Board of Education Meeting 2-17-21 @ 7pm

001hi you're all set Rosa okay good evening everyone today is Wednesday February 17th 2021 and I call the regular meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order in accordance with executive order 7B suspending sections 1 d206 1 d225 and 1 d226 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 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 required that they are to clearly State their names and titles if applicable before speaking on each occasion that they

002speak individuals wishing to participate in the public comment portion of this meeting May do so by calling the following numbers area code 6099 or area code 301 715 8592 and the meeting ID is 9651 1604 0322 so let's stand for the pledge a 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 of our board members in attendance tonight so up first on our agenda is the students Spotlight at Brookfield High School so Mr belanda the floor is yours uh thank you I appreciate that um so I'm really pleased to uh welcome to the meeting tonight it's so great to see so many of my students across the screen it's wonderful

003to see them in person and well as close to in person as I can get recently um and all in one place so tonight I'm really excited to introduce um our newly formed club uh it's called the Brookfield High School human rights Club um and students have worked closely with Mr Buckley who's also joining us here tonight so I'm just going to turn it over uh to Mr Buckley who I imagine will just introduce himself and then really turn it over to the kids because this is really the kid show uh for the work that they've done and where they're going so U Mr Buckley I I'll turn it over to you thank you Mr Banda and so like uh Mr Banda said I'm going to be just very very brief um I'm super proud

004of these kids and what they've accomplished this year especially during covid and the fact that they've done almost all of this work uh remotely uh and so uh I'd like to introduce shudy Mahi Jackson Zay and tanvi who um are four Juniors and one senior and they're going to talk a little bit about how they form the club and the work that they're doing so go ahead guys hi I just need to share my screen can everyone see it okay perfect um so I'm tany chenu I'm a senior at Brookfield High School hi I'm Jackson I'm a junior at Brookfield High School I'm shudy I'm a junior at bfield high school I'm zanen I'm also a junior at Brookfield High School I'm Mahi and I'm also a junior at high school so hi we are

005the co-founders of the Brookfield High School human rights club and we're here to talk about basically what we've done as a club so far and what we hope to do in the future um so just a little bit of background this is a very broad timeline of our time together but basically over the summer um we all had separate ideas as to how we would promote inclusivity in our school so Jackson Mahi and shudy started together with Mr Buckley as the advisor and then Zayn and I were part of the brook fielders building actively anti-racist School group um but we ultimately decided to join Mahi Jackson and Trudy in order to kind of work together because we had common ideas that we wanted to work towards and now we have equal leadership in this club

006and it's 95% student l and we have about 50 Brookfield High School members so our mission statement is we the BHS human rights Club aspire to educate students of all ages about human rights issues Propel social change Inspire and participate in discussion and take action against injustices in our community and worldwide so in a general sense we're trying to make berkfield High School more inclusive and raise awareness to the club into the school about human rights crises and as the club prests in the future we hope to bring our knowledge elementary and middle schools we're going to touch on a few of these things later in the presentation so this is what a day in the human rights Club looks like uh every meeting we start off with a couple Administration slides like our Google

007Classroom code and our group meink which we use to send reminders to our club members after that we'll sh our mission statement and then proceed with our agenda uh one concept we've implemented in our club is subcommittees where we divide the larger Club into smaller groups that can focus on respective projects and we'll talk more about that in detail later but we've had this idea for subcommittees from the start so the next thing we do is talk about the subcommittees that we have and urge members to join them uh for our normal meetings when we don't have a speaker or any other agenda uh we'll introduce a relevant human rights topic that we can discuss in small breakout rooms this allows the group members to be more comfortable to actually talk because it's in a

008smaller setting we usually divide ourselves so that one of us the co-founders are uh in each breakout room to moderate the discussions that are going on after about 15 minutes or when it sounds like everyone's done talking we'll meet back up in the full room and try to discuss as a big group while usually on only one or two people talk we hope that as we progress later in the year more people will feel comfortable talking in the big group because that's our goal in the end and if no one talks it's okay we just leave the conversation ourselves and after about five or 10 minutes we'll wrap it up uh we'll say any important news about beatings in the future and end the meeting okay um a couple things we've been working on is

009well our first project as a club was to take a schoolwide survey to help better understand um what human rights issues are relevant to our community and we're in the process of understanding this data to take like appropriate action to make our school again more welcoming um we've also been engaging in group discussions as Zayn said about human rights Topics in an effort to educate ourselves um so far we've covered topics like police brutality privilege and Indigenous rights to further our education about these indigenous rights we brought in a guest speaker Dr Glenn matoma who is a human rights professor at Yukon and also the do the director of the dod Center at Yukon he talked to us about um the indigenous people's activism that's going on in our state and what we can do

010to help aid this movement um the last thing we're working on is also to provide an option to change our names on our Zoom accounts to include our pronouns um again as Zayn said we have subcommittees and since our initial formation we've split into three subcommittees that focus on three different areas the first one is the diversity week subcommittee which is led by Zay and Jackson the second subcommittee is the curriculum change committee which is led by me and shy and our last subcommittee is the sorry the indigenous people's day subcommittee which is led by tan so Zan and I recently came up with the idea to have a diversity week sometimes sometime this spring essentially our idea was to have like a week where we could celebrate different types of diversity as a school

011and our subcommittee will focus on planning this week out day by day and hopefully having a speaker or two come in to talk about their own experiences and ways to make change in terms of celebrating diversity we were thinking that we could do something similar to to our spirit week Spirit Week at the high school where students can celebrate diversity by wearing clothing or accessories that uniquely represent themselves so the actual work would include playing the week out and advertising the events to students through like announcements posters flyers and some other forms and there's also an existing diversity Club in the school so we thought that we could talk to them and maybe collaborate them about our idea um so Mahi and I have been working on um the curriculum change uh which is basically

012integrating human rights education U more thoroughly into our school curriculum uh we've already started talking to Librarians um in an effort to try to get some specialized displays um in sections pertaining to Human Rights uh books um also including diversity and inclusivity in our school and public libraries um we all really understand the importance of reading as kids and we thought that making these books um that relate to such like important subjects more visible and accessible is a really good um first step in raising students awareness um across all ages um this activity has also allowed us to get uh a lot of our club members involved um in our subcommittee so that's also really nice um in the future we really hope to work with teachers to bring more discussions on um diverse cultures

013and viewpoints on historical events um into English and Social Studies classes we also hope to invite more guest speakers um uh to present to schools like all schools Middle Schools elementary schools and the high school of course um just like we've done in our club meeting um this would help provide a greater awareness for um those wishing to participate in activism um and Inspire those who haven't you know participated yet to do the same um and finally um I'm in charge of the indigenous people's day subcommittee which is about eight me members and we're basically working towards having the district recognize indigenous people's day um this subcommittee has had a few um few meetings and we reached out to Mr belanda about having a meeting uh soon hopefully this or this week or next week

014in order to see kind of what our next steps are and as we figured out we also hope to eventually collaborate with the Board of Ed and um simultaneously while trying to rec get the district to recognize and people's day we also hope to raise awareness uh at all grade levels like uh shy said the middle school elementary school and high school about Columbus's impact on indigenous populations um so beyond the club uh we've worked a lot with the CD Human Rights Council um so we began working with the CT human rights uh partnership this past summer um as mod moderators for um the reimagine education presentations we also worked as moderators um for the Human Rights Day celebration conference in December um with students and teachers all across Connecticut um we've also attended yukon's

015Native American uh mascot virtual seminar where we learned a lot about the movement um to stop the use of Native American masc uh symbols as mascots so these opportunities are really unique um and they've allowed us to network and learn about the work of um human rights activism that's happening Statewide not just in our local community but we really hope um that these experiences enhance us and we can uh share them in the future with our peers um so we can make our community a better place uh thank you guys for listening and does anyone have any questions for us I have a question um so as you probably know the the board has formed an equity and inclusion committee and I was wondering if you were aware of that and if you had any

