Board of Education Meeting 1/20/2021 @ 7pm

001[Applause] all right so i think we're good right yep go ahead okay uh good evening everyone today is wednesday january 20th 2021 and i call the regular meeting of the brookfield board of education to order in accordance with executive order 7b suspending sections 1-206-1-225-1-226 of the connecticut general statutes the public will not be able to attend this meeting in person but will have the ability to view or listen to the meeting in real time by way of the brookfield board of education youtube channel furthermore such meeting will be recorded or transcribed and posted on the board's website within seven days of the meeting and made available as required by law all speakers taking part in the meeting are reminded that they are to clearly state their names and titles if applicable before speaking on each

002occasion that they speak individuals wishing to participate in the public uh comment portion of the meeting may do so by using the following access information you can dial area code 312-626-6799 or area code 929-205-6099 and the meeting id is 964-0184-8646 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 for all okay at this time i'd like everyone to have a moment of silence for the passing of the longtime huckleberry teacher mrs diane nason thank you everyone our thoughts go out to her family friends and students during this especially difficult time and for any parents who are listening please know that there are resources available to help you or

003students with their grieving process should they need it and for as long as they need it thank you we have all of our board members in attendance tonight um so up first on our agenda is the student spotlight and we have center school so i will turn it over to uh dr brill and mary rose rosa thank you so much good evening everyone um i am just very pleased i'll be turning it over to mary rose in just a second but we'll be welcoming uh mrs sean knapp and mrs alicia macbeth from center school uh they're gonna as mary rose says they are zoom masters and um she wants to talk about the um how they begin the process you know they are at the beginning at center school and although we call the four

004c's the portrait of the graduate it starts at center school so without further ado mrs diamond i'm going to turn it over to you for the full introduction great thank you john i'm going to um share my screen have a couple slides see our enrollment reporter there first um there we go okay so as as john said we really um you know center school is kind of where it all begins um for many of our students obviously you know learning occurs at home and we're well aware of that more so than ever this year but center school is where we start putting all of it together and build that foundation so our teachers and staff are really embedding the tenants of the four pillars of the four seats in every interaction with students really from

005day one this work is evident in the phonics lessons that are taught on a daily basis um to build students abilities to express themselves verbally and in writing um the question that takes place during read alouds um you know it's asking students you know how do you know that the character is feeling excited and really that critical thinking that happens um the variety of making that students do so making can be making lego structures um and also constructing uh stories and writing and writing stories um and then the perspective taking that is also fostered through reflection and discussions about consequences and stories um and in the classroom so there's lots of uh of great work that's happening at our youngest ages to build these foresees and to really build that foundation so as we transitioned

006um and have transitioned back and forth between the classroom environment and the zoom environment um this learning has absolutely continued um it's been precipitated by a huge learning curve on the part of our staff and i'm incredibly proud of our team for not only teaching the 4cs but modeling the 4cs in their own learning as they have charted a course for creating learning experiences for students in a virtual world we are all at different points in our learning myself included we are all learners at center school um and we also have different comfort levels in terms of the technology and those kinds of uh tools that we have but every member of the staff from our secretaries to our paras to our monitors to the teachers are really collaborating and growing um in this environment

007so collectively we have determined how to embrace the challenges that have come up so some of those challenges include lack of technology skills for learning so kids can operate an iphone and i will attest to the fact that my children can change all kinds of settings on my phone but we had to teach my daughter who's also in kindergarten and my son who's in pre-k uh learning on zoom how to log themselves in and how to access their google classroom and get to their assignments and that kind of thing um another challenge has been the level at our level is the need for parent and caregiver involvement because again obviously students are young they're they're they don't have the kind of school experience that our older students do so we've had we've built connections with

008families um and brought that home school partnership to a whole new level um in terms of how we've done schooling for the last couple of months um with with our with our students at home and then another challenge has been finding the right balance in terms of expectations so it's hard to gauge from afar how much each student can handle independently um so you know teachers had to kind of gauge that and then nurture that self-confidence that's necessary for students to take risks again at home as well as in school and then the last piece that i would say not the only challenge but another big challenge we've had is just building a community and fostering connections among students who have not had a class experience and don't have an idea of what traditional school

009looks and feels like um so all of this has been done really a lot of this has been accomplished through the use of the zoom tools that have been available to us and the hard work of our of our teachers and staff and we've had some discussion um as well uh as you might imagine among among the staff um about what students have lost right so many of us have have been lamenting the fact that our students and our children are going to be incredibly far behind in their learning and development as a result of kind of the tumultuous schooling experience they've had over the last 10 months and don't get me wrong there are absolutely gaps and we're working to identify the gaps in fundamental skills so that we can provide the right instruction

010and the resources to fill those gaps but we also know that successes are not just measured through academic skills and we've discovered that our students are developing new skills and thriving ways that will certainly serve them well in the future such as confidence in sharing their feelings and the vocabulary to express those feelings um comfort in advocating for themselves if they can't hear if someone's on you they are the first ones to tell you that you're muted um using the resources that are at their disposal to troubleshoot so um we've we've seen students now at their um as their academic skills are growing able to use the chat more frequently to ask a question or make a comment um they're navigating multiple platforms to access their instructional programs and resources so we're building their independence

011and be able to navigate for themselves they're quickly switching gears and being flexible when something doesn't work out as planned um and that goes right along with managing some of the disappointment when technology glitches arise so you know all of those things that we as adults are having to manage ourselves in this environment we're also you know seeing that students are building those kinds of skills that would not typically have had at this point um in their schooling so we're really um proud of that um and though they might not be skills that we can quickly assess and quantify um they are definitely skills that are going to uh serve them uh and help the uh provide for greater success in the future for our students so that's another thing you just wanted to point

012out um so for tonight's spotlight um as as um john indicated we are we have mrs sean ms sean knapp one of our fabulous kindergarten teachers and mrs alicia macbeth uh one of our amazing first grade teachers to share how they have created a structure in their virtual classrooms that support student learning and growth at the center by focusing on social emotional well-being addressing academic standards and establishing high expectations and as a result we're seeing that our students are learning to use the technology of zoom to connect with one another build their competence and communicate so i'm going to turn it over i'm going to stop sharing now and turn it over to sean knapp our kindergarten teacher who is going to describe some of the things she's been doing in her classroom thank you

013mary rose and good evening everyone as mrs diamond mentioned our learning curve at center school has been going full steam ahead as the world had a crash course on how to use zoom last spring many of us at center mastered that skill and we're ready for more i remember hearing about the many tools of zoom and the so-called breakout rooms mary rose was great at modeling how to implement them during meetings she'd gradually try to release us we'd push back they looked interesting and yet rather daunting at the time however she persevered during staff meetings she put us in breakout rooms breakout rooms and i remember my own hesitations am i ready for this yet i can't even get my volume to work where do i click i sounded like my students then my colleagues

014and i began to practice with one another and i felt a little lighter over the weeks i found an academic need to meet one-on-one with my students it was time for me to put the training wheels on first i tested it out with one or two students then i heard miss knapp can i go into a breakout room too when is it my turn to go to breakout room i can't wait to go so next i added in an aid with a student then an l tutor with a student before long students couldn't get enough of the breakout rooms it was its own reward students were excited and so was i i realized it was time to take the training mails off so i started using breakout rooms as we signed into zoom in the

015mornings students brought toys photos siblings dogs elves on the shelves to share and they just naturally took off students showed up on time alert and excited to start the day because they could share their lives with their friends before i knew it students who'd never met in person were talking and learning in breakout rooms together my favorite morning was when the class signed on to zoom and joined their rooms one by one they dropped from my screen in less than 10 seconds i was alone in the main room i remember thinking that these five and six-year-olds just mastered with these the same social and technological skills that my own ninth and sixth graders are currently using it's amazing as i pop in and out of their rooms to guide conversations i wonder what's next for

016our class what started out as an academic need ended up meeting our social and emotional needs while maintaining high expectations mrs macbeth had a different need for breakout rooms but funny enough we ended in the same place alicia thank you sean hello everyone so my my experience with the breakout rooms i don't i didn't write anything i apologize um i wanted to share uh is focusing on the social emotional well-being of the students um i during remote learning had reached out to mary rose on several occasions just discussing my concern with their overall engagement and just noticing that something with my students didn't seem normal it didn't seem right but then again the situation nothing is normal um and after uh reflecting and trying to come up with creative ways and as sean mentioned the

017use of breakout rooms in our own staff meetings i decided to be brave i took a chance and i decided to introduce breakout rooms to my students during a reader's workshop lessons after the lesson they decided to partner them up and send them into a breakout room on their own i thought for sure that as i would be popping in and out of these breakout rooms that it would be show and tell in a free for all and i have to say that was not the case it was amazing i have to say i think that day my students taught me something one of the first breakout rooms i went into one of my students was sharing his screen and partner reading on epic and i think that's where it all began for me the

