001oh there's two it just doesn't just on my phone that's all hello hi harry thank you for all your help harry oh you're welcome that's me that's a rarity rosie you're all set to start great uh good evening everyone today is wednesday february 3rd 2021 and i call the special meeting of the board of education to order this is steve dunn for selectmen and i call the board of selectmen to order glenn rooney calling the board of finance to order okay uh in accordance with executive order 7b suspending sections 1-206-1-225-1-226 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 the dial-in information
002if you'd like to listen uh from your phone is area code seven 301 five eight five nine two or area code nine two nine two zero five six zero nine nine and the meeting id is nine nine four zero two four seven six five two nine okay 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 okay we have all of our board of ed members present um so we can uh go ahead and um eric if you want to pull up the presentation we can just get right into it all right and actually you can just go yep perfect uh so a couple years ago the board and the
003entire administrative team for each school constructed the portrait of a graduate which is a short but all-encompassing list of competencies that we strive to have every graduate achieve during their time in brookfield this has become the focus of everything we do including perhaps most importantly construction of this budget what you'll see in this adopted budget is a continuation of systems and tools that we know have demonstrated work for our students as well as investments planned over the span of years and those strategically drive students towards becoming critical and creative thinkers communicators collaborators and change makers next slide please did harry get kicked out of the meeting i see him i just got a message that popped up harry i'll be back on in a minute okay all right so as many of you uh know
004that our budget cycle really begins in october of the school year prior to the year that we're planning for which not only makes this an extremely time consuming process but one that requires a lot of expertise in all of the areas and facets of education to anticipate these large expenses so far in advance and it's also a process that evolves over time and we'll continue to do so until we bring this hopefully to referendum later this year the superintendent's proposal is presented to the board of the brookfield board of ed far earlier than in most towns in connecticut it was presented at our first december meeting this school year and what that has allowed us to do as a board was ask questions over the course of four regular meetings a special meeting a budget
005hearing and ultimately what arose was pages of questions all of which have been provided to you but it's also allowed the finance committee to meet several times and we actually met weekly from about mid-december through the middle of january and delve into every single item of this budget and understand how each figure was calculated from the individual department level upward this was done alongside eileen from the board of finance who joined us as well as our town controller miss marion uh this is an iterative process that continues today so we present this budget estimate to you all tonight with the understanding that adjustments may still be ahead of us any of those estimates that are still awaiting confirmation have been noted and they're being watched and adjustments in either direction will be communicated at your
006upcoming regular meetings next slide please so our goals have remained the same but given the context of the current environment and how this pandemic has impacted education our goals are more challenging to reach of course we must provide the necessary resources to meet the needs of all of our students and those needs have grown so you'll see many new positions many of which were needed this current year but were not able to be accomplished given our budgetary issues with enrollment in special education the specific needs those positions would have addressed remain today while this pandemic has increased their urgency so you'll see enhancements to programming for regular education students we don't have the increased enrollment issues that we did last year but we do make adjustments in both directions so to maintain class sizes within
007board guidelines we plan to reduce one fourth grade section and reallocate that teacher to second grade to provide for a rigorous and relevant curriculum using best practices in instruction assessment and learning you'll see classroom library books and professional development added to this budget the need to provide the technology infrastructure that effectively supports student success in a digital learning environment has never been more validated than it has this past year so you'll see investments to enhance our internet coverage and complete the basic technology upgrades at the high school lastly although challenges will always continue to present themselves we're committed to maintaining and continuing to enhance programs while being responsive to changing needs so you will see investments here that have been long requested by students and that align with our overarching goals of providing more equity
008as well as educational experiences that will prepare our students for college and career next slide please unlike last year we are not anticipating any major shift in special education or enrollment so what drives the increase in this budget is a bit more straightforward in the upcoming slides i'll detail the composition of each of these main areas and we're looking at contractual and inflationary expenses to be the main driver but the decreases in revenue are also notable lastly our strategic investments are certainly contributing to the growth in this budget but we can further discuss these and classify them into those that meet student needs and those that enhance programming next slide please we say this every year but the cost of personnel mainly teachers is the largest part of this or any budget however the year
009to year growth in salaries as you can see was rather ordinary again these are only the currently contracted positions so it doesn't include any of the positions that will be added as an investment what we will see as the largest single contributing factor to this growth is health insurance which is increasing nearly 11 and a loan contributes 1.3.34 to the total adopted budget increase all other expenses though affected by inflation and uh contractual increases net out to having no increasing impact on the budget in actuality the inflationary parts um of all the other expenses are actually decreasing the budget by 0.02 next slide so i wanted to touch base on the impact of the decrease in revenue that we'll have on this budget overall we expect about 180 000 less or 17 than we received