016plans on sort of uh collaborating with that Committee in particular and I also noticed that you mentioned um some curricular um changes in involvement and I was hoping that you would involve the Cape Committee in some of those discussions or if you had already plans in in doing that um yeah uh so we started the yeah the curriculum change um was is one of our like long-term goals at the moment um we've started working um with the libraries just as like a smaller step we um were planning to kind of get more human rights education into our curriculum next next uh year so we were um planning on like completing the library project or getting that in motion and then um moving on to the curriculum but we definitely love to like partner um with

017the um the Board of Education obviously so yeah one of the great things I think you know in terms of as you saw kind of the the protocol that they laid out one of those last slide sort of in terms of indigenous people today is what's so great is there they know that the students know they're working with me right and they included collaboration Mr band they know that first step is there right and having those discussions and working with the leadership team uh and I really appreciate you know the communication that they've been able to to keep up with me to keep me informed of things they're doing and so we can move forward together so um I'm I just have to inter and say how proud I am it's you know we see

018these student spotlights that go all the way from Center all the way up to the high school um and while this isn't necessarily A A purely academic Pursuit it's something I think that'll be so life-changing for them and for our community um and it's really really based on all the work that our teachers have done with our students and help them all the way through this is a Confluence of a bunch of different things coming together at one point and it's it's just it's really impressive for them to take the initiative and and do this stuff so I'm I'm very proud and and look forward to these discussions so it's it's been a fantastic fantastic opportunity to meet with these kids and work with these kids and I know Mr Buckley feels the same and

019also Mr Mr Banda I would I would make an interesting uh thought for you is um you know I I love the thought of influencing curriculum here right as a as a next step I then I applaud that but I think there's a great opportunity for you to uh introduce this group to the cape Committee in a smaller working session and think about and talk about how do you go about approaching curriculum there's a whole learning opportunity here about how B work and how this process works that I think is good for the students as well and I think that's just a good opportunity to do that right introduction long before they're getting to the thought of actual curriculum change so I think Mr Beldon to that point you know where where I'm really proud

020of the kids is they've really modeled a lot of how the board is set up with their subcommittee idea and uh the way they're approaching their process which is fantastic so I'm I'm I'm really proud of them as well and and another piece that uh Mrs Fernandez brought up is Mr Buckley um and I believe Mahi are on the equity and inclusion committee and so we've really been very clear with the equity and inclusion committee that curriculum falls under you know Administration and teachers to work on and develop while open to obviously suggestions from different uh stakeholders and so forth and this is why it's really important as Mr Bando was saying for the student group to work through Mr Banda and U ultimately curriculum is approved by the board of education so it's a

021long process um but certainly um as we always talk about we're most proud of is as an organization we're we're we're agile and we're responsive and so it's important it's interesting to me because I think the one of the hardest things about this because I really as you all know I really Embrace and applaud this these initiatives is knowing how you go make change happen right and uh and I think for high school students to get engaged at this level is stupendous right but this is a place as adult leaders we can help a lot so in terms of powering it up and making it strong and also educating on how you do this in a public world right and it's uh and uh and I just think it's really cool I and I I

022would suggest we do take everything in our power to to make this group strong so absolutely and I'll add that one of the one of the key parts of our portrait of a graduate is that students become change makers and you guys are absolutely exemplifying that perfectly so it's very commendable thank you if I could just add too that the group um you know they they are more organized than than almost any adults I know they are you know just I get more meeting updates of what they're doing and working on their own so that the fact that um they said they're 95 uh% student L I would I would argue it's closer to 99% you know I really just have to start the zoom meeting for them and they get started uh they were

023also Forward Thinking enough to create a Google account that is not linked to any particular name so they're aware that the work goes beyond what they're doing so when tanvi and then the Juniors graduate they have kind of put into place a way for the work to continue so um this is a this is a fantastic group of kids and they are uh doing really good work and um the model put together here is being used by other schools and other organizations uh around the state so that the the fact that these kids are involved here is also being noticed by uh other school districts and communities that they're involved with so um just super impressed with what they've accomplished thank you any other questions or comments for our students all right well thank you

024guys for being here thanks everyone that's basically that's basically your cue everyone that you don't have to stick around if you don't want to I just want to be really clear with that so um thank you again thank you for having us you're welcome take care take care thank you so much for having us byee okay uh so moving on we have public comment and I don't see anyone here for that so we have our student representative report it's me again hi uh so I'm tamy chener as the Brookfield High School student representative um to start the first semester is over and we're a couple weeks into the second semester which is super crazy that half the year is almost or already done uh that happened really fast um the Juniors also had their PSAT

025on January 26th um the fair in the Fairfield County Math League uh Brookfield High School actually took six place out of 31 schools and we placed ahe of Ridgefield and their final match is in March um the peer counselors have started recruiting new peer counselors for the coming years as many seniors are leaving um student council is also on its way uh thanks to Mr Buckley and all the advisers and Mr Blanda and applications were due last Friday and within the next week or so the advisers are going to be collecting um videos of all the candidates in order to share them in each grade's I for the election which is happening on March 1st um and the model un is also looking for more members um senior Matangi nerry um is a National Merit

026Scholarship fin finalist which is super exciting um and on February 10th The Faculty held a snow Mania event at the high school sledding hill for the whole school um though it was a small event because not that many students came I did go with a couple of my friends and we had a lot ofont fun and it was a really good way to take advantage of all the snow we've been getting and just to get outside and lastly um Mr Buckley and Mr Blanda have held um two ilt meetings for the seniors about like planning events in the future and in the first meeting it was about possible ideas like in general for second semester and some ideas included a powderpuff game which Mr Buckley actually sent an email about today um with possibly a

027faculty flag football game during halftime um a pep rally a class drive-in movie a senior walkthrough at the middle and elementary schools um outdoor grad party and scavenger hunt they're all just ideas right now but they're out there um the second meeting was more centered around prom and like deciding between what we want to do and two options one option was having the prom locally at Brookfield High School cattigan or town hall um where there would be like a DJ and possibly food trucks and the other option was having it at quasi which I think um the seniors are more leaning towards based on the poll I sent out and basically at quasi there's like a designated time for dancing and like a bonfire and a time for eating and then a Time to use

028the rides at the park and in general I do think that in having these meetings it made the seniors um definitely more hopeful for events and like to have something look forward to um yeah that's all I have great thank you any questions for tanvi tanvi can you share with us uh what faculty uh or Administration made the Mount Rushmore sculpture at snowmania I thought that was a a great one do we do we know uh I think those were students you mean like the snowmen outside Snowman and the big Mount Rushmore I don't know he's trying to be funny tanvi is what he's trying to do he's trying to tell you you know who are the four in Mount snowm more or whatever I do think Mr Banda was one of them Mr Banda

029I recall Sly handsome that's for sure that yeah some students some students um you know it was really uh it was Ben bogus and um young Mr Brooks was also involved and helped to design Mount snowm more I guess you could call it or BHS and so was they built four snowmen um and they put cutout pictures of myself with hair um which was interesting um they also to put a picture of Mr Buckley and then there was another one that was uh Mr SAR one of our social studies teachers and then our school resource officer Mr ronos so uh those will be circulating around somewhere at some point in time I'm sure thank you Mr bled thank you TDY thank you thank you um so at this point uh in the meeting we have

030Fran Rabinowitz here uh she's the executive director at the Connecticut Association for Public School Superintendent and in respect of her time I'd like to move uh to amend the agenda and shift item a of new business to this current point point in the meeting I'll second that motion okay all in favor hi all right thank you that's unanimous so um at this point I'd like to turn it over to uh Fran Rabinowitz um and this is exciting because she's going to present and provide an overview on the Connecticut blueprint to transform Connecticut public schools and we are the first district in the state to be given a presentation regarding this and I've heard that that's extremely exciting because if not for Co would be front page news so we are very excited to have you

031here and I'll just turn it over to you and um thanks again for being here thank you so much um Rosa and many thanks to um all of you for inviting me here today um um I you are the very first Board of Education that I am um presenting to and I think that is um phenomenal I think it's um due to the um um excellent work of your superintendent and might I say assistant superintendent um who are definitely leaders in education in Connecticut both of them are incredibly active as um leaders in our organization and shape M much of the work and so I'm um incredibly appreciative to both and I um am very very impressed with the work of your um students wow I could have sat there all night and just listen