018moment i realized that they were capable and they were just as tech savvy if not more than we give them credit for um we went with it when the whole class came back into the main room um i shared shared what i saw in each of the rooms and as soon as they found out that one friend was screen sharing they thought it was the best thing in the whole wide world and it was the rest was history we we had a whole lesson on screen sharing and i had students teaching other students how to screen share a reader's workshop quickly became their favorite part of our day it happened to be the end of the day so um you know throughout the day they would always ask me is it reader's workshop time when

019are we going to be going into breakout rooms um because it seemed to work as a motivator for them we ended up my aide and i we ended up then incorporating it into writer's workshop how could we use breakout rooms for writer's workshop how could we use that during other academic areas so by the end of remote learning we were using breakout rooms for every single subject and i saw an instant change in their overall level of engagement their excitement their motivation and i actually shared a story with mary rose earlier um this evening and i wasn't i didn't even connect the dots to this but she had checked in with me to see how being back 100 was going and i was surprised i have to be honest with you i thought for sure

020when we came back it would be an adjustment for students coming back to school after being home in their own environments with in their comfort zone with everything that they love but it was almost like we never skipped a beat and it didn't even dawn on me until almost the end of the day yesterday that it was the first time that they had all been together 100 percent in school since before covid began and i you would have never even known just based off how well they were working how well they were working together so going back to their social emotional well-being um i think that the use of the breakout rooms and just that incorporation of uh the collaboration working together uh really did help foster foster all of what i saw what i

021am seeing now in the classroom now that we're back so thank you so i that that's really what we wanted to share today um it's our experiences and this you know this is sean and alicia have gone above and beyond to really use those kinds of tools with their students and we're seeing it pay off in terms of student connections and learning and their growth and that kind of thing so we're really proud of our of our kids um and just thankful to have teachers who are willing to take that risk and um and move forward in that way so thank you anybody have any questions that we can answer thank you mary rosen sean alicia thank you so much really appreciate it okay um up next we have public comment and i don't see

022anyone here there's no one in the waiting room right eric um no i don't i don't have anybody either by telephone number and and now that um we have the link available i don't see anybody in the waiting room or in the participant list okay uh so let's move on to the student representative report hi i'm tambie chandra as the brookfield high school student representative to start off the first in-person day for cohort a was yesterday and i've heard a lot of people say that there are less and less people that they're seeing in school and in their classes which i kind of anticipated because i think people really got used to being at home and didn't want to make that change back to school i also heard that because of the new schedule a

023lot of people got confused and missed a little bit of their classes but i think that's just something to get used to with ilt now in the schedule and that being said ilt is up and running and it was the first day yesterday where students actually went to ilt physically um one thing is that uh in the past i may have like kind of lightened the way that seniors are feeling about this year but i do think that the seniors have large cases of senioritis and i don't know if it's just because we are in second semester or because of the whole covid situation but i could see that they are kind of losing motivation in school like myself included a little bit sometimes um but that being said there are some upcoming planning sessions

024for senior activities with mr buckley and mr blanda that i hope to do during ilt um now that we have that time and um in honor of dr martin luther king jr day u.s senator chris murphy announced on monday 15 winners of his um fifth martin luther king jr day essay contest and this year he received close to two thousand eight hundred entries from elementary middle and high schools from across connecticut and brookfield high school eleventh grader samitha surchat was one of the one of only three fifth congressional district winners so that's huge um today during ilt the curriculum chain subcommittee of the human rights club met with the librarians and about possibly integrating a human rights shelf or section in the library um kind of like a holiday like they do holiday shelves sometimes

025but more long term and hosa the health occupation students of america club came back to bhs juniors have their psat on january 26th and that's a remote day for 9th 10th and 12th graders while the 11th graders are in the building with for their psat and finally the last day of summer of the semester is coming up on january 28th which is next thursday and that is all thank you all right any questions for tanvi i just wanted to say that i had a meeting this afternoon with all the librarians in the district and the librarians from the high school were telling us all about how impressed they were with the students that came to meet with them today so it was um heavy heavy praise so you can share that with them so it's

026always good to hear that when you're having a meeting about yeah how proud and how impressed um faculty members are with um with students so thank you yeah thank you i'll tell them for sure all right thank you tandy written correspondence laura orban wrote regarding the district response to the events at the capitol on january 6th ron jaffe shared information on a teen inauguration special then rachel wrote regarding the return to school and elijah hewling wrote regarding winter athletics okay uh approval of board minutes i move that the board approve the minutes from the special board of ed meeting on january 6 the public forum on january 6th and the regular meeting on january 6th second thank you uh all in favor aye all right thanks that passes uh the superintendent's update all right thank

027you rosa so um really wanted to share my enthusiasm for having the students back in person is just so exciting to see all of them and see the staff and the faculty and the majority of people are in good spirits the kids have great energy and it's just really a joy to see all of them as a reminder for the public k through 8 is back in our what we call model five days per week and the high school at this time remains in the hybrid model and uh everybody being back really is is just been wonderful to that end i wanted to share a few uh percentages regarding uh remote versus in-person attendance i know that's been something we've talked about um especially in the 100 model k through 8 which we can accommodate

028all of the students the way we've worked hard from the summer through the fall to set up the classrooms at this time total in the district we talked about having about 70 percent we anticipated students being in person right now that percentage is 63 percent of the students in person um and it breaks down like this at the high school 51 in person 49 uh remote uh whiskaner 62 in person and 38 remote at huckleberry 73 in person and 27 remote and at center school the highest percentage in person 83 in person 17 remote um so uh we're right around that averages like i said about 63 percent close to that anticipated 70 percent and in talking with each of the principals there's ebb and flow some parents are changing status from remote to in

029others uh full into remote and we'll let this first week into a second week uh unfold and we'll really see where we land on that um but we're excited to have the kids in there and it's just nothing like seeing them there another thing that's very interesting kind of regarding the code section of the update uh this this meeting in talking with mr bellanda because of those percentages he and his team are actually looking at uh putting a survey together uh very soon for parents to take a look at status of students and if possible looking at the course enrollment in each of the classrooms and how we can accommodate the students there may be an opportunity for those students who want to be in person coming five days a week so we continue to

030look at that that's not some static issue where we say it's hybrid for the rest of the year and that's it mr bland and the team are really focused on doing everything they can to have the kids in school obviously in a safe manner and in alignment with all of the requirements that we have to make um so we're excited about that being a possible opportunity obviously more excited about the next item under the covet update which is vaccinations because the sooner we get all the back to everybody vaccinated the sooner we continue to move further uh and past the pandemic so that end it's important to share with everybody not only is mrs cavanaugh our vaccine coordinator she actually has been sending out updates and communications to everybody there's been a lot of talk

031on the news i'm sure all of you are aware of this group called 1b where we were as educators made to understand that educators would be in 1b and quite quickly uh get in line to be vaccinated it's not actually not the case in 1b starting with people 75 and older then it appears we will go to ages 65 to 74 and then those 16 to 64 uh with comorbidity condition and then from there the front line essential workers which educators would be a part of would be uh able to make their appointments so uh we are doing everything uh by the book exactly as the dph has directed i want to thank mrs kavanaugh for her leadership on that and also her really timely communications and entertaining questions from staff who are just concerned

032and want to know uh phone calls and emails and things like that so we're moving along um as best we can there and we're watching every email every communication and checking in so as soon as we can upload our staff all 416 people will get you uh into a situation where you can get the automated email and make your appointment the last thing on covet is with coming back 100 i had to go back traffic for the most part is definitely heavier than it's been uh when we're in hybrid um center school seems to be having some of the more congested difficulty at this time mrs diamond is working with uh actually had some conversation with officer grambling today and the police department has been present at the schools uh to help manage a rival

033on dismissal there's things that we need to adjust and tweak and we'll continue to do that and as a matter of fact mrs diamond even takes um you know input from teachers that are on duty uh what they're seeing the officers that are on duty there as well as parents who are waiting in traffic lines you know if people have a suggestion so we're going to get that squared away as quickly as we can with the help um next i want to talk about athletics uh opened up the athletic season via the ciac yesterday in athletics uh really great news brookfield high school once again is a michael's cup award winner i believe only six or so high schools in the state are recognized as a michael's cup winner and bhs was chosen by the

034committee uh at the ciac for our willingness to subscribe to the class act sportsmanship standards empowering students to take an active role in school climate and the continued support for community service and so you know under all of our coaches and uh certainly mr baldwin's leadership and and the captain's council our kids are just doing a great job in the athletic department i want to share some data from the fall athletic season which is very important uh for for the board and for the public to know that in the fall 20 000 student athletes participated in fall athletics there were 33 000 formal events this is around the state and there were only seven positive coveted cases and from what is reported not one was actually transmitted during competition of those seven positive cases that's

