001way of the Brookfield Board of Education YouTube channel furthermore such meeting will be recorded and transcribed and posted on the board's website within seven days of the meeting and made available as required by law all speakers taking part in the meeting are reminded that they are to clearly State their names and titles if applicable before speaking on each occasion that they speak individuals wishing to participate in the public comment portion of this meeting May do so by calling the following numbers and sorry I have to get up a different agenda because I don't have that in front of me right now okay so the public can call area code 6099 or area code 301 715 8592 and the meeting ID is 7637 5610 okay so we have um let's uh stand for the [Music] pledge
002I 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 uh we have six of our seven board members present tonight um so first uh we have public comment so is there anyone here and sorry um if I have uh I don't see any phone numbers here and Eric there's nobody in the waiting room right um no I don't have anybody in the waiting room okay um so we are going to move on to the student representative report hi I'm tan chenu as the Brookfield High School student representative um first I wanted to thank the faculty and staff that helped make and deliver the senior class T-shirts because that was a really nice way
003to end the year um most seniors have also started finish up finishing up their applications which is a huge stress relief and some have even started hearing back from colleges um there are a few new clubs that have been made which is Club e which is an environment club and women in stem and NHS and Writing Center is also continuing with their tutoring program and just helping with essays and stuff um starting January 4th when we came back from break we started ilt which I I personally enjoy and I think a lot of students enjoy because it's been difficult for students to reach out to their teachers for extra help so it was a good time in the middle of the day to do that and it's also just a nice break if you do
004not have any work and also the 10-minute breaks between classes has also been helpful just like to stretch your legs um I have heard some people complain some students complaining about receiving absences even though they're in class due to the new cameras on policy but I think that's just that policy is just something that students have to get used to because I understand that it's to create some normaly in like classroom experience um this Friday there's an assembly with the Brookfield High School alumni panel for juniors and seniors during ilt which I think we're just hearing from alumni of Brookfield High School and their experience in college um next Thursday the 14th there's a next Thursday or the week after that but there's a Junior College Planning webinar at 6 pm and juniors also have
005their PSAT on the 26th where they will be in the building but it will continue to be a remote day for 9th 10th and 12th graders and finally the last day of the first semester is Janu January 28th which is already coming up soon and that is all thank you um out of curiosity what does ilt stand for individualized learning time okay and um Mr blinda is that part of the the new high school schedule with that block yeah it was this is something that um we had talked about at Cape last year we were ready to roll at the beginning of this year but because of covid obviously we in person we didn't uh start that but it became very apparent that we needed to do something else to provide students some extra help
006during the course of the school day and opportunities so uh to start the new year we implemented the block Chang the schedule on a little bit to give some kids some more downtime but also get the opportunity to get help during the day so um it's it's been it's it's it's an adjustment right it's changed just like everything else I think we got so used to doing it one way and and now we're doing it this way but um it's good to hear some some positive feedback and certainly we're adjusting so that's where we are great glad to hear students like it too so it's good all right any questions for tanvi all right thank you uh up next we have written correspondence okay Christina Zimmerman wrote regarding the remote learning schedule Joe peny wrote
007regarding School reopening guidelines Mark Mulaney wrote regarding school grants Elizabeth Murphy wrote regarding the school naming survey and Jessica jco wrote regarding in-person learning okay uh approval of board minutes I'll move that the board approve the minutes from the regular meeting December 16th 2020 a second thanks Joy all in favor I I any opposed Bob did I see you vote I okay thanks uh the vot the motion passes uh up next is the superintendent update thanks Rosa happy New Year everyone great to be here great to see everybody um I wanted to start with a uh a brief um roll through of some items related to covid uh the first thing I want to let you know is that we received uh last week the two week update from Dr Sullivan uh there was actually
008some uh while we do hear a lot of uh you know concerning news regarding Co um and Brookfield and the region and the state and the surrounding areas certainly remain in what we've known to come to know as the Red Zone um we were down um from 143 cases down to 124 of of the last twoe period which gave us a 52% per 100,000 rate uh which was down from 61% uh the following two the the previous twoe period um and uh so he sees um and we're looking at some trends that are that are stabilizing the TR uh the the upward tick uh in cases that happened after Thanksgiving uh we're not seeing that quite yet uh in terms of what was anticipated although there are uh still you know positive cases that are
009being reported so we're clearly keeping an eye on that and uh just today um Mrs uh Le forgia our nursing coordinator and myself met with Dr suiv to talk about these very things and also about the uh return to in person uh in addition to that we talked with Dr Davis who's on um is with us this evening who I'll introduce you to in just a little bit um because I want her to share a little bit about her perspective on reopening school and you know kind of almost the the need uh for kind of rethinking some of those colored zones that we have because we're all in the red um but we're finding the safest place to be for the kids so long as we have the appropriate staff is actually in the school
010um the other piece that's uh really important to know with covid uh regarding that is um in looking back at all of our cases that were reported to us uh over the fall and and of recent and uh looking at all of the people that um were possibly exposed in quarantined whether those were adults in our schools or children K through 8 there was Zero cases positive cases of covid for those who were quarantined um and only four cases of all those who were quarantined from the high school adults and children so our what this leads uh our medical professionals and our public health professionals to conclude is that our mitigation strategies in school work and and that's why the earlier statement on a safe place for kids to be is in school the spread
011is still in those private social Gatherings uh is where the contact tracers are finding that the the spread continues to occur um it's not we're not seeing it happen in school so Dr sv's really looking at Trends now uh versus hard numbers as to is there a hard number that will uh in terms of rate that will change our course for January 19th in our return um or when once we're in person is there a hard number that will trigger us to go to remote and really the answer to that and Dr Davis can get to this a little bit as well is we'll be looking at each classroom cohort each grade level and really uh dissecting it uh as best we can that way through our in School contact Tracing Our building Administration and
012nurses are also aware in terms of the contact tracing once we're back in school that we're really going to be very careful and very specific that we apply the um exposure rules for needing to quarantine to 6 feet and 15 minutes total in a day um and so we want to make sure that we're communicating all of this this will be in writing I'll be communicating uh a lot of what I'm sharing with you tonight next week uh principles are already starting to talk uh with their uh staff and with their um parents regarding these particular issues and parent uh principales will also if they haven't already be asking parents um to uh let them know if they're going to change their child's status from remote to in person or in person to remote or
013any of these things in terms of the data that we have so we have an accurate account it's important for the board and the public to know that right now on average with the information we have we're looking at about 70% of our students uh likely to be in person uh come January 19th and about 30% to be remote um so being in full K through 8 is close to the equivalent of being in hybrid because you you're you're 70% uh uh of your enrollment so that gives opportunity for more spacing and things like that so it's just important for people to know and for some perspective um Communications uh like I said principles will'll be asking for status change uh from parents if if parents are electing to do that we'll be sending out
014other information regarding qu new quarantine rules as well uh we're moving from the 14-day to the 10day hopefully that helps with some of the uh staffing issues that we had uh and also getting students who are in quarantine back uh sooner um because for days let's face it is almost the school week and so the sooner we can get people back from quarantine the better uh the last piece on communication is that um tomorrow I'll actually be sending out a letter and it's a letter that I sent out in early November to the elementary parents regarding traffic patterns and pickup um while Mrs laano and Mrs Diamond will be sending out more detailed information on that I want to get that out to the parents um the Milford PD is helping us with that coordination
015as well because when we have uh when we're not in a hybrid situation we have more than half the population coming to the schools and driving because we've asked them to drive rather than take the bus that's going to um put some extra burden on our roads and on our school parking lots so we're working on that coordination as well this week uh the last thing I want to say before I introduce Dr Davis on covid and then I'll return once Dr Davis is finished is um vaccines obviously a very significant topic that's out there uh Dr Sullivan and Moren frell our lead contact Tracer in town are are waiting uh to in in this afternoon things could have arrived waiting on all the vaccines to arrive um for our First Responders long-term care facilities
016our own School nurses Etc uh to get their vaccinations in that onea group um we find the uh Educators and others will be in the 1B group um but we don't think we'll have the vaccinations for the 1B group until the end of January probably at the soonest um I think all of us have watched the news and and read read the the newspaper and understand that there is a um a slow a bit of a slower roll out with the vaccinations than uh than anticipated um so with that before we get into some questions with Dr Davis and myself on some of these issues I wanted to introduce Lori said uh shik Davis who we just called Dr Davis to make it a little easier on us uh Dr Davis works for new Vance
017and um she is a pediatrician and she has been advising us for the past six months since Dr um Ferrera um was uh it was not his turn anymore to be our adviser from new evance and so it's now Dr Davis and I'm excited to have her tonight we finally had a common evening where she was available and able to uh be with us so Dr Davis I'd like to just turn it over to you to introduce yourself a little bit more and uh say say a few words uh kind of commenting on on maybe where I was talking about a little bit and providing a little bit of perspective for the board and certain we love to open the floor to the board to certainly ask me questions as part of my report or
018ask Dr Davis things that they might be interested in well thank thank you John and thank you for inviting me to the meeting this evening it's nice to see some faces um so I'll give you a little background about myself I'm um a pediatrician I've been practicing uh for 15 years time flies um and I've been in the Brookfield area for eight now it's going to be nine years so I'm also I to tell you I'm a parent of school age children I have a first grader and a fifth grader so I understand the uh the conundrum we're all in from a professional and a personal parental standpoint so um these are you know unchartered territories we don't really know what to expect a lot of time um but I will say that I think
019you know in my discussion with um with your superintendent and and Anna um I think the school is in very good standing as far as um prevention and mitigating factors um I I find the fact that there is uh she Shields that the school district was able to purchase shields for all the children fantastic um we know that masks and really the social distancing are really kind of avoiding the the spray of you know of uh saliva and things like work and we know that from our health care setting you know northwell Health Care system in Long Island really at the peak of our um initial wave of infections when they did studies they showed that the even the healthcare workers taking care of the most infectious patients in the Intensive Care Unit had less
020they had the decreased number of infections less incidents than what they were seeing in the general population so with that in mind the mitigating factors that you have in the school are really excellent I we have not seen School Trends where we have infections from child to child and I'll say specifically within a classroom or a cohart which is what we're really looking at you know we unfortunately we're all in the red these days you know there are going to be cases but we have great contact tracing and we'll be able to what we're really looking at is the cohorts so the individual classrooms of children that are gathered together and we really haven't seen transmission within those which is great news we haven't seen it across the country we haven't seen it in Brookfield
021um and I think you know that's what we're really looking at as far is what's what's safe for opening I think you know over the past months you know with reopening School SCH since the end of August we really haven't seen that school transmission is an issue at all it's probably one of the safest place for the kids and their education is extremely important you know we we have made do for the most part with remote learning but they really do need to be in the classroom um and I can say that from a parental standpoint as well my own children's education so I I feel very safe having my own children in school my children don't have the shields that you yours your do so like I said I'm very impressed and you know