032to them they are amazing and the equity work that's going on in Brookfield should be um widely celebrated um I wish all districts were involved to that level so thank you very much for that great work and um so with that said let me give you a little bit of background on the blueprint so three years ago um when the um ECS formula that is in existence right now was proposed um 95 districts were scheduled to lose dollars Brookfield being one of them and we I felt strongly um as did many superintendant that even though you are not an alliance District so to speak you're not um you're certainly not um um high high poverty um but we do believe that no District in this state quite frankly is um able to sustain um uh

033decreases in state funding uh we believe that the um state has responsibility for funding all districts and funding education in the state to the 50% Mark in other words the state should be responsible as our other states throughout um the United States um responsible for paying half on the whole half of the cost of educating a student Statewide um of course that's weighted according to District but um Connecticut hasn't moved off of um the 39 to 41% um percentage for 30 years they've been um they've been funding at the same level and when we saw that 95 districts were going to lose money um we approached Ted Sergey some of you may recognize that name Ted was a former Commissioner of education and also responsible for the um building of the Connecticut Science Center Ted

034is very conservative one of the authors probably the main author of the ECS formula and um I knew that if he agreed to work with us on a funding proposal um it would be amazingly realistic and also very um very deep and um thoughtful and to my surprise he did agree to work with us so we've been working on this for three months we've also had the expertise of a former officer from the office of policy and management Kathy gay and um we quickly understood that the looking at the ECS formula in isolation as a silo was not the way to get the work done and not the way to change things in the state so we immediately went to other parts of um education including other funding that the state receives or that you

035receive from the state as well as education programming so I'm going to give you a very high level view of that and we'll be happy to answer any questions We Begin Fran if I may just before you start yeah for the board uh and for the public who might be viewing Fran is going to just have a conversation and go through this tonight uh there is a PowerPoint that's posted and there is materials they're very lengthy and so Fran wanted this this to be more conversational and just initiate this with you folks tonight and the board did receive a couple of weeks ago a link to the um to the blueprint uh if you had an opportunity for an advanced rate but what Fran will share tonight I've been a part of in terms of

036her presentation to uh different legislators around the state and uh a verbal presentation I think will be sufficient for your uh revie yeah I didn't want to take you through um all of the um you know the the Grassroots of this I wanted to give you an overall feel for it and John's right I've been meeting I've had multiple meetings every day since this was released in December um multiple meetings every day with legislators um across the state with the governor's office and um frankly with anyone who will listen to um what we believe could be a um a major breakthrough for education in Connecticut so we began with the ECS form formula and we said quite a few things about that we said number one um this is a 15-year plan every District should

037increase by two and a half% we should also be looking at the foundation amount right now the foundation amount in ECS is about 11,000 per student there's no Rhyme or Reason To That Foundation the average cost of um educating a child in Connecticut is somewhere around 16,000 and so we believe that the foundation amount should increase um throughout this 15 years but two and a half% for sure we believe that the 95 districts that were scheduled to lose money should be held harmless and should move ahead at two and a half percent we also believe that ECS dollars should be predictable that it should be three years of funding um that the legislature um provides and that the year that you're changing it it should be changed by May 1st so that you have time

038to make decisions for your own budget and it doesn't come through in the middle of the summer um as a surprise um so those were basically the pieces of ECS we didn't change from um how District should be funded it really is based on um per capita income as as well as median um um median income um free and reduced lunch El Learners and we did add student achievement to um one of the pieces that would be looked at in terms of funding um we also talked about a um phase in as I said of 15 years and we also said that the governor couldn't resend funding in the middle of the cycle um frankly that's what the governor is trying to do right now he's flat funding ECS and we feel that that is

039a um a major mistake we talked at length about um um special ed funding um I think many of you would be interested in that number one the excess cost funding which is huge uh we believe that should be funded 100% we don't need any fancy collaboratives right now you're funded at about 70% of excess costs um we our major increase is due to full funding of ECS we're also working with our federal delegation I've been meeting at length with um Chris Murphy's office and Rosa Doo's office because in the 70s when when Ida and special ed program was was developed they um the federal government then promised 40% reimbursement they're at about 14% And so we do believe that that is also an added push um and within the special ed just as a

040conversation I want to say to you that we believe that um we need to look further at the identification of specialed kids in in 1112 um there were about 11% of the population was specialed today it's about 16% and in some districts it's as high as 25% it's also 25% of the General Ed budget when I say that I don't mean that we don't want service for any child who needs it but I do believe in some districts we are over identif Ying children because we don't have the interventions in place to remediate their um issues before they are um special ed candidates so we're asking for more work on that we're asking for um a change in school construction we're asking for the reimbursement to move from 10 to 70% to 10 to 80%

041and we're also saying that we um we embrace brace greater state requirements on need and justification and we also say efficiency and compliance with all of the state timelines around construction on ad deltaed this is a controversial one but we believe that every District should not have to pre um have to be responsible for adult education in basic education GED eel but rather the resks could be responsible for doing it regionally and have it um situated at in the districts if need be but one Regional program and we believe that the individual districts could run enrichment if they so choose because we understand that that is a money maker but I was superintendent in Hampton and Bridgeport I had a quite a large Adult Ed staff um this would cut back on each district having

042to have that or pay other districts to run their adult ed program we Embrace Early Childhood for all children on three and four year olds it's an aspirational goal we know it won't happen tomorrow but we do believe that um there should be funding for three and four year olds no matter where they live in the state who are below the poverty level and they should be given um access to preschool and it should be paid for by the state um we think we're going to go ahead of that because we do believe that this Administration in Washington will be providing um uh funding for uh early childhood and we want to make sure that we're on the trajectory of having that um ready and to go in terms of asset mapping and finding out

043where all those three and four year olds are that may need um that help in um English language Learners we are saying that every district is receiving more and more English language Learners we need to have a plan for those students how soon will they um um transition um to English or transition to becoming a truly bilingual and at the high school level we need to take advantage of the technology available in the software programs to translate the academic language um for those kids in algebra biology Etc into their native language while they are acquiring English um for transportation any District whose Transportation costs are more than 4% of their District of their District budget and whose um transportation cost is above the median cost for transporting a child Statewide should receive a grant um

044to compensate we have a huge part of this um on um of this proposal deals with structural racism which your um um students were talking so beautifully about tonight we do believe that we need um accelerated learning culture for the kids that are for the kids of color and the kids that are probably poverty-ridden and not performing um to the standards that we wish we think that we need to accelerate them and build on their strengths we believe that we need more training for implicit bias um for all of our Educators and it needs to be included as part of the um um pre-service education we also believe that we need to INR um increase minority recruitment for teachers and leaders the CK program is a great program to get um to move out um

045further to have more minority candidates and we also believe that it's time to have model curriculum at the state level as a superintendent as I'm sure Moren and John can testify to I spent thousand thousands of dollars in curriculum development we believe that there ought to be a model curriculum Statewide in every subject area at least one maybe more brookfields might be a model but put it up there so that all districts can um draw on that curriculum and ensure that it's culturally competent um and we believe that can begin tomorrow um we're talking about virtual learning and we're saying um we've learned a lot during this pandemic some of it very under very trying circumstances and we don't want to lose what we have learned we do believe virtual learning should be part of

046our students experience as they move forward postco um it's hard for me to think about this but the there are many that also say this won't be the last Global Interruption that we have and so we need to be prepared and have great strategies for virtual learning um for student assessment we do believe that um we don't know any more about our kids today than we knew when we were testing them every other year rather than every year now we test um the the kids with esbach in grades three through eight every year and then the sat in grade 11 we think we could cut that back to 35 and seven and still get what we need um put in the PSATs at um at grade nine have the state pay for that continue on