035a point zero two five infection rate so again mitigation strategies and doing everything we can to maintain safe uh a safe and healthy environment um it really means people are doing what they're supposed to do when we have our students active in our school events the last thing i want to share about athletics is that while we started our winter athletic season it's pre-season workouts right now and what mr baldwin did is ease in athletics he didn't start all the sports yesterday so basketball and swimming did start yesterday um hockey started i think it was a 5 am practice this morning they were on the ice so anybody wants to go play hockey go have practice at 5am and then dance and cheer are starting this friday and then uh mr baldwin is taking a

036look at the ciac guidelines and he is being very discerning um to make sure that we can start indoor track indoor track right now does not have any scheduled meets that's a big concern about the high-risk nature of things with the indoor track the way the kids are together for indoor meets um but if we can get those kids together with their coaches as soon as possible um and scrimmages might be scheduled or meets might be scheduled we'll be working on that and mr baldwin's in touch with the coaches and we'll be in touch with the players on that so that's coming up in the next few days um and then the last piece is wrestling um will not be able to be a season this year as far as we know from the cic

037because it's close nature there's just no way to get around that so that's where we're at with athletics uh next thing on the list um and uh tommy already talked about this but we want to give a shout out to samita uh for being the district five winner of the martin luther king essay writing contest just just amazing and um the link i sent to the board if you click on that you can actually read her essay it's just amazing technology r b technology uh i talked about a donation they were giving a 65-inch mobile smart board and seven smart cap boards to the um we're gonna dedicate those to the pe department uh those boards are full donation from r b they're one of our vendors and they had extra equipment and they felt

038they'd give it to us so i mean it we're just really so appreciative of that and i know eric um the high school and uh and certainly mr baldwin and the pe teachers are very excited about that and then finally i had a chat with rosa earlier uh this week uh the caps uh blueprint to transform public schools proposal was publicized last week it really didn't get that much media attention so some of you if you only heard it from me uh it really is because of all the code news and election news and everything going on that this typically if we didn't have that going on would have probably made it to the front page of the local newspaper um so it's a 15-year strategic plan essentially from caps in terms of a proposal

039for what we need to be doing in the state to transform education one of the things i asked rosa if she would be interested in having the board here from fran rabinowitz the executive director of caps um and and rosa said if he can arrange something so uh fran uh committed to coming to us at our february 17th meeting um to share a brief overview of the plan and give an opportunity for board members to ask questions um but we'll be one of the first boards that fran will actually go out to and have a conversation with so we look forward to that and always welcome fran to be with us and officially rosa that is all i have for my superintendent report not sure if anybody has any questions any questions all right okay

040thank you okay uh subcommittee reports first up is finance uh can you hear me okay sorry if you hear my printer in the background it's been clunking away for the last 20 minutes um so look we've had two finance committee meetings since we last met i'll report on both of them uh the first one was focused mostly on the uh on the monthly results so we're about halfway through the year now so we're starting to get some really good uh shape of what's happening on our business results um this month our you know we've been showing an overrun on spending but it's all because of the coveted spending and the town is going to help out with that um and so we actually uh that got less of an overrun from last month to this

041month the reason is we actually in the forecast we booked some uh significant savings because we're seeing reductions in special ed transportation and it was offset somewhat by um the amount of money we're going to get in the matching grants from the state on special ed so um that was really the only major input but you know we we were at about 235 000 overrun with covid being over bigger than that and now it's at 000. we reported that to the board of finance at last wednesday's meeting and that was well received so because of course they're working on covering the kovitz spends so so all good right is the net of it we also talked about uh special education this is why ghana gave us a really good presentation on what are the drivers

042of special education spending and how do we work with that and manage it um and at some point in the future we will uh you know do that here i think at this board and we want to you know share offer it up to both the board of selectmen and the board of finance um it was very insightful and informational and uh i want to tell mrs wagonic how appreciative we were to receive that so um and then we went and talked about um some of the uh work that's been done on the operating uh budget numbers uh there were some good news as we've gotten some better estimates in i'm not going to report on that here because it's on the agenda later and mr post will report on that when we get to

043it but that said because there was new information coming in we agreed to have a second meeting this past monday and we had further discussion in preparation for tonight on the on the budget we went through all the items that were um were spending under under runs and we asked mr post to prepare for us kind of a summary chart of where we still have our waiting on news from uh from vendors so we'll have uh it was all about the budget we're gonna talk all about those at the at the later meeting but the good news is we're seeing some savings uh from our budget that was last presented by dr burrill not dramatic but uh still some good news and uh and the uh and we talked through how we're gonna work through

044the meeting this evening so that's kind of a report i'll offer to the other members of the committee if you have anything else you'd like to add rosa or jim okay so uh so good news on the current year and uh and we're going to see more on the good news on the budget as we get through the discussion later thanks all right facilities so we met on january 13th we reviewed the school dude reports and with most staff working remotely there were fewer work orders than usual for staffing updates we have a night lead custodian at the high school still open and a regular custodian position open what the water update at the middle school today we're in compliance with a plan to address water treatment we're continuing to do measuring and water quality

045analysis and february 18th is a deadline to send our plan to the state and we don't anticipate having to ask for an extension we began a discussion about possibly implementing an indoor air quality program the epa created the indoor air quality tools for schools program to help schools assess and improve indoor air quality and we're looking into gaining support for this program in the future the committee discussed questions about the facility's budget we also discussed the possibility of removing personal appliances from the schools for purposes of saving energy and as part of a pest management program i asked mr caldwell to provide the committee with an update on work that's been done and how that aligns with the niask report recommendations at the next committee meeting there was a school walk through so they took

046advantage of the remote learning time and they did really good work in the buildings they're very clean painting was done light bulbs were replaced and much more the new glass stoves were installed at the high school to keep it cleaner and to keep the mice away so all the schools were ready and for the reopening on the 19th yesterday there was a walk through with the boys locker room paul chucco and the nbc and techton walk through the space many questions were raised and items on the current design plan were clarified tech time will be come back to answer the questions of the npc and they're going to do a presentation for us as well and there was also a walk through at huckleberry hill ong techton and administration had discussions about the site layout

047to prepare for construction and preliminary work that is starting in march and the patch and garden has to be removed we have to start looking at the demolition of the building what do we want to salvage and we need to begin looking at what to tag of things to keep a casual conversation during the walk through happened about the awning at huckleberry and that sparked an idea to relocate it possibly to the middle school to the front or along the sidewalk or somewhere else in the district we thought that was a nice idea so that's it unless anybody has any questions a lot of uh we went over a lot yeah i have one was any uh talk done about the mosaics in the front oh that wasn't mentioned that has been talked to mike

048uh over it wasn't recently but that has been talked about as well is incorporating those into the new building as well all right thanks joy uh equity and inclusion okay the equity inclusion we had our inaugural meeting on january 14th the entire committee of 21 people were there it was an excellent and inspiring meeting each member took a moment to introduce themselves and speak about why this work is important to them we have a really great group of people everyone is bringing different things some are reading experience from their backgrounds and from their work many of our teachers students and some of the community members have already been involved in some human rights activism people spoke about the betterment of our community the futures of our children they also spoke about being leaders and allies

049how our voices are more powerful together inclusivity but also celebrating our differences and just making sure that all voices are heard the common feeling among really each committee member the board and district leadership as well is just hope and excitement about the work which is going to be a lot of work but and the future that we're working to build together after those introductions dr rural spoke from the district level about what's led to the committee formation um what work is already in progress how much more work needs to be done and how we're all in this for the long haul this is a lot of work that we have ahead of us and miss laden reviewed the vision statement and the equity objectives that the committee leadership has already established this is a multi-faceted

050district-wide and community-wide undertaking and the committee is just one important piece of that and then dr ruby spoke more about that and about the committee framework how ideas and the initiatives will be aligned with data how the district wants to empower students and staff and we'll look to the committee for input and ideas like a think tank sort of to move forward with those endeavors and some things that are already on the horizon or some scheduling of some professional development and conducting a diversity audit of all the school libraries and we finished up by discussing plans for our next few meetings as dr ruby called it we're forming warming and storming our first meeting was forming kind of meeting everyone establishing community norming will be at the next meeting we're going to develop a charter

051for the committee using the ruler approach and then in march we'll begin the storming getting into the work and identifying and prioritizing the issues and taking it from there that's pretty much it i don't know if anyone jen or dr barilla director would be want to add anything else or if anyone has any questions that was a really great summary thank you for doing that sounds like a lot of work so thank you echo amy it's a really amazing group of community members students and uh professionals from the organization that brought such a a wide range of passions and experience so i feel very fortunate that so many members of the brookfield community uh want to be involved it's a great sign for the work ahead absolutely agreed okay uh moving on to the consent