022that that's a great mitigating factor you've got masks and you've got two plexiglass Shields between you know two children so I think you know you're in a good place as far as um trying to keep the kids safe so thank Lori um I just while we have Lori here did did any any of the board members uh I I know it was a last minute opportunity to have Lori here um but might any of the board members have any questions for for her Rosa I see yeah um you know I think the the question that we get most from parents is um you know sort of they want to understand the thought process behind you know why are we in full remote why are we in hybrid and I we I know that you know
023Dr Brill speaks with you and Dr Sullivan you know on your daily basis and um that advisement from you comes into play so I'm I'm curious as to you know back in November we were supposed to go back back 100% And we were sort of advised that that wasn't entirely safe at that point would you say that it's just sort of a lack of data or could you just sort of enlighten me as to your thought process and how that sort of changed over the last few months yes yes so excellent question um yes part of this is really inexperience I mean none of us have really lived through a pandemic before um when this all started you know we really had some we had drawn some lines in the sand as far as what
024we felt was you know Green safe you know orange red Etc we kind of put those numbers out there but in the end I don't think that they as this evolves um and more people are diagnosed we'll probably really not be in the green again until we all start getting vaccinated and we really have a decreased instance so in the end what we have then is more experience as far as cases in the community and then what we've learned from actual transmission now that we're really able and capable of contact tracing finding out where the actual risks are and you know we found in Connecticut unfortunately it's restaurants it's small family gatherings and you know social Gatherings it's not the schools um those those are the things that we've learned and we've been able to
025kind of compile all that information unfortunately because we've had an increased incidence of infection in the community so really that's really how things have evolved with time it is experienced it's the number of cases it's the um significant improvement in our testing as well as our contact tracing such that the numbers that we kind of put out for parameters because in the end like I said we're all new to this we really tried to be conservative as far as what what we think what we thought was safe at the time but as time has gone on and we've had more people infected and we've been able to contact Trace we've been able to kind of see where is the real risk here and so that's why the original um blueprint we used really isn't pertinent
026now as time has gone on and we've we've been able to gather more information thank you you're welcome anyone else okay well Lori it was a pleasure having you here this evening thank you for joining us we really appreciate your time and thanks for all your help thank you I've enjoyed working with all of you I look forward to working with you further in the future if you have questions um certainly you know reach out to your administrators they can always find me and I'm happy to answer questions as they come through thanks so much thank you thank you uh Rose if I if I may continue yes um thank you I wanted to to also just hop back to vaccinations for just a second uh in getting ready for vaccinations when we know if
027it's all Educators and teachers and staff or is there there particular Educators that are in this one the group 1B that has not been decided by dph yet we actually just found that out from Dr Sullivan when when Mrs laforgia and Mrs cavan our Human Resources Director were meeting um but uh Terry our Terry Kev our Human Resources Director will be our um vaccination coordinator for the district and we couldn't think of a better person for that being the leader of HR and ensuring that everybody is registered properly and and and all of that to to get their vaccination when the time comes uh in addition to that Terry was was able to put a communication out today thanks to our school nurses um we were're getting aggressive with getting opportunities out there for educators
028to get tested if they think they've been exposed as well um and at Western Connecticut there's some opportunity there where Educators could get to the front of the line because obviously if we're going to have kids in school we need to have the staff there so it's important uh that that Educators as essential people uh in the community uh are getting uh the the testing and the vaccinations as uh quickly as we can get that done um so that that was part of my my covid update in addition to that I wanted to put a correction out there I think I said the Milford PD will be helping with uh Elementary arrival and dismissal clearly I live I've shared I live in Milford so that's just a mistake there um it's the Brookfield PD and
029major pesi who will be leading that up so so thanks to Major pesi and of course Chief purcel U couple more things Food Service uh under uh our covid time now the uh free lunch for all um children in the household 18 and under um uh will occur through the remainder of the year that has happened with the new legislation so that's been extended and we wanted everybody to know that and Mr post and the team uh from uh Wiens will be continuing to take care of that and making Communications available on that uh Athletics uh we're hoping by the end of the week that uh the CIA will be making uh some public uh decisions on Athletics we do anticipate that Athletics should start on the 19th when we all in in Brookfield return
030to inperson learning uh we're looking forward to that one of the things that's quite interesting uh and we actually just talked to Dr Davis about this uh late this afternoon uh that there will be a need for a medical clearance for those student athletes who tested positive for covid and are on their way back to make sure that they are healthy enough to participate that's so and there's also some updates from the state department of Ed uh on that that that came out earlier this week so that's that's going on um parent education just wanted to put a little uh Tickler out there for everyone um our administrative team uh has been working uh and specifically the principles and the PPS Department uh to put together a number of different uh mini workshops I guess
031you can call them and webinars where we'll be uh advertising and marketing those uh opportunities for parents um everything from social emotional uh opportunities to um dealing with remote learning and the issues you might have uh anything to helping parents um and it's based on the feedback we've had um and we're we're just really excited about that and I'm thankful for the team for putting uh putting those together so beond the lookout for that and then the final piece um I'd like to share a little bit under my report regarding covid is really the class of 2021 you heard tonv earlier talk about the T-shirt drop off I mean I really cannot um just so proud of of the Brookville High School faculty staff Administration in this case it was led by Mr Buckley um
032I'll turn it over to to to Mr Bland to share a little bit about what that was but it's important to let everybody know when the pandemic Came Upon Us nine months ago now and uh we we really watched the senior class the graduating class of 2020 um you know limp through a very difficult end of their High School experience uh we paid a lot of attention to them it's important to know that our high school folks uh and teachers and leadership are paying a great deal of attention to our class of 2021 and really I don't think any of us thought we'd be in this pandemic with the significance of its impact for this long and it's really impacted this senior all all kids but you know the senior class and so the the
033high school team is really thinking a lot about them and there just one kind of a fun act of kindness that they did among other things they're planning so I'll turn it over to Mr Blanda and we have a short video we'd like to show you yeah yeah I'll I'll keep it short thank you Dr burill um you know it's one of those things that that you that Dr burill alluded to that I I did not imagine we'd be here on January 6th that we'd be still out of school um and still waiting to figure out when we're going to get back and um it's been we're all hoping it was going to be over quicker and I think you know certainly the seniors are feeling it it's you know half their school year is
034over um at the end of January so um and they're getting ready they're preparing as tan be talked about for college applications they're getting you know um and they've been in and out of school they've only been in school really um for a couple months since March really you know you think about it it's September October and you know part of November um so it's been two and a half months and we've been out of school since March so it's just an unbelievable thing that we're going through and I know that they've been feeling um you know things that they haven't been able to participate in whether it be you know uh fall Sports you know a homecoming dance or the homecoming football game Traditions that we're all used to that um they've been a
035chance to participate whether it be a pep rally um or some other activity that goes on at the high school that just hasn't been able to go this year um so Mr Buckley um who's the senior class adviser uh came up with and worked with some students to create a t-shirt design we got them in just before the uh the winter break and uh he put out to teachers um you know he asked me if he could put out to teachers if they'd be willing to help deliver and we got an overwhelming response from teachers that said absolutely we'll deliver thanks to carolanne darkangelo and Karen how who sorted basically um all seniors by bus routes um and then we're able to divvy up teachers you know were able to spread out and we we
036gathered on Wednesday morning the 23rd and then set out across uh Brookfield to deliver uh we tried to keep it as much of a secret as possible I know personally my personal experience I went to one house um you know as you can imagine the parents answerer the door and the father yells up to the student um come downstairs and she says no I'm on Zoom I'm in class I can't come downstairs dad and you know he goes no no you have to she goes like and she's yelling at her father no she can't come downstairs and he says your principal's here you could and you could hear the silence through the house and she came downstairs and looked at me and couldn't believe I was there and I I wish you know it is
037it really isn't a whole lot it's it's a very small gesture uh from us just to remind them that we're thinking of them and and not just me but all the all the teachers are thinking of them and missing kids and we can't wait to get back to the 19th to see them again um you know it's certainly going to be a challenging rest of the school year in terms of you know planning and and what's going to happen I have some certainly ideas about graduation that I will be sharing with the board and Dr burill and I talk preliminarily about things we can do to celebrate um the end of the school year when that comes for seniors but um you know we're going to try to do some other things it's it's difficult
038it's gonna when you talk about crowds and Gathering but uh we're going to work together to see if we can put a few more things in place for the end of the school year but we just want the seniors to know that we care about them we miss them and we're we're really lucky that they're joining us on this journey and working so hard um to get to the end of their school year so that's what I would have to share and so um I know I sent this to the board but I think it's important to show here at a board meeting so we have it for the record for the public to see as well um Eric are you able to show the uh the video that uh Mr Buckley and the team
039put together summarizing the drop [Music] off I think it's just it's about it's three minutes so if if you if you can indulge us really appreciate it and it's a familiar song I think we'll all enjoy sorry I have to just quickly change the way I have it shared hold on thanks [Music] er no one told you life was going to be this way your jobs a joke you broke your love Liv to away it's like you're always second dear when it hasn't been your day we your month or even your year but I'll be there for you when the rain starts to fall I'll be there for you like been there I'll be there for you cuz you there for me to still in bed at 10 and work again at 8 you burned
040your breakfast so far things are going great your mother warned you let be days like these but she didn't tell you when the world brought down your knes and I'll be there for you when the rain starts before I'll be there for you like I've been there before I'll be there for you cuz you're there for me too no one could ever know me no one could ever see me since you're the onlyone who knows what it's like to be me someone to face the day with make it through all the rest with someone I always laugh with even I wor the best it's like your we stuck in and second gear when it hasn't been your day your week your months even know you live I'll be there for you the rain starts I'll
041be there for you I can feel there before I'll be there for you cuz you're there for me too I'll be there for you [Music] I'll be there for [Music] you I'll be there for you cuz you're there for me [Music] too thanks so much Eric really appreciate that and mark thank you for your your uh your comments on it tonight I really appreciate it as well um you can see there's a lot of there for sure and um again we just we want the seniors and all the kids to know how much we're thinking of them and we're just so excited to have them back on the 19th we really can't wait to get started um I just can't help a smile every time I think about that and by the way Mr belanda
042Mr Renda and I were were reminiscing uh about our lack of hair compared to those High School boys we remember our days of having such nice hair like that boy oh boy I tell you there it is it's it's it's amazing what's happening we we're having some good laughs about that the other day um so move moving forward uh the school naming going to move off of Co and go to school naming just an update on the survey I checked this afternoon uh thus far we've had almost 2,000 responses um at about 2 o'clock this afternoon it was 1,912 responses uh 273 these won't add up because people don't always fill out every uh little little uh uh response but uh the candle Woods both choices candle wood in Candlewood Lake um is a total