047with the SATs in grade 11 um and use that money repurpose those dollars into doing formative assessments and other creative types of Assessments for um our kids we would save a million to a million and a half in each grade level that we cut back um we also believe that we've got a look at the mental health of students and the social and emotional learning we're asking for more dollars in that area um for uh more student support staff for the infusion of social emotional curriculum and for better symmetry between um the school districts and Community agencies that provide Mental Health um counseling Etc um we do believe that we need to change teacher evaluation um we don't think that the teacher ofal as it stands is the greatest um model going we think we

048can improve upon that we also think we can improve upon the certification regulations make it easier to bring in um uh candidates from other states and cut out some of the challenges in in the teachers certification RS just to let you know I served as um associate commissioner at the state level from 2002 to I think 2 no 2002 to 2008 six seven years and I have to say to you I had regulations ready to go then to the general assembly for approval they didn't go then and they haven't gone since so the regs have not changed in years and it's actually time for them to change um we we ask everyone to understand that when you cut Municipal grants um to the cities you are indirectly affecting education because mun districts exist in municipalities

049and they are part of municipalities and there's just so much money to go around so when those grants are cut education is cut we're asking to look at um teacher retirement our teachers today are not necessarily signing on for 37 and a half years anymore and we ought to make the retirement more transportable um such as 401ks and we might save the state some money there we're asking that um there are some state grants small state grants that have remained in the education budget for years either they were gifts from legislators to their towns or they were gifts to programs um they're about $3 million we believe that those should be repurposed into improving teaching and learning Statewide we look at Regional efficiencies we do not endorse um regionalization but we do endorse Regional efficiencies

050that can be done at the rests better programs better sharing um better prices for fuel Etc is definitely wonderful um we look at governance and we say there ought to be a code of conduct for all board members and any board member who is egregiously violating that should be able to be removed from the Board of Education um and you know I know that doesn't happen in Brookfield but in some districts we have great disruption in the education process because because of um the malfunction of boards um we believe that the magnet schools um should be funded but the equity and funding needs to be looked at um these are bandid programs um over years Hartford receives twice the amount of money that New Haven does and tuition to these programs is becoming more expensive

051um so it really needs to be looked at and there are several other things in here um you know we we knowingly say that we need more research in the area of um strategies for English Learners we definitely need more research in special education but we are asking that the plan be adopted as a whole plan we can work on sections you don't have to agree with every single thing in the plan and we're open to negotiating that we think it would be a great plan for the governor to have to move forward education so that we could all work together and not have these fragmented bills coming in hundreds of them every year um taking us in all different directions if we could just all work together and move in One Direction we think

052it would be really powerful for Connecticut so that's the overview of it there is so much more in the plan I encourage you um if there's anything that you can do to um push forward some of these ideas with your local legislators it would be um greatly appreciated and I'm certainly open to any comments or questions that you may have bran I just had you know besides saying thank you so much for for giving that high level overview but with certainly with enough information for us to start think s think sinking excuse me our teeth into um you know the the theme of alignment and coherence is a familiar one here in Brookfield and a lot of what you discussed um I have to be I have to complement our board um they they we

053talk about this a lot and it's a there's a lot that's in our strategic plan uh in the different initiatives that we're working on albeit the funding is something that we really uh are striving for for getting those changes in so just thank you so much and maybe if I turn it over to Rosa and Rosa you can work with the board to ask questions or make comments thank you yeah so uh the the question that I had was sort of what is uh what's the next step in this process and you know how is this plan anticipated to move forward um that's a great question Rosa it's so interesting I mean we've been working on this for three years and we felt that this was the right time to bring It Forward even though

054we're in the midst of covid because everybody and their mother are coming forward with plans not exactly plans but requests for funding and we think this is much more um well thought out and by the way what I didn't mention is it has the consensus of every superintendent in Connecticut um you don't usually get that guys you you know either Suburban doesn't like it or Urban or rural but all of them have come together and um endorse this plan and so I thought that um in my I I guess I'm somewhat naive even though I've had a long career I thought that the governor's office would Embrace this and take it as their plan that hasn't happened yet and Ted Sergey who's been around longer than I have has said um Fram you've got to

055be patient you've got to keep working on this um so we're working with the legislature we're working with the governor's office um we are hoping that the legislature will at least embrace it as a concept and raise it as a bill going forward that you know um that we won't take it won't have it all done this year but at least say we think the plan has Merit and we want it to move forward and you know perhaps model curriculum will be phased in this year so that's our hope Rosa um if that happens great if it doesn't we'll keep um building momentum to make it happen for the next session thank you other board members you guys have questions was very comprehensive and in depth I think it touched on everything we've ever talked

056yeah I think you that's that's what people have said to me that um you know we didn't go into it with that intention but it just grew and um there were hours and hours and hours of work on this and you know I can say that because I didn't do all the work um you know certainly I have to give the credit to Ted and to my board um of which John is a member um they worked very very hard on this and um really thinking it through and making us think twice and three times about um certain topics but it it makes sense to me it's not all about the funding funding is part of it but it's also about our educational programs and how we move forward with that it's about leadership and

057quality of teaching and accountability for um how are you using the funding to impact um education so I I love that part of it Joy you had a question yeah I said a quick question I make sure I heard you right so you said if as far as busing goes for special education if it's over 4% of our budget that we're putting towards busing that you can apply for a grant for that um all um busing as a whole not just special ed but if you're busing busing as a whole but if your transportation cost as a whole is more than 4% of your dis of your District cost and above the median cost of transporting a child Statewide you can um we believe you don't have to apply for a grant a grant should

058be provided to you okay thank you there used to be Transportation grants you know they've just been taken out of the budget Fran I just want to say that as I mean I read through the document but listening to you talk about it there's this constant theme of collaboration that that has to that runs through the entire um schema and I think that that's really um that's really the ticket you know we can't even though we're independent we can't be 16769 whatever the number is today um districts all spinning in our own our own orbit we it that's just a waste of um of talent a waste of funding and I think that the the plan as articulated really addresses that in a very uh logical way like we have to work together yeah thanks

059Moren and to be honest with you the thing that I'm hoping it moves forward but the thing that's been incredibly gratifying to me is no one can remember in the history of um superintendencies and and work in Connecticut a plan that was as far-reaching and that had the consensus of all superintendents in the state that so I'm um I'm proud of that and I can say it because it's not my plan it's the Cap's plan but I would say to you that um that in and of itself speaks to the um collaborative nature Fran are you working to get the consensus of all the boards of Education as well I'm trying Bob um I'm trying with cab to um to get them to buy into it as well I think they generally support the plan

060and I am um um I want to work with Bob Raider to get copies out to all of the board members as well I mean I think they're going to generally support all of it they may not support the part on the board and the code of conduct for board members I'm not sure about that and the ability to remove a board member um I'm not positive of that but I think the rest of it they could probably support I'm looking I'm also we're I'm searching for Grants so that I can help cave and others and give them some dollars and funding that they can use to get the plan out there and and um work with their constituencies on it well I just I just think about it broadly that the uh you've got

061the Educators right supporting the plan and now what you need is the voices of the public to also support the plan and that's your boards of Education First and your Selectmen second and then the voices start becoming a lot harder to avoid I think you're you're absolutely right right Bob and I I've been I've been presenting um uh I presented to CCM last Friday I presented it to the small towns today I have another meeting with CCM next Friday so I'm trying to do that and um I do think your point is well taken that we could present this to the boards as well and ask for their approval yes you're not going to get the approval unless you ask for right exactly thank you that's great suggestion anyone else yeah I had some uh

062more more fiscally based questions um you mentioned briefly there's areas to actually save money in the long run yes um what what's is there a lot of is there a lot of uh is there a lot of that or is there is it no there's not a whole lot well there is I mean I consider it a lot because you don't usually see a plan from Educators um on a Statewide basis saying you know let's redirect dollars but the assessment dollars are probably somewhere in about four and a half million and your um you're you're taking the small grants out of the budget is probably another 4 million so you're talking um somewhere in the area of about $8 million in Savings in the budget the other piece is this um proposal uh if you