052agenda okay i will make a motion that the board approved the items on the consent agenda we have new hires retirements and the november and december financials a second okay all in favor oh i'm sorry rosa yeah yeah i just want to congratulate uh georgia for 17 years of service that's her retirement she's our occupational therapist and we're just very proud of her and thankful for her service for all these years to to our students georgia all the best thank you all right all in favor hi hi thank you the motion passes okay on to new business and first up is the school naming okay i will move that the board discuss and approve the name of the new elementary school as recommended by the new school naming committee in a second okay um actually

053i mean i think we can we can certainly have the discussion here although i think there's probably going to be another motion at the end of the discussion but as it reads right now the motion is just to well it actually does say the motion is a little bit vague it's discussed and approved and approved but it doesn't but we'll have to have a separate motion i guess on the actual name yeah so um so why don't we go ahead and just vote on the discussion um and approval process so all in favor aye aye okay um so mike do you want to go through these i actually um created a little powerpoint if you want that has um the results on it so we can all see it yeah if you have the um

054i'm using i'm not muted uh if you have the updated numbers i i have the numbers from last week so i don't i don't those yeah and we shut the uh about 10 a.m this morning we uh stopped taking um participants into the survey so it is fresh from this morning okay um these numbers are from last night but i doubt they have changed uh very much um so maybe you can just uh if there is any sort of change just uh let me know i don't think there will be but i have numbers here rosa saw i can help you okay so are you guys seeing what i'm seeing yeah okay so all right let this thing go away here i want to get if you click uh the little uh looks like a

055shade on the lower right here um right next to the slide button goes down go down to the bottom there so just put next to the slide button and saying look yeah click that okay there we go okay and pushing the menu at the top doesn't like to go away all right um so again okay so as of last night and i doubt these numbers have changed very much um we had a total of 2112 total responses and this is how it broke down so there was a it looks like there was a very clear favorite in terms of um people really liking some iteration of either candlewood lake or candlewood elementary school they liked having that um that reference in there and it seems like it sort of went down in preference after that

056second being lakeside elementary newberry and then last westbrook although there's another way of looking at this data um i don't think it makes a difference in terms of what everybody liked as a favorite um just to sort of like throw it out there if we want to look at if we're looking at just people's first choices the data breaks down slightly differently so obviously candlewood candle lake is the heavy favorite regardless but second would actually be westbrook if we looked at the number of people who chose that as their first choice so um but i don't think that changes very much in terms of what everybody really liked as their favorite um some of the comments i just wanted to like include they pretty much fell into categories similar to this um so a lot

057of you know it should be kept huckleberry hill why can't we keep at huckleberry hill a lot of people didn't understand the reference to newbury or westbrook um some suggested another name like brookfield elementary school that came up a couple of times um or something like lila nona elementary brook there were different sort of suggestions like that and then there was another comment um actually a couple of them about naming the school after a person so i think because this is going to be sort of a discussion i just wanted to remind the public here that we do have the board has a has a policy um that we must follow in terms of naming school facilities and one of the stipulations that it cannot be named after a person and in terms of maybe

058newberry or westbrook those rationales were were given along with the survey and the other suggestions you know keeping in huckleberry hill or brookfield elementary or any other sort of reference to brookfield that was a process that went through the committee and you know mike can speak to that again in terms of the committee's process so what rose to the top were the um the names that were there on the survey and most importantly actually i'll remember because i'm sure mike would want to say this too is that these were names the students um came up with so most of them that were on the survey um these were significant to the students which is the most important thing and then uh just to kind of show the breakdown of the representation uh 61 a little

059over 61 percent from the east side of town um 38 from the west side of town which kind of makes sense probably population wise as well that's the question we were asking ourselves were the ranking of the answers the same on the east and the west side i don't know how to break that down maybe eric can break it out if we if we end up you know choosing another name um i'll go back to the uh that was the whole purpose of that that was the whole purpose of that question do we have a breakdown of population on the east versus west side of town that's that's it's about the population's about the same mix as you saw there yeah that that that does we had a good distribution of responses but the purpose

060of the question was to make sure that the people who lived on the west side of town were giving the same answers as the total that's all that was the whole purpose of that it is probably data that can be broken now i i don't have that ability to in the in sort of just looking at the google responses um we can break we can break individual results from a google form out um into a spreadsheet and and see the individual results and then see you know everybody's one two three four and then if they picked west or east um versus that's something i could work with you on separately that um you know on another time we can break out the results but yeah we can get individual results and then and then get

061that number okay yeah i think that's probably more important though if we choose something that is more it's only pertinent if we choose newbury or or lakeside oh yeah you're right lakeside yeah because our just for a reminder our our uh our policy says not only should it not be named after a person it should be named after a geographical reference in the neighborhood of the school and if you choose to do some other name then you should consult with the the people in that in the that are in the neighborhood of the school and we felt the reason we added that question was very simple we felt that would be a good way to get some consultative input if we were to choose something that was not candlewood lake or candlewood elementary school or

062westbrook because those are those are geographical things near the school if we choose one of those three no issue right but if we choose one of the others we would want to look at that data right so i mean i think the public has clearly spoken in what they would prefer i think our job is to sort of maybe maybe everybody else kind of let's we can just go do a little round robin and see what everybody uh where everybody falls here um and if it ends up being candle like or candled elementary then we need to figure out which iteration of those is something that we need to to do so um anybody want to go first i'll go first rosa i like all the names i think the committee did a great job

063particularly i love that the students were so involved and and had their voices heard but i think if the large section of the community likes the candlewood name i think i'm okay with that and it it does represent an important geographic uh feature uh of our town so i'm okay with the canada wood name do you like candlewood lake or candlewood elementary i don't have a preference so i i'd go with the the will of the of the team on this one anyone else i agree with jen too i mean i like all the names but i like candlewood and i think i would go i like the candlewood would also be ces so i think to narrow it down between those two i would go for candlewood elementary school would be my first preference

064okay that's what i was going to say i like that i like the ces um [Music] candlewood elementary school i like that reference the acronym is i think about the younger students saying the name of their school just flows nicer but i'm kind of impartial to either either uh i well i wanted to say uh rosa we we took i mean i wouldn't want to leave nbc out of this because the nbc gave us a lot of uh suggestions and it kind of helped drive this too so i want to give you know a quick shout out to them as well as the students and uh all the faculty and staff uh yeah i can of wood for me uh yeah like the first option candlewood it's on canada would like road you know i've

065talked to some people they're like well you know whiskenier's on whiskey road cannonwood lake kenwood lake road i i agree i think kennawood because candlewood elementary is easier to say so i guess if i had to choose one i would go there but okay debbie um i think initially my favorite was newberry elementary but if we're really following the guidelines of the policy then um i think we should go with candlewood and it's really important to me that it's something that the kids really felt passionate about and candlewood was one of the ones that they that came up over and over again from the students so my vote would be candlewood elementary school without the word lake um so yeah i'm happy with it okay well um i will say i'm one of the people

066who is partial to westbrook um and the reason and i'm partial to westbrook is is quite frankly that's the stream that's running right under the front walkways that are being designed it would it would have brought a a very personal touch to the kids over time and i kind of was partial to that as a reason um but i can't it might easily my second choice would be candlewood lake elementary school with the lake um and the reason i would say with the lake is first of all i think it comes off of people's mouths easier because it's on canada lake road it's near candlewood lake people think candlewood lake it would it would become awkward over time to have this one be candlewood elementary school and have everything else be with lake right so

067i think it was just naturally the word lake fits in there and it will be more it'll be more natural for people um i think you could still use ces with kenwood lake elementary school be frank and i think we would recommend that they adopt a ces because i kind of like that connection to the old center center school kids who are moving over to there so um but it's uh so my vote i think right now would be candlewood lake elementary school with the lake okay and uh for my opinion i would agree i agree with bob actually i like candlewood lake elementary um for those same exact reasons it's on candlewood lake road it is very specific to the geographic section of town that it is can it doesn't incorporate um you know

068uh it's not sort of the candlewood section it's the candlewood lake area so that to me sounds much more pertinent to the geographic section of it's that side of town additionally i just went ahead and googled candlewood elementary school and candlewood lake elementary school and um though there are none in this area which is obviously important because we wouldn't be able to do that anyways but there is a candlewood elementary school in maryland but there is no candlewood lake elementary school anywhere and i like that uniqueness to me i think that would be something that obviously is just brookfield's um and being a school that is in you know this sort of general candlewood lake area should any other future schools in new fairfield or sherman or new milford or danbury want to they would

069never be able to name a school candlewood lake uh elementary school because of um because of brookfield so i like it for those reasons and i would i would also recommend um adoption of a shorter ces logo or abbreviation i should say for the for the name so so you would vote for candlewood lake elementary school but you would abbreviated ces without the l is that yeah yeah not that i think a a four letter abbreviation is a big deal i mean currently hgs is a four-letter abbreviation and people don't say i go to well they just say i go to huckleberry so i mean sort of how we talk it will probably just become known as yeah i go to canada one but i think as a formal name i think having candlewood lake