043of two 252 uh Lakeside 273 Newberry 256 and Westbrook 263 um so there you go um Candlewood number might be a little off because I think I looked at it too yeah that and again that was earlier this afternoon so you have the access row that could have changed over the afternoon for sure yeah I think um well unless you like maybe just wrote Maybe like you wrote it down wrong or something I don't know First Choice thousand I'm sorry what the candlewoods had almost a thousand they had like almost half the votes yes uh did did I say 9 yeah I think you said like two 250 something yeah so I'll say it again the candle Woods were 952 okay okay Lakeside 273 Newberry 256 West Rook 263 so that's that and again that
044was a couple of hours ago so um the survey is still open and those were First Choice numbers um so it's uh it's open and when we put out the reminder on Monday afternoon uh we started to get more responses we've probably had a four or 500 responses since Monday so um it's good that that we reminded people to uh uh get that in there we'll have that on the board agenda uh as discussed before the winter break for the January 20th meeting uh for the board to make their uh make their decision uh then I I really have to thank moving on to equity and inclusion um I know it's not a board report tonight but just to give a very brief update um I have to thank uh Jen leaden Amy Foster and
045of course Dr Ruby for gosh Dr Ruby has more ideas and more knowledge to to bring to to some of these committees than than any of us could imagine it's just uh just love her as my partner uh in leadership here in Brookville and um we we're just doing some great work we planned for next week's first um kickoff meeting with the committee and we really talked about the idea of building Community with the committee first before we jump into any kind of action so we're going to be reviewing all of the great work that's happened over the last six months the board and superintendent value statement uh the actual uh equity and inclusion statement that we have to kind of be the vision of our committee uh goals objectives uh little give a little
046history and then really get into understanding why this work is important to those people who want to be on this committee um and uh and then then we have some really cool ideas going forward for the next couple of months for the for the meetings that are on on schedule um and really we're in a in a setup mode right now to to build that Community build that trust um and and get a finally tun a finally tuned um team of people working together on this uh as we set the course for the district so we're really excited about that and then finally moving on to uh the great organization Brookfield cares uh those folks uh working with a former board shair uh Mrs Sturm who is now uh leading Brookfield cares uh she has
047worked with Mr Banda and Mr uh Renda from whiner uh as well as our facility director Dan Caldwell they have uh anti vaping uh signage and posters that they've produced the uh put together um turned into uh acrylic covered signage um and they're going in the bathrooms um uh at the schools where the vaping tends to occur if it does OCC and how students could reach out and uh ask for help um it's not just a don't Vape um and there's messages and numbers and contact information and so we'll we'll have those uh I think they're all installed at whis skiner and they're starting to install at the high school so they'll be ready for the kids when they return on the 19th so we continue in our uh efforts for um the whole child
048and wellness and making sure we're we're focused on that and we thank the Brookville uh Brookville cares Organization for supporting us with that and uh that is my report it was a little long tonight um but I but I do thank you for indulging me and there was a lot to share over the from what happened over the last couple of weeks so if there's any questions for me I'll certainly take from now let us move on all right thanks Rosen thank you okay up next is committee reports and we have policy up first okay uh the policy committee met on December 16th and really the bulk of our meeting was to um have a presentation or discussion with Dr Vince mustaro from C and uh Dr burill invited him to come to our meeting
049to talk to us about uh the services that cab offers in relation to our policy manual so he outlined uh the different options that are available really the two primary things that we focused on were their policy audit service and their custom policy um service the custom policy service um really basically takes our entire policy manual and makes all the changes to our policies that are um necessary uh whether it be that policies are outdated or um incorrect or if we're missing any policies they just take it and do it like basically Soup To Nuts um the part that I think we're more interested in at this point is their policy audit service where um they basically review our policy manual um see which policies need to be updated uh which policies we have that
050U might just need a little bit of tweaking anything that's um outdated that needs revisions and they make us aware of um Trends and and good practices that are out there that other districts are doing other policies that they might recommend that we don't have and basically sort of give us an overall assess of what kind of shape our policy manual is in um that policy audit service is about $2,200 it's a thre Monon process um and then from there we can decide whether our policy committee is able to continue making the changes on our own and making revisions or if we need to engage them in you know some more assistance and having them write new policies or make changes for us so um I think we were all in agreement that we thought
051the the audit itself was worth doing um the policy committee even before I was on it made um good progress updating several of the series but there's still a ton of work to do there's you know huge section of the policy manual that we haven't even gotten to yet you know seems like especially with covid new policies have come up that we didn't have we weren't aware of new policies are being written just to deal with pandemics and emergencies like the situation that we're in so when we have to address things like that um you know it's obviously taking time away from the other Series in the policy manual that we should be working on so um I believe Dr bril we agreed that he would put in um $2,200 into next year's budget as
052a placeholder but that we would discuss it with the board um you know have a more extensive conversation about it to to see if the board agreed with that recommendation and Debbie I did put it in there and and it shows in a couple of slides that I'll share tonight when we talk about the budget so that was really the bulk of uh the meeting it was very interesting very informative um after that we spoke very very briefly because we had almost no time left about covid Communications um and budget Communications but the bulk of it was about policy okay any questions all right thanks Debbie and we have a special Finance report this is going going to be really quick we talked about the budget we're going to talk about it tonight and uh
053the what we did at at this last meeting is as as you remember under my last report we've been going through line by line by line by line by line and budget we uh um we went through the last set of lines um and quite frankly we didn't find anything that was incredibly over understated the only discussion point we had was a good healthy one about insurance costs um because both the town and the school keep getting new information as every day goes on on what our insurance cost posture looks like for next year I'm sure we'll talk about that as we go through the update that we'll talk about on the budget in a little bit um but it's not it's actually not helping it's actually adding costs to us not removing costs from
054us but other than that i' I'd say the scrubbing work that the team's done has been superb all you know I'll ask the other members of the board but I thought it was a really good experience having gone through it and discussed and debate and asked questions and we posted the qas and we've uh posted updated uh budget reports for all us so um I think it was time well spent I mean Rosa um Jan you agree yes absolutely it really forced us um to sort of have some shared responsibility and really look carefully um and ask some good questions so I think it was really worthwhile absolutely so as we it all it the nice thing for me is it frees us up now to focus on the Investments which is what I think
055we ought to spend our time on tonight but because in terms of just looking at the budget from a scrubbing point of view you you should know we've spent a lot of time scrubbing at it so uh that's uh as a three of the seven members of the board that's what we felt our responsibility was so um so now we can go focus in on you know the actual investment items and do we want to support those in in our budget as we carry it forward that's all I have okay any questions all right thank you uh we have no consent agenda and no new business so next on our agenda is old business and that brings us right into the review of the proposed 2122 budget um Dr BR I heard you mention something
056about slides is there something that you wanted to share first yes yes there was just a couple of slides Rosa uh going right to exactly what Bob's talking about I just want to Center every everybody bring us back together uh here in the new year after our December six uh 16th meeting it's been a couple of weeks and uh just just get us all focused on the same things and then I have I kind of end my five slides with one slide that has the Investments on it and we could walk through as Bob suggested um those Investments and obviously talk about anything else that we we'd like to talk about tonight um so a I think Eric has that was going to pull that up for us so give Eric a second there here
057we go all right so I I purposely adjust oh Eric if you just go back to the the cover slide I just want to draw everybody's attention to this under January 6th I just have a little subtitle that this is originally presented the budget to the board on December 2nd because these PowerPoints aren't just for this meeting they are posted on our our website obviously and there's many people who don't come back and watch the video but they do go look at the link for the the presentation since I want to make sure it's very clear that people understand this is kind of an this is is an adjustment and an update uh to uh the budget from the December 2nd presentation we as a reminder for everyone we present the budget we're probably one
058of the six six communities that presents the budget as a board of education this ear um uh in in the the first half of of the school year we start preparing in October and we present on the the first meeting in December so it's quite early and a lot of information changes Mr beldin alluded to insurance we do the best we can with the information we have uh from our insurance folks but over that month from December into now into into early January things do change and we need to update the the figures so Eric if you go to the next slide on this slide I want to talk a little bit about the um uh process over the last month so we had a board of uh the the finance committee our Board of
059Ed finance committee as Bob talked about reviewed and went through a very detailed line item uh review of the budget at the December 7th meeting we had a meeting on December 14th where the finance committee did the same thing um the full board met on the 16th and we started our deliberations and discussions regarding the budget on the 21st before the holiday break uh the finance committee met again in reviewed the budget as Bob was talking about and here we are tonight as a full board um starting to to dig in as a full board even more on the budget and during that time my special note it's really important um there were many many questions from Board of Education members and I really applaud the effort of the board digging in like this there
060was not only budgetary kind of line item questions you know why is this here where is this budgeted and really digging in um I remember this from last year where is that located really deep great questions about the budget uh quite a bit of those in addition to that there were programmatic questions about the investment that um that I proposed and all of that um as as a document the questions and all of the administrative responses is is upwards of 20 Pages um so it's of single space type so I mean there is a lot of information that we've gone back and forth on uh between the administrative team and the board so thank everybody for their efforts there so that's been the process over the last month uh next slide era give me a
061second here folks and a problem with my camera get back to this there we go um so we can see that I had a slide that looks similar to this on December 2nd that I shared and I just wanted to walk everybody through this you can see that our current operating budget for the 2021 school year that's the current year we're in uh compared to last year was a 3% increase and it's $5,400 th000 the proposed budget has been adjusted just a little bit since uh December 2nd for next year's um 21 22 school year our status quo increase that's essentially keeping everything the same um with inflationary costs and contractual um agreement uh cost increases that is a $1.4 million increase or 3.12% over the 45,400 at the top of the page um in
062addition to that we have two categories of investment and we'll talk in detail in about two slides about that um we have one category that really specifically are student needs that must be addressed they we really we've talked about many of them for a couple of years and we we really it's important we get them in the budget uh that's a cost of $258,000 or just over half a percent increase and then the other set of Investments are program enhancements and uh we use the term improvements continuous Improvement program enhancements uh various language to describe the things we want to do to continue to move move our district forward um those costs are $227,000 or a half a percent our total investment cost of those two categories added together is $485,000 310 or a 1.07%
063increase over last year's budget when you take the status quo of 3.12% increase and the total investment increase of 1.07 um you get a uh increase of $1.9 million or 4 .9% now at the beginning of December I presented a budget that was a 3.9% increase so there's a little bit of an increase in my proposal and um I could share with you what that is on the next slide so Eric if you can go to that so where did those impacts come in the very first line is exactly what Mr Beldon mentioned in his Finance report uh health insurance uh getting a little clearer on the information from the Connecticut partnership ship plan and from the actuaries um and this this applies to the town as well uh we have a increase where we're