063know Ted sergy he deals with reality and you know I've been part of many many consortiums over the years that have asked for exorbitant amounts of money um for ECS funding or exorbitant amounts of money for Equity funding um hundreds of millions of dollars this grant this um proposal is very reasonable it's like 78 million in the first banial 78 million in a $2 billion um item is not a lot of money and even that we said could be phased in but you know I don't know um where um where the legislature will go on that and you were saying that you 78 million is the total and you were just you're probably expecting a fraction of that to be reasonably passed through well I'm thinking I have a note here I'm like some module

064like I was writing pretty fast I can't read my own handw writing yeah 78 million in the first year of the banial okay but much of that is um excess cost money um in in in special ed um I believe um just about all of it is in the excess cost what we feel is that excess cost May well be taken care of at the federal level so um you know I'm even willing to put that on hold for a while if people were willing to come forward and embrace the plan as a whole and say we'll work on this we'll take it forward and when you take I mean the special education cost obviously as you know it's a huge percentage of everyone's budget including ours um what I I'm I guess I'm kind

065of lost on what do you what what are we expected to do with that extra money as far as like where you know where does it go like so now we have all SE money and I get we have lots of programs we all we all want to build on um is it is it all is it does it sound that good is what I'm trying to say it sounds that good yeah I mean it right now you're um excess cost is you know four and a half times your per people expenditure so any child that you send out of District or you have a cost that uh is four and a half times your expenditure the state reimburses you for that child at 70% we're saying about 70% we're saying uh reimburse at 100%

066And also at the same time let's look for more more reasonable programs in District and at the resks now I didn't get into the weeds in this but I would say to you we're also looking for that excess cost to be reimbursed at a higher rate if you keep the child in District or at a risk because we do believe that those are more reasonable programs than some of your private facilities that can you know run 15 200,000 um oh I agree yeah it's a problem is there would there be an audit process for that because as I understand those private institutions I don't know if they're worth 70 80 $150,000 a year uh this is a question I always ask the the you know legislators doesn't seem to be one so would that be

067part this is something I would like to see done would that be part of this plan to make sure we didn't ask for we didn't ask for it but it certainly has been asked for in other bills and we've been pushing that for a long time because the private programs um don't go under the same scrutiny in our book that all of the um res programs or the District programs are under and they're very I think that's a problem yep yep and they're very expensive yeah I don't want to say they're not worth it I just don't know I don't know either you know I mean they may well be worth it and some and you we also can't blanket them there may be some that are just wonderful and others that are not but

068we ought to know that thank you thank you very much okay thank you uh Fran I know that you have another meeting and uh we're still at the top of our agenda so I want to very much for your overview and this was very very um in even though it was a high level overview it was um it was it really gave us something to think about and um we appre apprciate you being here thank you so much for inviting me and I'm sorry if I took more time than I should have um but I'm I'm five minutes over for my next meeting so that's fine and I greatly appreciate it and thank you for being the um First District that um stepped up to the plate to have the Board of Education hear this

069plan greatly appreciate it absolutely thank you very much take care guys care bye okay uh let's move on to written correspondence hi Jessica Jessica wrote praising her son's teacher Ron jaffy shared a PBS lesson plan Liam Ania wrote regarding youth commission surveys Rose Oliver wrote regarding social emotional learning Veronica Smith wrote regarding the new school name Dennis ceris wrote regarding weather related school closings and Janet laforgia wrote regarding a tax rate okay thank you uh approval of board minutes I will move that the board approve the minutes from the regular meeting on January 20th and the special joint meeting on February 3rd second thanks Joy all in favor hi hi okay thanks that's unanimous let's move on to the superintendant update all right thank you and and happy birthday Rosa I thought take my time

070to start with that I will be very brief considering um our presentations this evening uh Dr Sullivan uh sent an update of with an exclamation point of much improved um as of February 6th our last two week covid period um we are down about uh six percentage points in terms of positivity rate uh case rate excuse me and our positivity rate is down a full percentage Point um as indicated in my uh covid notification for positive cases last night over the 4-day weekend there was one case that happened to be at whis Ander and this evening I have not had to send out a notification because we had no new cases today so let's hope cross our fingers and pray that this is a trend going in the right direction and we can continue moving

071that way um we're really pleased about that and if there was to be any Spike after the Super Bowl we probably would have already seen it according to our U Public Health and Medical uh experts so we we should be past that stage but's let's continue to think positively about that um I'd also like to share um that uh Mr Banda uh put out a survey on Monday of last week and he talked about uh in that survey exploring the idea of perhaps Brookfield High School coming uh to school five days per week given the fact that about half of the parents are choosing to have their children stay home uh from Brookfield High School and being the remote learning model um that survey uh has yielded after Mr Banda and his team went through

072over the weekend uh duplicate surveys and and really uh made sure that it was uh accurate information about half of the parents have responded to that survey so what we're going to have to do is uh Mr BL will be assigning a few members of his team over at the school to call uh families who have not responded to find out their intentions should we go in the direction of of more than a hybrid schedule so um it's going to take us at least another week to to gather that information um but we continue to ultimately have a goal to be able to come to school more often uh in person and uh we wanted to let you know about that Mr Bland did you have anything to add on that I see saw you

073pop up just want to make sure I covered it no I was I was just here in case you needed me to answer any questions I'm here thank you I appreciate that uh in addition to that at the high school um a lot of great things going on uh in addition to the spotlight this evening and um our wonderful student representative uh I had mentioned to the board but I think it's really important to share with the public that once again um our student athletes under Mr Baldwin's leadership and under all of our coaches leadership uh was recognized again for the Michaels cup award which has to do with sportsmanship uh commitment to empowering students to be active participants in um developing and enhancing School culture and also for community service so we're really just

074thrilled again and I was able to watch a little bit of the virtual ceremony I think it was last Thursday or Friday uh where several of our students including our dance team were able to share talk participate and perform um and that was a full C Statewide um uh program so really just incredible work going on and and then finally uh two local superintendent updates uh some of you may have read in the news times last week after 15 years um our friend colleague and mentor Dr s Pascarella has decided to retire from Danbury and so we want to wish him well and thank him for all of his contributions to Brookfield in terms of his just general mentorship and camaraderie over the years and then also Alicia de corpo who has been the assistant

075superintendent for the last five years was named last week as the permanent superintendent and I actually had the pleasure of getting to be her Mentor so um we're excited for her in her first year so those are our neighbor superintendents and I thought I'd share that information along with the board tonight I have nothing else new to share and can entertain any questions you may have any questions thank you everyone okay thank you Dr bro okay uh subcommittee reports up first is Cape okay so good evening everybody um so we had a great meeting uh a few weeks ago and uh Mark belanda presented the high school program of studies which he does every year um and in comparison to some prior years there's not uh a tremendous amount of uh changes um but a

076couple of exciting ones uh one is the addition of an EMT course um that students would could be eligible to receive some col college credit um and then a couple of other courses included our human rights elective and science research which now would be students could earn um it would be at an honors level or in the human rights uh situation there was college credit that they could earn so some some small changes but exciting ones and then uh Moren updated us about the work of our library uh media specialists uh in really looking at doing a a deep dive into uh our approach to equity and diversity in terms of our uh catalog of books and so I think that would um the kids on the human rights committee would be excited to hear

077about that and they're also participating in um professional development uh and to help them sort of uh further that work and that was it okay thank you any questions for Jen okay thanks Jen up next is facilities you're on mute sorry about that okay so the committee of reviewed the schoolo reports Mr cwell reported that most of the work orders were related to heating issues during the cold weather the committee got got a w WMS water update so we met our water system operator Mr tasac Mr tasac reviewed at length about the elevated lead levels that were found in two samples at whis skiner in his in his opinion it's not alarming um he did explain the injection system plan that he's working on to reduce the lead levels the plan is due to the

078state by February 18th um he'll get back to us regarding the cost of the system and any recurring costs for the future the committee got a the BHS locker room project update from tekon um they presented the committee with several options to reduce the pro projected cost of the project and will soon be provided with an updated project cost estimate Mr cwell reported that he's reviewing applications for the two remaining vacancies there's one night position at the high school and one regular custodian position that will possibly be split between the buildings still open we discussed the nas facilities recommendations after receiving an update on their status from Mr coalwell and we also discussed the ventilation and exhausting of air in the schools and that's it do anybody have any questions all right thanks Joy okay