070is um a little more distinctive yeah i don't i don't i don't know too many people refer huckleberry's huckleberry hill it's like no it's zuckerberry right right yeah i like that rosa i think your uh argument makes sense and i like that if we're talking about geography too the lake is something very geographical so you convinced me to include the lake i like it okay great anyone else jumping on the lakeside not lakeside sorry i i don't feel strongly like i'd be fine with lake too so i'm really fine either way i do like that there's no other school named that too i like that debbie have i convinced you no but uh that's okay that's all right it's fair you know the thing i'm wrestling with is i think candlewood sounds more um sounds

071broader if you will and candlewood lake i feel like that implies that only people who live near the lake would go to that school but then i thought about it and i thought well whiskener is on west wisconia road but people don't think that only kids who live there go to that school so i guess you know my argument doesn't hold up but you'll forget i think i just feel like candlewood lake sounds like such a specific targeted area that it that if we took the lake part out of it you know it sounds more broad and more more inclusive of all of brookfield but i i'm fine with either one but i like that that's the actual technical name of the road too yeah you know yeah that does make sense yeah well we

072don't we don't call it west wisconia or middle school so right so and it doesn't harm us that much although it is near whiskenier road which is right up at the intersection there that whole area is known as whiskaner so and i don't think the whole areas the whole area up there is known as candlewood lake right it's not known as candlewood yes right i think it would be c c-l-e-s though i don't know how you just like dropped the lake out of there and i'm fine with that it doesn't need to be ces but i feel like i don't you just can't it's candle with like you have to it would be cles no you can't just like ignore that there's an l in the acronym acronyms tend to have a way of developing

073a life of their own right that's probably something we don't necessarily have to decide the acronym do we oh [Music] mike you're going to be the chair all right yeah so uh you know uh just circling back i don't know if i i think i might have what i said might sound like i was for ces i i uh just candlewood i actually was for kenwood lake just because it's because it's an actual thing i mean candlewood's like a general you know kind of thing it's it's so many things are called candlewood uh you know uh you know there's candlewood towing there's candlewood uh all sorts of things so canada lake um also i i feel like this is a very important part that the school encompasses a lot of nature themes within it it's

074very bright it's very vibrant and i feel like canwood lake mixes in with that really well um everyone's seen the artwork there other streams going through it's very nature oriented there's almost good point right so i'm just going to go ahead and um i move that the board of education adopt candlewood lake elementary school as the name for the new elementary school oh amy's screen lit up so give it to amy give it to me all right so um all in favor of candlewood lake elementary school bye hi all right that's unanimous exciting that's very exciting right this is exciting all right we finally have a name for this week we could change the website from new school project website to pandawoodlake elementary stop calling it the new school yeah you can do that that's

075great thank you everyone all right very exciting all right um we can move on though to setting of the graduation date for the class of 21. okay i move that the board set the graduation date for the brookfield high school class of 2021 as recommended by bhs principal mark belanda second so dr brill do you want me to just start talking do you want to introduce any of their conversation just want to make sure we follow the right people thanks mark just yeah i had to get off a mute there thank you no so mark and i um had some conversations over the last month about graduation and certainly he is uh i know he's started i believe he's initiated some conversation not only with his team but with some students and so forth uh

076speaking of latonvy was talking about the class of 2021 um and tying back into what could have been a very negative experience last year for graduation turned out to be one of the the biggest bright spots of the year was that uh at home right right on our campus along meadow hill road graduation ceremony and the parade and everything so i'm going to turn it over to mr belanda about the date and then he could share a little bit about some of the uh still initial and preliminary plans go ahead mark thanks john um so right now what we're looking at the last uh official day of school uh given the snow day that we had back in december the last day of school is monday the 14th um so looking at you know state

077law board policy things of that nature as to when we could have our ceremony we could have our say we could have our ceremony on saturday the 12th um saturday's traditionally been a day when we've hosted uh held our graduation ceremony mostly due to the fact that it was tied to grad party um really because they need that time to set up and and there's there's a those of you that have been a part of grad party understand all that goes into it it's a significant endeavor um it's so hard to plan for that right now um you know what's going to happen with you know uh inside gatherings with kids um nobody's entirely sure you know how that's going to happen so there really hasn't been much movement in conversations with grad party at

078this point as to what we're going to do i think everybody's kind of holding their breath to see what's going to happen next but that being said you know the alignment of having graduation on the 12th of june is something that i absolutely think we can do um you know we would the plan at this point i keep looking at my calendar that's what i'm looking at so you know and the other day other saturday date would be the 19th of june would be the other day if we wanted to keep with a saturday we certainly want to have it at the high school um that is something that uh i debate it and i actually love the fact that we had it at um westcon at the o'neill center when i first came to

079when they did it with new milford they do it at westcon uh and they did it again when i was in brookfield and it was a nice nice way to have that organized and a lot less work to some degree in terms of uh crowd control westcon does take care of a lot of things but given the situation we're in and there really is no telling or predicting and we need to actually start planning um given all the positive feedback that we had last year for our our graduation ceremony that was both parade and then inside we're thinking we would like to bring it back to the high school and find a way to make it happen there um you know we would certainly like to incorporate the the parade was a huge hit and

080i think was a great thing for the town um something that we would still continue to need i think moving forward thinking about even in june um that celebration of the community the pinnacle of when kids graduate in this town it's great to actually be able to celebrate that so i think the community would be interested in coming out and supporting the same way in terms of what the actual ceremony could look like you know we could incorporate things inside we can incorporate things also outside on the football field uh we have some great technology uh there that we have a pixel lock camera that we use to stream um our our sporting events that are out there we can use the same technology to stream uh the graduation ceremony we can talk about utilizing

081depending on what it is and how it works and where um where what restrictions are in terms of social distancing and things like that we could be able to limit or utilize the processional how many people come we can do it in the stands we can put kids on the field socially distance and spread apart you know so there's a lot of options of things we can do and still have that live broadcast opportunity which i think is is something that people really it's always nice to have um for those grandparents that aren't traveling or somebody from out of state that just wants to watch the ceremony the idea would really be to be on a saturday morning traditionally brookfield high school's graduation has been in the evening on a saturday since i've started the

082challenge as soon as you decide to make that move to go outside as people are aware in june those pesky thunderstorms that tend to throw us inside you know in the years i worked at danbury high school when their graduation ceremony was outside um or when i was at watertown high school and their graduation server when i was outside we were driven in on more than one occasion due to the fact that thunderstorms tend to pop up around that four five six o'clock time it's almost inevitable in the summer when you plan a graduation what happens less frequently is is those sorts of storms tend to not happen in the morning just based on weather patterns um you know so what we'd look to do is do it on a saturday morning similar to what

083we did last uh this past year for the class of 2020 um and my initial recommendation would be that we actually have it hosted on on june 12th um some you know time to be determined at some time in the morning that was what i would say uh and then we will work out some of the details moving forward but that is um even though the last day of school would tech may be monday we certainly could require kids to come to school to pick up belongings to finish things into the year which they're going to need to do anyway and count it as a day of school um you know it's still doable to do it on june 12th so that would be my recommendation moving forward uh i really would like to make

084it um you know i'd like to make it rain or shine because it would be a real challenge i think to reschedule and we could always find a way to to do something a little differently we can talk about tents and some other options um but at this point i think june 12th is the way to go um in my conversation with the superintendent that's what we've kind of come up with so i want to present that to the board and ask if you have any questions or input or anything of that nature thanks mark and for the board uh the motion for tonight is to to vote on the actual day that's that's what we have to do as a board or the board has to do not me um giving mark the opportunity

085tonight to talk about what he was thinking for the ceremony uh he and the team uh was just you know part and parcel of this particular agenda so we did want to share that uh information with the board tonight so i don't know if anybody has any questions about kind of the administrative process of planning the ceremony um or just questions in general about the june 12th mark what happens if we get another macro burst or another snowstorm or something and school ends up going until the 17th or 18th yeah it's a good question and i can't believe you said the word macro burst i thought that was like outlawed in this town um so but what would happen is you know we could still host host the graduation ceremony we would just basically we

086can technically hold diplomas until that last day so um if we had to extend it beyond there um but also the other flexibility is too is is if for some reason something happened that required multiple days so more than one or two days and we're really looking at okay there's really four more days of the school year and you know we could certainly with your permission you know move it to the 19th to that next saturday have conversations the nice part about being on campus and also depending on what happens with um grad party is and i'm not sure what is going to happen at this point we have the flexibility to do it pretty much anytime because we're using our facility you know if we have that if we did the parade which we're