064looking at an estimate of a 6% increase uh plus a 3 and 3/4% increase for being part of Fairfield County and the increased cost of this part of the state and so the increase to the budget that the budget uh figures and the bottom line we're sharing tonight the adjustment is $145,000 increase to what was proposed on December 2nd in addition addition to that uh in our favor uh the pension contribution of the district is going down by $69,000 based on the valuation report we decided that the Chromebooks that we listed in investments in my initial proposal were really replacements for aging um technology and so we move the the cost of the 300 Chromebooks to the um invest um to the status quo side of things um of $882,000 so there's there's some puts
065and takes in the in the budget itself um we also had a decrease in what our Revenue looks like it's going to be for the excess cost Grant 29 almost $30,000 and then a couple of other very small adjustments um in athletics uh we decreased the athletic supplies budget and that was a correction uh of $4,200 to the status quo we moved $8,400 from the status quo to the investment side uh for officials and transportation costs for for the new new uh proposal for gymnastics and volleyball uh internet capacity we had that in status quo we had a lengthy discussion about uh this part of technology and we moved $7,800 for the uh internet capacity from uh status quo to Investments and then finally as Mrs Brooks alluded to in her report um we put
066uh $2200 into status quo to cover the policy audit at this point um so those were the main drivers of change uh in the adjustments and update to the budget proposal at this point next slide just a quick reminder for everybody all of our investments that I'm going to show you on the next slide are um based upon five key budget goals that we um annually put together and the first one is to provide the necessary resources to meet the needs of all of our students and making sure we're in alignment with state and federal law secondly maintaining our class size um and obviously adjusting Staffing patterns um with all the enrollment changes that we we uh experience during a during a change in years uh the third goal providing for the rigorous and relevant
067curriculum using best practice making sure our um uh instruction is as best as it can be make sure we are properly and efficiently assessing our students so we know where they're at and how we can adjust and instruction and obviously making sure we're having the best learning experiences for our students that involves professional learning for our staff and teachers as well providing technology infrastructure that supports students uh especially now in our Extreme Digital environment that we move to uh much more quickly and more robustly than we ever thought we would due to the pandemic and then finally maintaining and continuing to enhance programs while remaining responsive to all kinds of changing needs um and then I share a link to the budget assumptions and priorities that the board voted on back in October and so
068that was just to Center everybody on what the purpose uh of the the budget is and some of the adjustments and then the the next slide Eric this is the slide that gets us to the Investments that Mr Beldon talked about uh we have the Investments broken into two categories Investments based on student need that I talked about earlier and then on the right hand side you can see Investments for program Improvement and we have each investment listed there um and the cost and so at this point I don't have any more to share and I'd like to turn it over to either Mrs uh Fernandez or Mr Beldon to kind of start facilitating some conversation around this and have a conversation with the full board thanks for the recap sure is the math interventionist
069that's going to be at the high school yes okay all right I will I'll start because there's still um and Ken maybe this is something that I I had emailed you a couple days ago um and I didn't you know expect like an answer right away or even by today but I think something that uh I know we're definitely going to need going forward um especially in the in the upcoming months to defend you know our adopted budget um is you know that list of accounts that we know are still going to be perhaps updated like maybe we're waiting on a number from you know some service provider whether that's tuition or whatever their their service fees something like that because those are the changes that we end up making in the middle of the
070budget process and then it doesn't look as transparent as it should so you know and also it would really help for me to understand you know which which of these figures and I'm talking about the whole budget are based on just your estimate your best guess sort of estimate is it based on an estimate plus you know some known inflation based on history or you know do we actually have some hard figures so I mean I think for me those are the things that it's sort of like a missing piece I agree I don't really know how this is going to change in the next couple months right and we've actually already started some of that process uh I know Eric's been reaching out to um a lot of the software companies that we deal
071with and he's had a few of them have gotten back to where they have firmed up their their rates for next year which we would put in our next update some some are are lower than he estimated one or two or higher and how often do you think you'll either update well I guess update the board because I guess what I'm sort of anticipating and sort of remembering from last year is the board of Finance saying well when you have a change tell us right away so that they can see how that number is changed um and I think that's helpful for us too as opposed to waiting until there's a group of them and then updating I don't know how the rest of the board feels about that but sort of just two different
072styles I think we ought to have an update I think we ought have a list of them like you describ and we ought to have an update at every one of our board meetings all right um so you know pull up that same list and say Here's what the new news is right and uh and then we ought to send it over to the board of Finance saying this is what we've had since the last meeting um I think it's a very we have to be very open and transparent on this I can certainly keep an ongoing list I think a list yeah I think um and maybe this is really cumbersome but if the actual budget summmer sheet was updated with maybe just highlights like a highlighted cell that says Yep this number's changed
073this is why yeah I think in terms of updating our budget I think the the sharing of information is right there's it gets awkward to be updating our budget every day and every hour as things come in I think we ought to have moments in time when we're doing a budget update and the last we have one more big shot at doing a one budget more budget update it's the you know to get to the budget we're going to submit on January 31st and then there'll be updates to the board of finances they go through their deliberation but our job other than presenting things is done so and I don't think we ought to be updating in that phase but we ought to be sharing information in that phase uh dramatically so I agree I'm
074trying very hard to keep um the budget document that I sent out the budget worksheet um in sync with all of the backup documentation and it is timec consuming to do that so I think keeping a running list of changes that I can even issue weekly as we get information would probably be more helpful and then you know picking points in time such as before the next you know before the next board meeting updating all the documents and sending them out yeah um so Ken I why don't you and I spend a little bit of time because I think we need a chart on this in our budget presentation in February when we meet with the board of Selectmen and board of Finance because they've asked about it every time and I think we could
075use that as the basis for then communicating as we go forward and I think uh Rosie your point is really good what percentage of the budget is tied out to estimates still as opposed to real substantiated information and uh like for example a biggest single item in the budget that is based on estimates is the health insurance insurance it's going to be an unknown all the way through the budget cycle right I think that's usually started getting locked down as late as April um before you start really getting hard quotes So I and the town's going to have the same issue um but the uh but Ken I'm picturing a chart that says look here's our overall budget so much of it is based on real deep Source documentation so much of it is based
076on estimates it's not a huge percentage other than that insurance and then so much of it is based on uh requests and plans you know like you know like your textbooks and libraries type of things right you know they don't may not have quotes on them yet but you know we know we need supplies in the classroom right so um but I could I could really see a chart that characterizes it and then has a list of the things that are based on our estimates and uh and then we can just update that chart as the whole plan cycle goes along I think that' be very powerful yes which sort of brings me you know to my next point which is you know a lot of these are you know based on requests you know
077from the principles who came from the Departments but even in looking in that data you know it's hard to kind of understand where that number came from so if we had and this was one of the other requests I had and I know that it's more sort of like scrubbing and not talking about sort of big picture for tonight but um um you know I think I could go back and look in the history and sort of understand where we've reduced the budget but that doesn't get into the nitty-gritty of which accounts were really reduced uh purposefully because of you know budget cuts throughout um you know places where we've had to do freezes and things like that so understanding sort of past expenses can help me better understand what the current ask is and
078why it's like that so if you had sort of if you could run through the budget and sort of at least just even if it's just one year back you know just to help me understand and I I think to that point Rosa that was I think part of our comebacks from the last special finance committee meeting and we're obviously going to talk about it tonight but we have a finance committee meeting on Monday night uh this coming Monday night so we could talk a little bit more deeply about exactly what we're talking about here I I'm I'm with you on that I think there's there's things we can do to make this very transparent and more understandable for folks uh who are not as intimate with the budget as we are for sure what
079are some other questions other board members have well let me let me let me make a suggestion I you know part of what we need to do as a board um Rosa is when we're carrying forward this budget make sure that we've discussed each of these Investments asked our questions individually and then kind of looked each other in the eye and say do we support them right or do we have a debate over them right um and uh I think I would suggest that we go through a process here where we go down each line item on this chart um it'll take a little bit of time but have John um or Ken or John whoever you want uh describe briefly what's in the line you know what was what makes up the investment why
080do we need it just verbally right not looking for presentation material but reiterate what you told us before and then let's do a STW you know go around see have people have questions on that line item take a straw poll of whether we support it move on to the next one and get through all of them and see if we have consensus on this submission and that would be my suggestion because if you kind of go generally over it does anybody have any general question questions you know it it to me I think you need to deal with the Investments individually and thinking about them individually that would just be my suggestion I do have one question about this investment list um are any Chromebooks or anything on as classified as an investment no I
081know that we're trying to like expand keep going down in the grades to get more one to one but is that not considered an investment we talked about it at the last meeting that going to move those because they they really the the number of break fix and end of life um makes up for that with the 300 Chromebooks that was the discussion so we moved that um to status quo okay so if you'd like I'll lead through the discussion Ros Bob do you want to start with the yeah it's fine yeah okay so let's just start on the left side so there's a h there's a half a percent a little over half a percent of investment $258,000 um what I would suggest is we um go through them in a very orderly John
082you take literally a minute walk through it we'll ask if anybody has any questions um and then I'll just do a quick straw poll if everyone's in agreement to it right and uh or if we have to debate it um let's go ahead and debate it right um and because we're carrying forward a budget right so we need to say yeah this is something we as a board support so the let's do the first two together right the the tall teacher and the elll tutors John why don't you just uh if I recall this is a investment to put a teacher in and so that we have a more stability okay so talk a little bit more about that I'll be very brief and and for anybody who's watching at home the explanations are laid
083out in the December 2nd presentation um so we'll keep it brief so we we've talked about um adding uh t- Sal teacher uh this would be a second tsaw teacher to our program for a couple of years now um it is very important uh to support our English language Learners to have such an expert um in another body to be around the district you're talking about two teachers now with this proposal a second teacher for four schools um we would be reducing the tutors that we have um so the the $68,000 cost really is is less than than half of what it is because we're reducing two part-time tutor positions um and the stability piece that you allude to Bob is because what we do is we do uh Mrs Holly does a fantastic job
084training our elll tutors so much so that they use their experience with us to become certified t-a teachers and become teachers in neighboring districts so um we don't want to continue that Trend we we lose a uh we invest a lot of training those people costs money and and and time and we want to keep someone here with us to do that so our one our our solution is to have an additional Tesa teacher and that's it as as briefly as I can say nope thank you very much um no so does anybody on the board have any questions on this item no I I don't have any questions but I did want to say on behalf of the Kate committee because we we spoke at length about this so I I think some clarity