079uh up next is the finance subcommittee all right so can you hear me okay yep all right so uh we met on February 8th um we talked about the same topics we talk about every time about our current Financial Outlook and we talked about the budget I want to briefly touch on each of those terms of the current year Financial Outlook um Mr post reported uh that his Outlook is actually improved by about just short of $50,000 um and it was driven by some special ed tuition costs primarily but also some reductions in transportation costs um and uh and all in all it was a good report with good news so um we've shared that with the board of Finance at the on the following Wednesday and they also thought it was good news so

080that was a that's a positive report I hope that the trend continues at this point we are still rolling uh in Outlook with a deficit against our budget we would overspend our budget by 142,000 and change U but that was expected because if you remember the board that includes all the covid spending and the board of finances has agreed to cover any covid spending we couldn't cover ourselves so that has been an ongoing discussion and uh and it's uh it's trending in the right direction that actually makes the impact Less on the town um in terms of budget I just wanted to uh uh we T talk we did an update on where we were on the budget um and what the good news is we got an updated estimate on uh on the insurance

081costs you all got a a note from uh Mrs Fernandez on uh on that so you've all seen it but for the public uh we've been uh outlooking a pretty sizable a year-to-year increase in our um our uh our uh Insurance costs for health benefits and we've actually got updated estimate from our broker that says it's only going to it's going to grow at a much more moderate rate and so it saves a significant amount of money and takes what was a little over 4% growth to I want to say 3.2% and change uh growth and uh that puts our budget in probably the best possible position that it could be going into the reviews with the board of Selectmen and the board of Finance now for everybody there is a process that goes on

082on the budget now we've approved our budget right um The Next Step was the board of Selectmen I'm sorry the first Selectmen makes a proposed budget which he had to do by February 15 uh then the board of Selectmen does it by the beginning of March and then the board of finance will do their reviews by uh mid April with a referendum in May so there's still a couple of months uh road that we're on but at this point uh we've got two important things first of all the first select M presented his budget to the board of Selectmen and did not take any reductions in the Board of Ed budget other than that one adjustment you know in terms of new news on the rate that's really good news I mean usually going into

083that step it's a last year it was a very s ible reduction that we struggled with uh if you recall so that's uh positive news means our budget was uh about in the right position for the taxpayers uh affordability as we see it for our needs of our students uh the second is the board of Finance has been extraordinarily complimentary on the presentation we gave to the Joint Boards of select men and finance about our budget in terms of the level of detail the transparency and the uh and the openness to and answering of their questions and in fact probably the thing I've heard the most about is the fact that we took all the questions that we asked as a board and put them in a document shared that document was huge in terms

084of their their understanding the the depth of the questions we were asking so I have to thank the board and the administration for all the hard work that we went through in December and in January it is helping the process here as we're going forward so with that that's uh that's the update on the finance committee and I kind of went a little beyond what was on the agenda to catch everybody up on what's going on in the budget and uh thank you for the time are there any are there any questions all right okay thank you okay uh equity and inclusion okay the committee met last Thursday um couple brief updates I shared with the committee that a parent from Brookfield High School has been working with principal belanda incorporating some programs at BHS

085for black history month and she wanted to reach out to the committee to possibly bring something to the other schools uh we also introduced a new member who has joined us from the district and that's Human Resources Director Miss Terry Kavanaugh we felt it would be crucial to have her voice in the conversation as we anticipate down the road having discussions regarding employee diversity hiring practices Etc um Dr Brill spoke briefly about Governor Lamont's budget proposal and the possibility of danur becoming an open Choice district and he shared that he was bringing forward an equity inclusion policy to the policy committee which that was tonight so we'll be hearing more on that at our next meeting um then we spent the rest of the meeting working on developing the committee Charter which was facilitated facilitated

086by Dr Ruby um Dr Ruby created did a slide presentation which covered why we're doing this work a brief overview of the ruler approach and defining what a charter is why we need one and how we will create it um the first slide was touching on the why of we're doing this work and it was a really cool thing that Dr Ruby shared it was a video about the Messiah tribe in Africa um and how the fierce those Fierce Warriors greet each other um daily with the greting of how are the children which sort of signifies the that cultures built upon the well-being of children which is kind of what we're working toward as well then we moved on to some examples of Charter building um some which were right here from classrooms in Brookfield

087Charter building is about creating productive learning and working environments by setting up positive emotional climates using a great upon Norm so basically it's how we want to feel in the group and how we can help each other feel that way so some of the examples like from our students where we want to feel calm so how do we feel that way we take deep breaths we want to feel safe we wear our masks and we keep distance Etc then after that presentation we split into five breakout rooms and we use Jam board which was really cool and discuss the feelings that we want to experience as part of the group each group settled on four to five feeling words which were brought forward when the full committee regrouped to try and decide on the final

088feelings that will Define our Charter we had quite a robust discussion following that with people making cases for work words or which words they felt Define the same feeling or didn't Define the same feeling we ended up with a lot of discussion on um respected challenged I would say productive heard impactful those were some of the ones that had a lot of dis heavily discussed and uh it was decided time was running short so a survey would be created that everyone could rank their choices and Dr Ruby followed up with that and sent that out the next day so we'll be meeting again in March and we'll pick up where we left off to complete the charter I don't know if John Orin if you want to add anything to that or if anyone has

089any questions uh you are like the best summarizer ever Amy so I have nothing to add that was like it was almost like they're all there seeing it that was great thank you okay thank you Amy okay uh the next item on our agenda is the consent agenda okay I will move that the board approve the items on the consent agenda which are new hires and resignations and the January financials second thanks Joy all in favor I thank you that's unanimous okay in new business uh the first item now is the proposed revision to the program of studies and there's a motion for this I will move that the board approve the proposed revisions to the programs of program of studies as recommended by the cape subcommittee assistant superintendent Dr Morin Ruby and BHS principal

090Mark Banda second thanks Joy uh Mr Banda do you have a do you wantan to sure yeah I'll I will um just quickly kind of review the the changes as uh uh Mrs leaden so nicely put their haven't been a ton of changes uh since we started this program um this year uh it's just kind of refining there's a few things in there uh that I would certainly draw attention to so the whole board knows certainly one of which is talks about the effects of covid-19 um it's important to put that in there due to the fact that we have a a current community service requirement and we want to make sure that we can account for that we can't require kids to go out in the community and do volunteer service hours um given

091where we are now so it just it allows us some um you know for un unforeseen circumstances that we're we're facing at this point to be able to adjust students will still have the time to earn that credit so it's not going to be an issue it shouldn't affect them at all whatsoever but we did want to put it in there as of note um we do we are looking to put a I think four different new programs in as possible courses that we're offering um two of which do have um college credit um so the four programs we're looking to do the courses excuse me are intro to programming forensic science uh EMT training and introduction to Human Rights right and so of those four um new programs that we proposed uh two of

092them actually have uh college credit that's EMT training so not only would is could somebody get certified to be an a EMT uh they could also get college credit for it through Yukon and introduction human rights also has a Yukon ECE component as well where students can also get college credit for that um EMT training that has kind of gotten out a little bit in the community um being a small community people have started to hear about the possibility of that um being a being an option for next year and uh we've been lucky to be in communication with or somebody reached out actually to Dr Bell offering um the Brookfield Fire Department and all the support and help that we could need in terms of training and support they're really excited to have a

093pipeline uh for that to happen and we're excited to be able to possibly offer something for kids to get a a quite a very well-paying job quite frankly um after being certified as an EMT but also getting some wonderful life skills um so those are two of the courses the other two courses I mentioned uh one is forensic science uh we have we're very heavy heavily loaded in terms of life science electives at Brookfield High School that's not atypical for most high school programs um most people get certified in biology and Life Sciences that's just typically where the certifications lie um but we wanted to have something that incorporates a little bit more so believe it or not forensic science would be an academic level course that'd be a semester are long and it's just

