanks okay today is uh wednesday march 3rd and i call the regular meeting of the brookfield board of education to order in accordance with executive order 7b suspending sections 1-206 1-225 and 1-226 of the connecticut general statutes the public will not be able to attend this meeting in person but will have the ability to view or listen to the meeting in real time by way of the brookfield board of education youtube channel furthermore such meeting will be recorded or transcribed and posted on the board's website within seven days of the meeting and made available as required by law all speakers taking part in the meeting are reminded that they are to clearly state their names and titles if applicable before speaking on each occasion that they speak individuals wishing to
002participate in the public comment portion of the meeting may do so by calling the following numbers area code 929-205-6099 or area code 301 715-859 and the meeting id is 927-6067-7168 so let's stand for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we have all seven of our board members present tonight so first on our agenda is board recognition so uh rosa if i may just uh march is board appreciation month and uh although we don't have the opportunity to be in person and break for cake like we typically do i want to uh on behalf of the whole school district uh and in our community thank all of you
003as board members as volunteers who have just put in a great deal of time with ernest hard intentional work and support all of us uh as a leadership group and the faculty and staff uh to execute on what has been one of the most unusual years uh any of us have ever experienced in our lifetimes and i just can't thank you enough and as i said in my email yesterday uh when i shared with you the great news about the vaccinations which i'll briefly talk about my superintendent report uh thank you for all the belief in the team and in all of us and um and the faith you've continued to have in us to make the right decisions we've needed to make all along the way although we've been tough decisions here uh to
004matriculate through this the very difficult school year and as we know we are seeing a beautiful light at the end of the tunnel you just have to keep our nose to the grindstone and keep on going so anyway thank you board i know it's board recognition month i wish we had uh fat free parfaits like we've done in the past for cake or something but uh we don't have that opportunity but thank you all and you could drive around and deliver cupcakes to us that's it i'll drive around i like that that's a good one dr ruby knows i like cupcakes so that's a good thing thank you thanks okay up next is public comment and i don't see nope there's no one else here so we can move on to the student representative report
005hi i'm candy channeru as a student the brookfield high school student representative um so nhs is continuing their tutoring services and this includes ap study nights which is really important as ap exams get closer the deca competition was yesterday march 2nd today march 3rd which was an all online competition this year and the award ceremony is going to be on march 9th the peer counselors conduct conducted interviews for new members um for peer counseling and the decision letters were sent out this past weekend um there's a new club at the high school the brookfield club council which is led by senior vince diesta and junior greg friedman and overseen by senor davila and this club was created in order um to have some inner club cooperation um to accomplish some goals not possible just by
006one club and so they're going to gather all club leader leaders and advisors every month to kind of present club projects and get help from other clubs if needed student council election elections were on monday where the videos made by each candidate were shown during iot and all voting was done by the end of ilt so we distinguished each grade's class officers um and as of monday there is a new grad party daily raffle for the seniors which the names are pulled every day and i think by the end of the year each senior is guaranteed a prize value at 25 on may 22nd there is a officially a date for our quasi senior class event um where there'll be rides food dancing a bonfire for all the seniors to enjoy and on june 12th
007we have graduation and there's planning and progress for a parade and an outdoor ceremony and i just wanted to thank mr bland and mr buckley for putting in a lot of effort to kind of start to put these events together for the seniors as well as putting other plans into motion which aren't yet finalized and it makes me really excited just to like hear about some of the things that are in motion and i think once they're finalized and sent out it'll make a lot of other seniors really excited as well and that's all i have thank you thanks tandy any questions for her all right thank you again up next we have written correspondence okay leah mania and marnie mcniff wrote regarding a youth commission survey and laura orban wrote regarding open choice okay
008thanks approval of board minutes i will move that the board approved the minutes from the regular meeting on february 17th second thanks joy sorry i need to get back to i can see everybody all in favor aye thanks that's unanimous next on our agenda is the superintendent's update thank you rosa so i have two items for tonight and the first one is uh what i talked about just a bit earlier which is uh the vaccine clinics we have here in brookfield we're very excited now that uh last week the governor announced that education sector employees will be eligible for vaccinations beginning as of march 1. we have to complement not only our hr director terry cavanaugh who has been our vaccination coordinator and we're just so proud of her and thankful for all of her
009efforts in collaboration with the health department and mrs farrell from the health department who's been incredible along with dr sullivan to set up um the clinics for our educators we have eight clinics now set up three this week three next week and then the two follow-ups for second dose of the moderna vaccine and we also have a choice between moderna and johnson and johnson so i mean it's just been incredible what the health department has done and for those who aren't familiar terry and i shared with all of the staff at a q a session last thursday afternoon that for the most part our health department in a lot of ways especially the clinics that are being run in town are with volunteer staff many retired nurses and volunteer medical professionals that come in to