085from at least our committee from that subcommittee would help um you know this is really seen as Like An Early Intervention Program where it benefits all students it's not just specific group of students um you know we don't want to marginalize a marginalize a population but um it is a very needy population um they don't typically have anybody to advocate for them and you know articulate the struggles and the needs that they have so you know I think as a board we need to really advocate for them and you know these Cod teaching opportunities will open up you know a lot of opportunities for all of our students so although it's really addresses A specific group of students it really opens opens it up to all of our students so you I I would just
086uh agree with um God I almost called you Vanessa Joy sorry agree with with joy I think one of the things is I think we all know we've been really remiss in this area for many years so I would say this is one step moving Us in the right direction but by having sort of high quality language instruction that targets students uh you know where English is not their um is not their primary language you know as Joy was saying that type of language instruction when it's within a classroom is good for all kids so I just want to reiterate and support what Joyce said and remind me didn't we have this in last year's budget proposal as well and the year before that yes that we keep we keep having to squeeze it out
087and it keeps being a suboptimal program so I think we need to stand up personally I think this is one of the most important Investments that we're going to make so yeah and in our current model we're really stretched very thin we really need more um this is very conservative Dr Ruby you were going to say something yeah I also want to say that um as most of us are aware tutors cannot work independently so the tutors that we have have to work under the certified teacher so the certified teacher has to devote some that we have now as well as Mrs Holly have to devote some of their time that they should be using for their jobs to um work with these and build up these folks who are wonderful but then leave us
088so it's it's um it's a we're bleeding um uh by having the the current program and I do want to say that you know when we when we originally got these tutors we were very thankful to have them because it was in lie of not being able to have um another teacher so it was a it was a Band-Aid and we did we did really well with it but we did so well like John said that they left us and so it's become like there's no return on our investment and so it really I I appreciate the support because I think the time has really come that we need to move in in the direction of this ask because it just makes sense on multiple levels and druby not not discounting anything that you said
089but and not discounting the skill set of our tutors but we can't Overlook the true experience an expertise of a tel teacher that's the reality so um and one thing I brought up just to kind of play the other side I had I had mentioned in our meeting you know why can't our literacy Specialists kind of pick up the pieces of this and you know I thought the response was was a good one that you know we need our literacy Specialists to free up the work of our of this needy population so that they can Target you know those tier 2 students that need reading and writing interventions so um I think that is something I wanted to throw out there as a solution but it wasn't really a viable remind me the case load
090we have the Tesa kids is still over a 100 yeah remember number I think it was in the neighborhood of about a hundred kids yeah yeah and remember we only one teacher with one teacher yeah all right so let me just any other questions and I'll just ask if for a show of hands or who in support of this one and if anybody's against it so one more uh comment uh Bob if I if I may uh being on the cape committee is uh this move also supports the staff that uh you know that's that's that's been already I know that was already mentioned but I think that's really important that you know we mention supporting the students but also supporting the staff uh in a very important area so I just want to say
091that okay thank you any other questions on this one okay show a hands who's in support of this one we're not voting officially I'm just trying to it's kind of a straw poll anybody against it all right we're all in favor of this one so uh um the next one's the math interventionist so Bob I'll be brief and turn it right over to Mr Banda on this one we have um invested in Reading at the high school um but it's quite clear that we need to invest in intervention in the area of mathematics and um this is something we talked about uh last year as as well and um you know we were in a very difficult budget position as we were developing this year's budget at this time last year um so we had
092to make some difficult decision but this is a position that's really needed at the high school and um Mr Bland I'd like to turn it over to you to share sure so you know it's one of those we put this in the budget last year we ended up cutting it out we put it back in this year it's something that the high school um the students really need um you know if you think about the structure of from middle school to high school in terms of a reading perspective um you know we we have uh reading interventionist at the middle school and we have some reading interventions at the high school we have students that funnel into that program or get identified and can use that additional support to stay up to grade level we
093also have that in math at the middle school but there is nothing it's an assumption that once they get to high school they you know I almost feel like they should have all figured it out by now and that just certainly isn't the case um you know when we have our weekly srbi meetings to talk about students who are at risk in any different area um you know it's one of those things where consistent we have the opportunity or at least the resources that they can work with if it's a student that has some having some reading difficulty uh we have two reading Specialists that we can refer to that can work with those students outside of um you know their their General assignments we have nothing for math at this point we're offering you
094know extra help with teachers um and some additional tutoring from other students um and it's really it's not an ideal situation for us uh we really would love to have a certified math teacher who could support the growth of students in math you look at our data from our PSAT to our SAT it's consistently lower um not unlike anyone else in the country but consistently lower than our um our uh evidence-based reading and writing scores so our math scores are lower and they also have somewhat plateaued to some degree where they've been flat we need to get this up and to provide extra support uh Dr Ruby had shared some some initial um data from some things she had been reading U some articles online about you know where student growth is in terms of
095pandemic wise and where kids have grown in the areas of reading and math and what it's been and while there's some plateaus there are some things that are showing in math that seem to be more severe um than in the reading area so um now more than ever um and this is one person um but the ability for this person to uh work with small groups individual groups of students push into classrooms as needed um would it would support us you know right now we offer an additional support for in students that come in to nth grade to create a whole different course another course to support students um to give them almost double math um to try to help them get caught up and give them support they need to get the skills to
096get where they need to get so um that's why we'd be in certainly in support of that so from high school Andrew I don't know if you have anything you want to add I wanted to add something thank you Mark for bringing up the uh the what's currently trending across the country and across the globe um we recently had our district data team meeting where all four schools re this was what two weeks ago where we reviewed all the data from the um first portion of the year and uh while I don't have that data I know you don't want to hear about it tonight um the uh our our reading data across the across the school district was surprisingly healthy despite what we've been through we were really quite pleased uh we always wanted
097it to be better but our math data was not quite as robust um in terms of um the entire district and we were feeling you know like pretty badly about that I mean it's not horrible believe me we've they we were pleasantly surprised but we would have liked to have seen more growth in math and then I've been looking into what's going on nationally and I shared these um uh articles uh and reports and said what does this look like you know and principles wrote back to me it looks just like ours so we're f following we're we're on the same trend line as the rest of the country in terms of students doing um less well in math over the pandemic than they are in reading so that I'm just sharing that because that's
098a compounding problem to the problem that we're that we were trying to address last year with this ask so this ask is even more important this year because of what we're seeing and the other thing I want to um add on is that math is is is like a Gateway um course at the high school level because of the uh the intimate relationship of the use of mathematics as a language and as a problem solving tool in the sciences and so when we have students who are challenged in math and we're not able to support them in the way that we really believe that we should be that um that deficit that they um are experiencing in math can be a huge barrier to them being able to access um higher level science courses so
099this is this is a vital position for our high school and if uh if I can uh respond to uh both uh Dr Ruby and Mr Banda um uh all very good points uh uh another uh thing I kind of want to reiterate is um you know there are many reasons why a student might come to the high school and have uh needs that go beyond even uh the scope of the high school curriculum um we don't just get students coming from lower grades that have had uh consistent difficulty we also get students from other districts sometimes other countries and uh math curricula varies across uh different countries quite tremendously um if you read enough math transcripts you learn that very quickly and um it's uh we have a a a pretty comparatively rigorous mathematics
100program in terms of what the expectations are in our colle Preparatory sequence and um the cognitive psychologist um Daniel Willingham uh once put it as when a student doesn't have some of the uh automaticity in their um underlying math skills trying to solve an algebra problem is equivalent to trying to write a Sonet when you have to look up the spelling of every word and uh you know we want the best opportunity to support the kids who come into the high school um and who have these needs that go beyond the scope of the program because I do believe we have a uh robust program that we're continuing to develop and integrate more mathematics into the Sciences as Dr Ruby said and we want those students to get as much out of it as they
101can and to be as successful as they can so this would go a long way to helping us assure that for as most kidss as possible so thank you any questions or comments from the board members all right show a hands what everyone supporting this one looks like everyone's supporting this one all right good the next one I think is just mechanics it's the that's just Ken the benefits and uh for the two teachers we've talked about right correct okay we probably when we present it forward we ought to put the benefits up in the top two line items and just call it call call the totals um and uh let's talk about the speech and language pathologist actually Bob I was thinking if we could just if if you wouldn't mind could we go
102to the CES math tutor at this point because I think some of the points that were brought up um apply to the little guys as well uh under uh Mrs Diamond's tutelage so um I see Mrs uh as Dr Ruby raising her hand as well so either Dr Ruby or or Mrs Diamond who ever like to go first talk about that the that ask well I'll just build on what I said with the um high school students and what we said about um the fact that Mark um addressed the fact that that we have um uh I think we have a really healthy U program of support in Reading at the elementary school and that's because we had a big reading problem and we we went to address that but as we are have become
103more sophisticated and and uh Mrs Diamond will talk about this more sophisticated in our use of progress monitoring data and identifying where kids are needing support at an earlier time we have to look at what we're doing in the um earlier grades in terms of intervention and prevention and so we don't have any be because uh classroom teachers are in their classrooms um and students are getting support in Reading from classroom teachers from special ed teachers and from our reading teachers we don't have anything to give support like that to our our students in math once they start to fall behind in math it's like um it's like a runaway train and so uh Mary Rose will talk about how this um math interventionist will really help her uh teachers be able to keep their
104finger on the pulse of the children in in mathematics development when they're falling behind in the same way well not exactly the same way because it's only one person um but is similarly to what we're able to do in reading so U Mary Rose right no thank you thank you Dr and so um yes I I agree uh um especially with what Andrew was saying earlier about just the the prevention component um so when kids are at Center school again as as Dr was just saying we have a um battery of Assessments that we just started administering last year that would are giving us greater insights into the nuances of of mathematic the the the math Foundation skills um that we didn't have in the past so now we are better able to Target um
105where the the gaps might be and where the needs might be um but we don't have the the staff and the time to then go back in and provide that that intervention so um any any intervention and prevention we do at the lower grades obviously will hopefully the goal is to reduce the need um as we move forward and as students move up through the grade level so um you know do think that the the math tutor position at Center School which be working again closely with our classroom teachers um under some of the guidance of our math curriculum Specialists um to make sure that we are using the data that we had now that now that we know where the issues are to be able to really purposefully Target um where those concerns are