094it's a different approach it involves not just biology but also physics and even some earth science stuff so it really incorporates a multidisiplinary approach um for students so that's something we're very interested in and then you heard a little bit from um our students from the human rights Club um one of the things that we have there is a course at the University of Connecticut called introduction to Human Rights um and so that actually increases some of our Humanity electives which is fantastic and so that's an opportunity to provide another opportunity for kids to take different Humanities course and then the other two there's also introduction to programming that's another one that I wanted to make sure you knew that we were looking to add uh we've had this conversation for several years right now

095if a student wants to take computer programming at Brookfield High School the only option really is AP Computer Science and that can be offputting to some people they don't necessarily want to take an AP level course to start um really experience the coding and programming piece so we're we're looking to do it's an it's an open source using python is the language that we have we have staff in the building that are well versed in it and so we'll be looking at the being able to bring that and that's possibly just giving kids an opportunity to take computer programming if they're interested and then you know really prepare kids for those that want to go to the next step to computer science so we start to have a sequence which is nice uh in terms

096of uh increasing the level there uh we did look at also doing something with yearbook um right now moving it's a course which does take up a lot of seat time um we wanted to move into an after school club uh one of the things that we do get rated on certainly uh by the state of Connecticut every year in the school accountability index is our um art electives and the amount of students that take those art electives we have two art teachers right now um to give it to to have one te one of our art teachers teach a section of um yearbook for pretty much the whole year makes it a real challenge um or even a semester when we can actually offer other electives so uh and there's plenty of interest of

097kids that want to do this after school so we just proposed moving from a course to an after school piece um and they could be one times a week one time a week excuse me uh and then the last one um uh Jen did talk about which was scientific research moving it to an honors level so uh we found the work that's been done over the last two years with that particular course has really um been at a very high level and students are asking some pretty uh high level questions and doing some really specific research and um the amount of work and time and effort that it's taking we're really looking at that and saying it really should be at an honors level so those are the big ones the big the changes that

098I summarized for the course of studies and uh you know compared to previous years it was like two or three pages long this is a lot shorter than it has been in years past and that's thanks to the you know working with Dr Ruby and the cape subcommittee to make sure that everything's aligned we're trying new things and um we're getting there we're always I'll always have I will always bring changes and updates for you I promise because that's it's a living document that we have have to keep working with um but it's not as many as we have in the past so that's a good sign um so I might have missed it but what are students now doing for their volunteer hours not being able to sort of be in the community so

099right now there really isn't um it's one of those things where it was up students for the class of 2022 so the current seniors uh were required to take uh excuse me 2021 were required to have uh 50 hours of community service the challenge is with that is that if student wanted to earn all those community service hours let's say they wait till their senior year to start doing that work um there really is no opportunity for people to volunteer much in the community at this point we didn't want to put the board or anyone else in any sort of liability by putting kids in the community requiring them to do that so that is waved at this point um they still have to earn the same 25 credits that everybody else has but all

100our kids are having you know we've done audits in terms of courses and and students have not had any issue meeting that so no one will not graduate because they didn't get Comm service hours or because they didn't have time to earn them so it does actually pan out but um it's something that down the road we will'll continue to look at because we've had another half year already almost where it's been really difficult for kids to get out in the community so uh I will eventually come back so I don't want to get rid of it but it's something that we're just very cognizant of moving forward and is that also um a state requirement as well it is not a state requirement it's something that we put in several years ago I want

101to say three years three or four years ago um when the state offered as an opportunity that you could ear ear up to you could award up to a half credit for community service I love the idea of that um and really I'd eventually quite frankly would like to put a day of service into the school um school year at some point in time where the whole high school is out working in the community um I think it'd be a great thing to do so um the rewards and benefits that come from that uh have been you know I've heard a lot of good things about what kids are doing some schools have 30 hours 50 hours puts it just enough over the top so it's got to be a little bit more than just

102um you know a a basic you know raking leaves in your backyard for someone else it really puts it A step above and we have a whole community service criteria and handbook that explains the process and how students go about earning that uh credit and getting signed off on it okay thank you any other questions okay so uh we do have a motion on the table that's been seconded so uh guess we will proceed to vote all those in favor hi thanks thank you very much I appreciate it all right uh the next item is the dissolution of the board subcommittee the new school naming committee okay I will move um as an ad hoc committee having met their objective to formally review the background and history of the town of Brookfield as well as

103engaging staff and Community regarding the process of naming the new prek to5 school and in alignment with board policy number 7551 and having recommended those names to the board of education for discussion and final approval the new school naming committee be dissolved do I have a second second thanks Bob all those in favor hi just a brief discussion in public what thank you guys you did a great job okay let's move on to Old business and the first item is the Board of Education adopted budget for 2122 um Ken if you're there um because we and actually by has already given such a great review of this particular budget um item but I think it would be helpful for the public to um kind of see visually maybe if we if you can share your

104uh screen of those possible of those adjustments that um could be made and we have made public via sharing it with the board of Finance um but I think it would be helpful to kind of walk through those so that it's perfect right up in front and then we can actually have a formal motion on this sure can you see it yep okay so basically it's all it's all in uh adjustments to Insurance the first four items are our workers comp life insurance disability and property liability insurance and I was able to um adjust those because we got actual rate quotes from the the companies which was helpful and as Bob mentioned with the health insurance the early estimates we had based on our actuary and some Communications we had a while back from the

105partnership plan was that our rates were would go up by as much as 99.75% so that's what I built into our original budget as did the town and then correspondence the town had with the folks at the partnership plan um and they pushed back on it because it's such a drastic change but the the folks they were talking to were insistent and they thought their estim might even be a little conservative that the increase was going to be around 4% so changing our estimate from 99.75% increase to a 4% increase saved us $311,000 which brings our total adjustments to $355,900 and our revised budget uh which is as Bob said is reflected in um Mr Dunn's work today uh a 3.29% increase and on this worksheet I sent out although we haven't made any decision

106decisions on what we're going to do with the Esser Grant I had listed a couple of possibilities that you had seen prior which would reduce it another $ 7,560 right possibly possibly but we have to have those discussions and do A needs assessment so I mean this this was um a really big sigh of relief so thank you for uh for really doing all the to to hone in on that number hey a question on the Esser Grant stuff when will we be doing the needs assessment we're actually still waiting Bob we've been inquiring of the state and we still do not have the needs assessment from them and what what process they'd like us to partake in prior to submitting the application the application I believe is due in just a couple of weeks

107so I I don't know what's taking them so long uh having said that we are having our our conversations um among the admin team and actually I move moved up a principal's meeting to next Tuesday rather than waiting another week so we could have a full uh full dialogue with with the leadership team about what we'd like to do with those uh with with with the new funds that we found ourselves uh having available to us I'm just thinking the uh um that these are sizable enough that uh we have a board of Finance meeting on the Mrs Fernandez I want to say was the 9th of the 9th of March so having some and we have a board of we have a finance committee meeting just before that I think that's a Tuesday and

108our finance committee meeting is on the on the eth and do we do do we have a a board of ed full Board of Ed meeting on the 2 uh third I think but yes that whatever that week before so there's number of opportunities to talk about and um and continue to flush out this as we intercept that budget process so I'm just thinking we ought to have that in our head in terms of taking advantage of those moments right um and the for beginning of March right because it will help the discussion with the budget absolutely and that's why we wanted to have that full conversation uh next Tuesday which I think is February 23rd so that gives us that time to uh be prepared for the following week to have at least a

109strong initial discussion um but to be very Frank the technology in the summer school the technology PD and the summer school that Ken has put up there these are numbers that you know I've had a conversation with Mr Dunn about and so forth so um at this point those are pretty Sol solid areas we'd like to take a look at but there may be some additional ones and you know the the input of uh School leadership is really important um well in the end we ought not be making the decision on how to use the Esser Grant based on just budget management because that's not what it's intended for it ought to be we ought to be saying the needs assessment is relative to the criteria on the grant if happens to intercept a couple