010this current school year from recurring revenue sources mainly the special education excess cost grant the primary reason for this is a decrease in expenditures for out of district special ed transportation so in their continual efforts to not only monitor but problem solve and effectively manage this large and extremely complex part of the budget uh ken post ginawagonic and their team have all worked to keep the overall cost of special education relatively flat despite increases in various line items one of the ways they've accomplished this is by consolidating bus runs this is not something that's done once it's done continually annually and its effects are not always consistently fruitful because of course it depends on the individual needs of students but it has reduced the out-of-district spend in this particular budget by about two hundred thousand
011uh this means it will receive less in the excess cost grant money but it's saving the district more than if we didn't consolidate the bus runs and received more grant funding we're also receiving less from the universal service fund or e-rate as well as the health services grant not because our overall expenses have decreased but our eligible expenses decrease so together the decreases in the revenue is noteworthy next slide so we can categorize our investments into those that meet current student need and those that enhance our programming but i thought it was more valuable to prevent to present them to you like this in a way that highlights the investments that we needed to make in this current school year but ultimately couldn't accomplish so you'll recall last year we had some significant special education
012obligations to me coupled with some increasing enrollment at center school and those factors limited our ability to address these in other areas but a lot of what you'll see on this slide continues to be a need so for the past several years we've recognized some efficiencies in hiring part-time ell tutors instead of another full-time position the problem has been that after investing a lot of time and resources into training these folks they tend to leave our district for full-time teaching positions elsewhere resulting in a higher than ideal turnover rate and a great deal of human resource energy we would like to undo this cycle build a team that can have some longevity and consistency and so we're again aiming to hire a full-time tesol teacher for the district we're also looking again to fund one
013full-time math interventionist at the high school to help those students who are still needing support in math which will give them the ability to access curricula in math and technology courses that will better prepare them for college and career in addition to that we're still looking to fund a part-time math tutor for center school which would better help us meet the needs of the students there especially after this year we're anticipating this in particular to be of high value to those students again we're hoping to be able to fund a stipend for a girls cross-country coach to properly supervise and train the nearly 70 students that currently are participating with one coach and lastly we're aiming to complete the technology upgrades at the high school with the last 15 classroom district wide to receive the
014presentation stations these along with some pd were actually items that were budgeted for for this current year but those funds had to be relocated in order to address other urgent technology software needs largely related to the pandemic next slide so here we have additional investments that will either help tackle newly recognized needs or will enhance our programming the first one being to address the large caseload at the high school and for that we will need to fund a .5 speech and language teacher next it's been a long time goal to offer a summer school program for regular education students but it's never been more justified than to implement then a year in years closely following ones like this and i'm sure doctors brill and ruby can provide answers to any questions you might have about
015the details of this program but the cost that you see here is not the full cost of the program this is partially being funded through multiple grants for wisconsin but to fully cover the program to any students in grades one through eight that needs it we'll need to complete the funding we always talk about the importance of classroom libraries our consistent need to grow them and their offerings so we're planning to invest in this area particularly with books that make our classroom libraries more well-rounded speak to a wider range of experiences and are written by diverse authors related to that is an investment in professional development specifically to address equity and inclusion and as part of enabling our very popular equity and inclusion subcommittee's work but also professional development involving technology integration and trauma-informed instruction
016because we have so many new devices in district we plan to upgrade our internet speed this will increase accessibility as well as support our efforts in becoming a one-to-one district next at the high school there is many stem course offerings in the program of studies that students consistently request to take but unfortunately we don't have the staff to actually run many of them so to address this and to build our stem programming there we plan to hire one additional full-time technology teacher to teach courses like architecture and design 2 advanced video production computer-aided drafting 2 and robotics there's also long-standing requests at the middle school where students have asked for opportunities to engage more in the arts and leadership organizations specifically a wms art club as well as an allies of diversity club so we
017intend to fully uh fund stipends for teachers to help run those clubs lastly several students have requested some for multiple years in a row now the addition of a girls gymnastics team and a boys volleyball team at the high school the level of interest and the commitment from these students and their teammates was clear and it would also mean that bhs would offer the full complement of ciaac sports so we are planning to fund both of those teams the cost here includes coaches officials transportation and space rental where applicable for both teams next slide as you can see the enrollment figures here are swinging swinging a little bit particularly at center school which might be expected this year going into next those numbers have a lot to do with the pandemic a small number of
018parents choosing to homeschool but many parents are holding off how to hold it off waiting a year to register their kindergartners so as you can see we're projecting those numbers to return to some stability these figures are based on october 1 enrollment data so you'll see outplaced we have 30 students we're projecting 32 students out place next year and that's not necessarily two new students if you'll remember students come students go services change so overall the net number is just one of the statistics that's constantly monitored and reported to the board via the finance subcommittee and subsequently the board of finance and in the bottom right corner you'll see data for our english language learners currently we have 89 students which is down 26 from last year we are still successfully exiting a good number