087still planning on doing that would require a little more moving that is the piece that would be a little more challenging because using route 25 there has to there's a state permit that has to go as to be completed by the police department to actually get a parade permit um something i didn't know well i assume that there could be something along those lines but i learned more about it last year so we'd have to be a little more discerning about that in terms of how that goes but the that was the long answer to your question deb we could absolutely hold it on the 12th um even if there was a couple extra days and if we absolutely needed to we could always tweak some things and and make it the 19th as well

088if we needed to but i think we'd be flexible with that and be able to communicate that with the community great thanks mark any other questions all right um i think should we amend the motion so that it does specifically say june 12th i i would think we need to do that all right so um i will move to amend the motion on the table and have it read that the board set the graduation date for the brookfield high school class of 2021 as june 12th as recommended by bhs principal mark bellanda a second okay so amy's second in the mo uh amendment sorry um so we'll just vote on the amendment all in favor okay um that passes and then we'll vote on the thanks bob and then we'll vote on uh on the

089entire motion so all in favor aye all right thanks that's unanimous thank you i'll have some happy parents who will get to know one we're gonna actually have graduation this year it's that uh it's exciting hope for good weather all right uh up next is the extension of the food service contract okay i will move that the board approved the extension of the whitson's food service contract for one year as recommended as director by director of operations ken post second thanks bob uh ken it's all yours okay thank you uh so uh as some of you may know normally the food service contract has to be bid out every five years our current contract expires this coming june 30th for this year only the usda is granting one-year waivers of this regulation to states who

090apply the state of connecticut applied for this waiver and it was approved so we have an opportunity to extend our existing contract with whitson's for one year uh since the bid process is very time consuming to the district and to the food service management companies and since we are very happy with whitson's with everything else going on in our lives right now i'm asking the board to allow me to notify the state that we would like to extend our contract with whitson's by one year and then go through the whole bid process next year and and just for clarification and by the way i apologize we did talk about this at the finance committee meeting and i neglected to mention that um ken you want to talk a little bit about on what terms uh

091it gets extended and who set those terms it basically would be an extension of every the terms that are in the contract right now with the exception of the the management fee and the state every uh every time we go out to bed they give us the uh the rate of increase as a matter of fact when we renew each year the state sets the rate of increase based on the the inflation rate yeah so so i guess my point is it's not a negotiation it's governed by the state giving a given guidance on on the dollars and cents side so it's not really like we have to go out and negotiate something that's correct and then the contract is very very much dictated by the state and the usda and we're very happy with

092whitson's that's what my question was okay yeah and i will say we discussed this at the finance committee and the finance committee recommends the extension thank you bob all right so any other questions okay so all in favor aye thank you all okay um up next is the teachers contract but actually amy before you read that um i think this is better placed after the executive session so um the board members who were not privy to these negotiations before um can openly discuss uh the details of the moa so i will move to amend the agenda and place this item after the executive session second okay all in favor okay so we'll talk about this later um on to old business and uh we have a bunch of policies and the first one is deletion

093of policy 5141.23 communicable infectious diseases okay i will make a motion that the board approved the deletion over filled policy 5141.23 communicable infectious disease for a final reading as recommended by the policy and communications subcommittee the first reading was on december 16th 2020. second thanks jordan um debbie did you get any sort of feedback or anything on this any other anybody wants to discuss here all right so all in favor hi bob you're muted okay thanks that's unanimous uh the next policy is 6114 emergency and disaster preparedness i will move that the board approved the deletion of brookfield policy number 6114 emergency and disaster preparedness and replace it with caves version for a final reading as recommended by the policy and communications subcommittee first reading was december 16 2020 second thanks joy all in favor

094of this hi thanks that's unanimous as well next is policy 6114.6 emergency closings i move that the board approves the deletion of brookfield policy number 6114.6 emergency closings and replace it with cabes version for a final reading as recommended by the policy communications subcommittee first reading was december 16 2020. second thanks all in favor aye all right that's unanimous as well and the last policy is a new policy 6114.8 pandemic epidemic emergencies i will move that the board approved the adoption of cave policy number 6114.8 pandemic epidemic emergencies for a final reading as recommended by the policy and communications subcommittee first reading was december 16 2020. second thanks all in favor aye all right that's unanimous as well uh the next item in our agenda is the superintendent's 21 22 discussion in a possible motion

095so um john and ken do you want to go ahead and talk through some of the updates that you had mentioned before let me get off a mute there thanks yeah just briefly to bring everybody back up to speed and also you know with these being public meetings it's important to speak to the public for someone who might be tuning in for the first time so this is a very brief recap and then i'm going to ask ken to pull up a chart that we shared at monday's finance committee meeting and then actually got some feedback from folks in the finance committee and bob started to allude to this but saved it for this part portion of our meeting tonight um where we could just walk you through what's happened over the last couple of

096months so um we've had a total since december 2nd when i proposed the budget for 2122. we've had at least five finance committee meetings in the last seven weeks and we are now in our fourth regular board meeting where we're talking about the budget um on january 6 we had made some adjustments and brought those forward in a very brief i think it was four slides i showed two weeks ago um since then there's been some further adjustments to the positive bob alluded to that a little bit earlier tonight and what we'd like to show you this evening is the adjustments since january 6th and they're really in a positive direction for the budget um mr belton talked about some estimates coming in that were actually more concrete um because after the first of the

097year vendors came forward in terms of technology and some other areas we're looking at and you'll we'll lay that out for you um to remind everybody where we were at on january 6 all of the investments were discussed for the second or third time in great detail we went through each one of them the this board had consensus on every one of the uh investments and uh really essentially agreed with what we put forward and discussed and really vetted um with the exception of the equity and inclusion uh dollar amount for the pd because we're still planning those things out and there's some question about that but other than that the essence of the proposal really had strong consensus a couple of weeks ago i'd like ken if you could start to pull up your

098your chart there uh ken that you put together and then the last uh piece to remind everybody of is uh we are one last piece oh there was a few more questions that came forward from the board that we did answer and if you know if those are satisfactory then we can leave that alone if there's some follow-up that any board members have on those questions from about a week ago that we provided responses to we certainly could uh uh address that as well so mr post i'll let you walk through this unless rosa or bob you have anything else you want to add so i'll leave it at that that would be great okay very great okay so starting at the top we have the superintendent's original proposed budget which was 3.96 percent and

099then we have the adjustments that dr brill talked about from the january 6th meeting which brought our uh budget up to 4.19 and we've made additional adjustments from them and you can see a lot of them are uh from many of our software products uh where eric has gone out and and tried to firm up as many quotes as he could get from them and one of them actually went up but many of them went down uh the chromebook lease we have a better interest rate than we originally anticipated uh we've reduced our ask for chromebooks for the one-to-one program based on survey results uh we have fewer one fewer maintenance vehicles so we're lowering our request for transfer fuel uh professional services we went through and refined our estimate uh for facilities based on

100our current service contracts and then in special services uh gina went through her budget and discovered one piece where she will be able to provide some services with in-house folks instead of uh outsourcing so these additional adjustments total a little less than fifty two thousand dollars reducing the budget so it's now forty seven million two hundred eighty seven dollars uh 287 469 or 4.07 percent increase and those were incorporated i like this sheet it summarizes everything from the proposal on well so thank you yeah i'd just like to add one thing ken if you can scroll back toward the top a little bit more uh the one reminder again for those people who might be tuning in for the first time uh that aren't as intimate with the budget as the board members are um

101on january 6 the real big difference um from my original proposal in early december was people would notice the 3.9 3.9 increase was the original ask in early december and then it went up to 4.19 uh on january 6. really as you can see in the chart uh the major increase there was health insurance and looking at our estimate there and working with mr dunn uh and mrs marion over on the town side for what those estimates are going to look like and really uh getting into the figures with ken and the actuary and so forth so um just a reminder for people that's why it went up to 4.19 and then ken just outlined the almost 52 000 in tightening up our estimates uh to lower it down to 4.07 percent increase the other

102thing i will uh we also just received updates to our budget books and i just opened it up just to get one number in my head with 4.07 that's a three percent of that is inflationary increases there if we did nothing at all it would be a three percent increase and that's consistent with um our teachers contracts a relatively healthy rate of increase in what we're seeing on health benefits and uh and all the other gives and takes uh one of the things we did as a finance committee is really scrubbed to make sure when we call things business as usual inflationary that that's correct and that we're not mixing up uh investments versus that the remaining 1.07 percent is investments and that's the list we went through at our last meeting and most of

103that two-thirds of that was things that are required by uh and informed by student need and uh i think a third or a little less than a third of that was program improvements so it really was you know we're talking about um three percent of inflation about point seven percent i think can roughly for uh in uh student need investments and then another point three point four percent for um for program improvement if i kind of have those numbers in my head i think that's accurate so the other chart that bob mentioned earlier i'll call that up now and i won't go through it in great detail but basically this chart for the most part has all the accounts where we applied a percentage increase to our our budget estimate that we expect to be