110of budget items then that's a good thing but you know in the end I think the discussion and priorities to me is about what was the purpose of the grant what's the guidance from the state you know all the things that I know you're working on so yeah sure sure and I think I think about to that point just the the language we always want to remind everybody about because people get excited to see the grant money and they just reduce the budget and to your point as a reminder for everybody it is it is not to supplant but to supplement and so we can't and the two items you have here happen to be additions to the budget they're not standing programs these are um so they're not supplanting they're it just would be

111how are we dealing with new items right so that are very needed coming out of this crazy environment we've been in so both of them right so um so I I I I think we kind of passed that ey test I think it's more a question of um of making sure it fits the criteria right and that you're you're the best judge of that in my mind so thank you about a question about the summer school if if the Esser Grant is used for the summer school in the next school year and we plan to obviously continue with that program um I don't know if we've thought thought two years down the road but essentially that would be treated as a new investment in our operational budget two years from now correct correct Rose and

112we've talked that through um in some detail uh we have uh if I recall the exact number it's $328,000 uh and we have to expend the funds by uh I believe it's September 2023 so just as an example if we were to if that $55,000 that that uh Dr Ruby has really detailed out in in the budget process as an estimate for the program in mind you that's only for our elementary level students the the some of our other grants take care of the the middle school summer school program and this is all for regular education that we're talking about um it it would be something that if we didn't use the SR grant funding in year two or or summer two or summer three it would obviously be an operational cost so those are

113things we have to consider in addition to that we have very uncertain times coming up and while we whatever process the state would like us to um partake in as part of the needs assessment we are are still awaiting our U Middle Of Thee assessments on our students uh those will take place likely by mid to end of March uh for the for the most part maybe not all of them will be done by then uh in addition to that we don't know exactly what's going to come up uh next year and so we do our best uh to look as forward as we can but there may be opportunity where we might want to bring in uh some interventionists some tutors some Specialists so we don't want to just go expending Um the funds

114immediately because we have time to spend them so we want to really be strategic intentional with that so that's just important for everybody to be thinking about as well think that's a great way to think about it okay um are there any other questions on on these adjustments this is great news I tell you what it makes it if you actually look at the board of selectman's budget it is a it's I think their overall spending is um is not up much more than the 3% and that means the taxx rate is up 1 point something per. so it it actually is a really nice balance in this budget and I'm hoping this you know it'll get all the scrutiny that's needed by all the parties who do it but it's a tight budget and

115at the same time it's not wild and crazy so I I think this is uh this is going to work pretty well this year I'm optimistic so um considering that uh I will move to reduce the adopted budget point point of order we should not be voting to change our budget why it's not in our hands anymore we've already voted on it we've passed it on it's in the board of selectman's hands now okay the The Next Step I mean we we have nothing more to vote on right we' we voted we passed it on it's on the board of it's on the first selectman's hands he's voted he's passed it on it now goes to the a board of Selectmen and then it goes to the board of Finance they're the ones doing the

116voting now so at this point we are passing information on in a very open way but we don't have to revote our budget okay is there any other uh questions or comments on the budget all right so we can move on to the uh Elementary School New Candlewood Lake Elementary School building project update um the only uh update that um I can share just in in speaking with the chair of the NBC is that uh everything right now is still being considered uh very preliminary um they're vetting all of the bids but as of right now they're appearing to be very favorable um one of the initial concerns that we were having when we were anticipating the bids coming in and and hoping that they were favorable is that the additional classrooms that we had

117added to the design after a referendum we were hoping that the the bids were going to be favorable so that that wasn't going to be an issue in the budget and that looks like that um is not going to be a case so it's not going to be a problem and that's and that's great news um so we have um you know no issue with the those additional classrooms um so everything right now um is going through um a bunch of special meetings so um Dr BR do you have anything to to add to that yeah ju just uh kind of circling back to something that uh I mentioned that I don't know if it was uh must have been at the end of January in our second meeting uh just about getting ready for

118groundbreaking and again the the bids uh and that process really has to be finished up before we know exactly when uh we'll be groundbreaking but it appears that maybe at the end of the first week or middle of March that fencing will start to go up maybe some materials will start to get dropped off uh and and maybe actual groundbreaking so um I've been asked um I talked to Rosa about this I talked to Mr check over from the NBC and also to tecton and they said why don't we just wait a little bit and and you know om as well let's get through the bid process before we have a groundbreaking ceremony and it's it's okay to have a groundbreaking ceremony after the brown is actually broken you don't have to do it right

119at the moment that materials are arriving speaking of materials arriving Mrs Lano Dr pep saski myself and and Rosa um penned a um kind of a update letter uh informing the parents um about uh what to expect in terms of fencing and uh play areas for recess and physical education Mrs laan's already spoken with the faculty um and and shared with them what the site layout is going to look like uh certainly things will be different and um I really have to appreciate Melissa's leadership on this and really being proactive and getting ready we won't be putting that out to the families until we know uh when uh first arrival of fencing and so forth uh is coming in and then we want to give people a week or two lead time the great thing

120uh about what's going on and this is part of the original planning is that's going to be built in the back of uh the school um so there's uh not going to be disruption to learning and and that kind of thing however um a lot of land is going to be taken for Access Road um in play areas and so forth so we we have that plan uh put in place um and uh we we'll get the word out uh to the families uh traffic uh should not be affected for parent drop off or anything like that or much in the way of losing parking spaces I think we might lose one or two parking spaces for the access road but that's really about it and that will last us the rest of this year

121and all through um the 2122 school year so we'll be living with that for quite a while um Mrs laano was there anything you wanted to add I don't know if I covered everything there and thank you for your leadership on this I just no I think the biggest um concerns were just the points that there's going to be limited land to use um so our biggest concern was play areas for recess um new fire drill locations just those safety concerns um the turnaround for buses um but we seem to have a plan moving forward um as you said Dr Burl there shouldn't be too much disruption um and it's all part of the letter that we crafted and will be shared with families once we know more when um stuff starts to arrive and

122it's official okay any questions on that or comments all right uh so we are actually moving on to three main points um I think we should mention the new human rights club and the presentation that we got from those amazing students um after that I I guess I would I think mentioning the approved program of studies for the high school is important and the budget I'm just looking through the agenda to see if there was anything else the other thing was the blueprint to transform Connecticut schools but be hard to summarize very hard to summarize feel like there's not immediate action item on it so I think the three you mentioned were good okay yep I'm good with that okay upcoming events okay as I'm looking I'm thinking a couple of these this week are

123probably going to be weather dependent like CES we have remote learner pickup scheduled for Friday Friday the 19th uh community meeting on Friday the 26th remote learner Lunch Bunch with Mrs diamond on Friday the 26 and read across a be starting March 1st through the 5th at Huckleberry there's a PTO meeting uh via zoom on the 19th Friday at 9:30 and they're also doing read Across America spirit week from the 1st to the 5th and tomorrow at whis skiner 8th graders are supposed to be taking the PSAT and girls basketball and boys basketball have a few home games coming up for the girls it's the 22nd and March 1st and the boys have a home game on the 25th right d did they have one today the the boys had a game today and so

124the girls boys were home uh girls were in bethl can I just make a um we we moved the uh PSATs to we we already reschedule them because we couldn't take a chance of um tomorrow being a um early dismissal we wouldn't be able to to get the PSATs in so we moved it to next Tuesday perfect I think it's the 23rd y right Mrs kavar reminded me just as a town uh piece the um Clinic vaccination clinic uh Brookfield vaccination clinic has been rescheduled uh due to weather tomorrow so there there's no clinic tomorrow oh a remote learner pickup was moved for Mrs Diamond till tomorrow Friday Friday looks like the more difficult day so that would be the reason for that and that's for upcoming events all right thank you okay so we

125have um an executive session uh planned for this evening um Amy would you like to go ahead and read that motion that the board enter into executive session to discuss the superintendent's mid-year goals second thanks Joy all in favor all right so good even or have a good night everyone um and that will conclude our publicly streamed portion and uh everybody else hopefully you got the link that I sent earlier and I will see you in there bye bye bye thank you