010do all this work and so it's just it's been an incredible effort we're just so proud of everyone we're so pleased and really the sense of relief on all of the staff uh has been amazing and this staff also includes coaches and uh bus drivers and all the folks that work with us in addition to that the governor's orders are that it's child care workers as well in town so we're really you know putting a full effort into making sure we can keep schools open uh what's nice about once we're vaccinated my understanding is that once you're vaccinated um and the time goes by where you develop that um immunity if you're exposed you do not have to be quarantined and so what happens there is that's that big staffing issue we've had with keeping
011the schools open so obviously we want to be protected keep our staff safe but then also be able to be physically present and not quarantined so we can keep the schools open so just a lot of great news there but i remind everyone and i know the principals reminded staff uh at the faculty meetings today that uh there's no time to take the pedal uh to take the foot off the pedal in terms of mitigation strategies we still need to distance we need to wear our masks and we need to practice uh tremendous hygiene um while we get through the vaccination process over the next uh i guess couple of months it'll be so anyway that is is uh uh all about vaccinations in a nutshell we're really excited and then the next one is
012another exciting opportunity mrs wygonic and her team in the special education department uh have conducted a couple of parent training sessions and they have several more scheduled for the remainder of the spring um and they've been well attended and they are actually recorded the webinars that they do with these training sessions for parents and so those are posted on our website as well if anybody wants to avail themselves to uh to view those so we're really thankful for the special education department and the team that puts those webinars on and excuse me again you can go on our website uh under the special education department under the parent resources and and find those there so we're excited about a lot of good news that's going on there truly is a light at the end of
013the tunnel it has been as of next week the end of next week it'll be one full year we've been dealing with the pandemic and uh i'm thankful to everybody for helping us all stick together and get through this so that's my report rosa thank you any questions all right thank you thank you uh let's move on to subcommittee reports and first we have policy and communications okay um our last meeting um on i think it was february 17th um yep was really pretty much to talk about the policy that we have for you tonight for a first read this is um i'll talk about it more later but it's an equity and diversity policy that's brand new for us so we really spent um the bulk of the meeting talking about that we talked
014a little bit about um dr barrill's covid communications and the need for a new naming system once he gets up to update z um which will be coming up by the end of the month talked about whether it should be double a double b big a little a um but uh and then we had just a brief discussion about budget communications and the need for um a budget flyer sometime around april once the board of finance votes on a budget so that was pretty much it for policy and communications thank you any questions for debbie all right let's move on to cape is jen here oh there sorry rose i'm gonna move my my internet is in that one particular room is giving me a little bit of trouble so gotta go hold on just
015a sec okay i'm ready sorry about that okay so we had am i coming across okay you can hear me okay can you hear me rosa yes yes yes okay sorry okay so um we had a meeting with uh arcade committee um which was back on february 18th and we had two main presentations the first one was from our teacher librarians from all the different schools and it was really an interesting update they gave us a bit of a presentation on what they're doing in terms of library audit work in terms of equity efforts and looking through their collections and doing some training and really working as a pre-k to 12 team to really analyze the text and the media that we have available to students to make sure that we have a real cohesive
016uh strategic approach to equity and inclusion so that was really great it was a super professional presentation and then we heard from uh mark and kevin uh about some world language textbooks um that they that are currently in the proposal um they are needed to support the french program um and we recommended the support of that proposal and then lastly uh mark gave an initial presentation and that was also um with um shannon hungaria from the guidance department started to discuss the concept of eliminating class rank at brookfield high school and he they began by reviewing the data that really according to colleges it's not something that's valued by colleges it was very low uh on a list of 10 things it was you know almost towards the bottom and so it's no longer a
017clear criteria for decision making by colleges and some colleges you know don't look at it at all and a lot of high schools particularly in our area and the larger maybe tri-state area have already eliminated it so we're a little bit behind in this particular reform this was just an initial discussion at this topic he wasn't ready to make a formal recommendation and as committee members we were in support of continuing to discuss that issue further and that's it okay thank you any questions for jen all right let's move on to the consent agenda i will move that the board approve the items on the consent agenda which are new hires retirements and resignations second thanks joy all in favor okay thanks that's it can i just have a quick minute to acknowledge lorna bufkin