104able to update at some point in time and i also list the method we use to come up with the estimate the expected update for example the top three items are our labor contracts we don't expect to be able to update update them before june unfortunately because contract negotiations just tend to drag out longer than you'd like so as we finalize these numbers uh when we get our insurance renewals we can update the chart and update the board with the the financial impact of those adjustments and i can send this out to the board later or tomorrow and you can go through it and if you have any questions i'd be happy to answer them yeah so we don't have this yet right i mean this updated one not yet no this this is what's

105out there still to be no i mean this this actual document we don't did you send that to us yet or no i did not okay this one finished it okay so it looks to me like the the biggest this is by the way we did not review this at our meeting this is the first time even we as a finance committee are seeing it but we had discussed the content the biggest area we've made an assumption on is the health insurance we've gotten some verbal inputs from people who are relatively in the know about what kind of inflation rates for health insurance we should be expecting and we do know that the uh um the uh the connecticut partnership plan is implementing a gradated rate for fairfield county separate from the rest of the

106state and both of those together got us the 9.75 but until we see the rates actually published by the connecticut partnership plan later in the spring that could go up or down right and interestingly enough the town is facing the same thing um you know they have exactly the same issue there will be a moment in the middle of the board of finance deliberations where they will get new information on that um we're all crossing our fingers it'll be lower but all the signals are it'll be higher so uh a little nervous about that uh the second area is the special education tuition rates um we've assumed it's got that two-thirds of the way down the chart that we've assumed a four percent increase in our budget and those will start rolling in somewhere between

107february and june so those are probably the two biggest ones to monitor uh are there any others can that you're worried about uh or i wouldn't say worried that you're really keeping your eye on i was really trying very hard to get the special education transportation owned in also because that's a 700 000 line item okay so we thought this would be very important to share with our partner committees right so that they understand where we've made assumptions and and they've asked us for that in the past and we thought we should be as transparent as we can and these increased percentage increases um are those just based on like historical increases year-on-year in some cases they are in some cases it's based on input like for example the um for our property liability and

108workers comp insurance the insurance company told us uh it could be up to 3.5 percent so that's what i put in got it all right um so i mean personally because and maybe it's just because i've been a part of the finance committee but i don't um i don't think that there is much left uh for us to scrutinize uh as a board um does anybody have any questions um if not i kind of want to just go around and get everybody's opinion in terms of where you stand are you ready to adopt this budget as it stands um just to clarify for um you know some of our newer board members although you guys have been here a year it's still only your second budget cycle so you're kind of just thrown into the

109last one but uh you know after we vote and we adopt this budget you know it's this this is our budget this is the one that we have to present a united front on and advocate for so um if if there's any other questions or comments now is the time to sort of speak up about them so um i'm just going to kind of go around and if you support the budget as is all the investments adjustments whatever else um go ahead and uh and share that so um let's see so amy why don't you go ahead and go first okay i'm in favor of adopting this budget and i want to say thank you to the finance committee for really scrubbing it and doing a lot of work and saving us some time i

110think and to ken and dr barrel as well and yeah i'm in favor of adopting this as is tonight it looks great thank you jen um yeah i mean it was a great experience for me being on the finance committee to um dig in and look at the numbers you know at least that i was in charge of and that rose and bob really dug in and i mean we really look carefully at each individual line um so probably more than ever i feel very confident that this is a very uh well-planned budget um that meets the needs most importantly meets the needs for our students so i support the budget as is okay thank you joy i support the budget right mike yes i also uh support the budget and thank the finance committee

111for some really uh in-depth work a lot more a lot more information this time around than last year this is this is great okay debbie i agree i feel confident it's a solid budget i think it represents what we need um of course we'd always like to add more but i think for where we are right now it's it's it's exactly what we need okay and bob um i i will say we've scrubbed this budget as much as we've ever scrubbed a budget before in my six years on the board and uh and i want to thank everybody who has been participative in creating this budget and it starts with the finance committee and it goes to dr burrill and mr post um and joan uh who've done a lot of work but it also

112goes to every principal and every administrator in the district who spent have spent months now creating this budget and there's more detail in the line items that even we haven't gone through and at this level at the board we saw a lot of it at the finance committee and it was it was very well put together i thought now that said for me the reason i will support this budget is actually the investments you know we spent a good amount of time in our last meeting walking through what are each of these investments and you know more than ever before i feel like these are very well founded investments for our community and for our students and for what is appropriate and we're doing it with a four percent increase in aggregate i do think

113that um it will be a interesting time for our partners and the board of finance and board of selectmen to balance that against the tax issues in a world where you know tax uh kovit is still in play and its impact so what goes on and what they have to think about but as a board of education i really think standing behind the investments that we're making that are appropriate balanced and rooted in the needs of our students is is is exceptionally defendable here um and i hope we get the support from uh both our other boards and from the town on this very well-crafted budget i agree i support it that's not there any better so i i would agree wholeheartedly with all of that so um unless there's anything further i think we

114should go ahead and put this to um a vote so i will move that the board approve the um 2021 2022 budget as you have to mention the number ah okay sorry you're right um i'll say it in the amount of 40 in the amount of 47 million 287 469 dollars for the record all right do i have a second second thanks jen all right all in favor hi hi all right congratulations everybody yeah congratulations and and if i may just say thank you to the to the full board to the finance committee uh to the to the admin team as bob mentioned uh joan in in dr ruby's office and our directors and our principals i mean everybody uh this is my ninth budget as a superintendent so i sit in my sixth budget

115in brookfield it's something we talked about early on in my 10 years having a separate committee to really review the budget and circumstances being what they are in the tyranny of the urgent uh this really finally became a priority um to do this early on in the process and i'm just really proud of the finance committee on the board i think it positions us well for going into and i need to mention this rosa because we just got this date from mr dunn today february 3rd we will have our joint meeting with the board of selectmen of board of finance 7 pm february 3rd that's in two weeks it's a wednesday so that's just been put on the schedule so we want to make sure we get that out to everybody okay but thank you

116all for the support um exciting night we've got a lot going on a lot of a lot of approvals tonight thank you right so yes mark your calendars everyone i'm doing all right um let's move on to capital projects discussion um we're just going to review the 222 prioritized capital projects um this was already approved by us um on october 21st uh we don't need to vote on this we already did that um but we'll just take some time to go through the list again um as these will come up again throughout the budget process and eric if you can hear us i think you have that slide you were going to bring up for us a sec yes i'm bringing it up for you right now again great thank you yeah i'll just make

117a comment in our finance committee meeting we we we said it's been such a time since we actually did it and considering we're going to be in meetings in the very near future a brief refresher would be helpful to all of us that's all and i think the finance committee bob the other part about that is uh i don't know if it was you brought this topic up but the the board of finance and the board selectmen really spend a considerable amount of time on the capitol you know it's because they become town projects and so it's important we get the review in um and then make sure they're positioned well to do their deliberations i think it was 19 eric on that power point slide 19. there we go thank you there you go

118so rose i didn't know if you wanted to ask you know ken to walk us through this or you wanted to lead the conversation i didn't know how you wanted to just make sure everybody's brought back up to speed on this i think you can could walk us through it that would be great okay can i turn it over to you hey thank you so this is a prioritized list of our capital improvement plan made by the facilities committee again that was adopted on october 21st so the first item we have is to replace the guidance wing roof and the rooftop air conditioning unit at the high school that was a piece of the roof that due to the bids was not able to be done when the roof was uh was redone at the

119high school a couple of years ago the second item is to replace the original electric service at the middle school the third priority was to begin replacing plumbing fixtures and equipment and this is a actually a four-part project spread out over about 10 years number four is to replace the building management system at the middle school uh 5a and 5b are the renovate the boys locker room additional design funding uh for 35 000 and then the tacton estimate of 1.3 million dollars to actually do the renovation work the next item is to replace the seminar room seating at the middle school that was kind of an emergent need that was just discovered this past year number number seven is to replace exterior windows and doors and security film on the on the windows again this

120is a another four-part project over the course of 10 years next is replacing the library air conditioning at the high school and then we have paving and concrete at the high school and the middle school the high school would be to continue from the bus loop over into the front parking lot in front of the the main entrance and the middle school would be to do the new uh in the last paving project we did in middle school we were able to put a um do some some grading and put some process material down in front of the school so the buses can pull along along the front of the school it helps us get get in and out easier so this would be to pave that area and get down into the parking lot

121and then a maintenance vehicle and that's the total of the three million thirty thousand dollars thirty thousand and eighty four dollars i just like to make a comment um again for the public and bringing people up to speed who might watch getting ready for budget season might start to watch our our videos of these discussions what you can notice here there's nothing for um the two elementary schools we're moving into a new elementary school called candlewood lake elementary school and um there's no need to have those major investments there that that would be pouring good money uh in after bed so um just the middle school in high school here so so could you comment for a little bit i mean we we approved this early so that the um first selectmen could start internalizing