019of students allowing them to fully access the curriculum without assistance alongside the mainstream student population lastly the number of students receiving free and reduced lunch is relatively stable and again this is just a snapshot so these numbers do fluctuate throughout the year but this gives you an idea next slide here we have our current class size averages as well as the projections for next year as you can see we've worked hard to keep this budget goal in focus over the years all the sections are within the boe established range everything you see in red was above that range and as i mentioned earlier we do adjust staffing in both directions and next year some adjustments will be made to move a fourth grade teacher to second grade and the class size averages here do factor
020in that adjustment next slide okay so that's all i have for you guys in terms of our operational budget i don't i in previous years we've typically stopped here and sort of had discussion before talking about capital but that's up to you guys rosa i have a couple if i can i just a couple of very quick and just kind of really uh should be short short term here um the cross country girls um 70 girls is that at the high school alone or is that a combination of high school in wisconsin what does that encompass that 70 so that's just at the middle school so there are 70 girls at the middle school 70s students not just girls but right now there's no boys or girls teams there's just one coach sort of supervising
021okay okay so it's 77 okay yeah 70 students okay um the uh let's see girls gymnastics do we have a boys gymnastics at the high school we don't okay and uh one about the tessel teacher and again i know none of the details i'm just asking this question i i am understanding that the uh the uh people that we're using now they come and go pretty quickly because they're taking full-time positions um but what i'm seeing with the numbers is that we are going to be more than doubling the annual cost the first year to go to a full-time person and each year we're going to get we're going to have a further separation because that salary and benefits are going to continue to go up so that's that's just a concern that i have
022just um i'm not saying no to that it just sounds like it's going to be over the next 10 years a considerable amount of more money than we're spending now and again i don't have the details so there may be good reason why we need to do this but that's just one of my questions yeah i mean i'm sure you know dr uh barrel and dr ruby can can speak to that as well um it's just you know what you don't see is the the huge time and human resource energy and funding actually that goes into training these people and getting them on boarded and for them to only stay for what amounts to be a temporary amount of time um is not programmatically what we would like okay so then that that would reduce
023the difference there in in in the annual you know in what we're paying now and what we would pay for a uh for a uh salaried teacher um that difference is actually going to be much smaller because of the time it takes and the money to train the people and then they're leaving so that does give me some justification there thank you it's stunning harry the diversity of uh languages and family situations that we're getting i mean we've talked about it a lot of times in the board of ed meetings but a lot of kids whose isn't aren't speaking english as their home language at home right and we're doing a good job patching together what we have and uh but with 90 some odd kids it's been over a hundred at times it's a
024lot of kids for uh one teacher and two uh tutors to handle right okay thank you think about that i asked one question i know last year we had iterations of the budget even after it was submitted to me as you updated uh new information uh are you going to continue to do that and do you have any updates now that you can share with us yes we will definitely continue to do that so what we're planning on doing is we do have and it should be in your budget binder there's a list of potential estimates that are awaiting some confirmation those might take all the way till june but my plan is at each uh board of finance meeting um you know we can report any updates on those to you in either direction
025so steve what was steve what we did was we went through the budget with mr post as we were going through our detailed inspection and we wrote down every item that was based on an estimate instead of a quote um and when you look at the list that's in the budget book there's only one that's a significant risk one way or the other and that's the same thing the town will be seeing which is the health benefits because that those final numbers don't come in until like march yeah we have the same problem so both the town and the schools have the same issue around that and it's really wild this year because not only are the rates going up but the insurance providers are restructuring their rates so that fairfield county is bearing a
026higher rate than the rest of the state and that's causing this 11 percent increase we're in the same boat bob yeah i agree but i think that's when i looked at the list that's the only one i saw any significant risk and mr post felt the same yeah and we've actually found out a couple of new things in the last couple of days that i was going to bring to the finance committee on monday the um and the dollars are small right now but the uh our uh the disability and life insurance excuse me are going to be staying flat and i had estimated a three percent increase so that's about 4 500 total and then we just found out today we got a renewal rates for our workers comp and property liability insurance which
027was going to save us about fourteen thousand dollars i know marcia had a question with the insurance company about the distribution between the board of ed and the um and the town so hopefully we'll get that clarified before monday night and i can give you some concrete numbers right right i would say to more also on the revenue side i know that we're we're continuing to get grants for uh covet 19 and other things uh any any updates there yeah steve actually we had um uh just this past friday and we shared it with marsha in the finance committee at this point on ken and myself and dr ruby and eric actually our technology director i've had some conversation about this we received the sr2 um number the brookfield will be receiving 328 000 uh
028to be spent by september 2023 there's very specific rules and guidelines that go along with that uh some of the areas that we can take a look at offsetting and remember these are supplemental funds not funds to supplant things like summer school work with our english language learners tutoring for students parent education and parent engagement things we do already some of the things like parent university and those kinds of things ppe hvac in terms of facilities and all shows also some of the ideas we've talked about in terms of trying and working toward advancing the one-to-one opportunities and specifically with the digital divide technology professional learning for our staff and teachers so there's a lot of areas that we can work in which is pretty exciting we have to conduct a needs assessment as part