018who has announced her retirement after 21 years of service as a teacher reading teacher and most recently she's been an assignment in our pre-k program uh just a wonderful educator who's given so much to our community and to our students and uh just want to take a moment and thank her and wish her well uh for 21 incredible years so lorna bless you and good luck for the rest of this school year and into your future endeavors thank you thank you okay in new business the first item we have is policy and equity and diversity policy i i will make a motion that the board approve the new policy number 0523 equity and diversity for a first reading as recommended by the policy and communications subcommittee second thanks joy um debbie did you want to
019add anything specifically to this at at this point or do you think i mean it's it's really pretty self-explanatory um the only thing i wanted to say is this is a brand new policy for us we didn't have an equity in diversity policy before and it's not required but it is recommended by cabe and so we feel strongly that it's you know it's something that is important to include in our policies so you'll see it's it's very clear but it really just [Music] ensures that we remain focused on closing the opportunity gap and creating learning communities that provide support and programs for all students and that includes curriculum recruiting of staff professional development um culture and environment and uh even things like discipline and suspensions and expulsions and things like that so i think it's
020pretty straightforward all right uh so for our first read all those in favor thank you that's unanimous all right um next we have a textbook adoption i will move that the board approved the new world language textbooks and materials to support the french program at bhs and the ap preparation in world language as recommended by assistant doc superintendent dr maureen ruby bhs principal mark bellanda and the cape subcommittee thank you and uh mr linda do you have a few words about that thanks joy okay now go ahead go ahead mark hold on if if you need me if mark needs me i could go into a little bit more detail from the cape committee about that particular recommendation i also have it open mark if it's not opening for you i just sent it again
021in an email but we can both talk about it if you would prefer i think mark is just frozen because he's not blinking yeah all right so you know what we can we can uh do you want to go jen or do you want me to go well mine would be a little bit more general in nature but the main thing that was presented to us was that the spanish textbooks have been updated um and from a review of the french textbooks it they are they were not at the proper level to be aligned with the quality of spanish so really the purpose of the new textbooks is to align the quality of resources between the french and the spanish i think that's the big picture takeaway yeah and additionally as seen i think you
022can see it on the screen now um the um there there's an issue with the the licensing so this is also a cost savings um move besides increasing the quality of the french textbooks to align with the quality of our new spanish um resources that we also get there's a also a financial benefit to doing this and the um current option that we have doesn't have an online component and one of the benefits this past year uh considering the situation that we've been in is that online component has been um very helpful for for teachers so the proposed um action is to make make this purchase of the online and physical textbook that has a it's a six-year license and it um has the alignment to the spanish program offerings it prepares students um very
023successfully um for the college and ap courses and um there it's already in the budget and i if who's ever running the slides if you go to slide two there's um some information right there basically what i was what i was talking about um the next thing that they spoke about that which is also um budgeted for is the um gaps that we have in um programming for the ap spanish course there's we don't have um any comprehensive opportunity for students to have simulated testing which is um something we all know that when students take the ap courses it's a different format to to the courses and the end goal is for students to be able to take that ap exam thus earning i have the potential for earning a college credit based on their
024score depending upon the university or college that they're going to whether they require a four or a five and so um we are not providing the same opportunity to the students that are in the spanish ap classes uh that that students in other um disciplines mark your back i'll let you take over if you want um but they're the the students are not having the same opportunity as students in other ap courses so this is the the next slide shows what the proposed action is um which is to purchase this the um ap spanish language and culture exam preparation resource and mark yes well i apologize for that a little light to go to my phone i'm not sure what was going on on my computer so i apologize um but uh it sounds like
025you pretty much hit everything up i mean one of the the big pieces is we need this resource to support our advanced level uh ap students and i know maureen has gone through i can see the the four slides that kevin and i presented uh a couple weeks ago um you know it really aligns better with what the experience that our ap students uh need uh and so they have the appropriate resources um one of the things i certainly will mention i'm not sure if she did um but the the money is budgeted already for 21.22 and that should show up at the slides so that's a good thing uh and that we're not asking for more money it's already there when we're ready to move forward um you know once the budget gets approved
026so that's that's a positive step in the right direction it's really good for us in terms of the french program too to align it with our other language offerings so that we're more our curriculum is more robust our supports are more robust so and as uh jen mentioned uh after the presentation the um the cape committee members were in support of this and recommending it for full board approval so thank you are there any questions i don't have any questions anyone else all right jen got kicked out um she's trying to rejoin um [Music] but i believe we even you know she'll be back here in a minute but i think we can go ahead and uh and vote so we uh all in favor of this hi all right thank you that's unanimous but