106with some intentionality so that again we're not seeing uh the um the problems just get more more challenging and bigger as as students move up through the grade levels thanks Mary Rose okay um questions from any of the board members very well said guys um it's uh I think if we can if we can nip it nip challenges that kids have in the bud it only helps them as time goes on so um all right everyone's okay with this one show hands all right all right thanks Michael um all right do you want to just go up or how do you want to do order do you want to go in John summer school or the you Bob while we're talking about nipping problems in the bud and prevention let's stay on summer school and
107um I'd like to turn this one right over um to Dr Ruby after I say this is something we've talked about for quite a while um we we um almost brought it Forward formally last year but with all of the pressures um and the significant ask that we put forward last year we just weren't ready for it from a financial perspective um but it's really important uh to address uh for those uh for elementary regular ed students what Dr Ruby talked about because Dr Ruby and the team have really designed what um the framework of the the program could look like so Dr Ruby please so as John said we had this all mapped out for last year and uh then it it got cut before it got to the board to to cut it
108because of um this constraints that we are working on and we actually talked about it in years prior um the majority of schools have some type of uh in Connecticut have some type of summer school program for uh regular ed students and it's an important one to have um now particularly in the um context that we're in because um we we're going to be seeing higher student needs so it can be quite costly so uh working with um with Dean and uh Dean Renda and C Holly we when we were I was going to write grants um for the school year for uh the title grants whiner is our um Title One school um it's it's determined by U free and reduced lunch and other things uh through the state and federal government and so
109whiner is our school so we looked at the monies that we had in title one and we can't spend all of our Title One money in the school year because of the framework with the models that we're working with um and we saw that we were going to have this um pot of money that we could ask if we could transfer into summer school I wrote the grant it got approved so we're trying to spread different pots of money to be able to cover the K8 population a so whiskers summer school for regular ed students is covered by Title One money all right so now we looked kemman and I looked at our title three money and I contacted our um person at the state and we wrote part of our title three Grant to
110cover English language Learners because that's what title three is for um part of it in summer school so now we have Gina wonik as our special ed director and she has Federal money through idea that covers special ed students so now all of a sudden the you can see um the pieces of the puzzle coming together so we're able to cover eel's we're able to cover Title One students and just so that you understand we're required to use Title One money to service Title One students however if you're providing services to Title One students that does not preclude you from including other students in in that mix so it's it it works out very well now we need to um cover the students in Center School and Huckleberry so this made the ask much lower
111than what we had put together last year because of the use of the the title funds um to cover these other students so what you're seeing on here is um cut the and it's all DET the detail is all in the in the budget line items but um materials $88,000 um and 47560 to cover the summer school teachers for the students at um Center School and Huckleberry so we would with with this amount of money we will be able to provide um services that would cover children from who are current kindergarteners through current eighth graders in a summer school program and while this has always been on our radar and it's always important to try to you know have um students um capitalize on what they have learned um those are called breakthrough opportunities in
112Special Ed but they also exist in regular Ed so that's giv kids who have made progress that extra boost in the summer um and also the students who are truly um uh at risk trying to shore up their skills that's that's just critical all time but it's even more critical in this um in this covid world that we happen to be stuck in right now so I'm really hoping that the value of this and the recognition of the fact that we worked um we worked really hard uh Mr Renda and Miss Holly to use those other funds to supplement our um our attempts to support children in the summer and there's no Transportation required because um it's it's required in Special Ed but if we can utilize we have space on those buses we can
113as we get closer if this was approved and we had the program we could potentially be making use of this special ed buzzes but um parents are generally when we've had other things in the summer that weren't Grand like this parents have been uh have brought their kids to school and that's what we anticipate would happen but because you're not required by law to provide summer school transportation for regular ed students and Marine was it for Rising first graders yes so the kids that are in kindergarten now who are rising not for we don't have anything right now for for preschool but I am looking for Grants because we know that that's another issue that we're going to be facing do you have an idea the number of students that would be participating in this
114ballpark I don't have those numbers off right on on hand right now but we it's all in the in the details all the number of students and the number of teachers and the number of hours I think I could pull it up you you that was a response you gave to my email I can find it actually how do how do students qualify for it well we have a pretty robust data system in uh Brookfield and uh as we review the um the third Benchmark period um data on students well teachers would know who who you know these our data really just confirms what we know um uh we would be teachers would be recommending students that were in in need and then the parents would be contacted and since it's it's not mandatory you
115know there might be people that would not take take um the opportunity because they may have other plans but um then we would prioritize the students uh this is typically how it's done in schools for regular Ed prioritize the students in terms of need and you offer you know however many spaces you have you contact the students that have the most needs and then if people decline the opportunity then you work your way you know on your on your list and needs is performance-based grades evaluation the the data are triangulated it's not one data point it's looking at the the student holistically in terms of their reading and their math needs you know so it's I found the number it's not a test it's looking go ahead Dean no I was say I found the
116number if you wanted to have it oh in the things just because you asked about there 200 anticipate 240 students along with 15 teachers and two teachers to oversee the programs that's at uh that's at whiner and no that's for no that was for the K4 okay for K4 okay thank you so that's a that's a significant number of students and in addition to that number our special ed students who qualify through the PPT process they're going to get serviced and additionally the um English language learner students that would be um serviced through the title three program that we got approved by the um by the state so it's more students than just the number that this program would cover in the um in the K4 grades as as well as at whiner and how
117many teachers I no I think said was the questions as well we answered that um I don't I don't want to give you a number because I don't have that data in front of me do you have that answer in front of you the questions that sent to the board were you looking at that yeah that's I actually can see it I I didn't see it 240 students 15 teachers teachers to oversee the program and it's two sessions uh of an hour and a half a day four days a week it runs the same days the same schedule as the special ed um summer school and the difference between the reason that the the what brought our cost down is because because it's just targeted instruction so it's just that hour and a half it's
118there's no Camp there's no funing games there's no activities it's just the kids coming for the intervention I hope the board can see how much it's involved with this planning and the effort that's going in I'll turn it over to you Mr beld sorry I was gonna say no kayaks no kayaks but you know what Bob you can use our kayaks there you go so all right any other questions from the board members yeah I I just wanted to clarify so is it that we're extending the program and more kids are qualifying or we don't have one we don't have a program have it at all okay what sometimes Debbie people get confused with is um extended school year which is part students with special needs and that's totally different we have nothing for our
119regular red students and there areund about 190 students we we projected for whis caner just so you know and I have to say the work that Dean did on this really became the U boiler plate for for the other program so I have to give credit to Dean all right the gold standard Dean he's the man so so what happens if we set aside this money and parents opt to not send their children or half of them opt to not send them since we we haven't done this before we don't know how regular ed students will feel or parents will feel about it what happens to the funding then I don't think that that would be a that would be a problem because we would be prioritizing the students and if for people if somebody
120declined we would just go invite more students we' just go up the up the list but but to the specific question Debbie if we didn't spend all of the money that we budgeted that would be Surplus in that account and that gets reported in our monthly finances of how we're doing oh yeah we wouldn't use it for something else or if we needed to we would do a budget we would work with the finance committee and do a a budget transfer yeah You' need to come to us do right I think another way to look at that if you ask me is like Dr Ruby said we would look we would go up the ladder to you know ask the the students um you know ask parents families of other students and in the end
121it could end up being where where we were projecting to have you know a group of three or four whatever it it would be a smaller group of of students um that yeah that's absolutely true and I think reality is you are going to have some people not accept or not show up but the reality is our numbers are probably going to be higher than normal because of our circumstance dealing with Co and and uh students falling behind so exactly that point Joy um there if if we we want to serve as many people as possible that's our goal and if that we had people who didn't um uh accept the invitation then that might we might then shift and say well let's look at these children that we have these students instead of coming
122you know X number of might need more so we might be able to just like we do in srbi when we determine you know what the we call it the dosage what the dosage of instruction is we may be able to then alter the dosage for for certain kids you know that that how how it plays out in the um actual summertime in terms of families accepting the invitation for us to you know work with their students um I'm not worried about that because any place I have ever been before um you you just can't even service all the kids that you want to service right are there any other questions all right guys I'm I'm I'm sorry I'm pushing us along because we could be here all night and uh I uh this was
123a really good discussion though I uh I think we might want to have a chart somewhere in our backup that shows these building blocks that we put together Dr Ruby I think that might be very useful to G you know get the finance commit board up to speed on so absolutely what we're doing uh and the last one on the needs is the speak and language pathologist a half a half position sure this is this is student need um making sure we're providing Services as well as balancing case loads among our speech pathologists across the district um and so I'll turn it over to Mrs wgic for A Brief Review good evening everybody um the 0 five speech pathologist for the high school the numbers um that we have at the high school we have
12475 students um that need services and that is double of what is at uh whiskin ear so the um we we look at numbers but we also look at service hours and how to um make sure we meet the service hours in the past uh two years we've had to bring in outside support um to get those service hours um addressed in addition to some of the trienal and initial testing so when we looked at the service hours for um the high school um it's just not doable for one speech and language pathologist to be able to service the amount of students and service hours that are recommended so um that's why that 05 speech pathologist um is uh there's a need for IEP uh service hours so so we so we've had in the
125current year and the prior years some amount of uh you know outside Services yes so if we reflected a reduction in outside services in next year's budget to because putting this position in yeah um I'm thinking John before we carry it forward then we ought to treat this like the elll tutors line um you know we have an investment but there was an offset and put it in the Investments I think that would be a better way to tell the story then okay and I think that's in Professional Services there with special education so that and get that yes just it's always good to show them you're trading things off so yeah making making logical this it might cost a little bit more In The End by having a full you know employee instead of
126a service but it's a better service so absolutely Yeah question questions from the board thank you Mrs W all right no questions everyone okay with that one all right and know everyone I didn't do it before everyone okay with the summer school ones too I guess everyone I'm thumbs up all right perfect right so it looks like we're all in support of the left side of this chart right so that's uh and with with unanimity right which is good not a you know not a lot of issues or disagreements there on the right side um John is there an order that you would like to go through it um or just go down the list I think we start with the tech teacher and then then we could really hit on the the Athletics and