029of the grant requirement as well as develop a plan for a submission as an application so there's a lot that's going to go with this we don't have all the details yet as a matter of fact ken and i just attended a webinar uh yesterday afternoon and um the team will be getting together shortly to start working on what those priorities uh will be so why thank you it's a possibility that grant might be able to offset some of the operating costs of this year on a one-time basis so some of the things i mentioned you know uh summer school um professional learning and technology in the technology area there probably are some significant areas that uh could offset and again that becomes a strategic conversation among all of us of how we might want
030to handle that right we will certainly go through vetted make sure what you can cover what you can't cover and then you'll come back to us okay absolutely so um dan divorce i have a quick question but before i wanna before that i wanted to say thank you for um providing not only the budget but the the uh very comprehensive list of questions particularly the where there are estimates and where there are um actual quotes that was so helpful in going through this so thank you very much the level of transparency is wonderful so i appreciate that my only question is really one i think of budget presentation and geography more than the cost and that has to do with how the the cost grant reduction of about 180 uh drives almost the entire decrease
031in revenue which impacts the budget but then you said in your presentation rosa that there's an offset that actually makes that a net positive so i'm just wondering where that net positive shows up in in the presentation so that i can i can kind of factor that in do you mean the the decrease in out-of-district special ed transportation yeah yeah in in what line item and where does it get rolled up into that presentation is it in the negative kind of point two percent so you know that line that was all other that was kind of flat that was some growth inflationary growth and some items offset by the savings on that item okay um and and when you go look at the detail budget but go focus directly on out of district transportation it's
032a pretty sizable decrease i mean i can look that number up if you want yeah it's um 286 000 looks like okay so while you know when you just look at revenue um there is a decrease but when you look at it kind of holistically there's either a zero to a to a slight positive when you factor into the savings from that right okay now one of the one of the things we did look at is a holistic view of what all special education costs we're doing year on year if you'd like i could send that over to you that'd be great bob thank you okay that's all i have can i ask one more question uh have we done uh i know we had talked about enrollment went up a little bit where do
033we see that going in the future is that going to continue to rise yes last year we had enrollment increases at center school right yeah so we have so the current first graders first grade class is fairly big um they're obviously going to be in at huckleberry next year um so that's why that reallocation of a teacher uh is there and then currently uh steve we're down a bit from projection in kindergarten as all of us could imagine because of the pandemic a number of parents are electing to keep their children out or send them to a private facility or whatever the case may be um mrs diamond uh and her team are really watching principal diamond are watching this very closely and um talking with those parents who aren't registered don't have their children
034registered for kindergarten right now with um trying to understand their plans and what they're thinking and so forth and so we've we've looked at that holistically and and we believe we have centers will staff properly in the budget uh for for any swings with kindergarten you know in first grade and how that might work out okay thank you that that addresses my concern directly are we going to be doing i know we did this study with was it maloney mcgroom will we be doing that again in the future and when will we do that we don't have it in the budget for the coming year but one of the plans we have going forward for the following year is to do an update study okay thank you john i have one one question on you
035were just talking about huckleberry in the need of a teacher i know uh when i was on the board you were able to um you were able to reallocate a teacher from a different school because of um reductions and i didn't know if that was something that you were going to consider if it's possible to maybe fill that needed position at huckleberry from from another you know area in our district if if that's possible well the first thing is we we look at it net teaching positions and sections so it doesn't necessarily mean someone would come from center or it's the exact because in the in this budget there's one less uh next year's budget one less fourth grade section so that section gets of an fte for a teacher gets allocated to the second
036grade so that's why it's a that's off the bottom so so there's not a net plus in huckleberry it's a plus and minus between second and fourth grade okay all right good thank you that's um related to the binder um a couple points but they're all kind of related um there's items like the presentation stations it seemed like since it's last year it seems like it's kind of a non-recurring item now do you have any other items like that that could potentially be considered to be moved out of the operating budget and into the capital um i know you have a large ask for chromebooks as well but that seems to be more recurring but are you kind of at this point because of kovid asking for more than any a more than usual amount
037that perhaps we can take a portion of that and consider that capital yeah so um the presentation stations uh would be something that potentially is is not a recurring expense so that's the potential shift that could happen the only other thing you know i think that um you know may not be a recurring expense and mr belanda can speak to this as well is the there's a swipe system uh that i mentioned going into the the high school the software for that is going to be a recurring expense but i believe in the first year there is an initial hardware um expense as well is that correct yeah that's correct it's initial the initial hardware is purchasing of um computers and software the initial piece and then it's a recurring license and uploading um you
038know renewing renewal of licenses so it connects to powerschool and things like that there's a there's a bigger upfront cost because it's mostly hardware purchasing of carts and things like that so that is one of the ones that would only be an initial and then would be a much smaller recurring cost year to year how much is that those might be eligible to just go into capital right allocate them over to capital if that sounds reasonable that's possible it's it's not a huge expense it's i think it's 9 800 for the for the swipe system um the presentation stations also not a not a huge expense i don't think it's going to impact the budget in any uh in any sort of significant way but it's certainly you know something that we can discuss if