122this capital planning earlier than normal have they progressed into your knowledge on any reviews of the aggregate capital plan made any recommendations or is it a little bit um quiet still ken yeah go ahead i've heard nothing yeah i asked first because he meets quite often when this is miriam um but no we haven't heard anything uh in any of our weekly meetings at this point with uh mr dunn or mrs marion it would be useful to know how they progressed so before we're in that february third meeting so if you could at your one of your next meetings just check in and see if they're forming any opinions you know i have no idea what the aggregate capital plan is but you know one of just for those who don't dwell on capital some

123of these types items like this million dollar project for the locker room are things that you might bond as a as a town and you pay for it over in 10 or 20 years uh others you would pay for as you go like paving projects and some of them are in the middle right so part of what the board of finance and board of selectmen have to do is think about what do i pay for out of the budget versus what do i bond and pay for over time and uh and it's the same as we would you know be doing with our household budgeting right you know what do you what are you taking a loan out for versus what are you you know what are you paying for out of the paycheck and

124uh and they they have a lot of interestingly it's not just a yes or no discussion it's a yes or no or how do i finance a discussion and so there's a lot of moving pieces on capital and i think it just any insights to where their head is at um would also help us anticipate if there's any questions at our joint meeting um uh in um on february 3rd so in fact ken the second question would be would you be expecting us to address capital at that meeting or not um if the answer is now we'll do that handle that separately that would be fine i just want to make sure we don't you know we're coordinating well with them so thank you can i have a question um this just came up at

125the nbc meeting last night when they talked about the boys locker room uh one of the questions that one of their members had was there's a room that's i guess shares a wall with the locker room and i believe it was something about the either the air handling or the air conditioning was that was anything done in that sort of vicinity of the building in the last couple of years um because i think they were saying that it was sort of on their radar and they were like well you know obviously if we're opening up walls and things like that we should maybe take care of it all at the same time so i'm just i'm not aware i'm not aware of anything but i did see a couple of emails go back and forth

126between uh eddie at tecton and dan caldwell and uh paul checko and because dane wasn't aware of any issues there okay and one the last email i saw was mr checko asking dan to give him a call and he'd bring him up to speed and i haven't spoken i'll be meeting with dan tomorrow morning so i can find out what the issue might be yeah all right that'd be good all right does anyone have any questions on this okay um so let's move on to the new school building project as an update i went to the nbc meeting they met last night right now there's not much of an update on the they've had some requests for information those have been rolling in over the last few weeks there are four what they're what they're

127sort of categorizing as critical contractor bids that are due next week that's for all of the site work um so those are the ones they're really waiting on and they're just hoping that it's um that these bids are are favorable so they can make some decisions on some of those some of those optionals that were talked about early on um until those start rolling in they're not going to really know if any of those options and you know some of them that was uh additional um i believe there were additional class um there were the additional classrooms that were sort of the add-ons um and those uh we won't really they're just kind of hoping that the bids are are favorable and they may hold a special meeting uh once they find out that um

128and then the only other um information that actually might be important to you ken if when you talk to dan um arcadis reviewed a proposal from a company multivista it's a platform that sort of takes i'm going to really oversimplify this because i'm sure it's much more in depth but they essentially take construction photography sort of in a way that documents the progress of the project but also provides information that can be useful to facilities maintenance and repairs in the future so sort of before they close up walls and everything you know uh sections of the building will be photographed documented um and sort of um so that if ever repairs need to be done they know where pipes and wires and all of those kinds of things are in the walls and i'm probably

129oversimplifying what that is because it was a pretty detailed proposal but that was just one of the things that maybe you want to mention to dan because if he has any input on that that would be um something that um you know the nbc i'm sure would appreciate hearing back from yeah i will thank you that's quite a service and uh a re i think the the multivista might have done a presentation very early on in the fall that you and i uh attended one of the mbc meetings and i talked about that with dan and i know he was thrilled when he had heard about that for the long term the documentation the photo documentation you're talking about rosa um but it is pretty complex it's not just pictures but um but yeah um

130and then i just had um uh two related pieces one in talking with the folks at omg uh we we walked through last week i think was last tuesday morning um with principal roshano uh and mr caldwell uh mr check okay we walked the site just to make sure that uh the school administration is knows exactly where students can play what areas will be fenced off uh looking at traffic patterns bus patterns etc so they're prepared um uh dr pepsosky and mrs lavrochano are thinking up those those items that need to be communicated to parents for when we do break ground and fence off areas and so forth um so they've already been talking with staff about um what's going to be different so anyway that work is ongoing um it looks like i couldn't

131believe when they told me that march 8th which happens to be a monday could be the day they actually start dropping off materials grading for the access road you know on the south side of the property uh to get the equipment in fencing areas off i mean it's going to come that quickly and so to that end rose and i had a brief conversation last week and i actually talked to dr davis just from a health perspective about groundbreaking ceremony and i think at the last board meeting we actually talked a little bit about it we may want to do the groundbreaking ceremony prior to march 8th um or around that time uh considering the pandemic we may want to pick a saturday my understanding is the outdoor gatherings are supposed to be in that

13250 people range so in talking with dr davis she said you folks know the mitigation strategies you do a nice job with that that's probably a number you want to stick to so that you know just putting that out there to the board that we're going to start some initial planning and look at some dates um and talk with mr checko and also with the the architecture from tecton as to kind of what a standard ceremony might look like uh so we put an agenda together and get going on that so we'll certainly be in uh swift communication with you as that that time approaches us okay any questions all right so three main points are actually yes three main points i was thinking uh first dr burrell's covet update and the back to school

133update uh the setting of the high school graduation date and the new school name definitely and i could i guess when i write about the new school name i could maybe put something in about groundbreaking yeah good idea i'm good with that everybody else okay and then would you like me to separately send out something uh about the budget adoption or anything like that or and i'm not looking to put a fourth main point that's not what i'm looking to do but just to make sure we're communicating with the public that's a big deal that we're adopting it and i i mean i could wait till next week and then put something out and when we turn it over to mr dunn what was your your first uh three main points was the covet update

134yeah do you wanna just switch it does anybody i feel like maybe the budget may have been a bigger no deal the only reason i didn't say the budget was because i don't feel like we made significant changes from last time we met and we had a very lengthy discussion and a lot of detail in the three main points that meeting two weeks ago but um how's everybody else feel do you want the budget how about john what if we s switch it were you planning on doing like on friday any kind of recap of the first week back to school and maybe maybe if i put the budget adoption in the three main points you could send a separate email on friday about the covet update and how it was returning back to school

135and how many kids are in person yeah i mean i i could i could make it work and um there is an announcement that i really it's a nice announcement just an update that i'll probably be putting out um on friday or late on thursday and so i'm just trying to time up the announcements so i can make it work either way so it's whatever the board would like to put in the three main points will work and then whatever is not there that needs to get out i'll make sure it gets out so i i just wanted to make sure we talked about it to get everybody's opinion so why do we do maybe that makes more sense put the budget in the three main points yeah you don't have to go into all

136the the grainy details about the budget you could just you know basically say we adopted it it's changed from the proposal by this and this and that's sort of it yeah and link link the link all the postings of the budget for everybody to see yeah okay okay all right thanks upcoming events okay the 14th annual hrra recycling poster contest is ongoing until friday january 29th the entries can be dropped off at the town hall dropbox or submitted electronically to artwork at brookfieldps.org at center school friday january 29th is a spirit day and community meeting and tuesday february 9th is a virtual pto meeting at 7 00 pm and friday february 12th is the 100th day of school at huckleberry friday february 5th is jersey day where your favorite team gear friday february 12th is

137a virtual author visit for grades three and four with laura tarshish writer of the i survive series and friday february 12th is also school spirit day at wisconsin day for any student not photographed in november will be monday january 25th additional makeup photos for remote learners and makeup photos will be friday january 29th remote learners will be from 3 to 5 pm on friday january 29th the second marking period ends on tuesday january 26th and tryouts for basketball are next week after school boys on monday and thursday girls on tuesday and friday everything must be up to date on the parent portal including a new winter cobin 19 consent form and an up-to-date physical on file by this friday january 22nd and at the high school tuesday january 26th is the psat for 11th grade

1389th 10th and 12th graders will attend classes remotely that day thursday january 28th is the end of the second marking period and wednesday february 10th student athletes will attend the ciac virtual sportsmanship conference where bhs will be recognized as the michael's cup recipient and all schools closed monday february 15th and tuesday february 16th for president's weekend because we don't have another regular board meeting before that and that's it okay all right so um next we have an executive session i i will make a motion that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing strategy and negotiations as it relates to collective bargaining okay all in favor aye and i'd like to invite in um john burrell maureen ruby ken post and terry cavanaugh