127that'll take us right through so that that makes sense so the first two lines is the tech teacher yes so so the tech if I could go Bob are you ready for me to introduce this one great thank you so um talked about uh back in December um The Proposal from the high school that I put forward to the board for um an additional technology teacher this would be a second technology teacher at the high school um really um in the time that we've established our stem department at the high school we haven't been able to while while we're introducing some new courses we really have a lot of courses that we're not able to even run because of lack of Staffing U compared to student interest and um similar to those board members who
128are veteran members who've been around they may recall we had a lot of business uh classes that we wanted to run and we weren't able to because we only had one business teacher uh way back and we brought in a second business teacher and those classes filled up quite quickly with uh with what the students wanted to take and what was really important um in add in addition to that kind of uh comparison with the technology teacher really to create the stem program we envision uh we need we need another teacher and um we we are just really um excited about this opportunity and want to put it before the board so I'm going to turn it over to Mr Banda and um uh Mr Hill to talk about the really specific needs uh for
129this position yeah thank you John I appreciate it I when I took over six years ago and I saw some of the areas and elective teachers where we just were woefully understaffed in terms of what schools of our school of our caliber uh is um the type of Comprehensive High School that we that we are or claim to be uh having one technology teacher um for is is really a disservice to kids and that's you know in this day and age we talk about just look at the term technology teacher um it's not that the other teachers that we have aren't important because they all are they all play an important role but right now we don't even have enough sections or teachers to have every student take at least one technology course they couldn't
130physically rotate through everybody so there's other ways for them to earn some of these um you know these requirements or credits we have in terms of um some bare minimums uh in terms of career and life skills electives um but now with the coming of the the next few years as we're changing our uh our course options and what our our students can actually choose I think it is critically important to be able to offer more classes and sections um Andrew can talk a a little bit more about the numbers of kids that actually request them and how many sections we just can't run um you know we could easily um you know I could tell you based on last year several last year uh not just last year's numbers because we proposed this last
131year but for the last probably three years you know um if not every single year if we had another technology teacher we would easily fill that teacher schedule across the board um it is so important if we're going to have a a true stem program um we're great with um science and math math and we're expanding some of those areas and some of the program offerings we have nine teachers in each section and each of those uh particular departments 10 in science and nine in math um but one technology teacher just is is doesn't cut it for what we need to do to prepare our kids um for the next step uh After High School whether it be career or college or some other path that they take so um Andrew I I'll kind of
132turn it over to you um I don't know if you want to share a little bit more and and be more go a little deeper into that sure absolutely um so I want to start by saying that um I think we're very fortunate to have the technology teacher at the high school that we do um for people who don't know Rob support you know he's been here a long time he's managed um many different schools uh many different classes and clubs um he typically has four or five different courses that he teaches every semester and that's out of necessity because of the combination of the range of courses that we offer and the um concurrent student interest that goes along with those courses and the fact that we have one technology teacher at the high
133school to teach them and Rob does it and you know he he um he approaches every course you know very thoroughly very methodically um and he works with a very wide range of students um every day and uh the real challenge is is that we have so many courses on the books that students are interested in in select and in the in the few years I've gotten to work with Rob as his supervisor um and to go through the scheduling and look through the requests um it's very clear that it always comes down to what will we be able to offer and therefore what will students not be able to take that they wanted to take and that's you know for me um a very unfortunate way to kind of think about how we schedule
134the technology um I think it's it's it's amazing the courses we do offer and the range of skills all the way from classic uh the classic shop work that people would recognize even though it's in a much more modern context these days to laser printing engraving um CAD architecture uh electronics like it the the sheer range is is is very large and and a lot of it is very academic as well and there is a lot of potential for continued integration with the rest of the stem courses but for that continued curricular work um and in order to expand our offerings to even more students and allow more students to take the courses they want to take um we really need more than one teacher um you know for our building uh I think for
135the building size we have and for um the fact that we only have one teacher what we have been able to offer is in many ways a testament to um to the quality of those courses and um the perceived importance of those courses in by our community um but to me that just says we need to do even more to try to expand that um so we hope that um that this is considered to be a viable part of the uh budget and that we can find somebody who will be you know qualified to work with Mr zapor and continuing to um expand our offerings and get more of our students really ready for the future of education and career thanks so much Andrew thanks Mark all right thank you um the uh do you
136have a sense I just I'll start but do you have a sense of what the highest uh demand classes are uh Mr Hill um traditionally there's a lot of demand there has been a lot of demand for courses like video production architecture um robotics um those courses run fairly consistently um a lot of courses like Cad and architecture have followup courses um that will extend the sequence and allow students to deepen and enrich in their skills but we can't always offer those courses to qualified students due to lack of scheduling space so situations like that is one of our concerns um It's Not Unusual for us to have you know anywhere from U mid2 200s above to uh of of um technology course request uh so um that's a that's going to end up being
137a lot of students who will not unfortunately be able to take a course that they were interested in taking um and that's one of the most obvious reasons why we we think this would be valuable but of course on top of that not only are we thinking about the current courses we have that are popular and courses that we'd like to be able to expand we're also going to be thinking about um courses that may need to evolve and develop as technology evolves and develops and and subsequently our students needs will evolve so cool all right any other questions from the board getting a lot of head shaking is everyone okay with taking this one forward okay I'm looking I'll everybody's hands up all right next one uh Dr bril is the athletic ones yes
138so we tal you know like many of these things we talked about this uh in in early December uh Mr Baldwin came back in late December and talked about the priorities and where gymnastics and boys volleyball fell um he is here and so is Mr Bland as we know I don't know that there's much more to add to this um you're right we did have a whole session on this um let me just see if there's any questions from the board after we had had that presentation uh do do we have coaches lined up for these positions or is that still okay that's my only question no we don't okay um all right um and we uh so everybody okay with taking this one forward any debates on it and the support for the the
139the Athletics is under there the rental fees the officials and the transportation yeah I saw that there's like four lines there um that are tied all together so show hands everyone okay carrying this one forward any debates all right all right we're unanimous on that one so the next one is the whiskin your clubs sure so I'm going to ask Mr Rena to come up on this one this is something he's put in gosh I think for two years prior to this this year's proposal um been Mr Ren has been someone who has been thinking about diversity for a long time uh even before the the the more public initiatives of the board right now um and also supporting uh the Arts in his after school activities so uh Dean would you like to just
140share briefly uh what your programs are about here for after school sorry I mute okay all right um I know this is something that has come up I have brought up a couple times at least the last few years about trying to give more opportunities for students um to be able to have the art club and also this allies for diversity Club um I know you saw the proposals um but I think you know like Dr uh burill was talking about the Allies for our diversity Club I think is is more important now than ever um the whole idea is to really have a club that positively impact our school um you know help helping students with you know pro-social attitude toward others increasing their uh beliefs about diversity and difference um and just building
141skills and how to deal and encourage social uh you know positive C uh excuse me pro-social behaviors um you know we've we've had a club years ago that uh a teacher did for us that was just he just was being nice about it after school once a week with students and um we really felt that this is a perfect time to be able to start up uh up a club like this again similar to the Art Club um we've had we have had kids stay after before uh with the art teacher you know if they had to finish projects or whatever it may be we were looking to maybe start something with uh where kids could come and you know work on Art and do things maybe even to beautify the school put together our
142um spring art show and again it's just I I look at things like this in my eyes are things for students to feel a part of a school because we know that there are you know we do have a handful of clubs already obviously um but to have more kids be able to participate in an after school club because we know when they are a part of a team or an after school activity some of the students do outside of schools but when they're part of a school activity or a club I think it bring uh brings more Pride to the school and um I think that's you know that's my big reason why um I would like to add these two clubs to our uh our offerings thank you Dean and Dean also helped
143provide me with a lot of information that I provided to the board in answering the questions in the document as well any questions on those yeah so Dean do you expect a large number of kids to be joining in on these or what do what do you hear from the kids demand for the you know in in the past for now again you I could never I never know like it would be done um I want to say the Allies for diversity at one point I think probably had 10 to 12 kids in it um but um you know again I think it with with what's going on uh in our society and world today and you know just things that are that uh students I think will will be more apt to to join
144something like this um both the Allies for adversity but even the art Club you know we we before it was kids staying after school with the art teacher to work on Pro their their own projects this would would be different in in that they were doing something for the school you know our Bolton boards our art show you know I've had students in the past just come and they um present something to um like a quote or a picture to paint on a wall that could be part of that club also um doing things like that and again the whole idea is pride in the school is the way I look at it okay any questions for Dean looking at faces okay all everyone okay with that one all right see in hands all right
145um all right next up is the equity and inclusion training so the equity inclusion training uh Bob this is uh and and again this has been answered in the document um and so the board has all had a chance to review this um but to be extremely brief um the equity and inclusion committee has started up and there there will be a need for training based on uh actions uh that the the charge of the the full board to the committee and the objectives and then the um initiatives that that the committee wants to bring forward to the board and then ultimately a ask the Administration to execute and there will be a need for training whatever that might look like so the training in the libraries are they're not yet defined but the committee
146will be defining those in more detail or no well yeah yeah they will I mean obviously led by the administration in terms of that but those ideas and Concepts that come forward we need to be prepared next year so like I was saying in my superintendent report we're setting the dynamic of the group we're setting the stage we're framing the the process but then the actual actions that come come out of that we need to have a budget to uh train staff in whatever that might be so that's that's you know without getting into you know all the grainy details because we're not there yet and I don't want to Define ahead of time hey committee you need to do this it needs to be genu we haven't even had our first full meeting yet
147yep all right so Dr Ruby I just want to clarify on the libraries um the libraries are not um connected to the diversity committee so we've been asking for classroom libraries for a number of years and that and we haven't um been able to follow through on that because even when the money was approved the budget was was frozen and so when we're looking at U particularly in uh literacy and social studies um looking at the texts that are that we would like to purchase we haven't selected them yet um because that will be done with teachers and we it's a quite an undertaking to select the text so we wouldn't go and do that work in advance of having the funding um but we want to make sure we I we put it in