039you know if that helps yeah so um i think about capital from uh you know what are you trying to accomplish in it ricky and you know the presentation stations i actually think could be a capital item but it has been a recurring thing we've do it we've been doing over like multiple years as we've been using the technology that's available this last year we didn't so it looks like a bubble but the uh but we didn't have anybody really in the you know to use it on so we actually were doing some software stuff instead this year um so that one's a decision i do think this uh this 9 800. roughly for the hardware on the swipe system is that but it's kind of below normal clip levels so we ought to think
040about that yeah they're not big items but if these uh expenditures are going to last more than one year i think it's reasonable to consider but just throwing them over into capital cash for capital and actually that kind of uh brings up my next question so actually eric what what is the turnover rate on the presentation stations they last a few years i assume right yeah you know it really depends on the classroom and usage um you know it's like any other screen they have a shelf life um you know for example projector bulbs get you know 5 000 hours um i'd have to go back and look at our projectors and i'd have to go look at our current presentation stations to see what the led hours are but like most technology um they
041usually live on a five to six year life cycle um i think we can sometimes stretch out more um but you really don't want to go too much more than that um that's certainly some information i can gather why do they increase the chromebook so is that just because you don't need as much as you typically do no no so chromebooks is a different animal um chromebooks you know we have this program where you know the the that's a one-on-one program at the high school where you get a chromebook coming into i want to say eighth grade now eric yes correct and then you keep that chromebook through your high school career and at the end it's old enough that it's it's not worth you know it's it's lived its life so that what we're
042getting every year is the next class coming in gets chromebooks we recycle any reusable ones at the end kids can buy them right at the end but the uh but usually it's just a normal program that's rolling through and then they last for five years so the chromebook expense you know it's with us every year because that's the nature of the program yeah so actually what you see ricky with the with the chromebooks that we have budgeted for next year is not expanding anything it's just maintaining um the circulation the our typical rotation and circulation of chromebooks that we have and we bring back anything we can for parts right you know and we do all the normal smart things so what that makes sense uh is there so out of just the attendance system
043and presentation stations there's nothing else that you guys can think of or could you at least in the next month or so just if anything sticks out because every little bit of it yeah that could help um to get it moved off to the um i'll tell you what we'll have a discussion about that at our finance committee meeting on monday and uh we'll send you a note on anything that might pop out of that discussion okay we'll get that on the agenda for monday we'll make sure it's there we'll go that makes sense thank you can i ask a question um along with the the you know presentation stations and and first i do want to give compliments to the board for their very thorough report and the matching of the questions and answers
044to the account numbers was very very helpful um under technology other equipment used to count 57390 at 282 000. other than five presentation state uh stations is there anything else that's included in that because it just says other it's so it's not a very good explanation it says other equipment i can go unless eric knows it off the top of his head i can go back and find some details for you we have we have details all the way down to the school level it's a question of digging quickly oh well i mean i did i saw within the booklet you know they had given us you know the stations i just wasn't sure i i didn't see anything else within the book and then maybe just another question if anyone's looking up my my
045question you know the answer to that um so when we're done uh with our desk shields and all that with you know the end of covid here um i trust we're going to keep them hope hopefully we'd never need them again but but keep them for the expense that we put into them is there going to be a cost for storage or where where do we plan on keeping these um the first thing sue is that's a great question um secondly uh we hope we're really nearing the end of this there's certainly light at the end of the tunnel with the vaccine program on its way um but we are hearing uh from all the different health folks that we speak with that while the majority of people will be vaccinated come september um to
046really begin herd immunity sometime over the summer there may still start the school year be a lot of mitigation that needs to continue so we may be using the shields contrary to popular belief into the beginning of the school year we don't know that yet um in addition to that we work on storage probably at the schoolhouse level at this point um we haven't given a lot of thought to taking a look you know they've been taking off trucks and things like that um and um i think it's there's some good hygiene practice that we've uh gotten involved with and so they may be used as partitions where teachers have sight lines for supervision and so forth but we have partitions in the room uh and for other reasons um so i think we're still
047going to get some good use out of those okay thank you and sue um so i found uh most of the the stuff that's in other equipment are the chromebooks and the laptops for staff those are the biggest sort of uh pieces to that you know what all what all you know other things that fall into their sort of like firewall maintenance network switches things like that but uh it's technology related um okay yeah same i wanted to pull my my information up in front of me although i can probably do off top of my head i want to make sure i have it in front of me um yeah that that's um um the majority of that is definitely the chromebooks on the increase in the presentation stations thank you so if you want
048um oh sorry go ahead ricky i'm sorry no i just noticed a pretty large um increase in the technology software line um as well and they're listed as inflationary and contractual drivers and not new investments so i'm just is that because they're just an increase in subscription costs or maybe expanding on certain subscriptions like none of those are any sort of one i know everything's pretty much digital and subscription based now i just want to confirm that that's the issue there yeah i mean over the years we have certainly um really increased our our technology in the software obviously for for the students especially this year too but the but the cost for those programs are going up i mean only because you know everybody needs them and companies realize that so yeah okay okay