027without jen i'm sure sure she supports it i mean she voted on the cave committee so i would say that yeah all right um moving on to old business we have to address the 2122 school calendar again um we do have a motion for that okay i will make a motion that the board adjusts the dates for the president's weekend for the 2021-2022 school year from february 14th and 15th to february 21st and 22nd 2022. all right so um really this just came out of i think what just ended up being an oversight i think president's day is really late next year and it was um sort of assumed that it would be 14th or i believe it was 15th actually but um but we were wrong so um any other sort of issues with
028uh the calendar no that was it thanks rosa i mean really that was a miscount on my end so thanks for sharing responsibility for that but that was really me bringing that to board to the board back in i think october um with the miscount on the mondays uh the way the weekends fell so um that's the adjustment um and that's really it that was the only thing okay so all in favor of this change thanks that's unanimous again minus jen i don't think she's back yet all right uh our next item is the 2122 budget this is just um an action item so um the the update for the public and for board members the board of selectmen voted two to one to reduce our budget by 140 000 at the moment i think
029we're going to dig into this and and try to figure out some options or or things that we're considering at the at the finance committee meeting i'm sure bob can sort of chime in on some of that um but that's that's the biggest update for the budget right now and just as a reminder we do have um a special meeting with the board of finance next tuesday um where we'll discuss this again and then on wednesday is the regular board of finance meeting where we won't be discussing next year's budget but certainly if they have any questions just related to process-wise we can do that there any questions on this all right so we can move on to the candlewood lake elementary school building project and there's actually a lot of really exciting updates the
030nbc met last night as you guys know that the project is in the bid phase and construction is about ready to start so all of the critical trade projects like site work structural steel things like that um have been awarded and ong is getting those contractors started um due to some really favorable bid conditions and some really aggressive bidding by these contractors the project i want to say is uh well within the established budget i want to put an emphasis on that without giving sort of a number that people are going to get stuck on because it's important to understand there's there's still placeholders in this budget it's still really early and there's other big packages that still have to go out like flooring plumbing drywall communications security hvac um so it's still too it's
031still really early but we um as a project are in a really really good spot so if you remember we the project grew in scope after referendum so um we had put some things as sort of alternates as sort of options to kind of see what would fit in the budget and what wouldn't and some of those things were really important like additional classrooms um you know our school population grew um well within this project sort of had as this project had moved along um but there's no need to go back to the voters for more money which is excellent or to reduce the scope of the project which is great too and in fact the contingency for this project has grown at this point by almost two million dollars but again just remember it's
032it's still pretty early but the really exciting news is that all of those alternates that we had talked about including the extra classrooms those aren't going to be a problem but the mbc also forwarded some other alternates to the first selectmen for approval so this is um we're able to upgrade the roofing material from a 20 to a 30 year warranty which is great considering the length of use we'll get out of it upgrading the faucets and toilets in the building to electrical or touchless and if you remember we had built into the design um an elevator with two like two elevator shafts but we were only able to put one at the moment one elevator car we're actually able to get in the two elevators so that's going to be great considering how many
033students we're going to have on that second level and it also includes the allowance for baseball fields and the removal of the portables at the middle school so all in all a lot of really good important um exciting stuff going on there's still a lot of permitting that has to go through and they're doing that right now and pretty soon the furniture and fixtures will be selected and there was actually one public comment from the meeting last night that requested that teachers be involved in selecting that furniture so i'm sure that tecton is gonna probably reach out to you again dr brill and and make sure that all the the furniture has uh input from teachers and staff who's gonna use it sure and that what's great about that rose is that's been part of
034our process right from the start i mean we we got the ed specs by working with you know different uh teacher groups throughout the process so that that's something uh natural to our process we always include our teachers uh they're an integral part of what we do um rosa do i have a moment to share a couple of items as well so so really exciting for everybody while we we're not ready to plan a groundbreaking project yet um it appears as though uh from last night's meeting that uh fencing and some machinery will be delivered and the fencing will start to be set up at the school um as of either march 12th or 13th uh next week so it's coming quick and to that end um i mentioned i think at the last meeting