049we can we can we have all that detail ricky so i can we can we can send you a detailed analysis of the line items and what's happening some of that was we had some stuff that was covered by a grant that is now in regular spend so that's uh that's uh that was part of the explanation in the footnotes there and i think eric and ken can develop a little chart that walks through exactly what's going on there down to the line item level because that's what we went through i just don't have happen to have those notes easy at hand oh that's fine just i just wanted clarification on it it's a good question always thank you for the chart showing the class uh size reports um but i'll tell you that the
050the brookfield high school class report did uh uh you know really show itself to me with the percentage of uh classes that are above the class size guidelines um is there any thought for increasing the number of teachers at the high school level to reduce some of these well we certainly would like to i mean we do have one in the in the budget for next year um i saw mr bland to turn his camera on so he's probably he's probably ready to answer this one so i can turn it over to you to help help answer that one well sue and i i appreciate that you you know you notice that it comes it really does jump off the page when you look at it in terms of our class sizes at the high
051school um it's something that we're certainly faced with especially in covid times in terms of mitigation strategies right it's one of the reasons we're still on a hybrid schedule is because our classrooms just can't fit the same number of kids in them that we typically have to space everybody out and make it work the way that we'd like it to or need to according to guidelines um you know we've tried to been really we've tried to be really um systematic in the expansion of you know and and responsible in asking for or looking to expand our programs um you know i think of when i started we we've added a since i've started so we've added a science teacher we've added a business teacher we've added um a reading specialist we've added um you know
052we have a tesol teacher and teacher in the district which now services a bunch of different people um so we've we've made some pretty significant expansions if you think about over the course of the six years i've been there um i'm really starting to try to to do that and for me it's really in the elective areas right so that's where that request for technology teacher um you know there is uh today on capitol hill uh dr cardona was asked in this congressional hearing um you know i'm gonna throw my plug for you know i'm a meredith boy he's from my hometown you know i saw him at a pig roast once i can say um but uh you know he was asked about class size and and you know they talked about specifically you
053know 28 kids in a class and uh one particular senator was asking saying that there is there is no statistical difference i think it was actually mitt romney who was saying it um and during his conversation and and dr cardona answered it great he said listen if you give me a classroom of i'm paraphrasing of course of 28 kids versus a classroom of 15 to 16. those 15 to 16 are getting a lot more and better attention than the class of 28. it's just it's it's just the nature of how numbers work certainly i'd like to see more um but i think we're working with the superintendent and assistant superintendent and the board kind of you know putting together you know specific programmatic improvements um you know i think that number um is something we
054can eventually um over over time uh hopefully start to get down but uh i think our teachers are doing a fantastic job with with what they have and what they're doing so that that would be my take across the board i'm sure they are but the numbers are staggering how many are over the size limit of what they should be sue's point how is this trending over the last few years well now ninth grade is going to have 236 10th grade has 223 kids so your your class sizes are getting bigger so you're you're i'm sorry steve maybe that wasn't your question but yeah no but that that ninth grade class is a bubble class we know that also that was uh that's the biggest class we've had with the big we've been following that
055bubble class since i've been on the board of ed you know moving teachers following them around and uh it's been hard so uh and it's been that one class i think it was fourth grade when i started you know i'm just concerned that we're losing ground you know we want to hit our goals are we at least staying even or are we getting behind or are we ahead year to year or well see you can see in the k-8 report that that we're within the range uh across the board so you know there's an ebb and flow as we know it every year so so that we're we're good there and it really is year to year it isn't anything different that that dr ruby and mr blanda put together in that annual october report
056on different class sizes for the grades and so forth and so that that high school report is pretty straightforward mark now has those bubble classes in there so he's bumped up over 900 kids um since his start uh you know gosh six years ago now i believe it's been that long mark um and we've added you know gosh five teachers i think you know we a history of business uh a science uh to to help with that um we're staying on top as best we can in a fiscally responsible manner and you know we're always on top of it we bring it to you folks and have those conversations and i just want to add in that things could get um we we may have to get very creative mark you might be better verse
057to talk about this because of the um impending changes in graduation requirements and the um the move towards uh in the state and across the country and this was also spoken at the today uh in the congressional um nomination uh procedures about the um the need in this country for um stronger cte programming and um the in connecticut there's there's going to be um a demand for us taking the new graduation requirements and having pathways for uh students to have options and then that's where we're going to have to sit down and start looking at the staffing and also the program offerings in order to be able to be in compliance with the graduation requirements that have now expanded the opportunity for students to get interested in um things that have to do with college
058and career at an earlier level as they enter into high school and also be able to ha have more um flexibility in the courses that they take because the requirements aren't going to be are not designed the same way that they were when all of us in this room went to high school it's not you know this many credits of this it's uh this many credits of a grouping of courses that's much larger and that the students can um have a better selection so i don't know mark if you want to add to that because that's that's a horizon thing we're going to be facing that yeah i'll be quick and just to kind of step back to mr dunn's question to steve's question about you know losing ground are we losing ground these numbers
059are so high i can tell you every time i you know the numbers do pair out so if we add a teacher let's say in the business department right the ability for us to you know now offer of course like personal finance as a graduation requirement for every student we can now do that um and also opens up some of the other electives that we're able to give so those class sizes have gone have they're they're at max and we could probably use more but i i i shudder to even think of what we were like when we had one business teacher when i started across the board and could only teach five classes um you know so we have certainly seen decreases in class sizes in those particular areas um you know science is
060one of those unique ones that because of osha and some lab requirements some lab sciences can only be 24 and no more than that um you know so that's that's helpful but then um you know we saw an increase you know when i started in terms of needing for reading intervention so we're able to break make some of those classes smaller um but yeah cte is huge and this that's one of the requests i put the technology request for the teacher last year um you know because that is a big step in terms of cte i think you know rosa did a great job explaining some of the courses that we'd be able to offer and really expand uh for our kids um you know we're looking at introducing even a programming course next year
061that we haven't decided whether it's an open source python program that we're looking to add that whether it goes through technology or goes to the math department one or the other um you know it'd be great to have kids have that opportunity to have a coding class um you know that's a small step in the right direction but it's the step we're taking we see that the that it's coming down the pike um and will continue to be more and more important um you know as we look to the state continues to always adjust their graduation requirements what categories how many sorts of things they've changed things in the last couple years so that you know the classic you needed um four credits of english and four credits of math and four credits of this
062they now put them in very broad categories you need nine stem credits you need nine humanities credits it's all changed it used to be from you know when we were here even when i started it was specific english social studies math science they've really allowed some more flexibility and allowed kids to to explore a little bit more and so to respond to that need you know some of these expansions in the elective areas are going to be really important so for the public that's listening can you define cte yeah so c cte is career and technical education um you know so right now we have a teacher um who teaches who's our technology teacher um cte also counts as business right so uh that's that career piece um and the technical piece and we also
063have a a family and consumer science teacher who does uh the culinary program so those three generally it's usually um business and marketing courses technology courses and then um you know uh the culinary courses and also human growth and development you know which is interesting you know the the number of kids that we're looking at that are looking to go into um whether it be a child care or perhaps early childhood education program we actually have a child development course that we offer the school but with only one teacher you know it's very hard to run a total number of sections we will get there you know it is it is a plan and sometimes i feel like we're trudging along but everybody's been great in supporting our efforts to move forward great thank you
064very much anybody have any further questions on operating i'm good oh are we going over capital tonight rosa this whole time sorry uh yeah so eric could you um pull up the capital slide great um so what you have here is uh our proposed capital improvement plan um some of these uh you'll see and actually the facilities uh subcommittee just met uh tonight so we can talk about probably the biggest uh one that's gonna pop out at you um but they're prioritized here um replacing the guidance wing roof rooftop ac unit uh at wisconsin replacing the original electric service at the high school plumbing and fixtures equipment at wisconsin building management systems at the high school we have we have funds allocated here for the additional design funding for the boys locker room as well
065as the actual renovation itself with skinnier replacing the seminar room seating that was something that just kind of came up this year it wasn't on previous capital improvement plans at the high school replacing exterior windows and doors with the security film and replacing library air conditioning and paving in concrete both at the high school and wisconir as well as the replacement of a maintenance vehicle can i ask a question um you're very detailed in the cost of what the renovation for the boys locker room is going to be but we have additional design that you're looking to do so i'm just curious how can you come up with a number if you're still doing a design or am i just reading this wrong so and please anybody from uh facilities can jump in and correct
066me here but we had from tecton the estimate for the renovation itself but the design uh to get it to that point um because we're going to have to rework it is that additional 35 000. is that correct joy or yeah so i could speak to um the walk through that we just had also to give some clarification on the actual number two that we have there so we did a walk through with the nbc in tucked on on the 13th and the goal of that walkthrough was to find efficiencies and help the overall cost so techton is hoping to have an estimate by the end of next week so this would also include a new schematic design and plan i can give you like a quick kind of overview of some of the cost
067reduction measures that were discussed and brought to the forefront during the walk through and um tecton's proposal to us at our facilities meeting so one thing was the lockers most can be used or are in good shape they just a lot of them just need to be refurbished or repaired so there'll be cost savings for that the coach's office we can use the existing door frame and take out the pane of glass and put a door there the bathrooms that are would be accessible to the outside we would make more standardized showers and not have the big ones that were originally proposed and we would expand the bathroom into the storage area the training rooms we thought we would need to put in a structural beam and that most likely isn't the case now uh
068the ceilings we want to really maintain the skylights or the natural lighting and we're going to use spray insulator so you know obviously since then costs have changed since we last met but we're expecting to see savings for the ceilings and all the structural work that was brought to the attention having on the nbc coming on board and helping us through this process so um we may not have an actual bid you know to put out but we're you know requesting at least a placeholder so that we can move forward with you know with the project and still have a sense of urgency so that we can budget for it and act on it instead of slowing down the process we want to really improve this you know approve this in the capital year to