035mrs labrashano had penned uh a notification letter to all the families and the the surrounding community of huckleberry so everybody knows that project starts that's a letter that will be signed by not only mrs labrizano but i have to thank dr pepsosky as well for their leadership and organizing uh the site with all the work that's going to be going on there and it'll be signed by the the two building administrators as well as myself and rosa so the families know that this is a joint project and um we're excited and i believe we're going to get that letter out uh the before this weekend to give everybody a heads up so there's mrs blabbershaw right there hello melissa um so we're really excited about i mean this is just incredible news and i just
036want to emphasize for anybody in the public who watches this back or is watching this live when rosa talks about the the scope of the project increased it didn't increase because we wanted it to increase and we were looking for more it increased because we had a significant change in enrollment um during the process of going through obtaining the financing for the project so it all happened simultaneously and maloney mcbroom uh did an additional conducted an additional uh assessment and and our population went up so getting those additional classrooms uh is incredible and so it's two per grade level essentially so having those uh additional classrooms which should give us the space we need um and especially as we've all been monitoring and paying attention with the pandemic and as we hear about the mass
037exodus from new york and brookfield being so close to new york um we need to pay close attention to that so thank you everyone all right any questions on the new school yeah go ahead debbie um you mentioned that there that now maybe there'd be room for an allowance for baseball fields there is so does that mean there's space on that property or are you saying it's an allowance toward another location for fields yeah it's uh money in the budget yeah so we don't know yet where that would be now i think they're gonna see but i don't i mean it won't be on the school site okay yeah and there's still discussion about the the the nabby road as possible but the other the other piece is putting the field on the whisk and
038earsight once we get the portables down so a lot of stuff still up in the air being discussed and talked through via the nbc and the designers all right anything else very exciting it is it really is all right so if there's nothing else we can move on to three main points i feel like this was such a quick meeting this is like a record i know um i think we should talk about the vaccine clinic set up for the teachers and staff [Music] yep and i think we should definitely talk about the candlewood lake elementary school project um i kind of would like to highlight the um webinars that gina wygonic has on the website and you know get some create some awareness of that i think it's a great thing the only other
039thing would be budget but i don't really feel like we have a whole lot of information new information to report yet no we don't yeah i mean that would if if we did the budget would really only be to sort of like i don't know i guess make more people aware of where we're at in the process but the update on the student around the counter that might be important we could either put it in three main points we definitely could if the board decides to do that but for sure uh lisa and i will get a school message out about that and get it posted regardless okay so maybe skip that one if everybody's gonna get an email on that so i like your idea debbie yeah i mean the webinars are for the
040for the families so i'll go i'll go to the site and see which ones are there um i saw one today come across about adhd and remote learning so i'll just details what's there okay sounds good great all right upcoming events okay um at center school read across america spirit week is ongoing this week the one school one book bingo kickoff is on monday march 8th tuesday march 9th is a pto meeting at 7 pm via zoom picture day is tuesday march 9th for in-person learners and thursday march 11th for remote learners um they're celebrating pi day on march 15th there is a remote learner pickup on march 17th wednesday and march 18th and 19th is early release for spring conferences huckleberry is also doing spirit week for read across america this week and this
041friday there is a virtual magic show sponsored by the pto at 6 30 pm via zoom and thursday and friday march 18th and 19th they also have early release for spring conferences at whiskenier we have the online book fair which is ongoing now through march 15th tuesday march 9th is early release for spring conferences tuesday march 9th is also picture retake day during school hours for in-person learners and from 12 to 2 for remote learners and at brookfield high school on tuesday march 9th is college and career explorations webinar for sophomores and juniors during ilt on the 11th thursday spring conferences there's an early release and on the 13th is the key club zoom-a-thon which i don't know if mr belinda wants to tell what exactly that is yeah i imagine i was going to
042get some level of questions about what the sorry about that what the key club zoom-a-thon is um it's it's essentially similar to what you would do for like a dance-a-thon where you get pledges um and basically staying on um you know one of the unique challenges for our students sometimes can be having their cameras on and staying present um during virtual learning and in general what this is is the idea is there's a pledge for a number of minutes or how long or hours that they'll stay on and do activities and things like that so it's a ways to raise money key club is connected to the kiwanis club it's a um it's a fundraiser for key club and service organizations so it's just a different way to try to raise money through uh the
043best thing i can call is a fun you know a different way to extend it so that's what that is okay anything else no other upcoming events right you're good that's it oh that's it all right well then uh this is it this probably is a record but uh without objection meeting is adjourned thanks everyone bye everyone good night good night hey everybody thank you you