069at least get it started in 2022-2023 and i can add a little bit to that the the additional design funding is what techdon has told us they will need to bring the schematic designs up to the point where we can actually use that to go out to bid to get a firmer number great thank you what we're hearing here is that the 1.3 million is a high number and that you've been able to generally to start with review and adjust and a final number will probably come in somewhat less than that is that a fair assessment i'd say that's a fair sign that's a fair headline 35 000 to get to that point where we can actually go out to bid and i think i also heard that we'll have more information by the time
070we're doing budget deliberations with the board of finance they're hoping by next week and next week most of this is the same that we had from last year right because just to remind people we could not do any of our bonded uh projects last year so we lost an entire year because we couldn't hold a referendum while the executive orders from the governor did allow us to adopt the budget by the board of finance on behalf of the town it did not allow us to adopt uh borrowing so we're kind of a year behind here so it's really important we get this right because we're we're really behind the eight ball here on everything out of curiosity what are the executive orders for this year in terms of referendums no you can you can you
071could have you could hold a referendum at any time as long as you could guarantee it was safe and during the middle of the pandemic last year no one felt it was safe to have a referendum but now that we've had a presidential election and virtually uh you know 90 percent of the voters in brookfield went to that it was safe we did not have any jump in cases after that everyone did it safely i'm very comfortable and i think it's important that we do hold a referendum so i think my plan is as long as everyone agrees is that we will hold the referendum for operating and capital in the schools right for both with you operating for both and in capital i think it's important people want to vote and i think they
072should get the opportunity to do so yep i agree with you i completely agree with you any other questions yes rosa um at the bottom of this page the district uh maintenance vehicle which one is that ken do you have uh specifics on that vehicle i would ask dean i think dan's on the call he can probably tell us exactly which one it is yes we're looking to uh replace a three-quarter ton pickup currently we we no longer have a snow plow or four-wheel drive vehicle in our fleet um and that would get us back to where we we do some snow maintenance there while it's not a funded position at this time there is there is a uh an open maintenance mechanic position and that would be a vehicle if that were to be
073filled we would require that so that our mechanics would all have the ability to uh have an individual vehicle wouldn't be be sharing but that fifty thousand we worked at when jerry gate was still with us and that was for a four-wheel drive utility body with a snowflower okay and what what was what what else were you talking about as far as um was it mechanics or something is are we going to is there a need for an additional uh fte with this i i didn't quite get that no it's not but currently there is a uh position and ken can you can you help me on position and i'd also say that the the maintenance vehicles we have right now are uh quite old and quite worn and quite subject to needing repairs that's
074accurate i just had a question on the a couple of the items um the whiskaner electrical service and the exterior windows at vhs those numbers are the same as last year's capital but do we know with the supply chain issues due to the pandemic whether or not those numbers will go up or are we getting a new bid on them or estimate these numbers were estimates from the building condition survey that tecton did and the the things like plumbing fixtures and equipment and windows those are multi-phase projects so we would have to go out to bid at the time and do what we can with that and use that information to gauge the future parts of the project i mean can we get some industry estimate i just know everybody that i've talked to in
075any sort of constructiony type of field that the the cost of everything has gone up significantly 20 30 40 isn't uncommon so i just i just want to make sure that we're looking at real numbers when it comes down to the months of looking into having the deliberations you know what i think i'll do i mean i'll circle back to techdon and have them revisit those numbers and see if i can get some input from them and how they feel uh these need to be changed or not thank you anyone else with questions okay i think we can take this slide down thanks um so i don't think there's anything else on our agenda tonight um does anybody have any questions before before we adjourn well i'd just like to say i really really like
076that the budget format you've done especially the questions i think that you can see there's a lot of questions tonight that have already been answered and i want to thank you all for all the great work you've done and for you know eileen cook and marcia sitting in on the finance committee meetings helped a lot i think to get everybody to the same level of understanding and i really appreciate it it's it's really nice to see so thank you i would like to to thank you all for the hard work you put in on this and uh how you attacked it and how you uh drove down to the questions i think this is what we asked for last year from the board of finance it wasn't what you had in there it was the
077full understanding of the numbers and driving it down to a you know a solid number so i don't know where the the board of selectmen is going to take this budget and i think that's the next step we all have to wait on and then uh we'll take it from there but i'd like to to thank you all for your hard work and thank you all for uh working with eileen marsha as we talked about last year and i i think this budget season started off on a great note uh it doesn't mean it's going to be easy for all of us but i i think it really did start off on a great note and i'd like to thank rosa bob and all of the staff for getting us to this stage so thank
078you yeah thank you and it was great working with uh eileen and marcia in those finance committee meetings it was really helpful and it felt very collaborative this year so it was very nice so anybody on the board of finance have a question for anybody not at this time i i think from our side we're good then steve yeah no sue harry i think you're good i think we've answered our questions we appreciate it thank you i want to thank you all for all your support all right so uh then without objection the board of education special meeting is adjourned same thing for the board of selection board of finance as well thank you thanks everyone night night you