148as div uh diversity libraries because we want to make sure given the context and the board's commitment that when texts are selected that we are providing uh the the teacher teams that are working with with the that selection process PD on the fact like what it what are we talking about when we're talking about books that are um that address diversity and I I'm just going to say this I don't want to offend anybody but it's not a book about children with black skin or brown skin and that's it it's about looking at books that might be about you know their children's picture book about children that are brown or children that are a that are of Asian background but who are the authors that are writing about this because we want to make sure
149that there that our teachers are looking at books in a different way than they were looking before and that they're looking at who the authors are so that they're they're authentic if if an author is writing if it's a book about Asian children doing whatever that it's it's written by an author who really has the content knowledge and the background and the cultural disposition to write that book so a very different way of looking at books and so it's almost because we're in this space that we're in and we're addressing and the board has committed to our our Equity uh Mission it's almost a blessing that we still need the libraries because I think we're going to be able to um we're we're going to be able to have a collection of libraries um that
150are really in line with the work that the board has charged us to do with this committee so but it's not that the committee I just don't want to be um I got it it's the need the need is the classroom libraries the method by which we're doing it is to focus on this topic which is really exactly question on the libraries though so is there um is there another spot in the in the budget for classroom libraries or is this sort of the investment for classroom libraries and you're just going to sort of focus that investment on equity and inclusion diversity this is okay so these classroom libraries are classroom libraries that are coming out of the curriculum office to support curriculum there may be and I'd have to ask um Ken to verify
151this with because he's been working with principles individually since we originally met there may be some classroom Library materials that are in school budgets that are different from this okay that's a that's accurate Dr Ruby yeah I I I just didn't know if you made any changes in no okay and that would be under instructional supplies most likely it would be under one of the book categories um well he's looking for that how I came up with this number is looking at the number of classrooms that we have um k through eight this is focus on k through eight um it was $750 a classroom average with the average book I said that a book I was $10 um and if you work at that it's really building a classroom Library where there's if it
152was books per children it's like four books per child per classroom and so it's not I mean that's a big number I I respect that number but it's not like a a gigantic number of books it's a it's a it's a healthy number of books I know no yeah I'm just trying to understand sort of if there's other classro base budget versus incremental right so so Ken how much money do we have for classroom libraries in the base budget I I don't have that information at my fingertips spot but I can get it but it is in the same line item the text and workbooks as we have the investment but School the schools did budget for additional money okay yeah it's under text or workbooks [Music] I just see that that in total in
153the base budget you know that line item is up 33% and that's driven by the these classroom library books not the other ones so so Rosa what's the number that's in there for books I'd have to go into like the actual details I just have the number for each school um and they're bigger than this number but there could be other things in there to other oh yeah sure there's there's replacement and textbooks so that you not the same line so yeah I can go through the budgets and and call out exactly how much is put in there for classroom libraries by the principles and also I would be interested to know how I don't remember what the classroom library number was last year that we weren't able to do so how much was recommended
154last year versus how much we're recommending this year okay that would I think that'd be helpful to know so why don't we make that uh Ken if you want to send a note out to all of us and kind of flesh out the story on classroom libraries as a whole or we could bring it to the you know in our last deliberations meeting which is our next board meeting right we could uh do a followup so and just to kind of maybe save Ken a little bit of time honestly I found the um the budget detail sheets that were from the principles very helpful in understanding the where these numbers came from so I would really encourage all board members to to really dig through those all right so any other questions on the this
155grouping of classroom Library investment the only thing I would add Bob is that maybe the title of that line item under Investments should be clarified if you know how Moren said it's not specifically equity and inclusion to support the equity inclusion training or committee it's it's broader than that Debbie would it be helpful on a chart like this that eventually Rosa presents to the board of Finance as a the first one on the training um we could put in there um uh a parenthetical that that says committee work or something like that and on the second one for the libraries a parenthetical that is instructional work or something like that I I would I would I would just flip the second one around and call it classroom libraries and then parenthetically equity and inclusion Focus
156right something like that the the real investment is a classroom Library sure okay everyone okay with the classroom libraries item I'm not seeing any hands come on am my hands yes yes and how about on the equity inclusion training that one too well I I I don't understand the 25 it's a big number and I feel like we just it's a number like I can give you how the number was I put that in the answer to the questions as well explain that okay so basically yeah I have I had some followup of that but uh yeah I mean $225,000 seems it seemed a lot from what you were what you wrote down it didn't really seem like it justifi 25,000 that was a lot of money unfortunately unfortunately PD is costly um what we
157were figuring uh how to to come up with that number this is an estimate as John explained before right um with four schools and um also administrators and staff being trained at 2500 dollar a day we're training you're only getting 10 days of training out of right that right where are we going to fit in 10 days of training well this is the this is the everybody doesn't get trained at the same time so so 10 days of training seems like a lot of training and it it is but as it spread out over the course of a year because oneandone trainings are a huge waste of money if you just have somebody come in and train people for a day it's it's it's almost like not training so whenever you do training you want
158to have train the trainer type of a model so that there are people that are being highly trained and then they are going out and training other people so I'll give you an example um we just recently did and and Mark if you want to chime on on this please do we just recently did technology integration training at the um at the the high school now the high school because they have a um a block schedule and everybody has a PLC period a day it's easy to be able easier it's never easy easier to be able to train all the people at the at the high school because they're available without the the use of Subs when we go to the middle school or the the elementary schools that's not the case they they don't
159have big blocks of time for training so we have to take advantage of the little blocks of time within the day for training so we train other people um administrators teacher leaders to be able to go in and train those people then we then we can once we have a um like a foundation of content knowledge we can bring the the formal trainers into work with teachers in small groups throughout the day but you can't get a lot done in a 45 minute period so this um 10 10 full days of PD at $2500 a day um would be that training would be spread throughout the year the beginning of the school year it could be some summer days so that that is an estimate based on an average of $2,500 and has that been
160our consistent with our experience on similar things yes I and I would even say in some cases it's it's lowballing when I look at some of the training that I did through the school Improvement Grant uh that we got to do some of some training for example with um letters and with scop for example scop training um sheltered instruction and observation protocol training from um the proprietary group that it comes from you know cost through the grant at no cost to taxpayers here this is through a Federal grant for four days of training cost me $21,000 for25 people that is a that is that includes travel you have to talk there's so many things that go along with that letters for each time that letters came um we had letters training for about 25 to
16130 people as well um every time that trainer came it was $4,000 per day for her plus all the books plus the books so you know yes I think depending and we're not necessarily going to the the highest level of diversity training getting experts from you know uh Nation wide leading experts um but that I mean it's expensive PD is very expensive so I just I want to put that in context for people so you understand as well that there they can get expensive very quickly yeah and so to build on that uh Mark for for you Dr Murphy that that was an estimate that we put in that we felt was reasonable that the what I know that's a big number and I like I said before I respect these numbers but if we
162if it came when we actually met with the the committee and we agreed upon you know what direction after they identify problem we have a process for how we'll go about this work we could find um that like Mark said a facilitator that we really want to bring in because we think it's what's best for the district and it might be $3,500 it might be $4,200 and then that's going to change how much work we can do with that given um pot of $25,000 so it was basically estimate if we could get somebody for $2,500 10 or multiple people at 10 sessions that that would be we would be able to cover the training of the the different groups of people because with diversity training we're we're not just talking about classroom teachers and administrators
163we're talking about our support staff in the schools which includes our our you know front office staff our par par Educators um everybody because everybody interacts with um with people and we we would like everybody to be trained to be culturally aware culturally sensitive and uh not just classroom teachers and then you know we depending upon which direction the committee goes in um there may be some trainings where we want to um have parents receive some training in parent University or PTO meetings and uh and then we've talked about but we don't know what the committee will say community some kind of a community training for welcoming people into the district to hear a speaker or something so that amount of money isn't going to go as far as one one might think so I
164don't know if that helps at all I mean it's I think I I think a presentation from the uh the the committee would be helpful in how is how this training aligns with the mission and Mike I agree with you the problem is we start the budget in December for the following year if we if we don't want to have any training next year we're not going to be able to do we're not going to be able to do what the committee wants to do if we you know don't have the a budget for it that's right but I right I also don't want to irresponsibly just say $225,000 no I no I understand I understand it's whatever the board you know the the the board ultimately has to help with the decision here right
165yeah if the committee's just getting kicked off they'll probably be wanting to make decisions on this sort of thing in say June July August right it takes time committees up and running and then you'd hate to have a situation where they say okay let's go do something and someone says there's no budget right wait till next year wait next that's why so to me it's a placeholder for now um and it's hard to budget placeholders it really is but uh it's a um a rather conservative number that's I'd rather take it forward and explain to people why we think we ought to put a placeholder out there um because this is an important topic for us so yeah and I agree it is you know I I in in thinking about this that's why I
166took the 2500 and the 10 trying to be reasonable but I'll agree with with Rosa it's probably a lowball but I'll be looking for grant opportunities to be able to supplement you know what we do because right now the the some of the training that we have ongoing that we planned last year we um we're we're using you know part of our grant money to do that we have two very um very strong programs in um diversity and Equity training going on right now um so we'll share that what we're doing already with the committee and you know take their advice and ideas because I'm sure we're going to get really great ideas because there's a a really strong group of people on that committee and then we'll go with it and if the board
167is able to support the $225,000 and it's not enough for whatever the ideas are well then we have to pair that back just like we always do when we don't have enough money and we have to build a case for whatever it is they want to do go going forward in the 2122 budget budget so there currently is no equity training in the current PD at all this is brand new yeah no we are actually we we are doing equity and diversity training now okay but it has nothing to do with the board's new out of out of the June meeting that we had and the meetings that we had in the summer and the this the mission State the vision statement that we wrote and all it has nothing to do with that because
168was already planned before that ever happened yeah but it's but we do have a budget for that sort of thing no it's not in it's it's I did it through grants was all through grants I did it through grants it has nothing to do with the operating budget so we've never budgeted for it before you know this is I I would just sort of add that this is important we have formed a committee we've made a a board level uh vision statement and resolution and something has to come out of that work out of that committee um and a lot of that has to start with training for our teachers um if we want to uh enhance you know the educational experience of our students we have to be able to give teachers the tools
169to do that so training will be at least one of the solutions or one of the suggestions or recommendations to come out of that committee so of course I would argue that we absolutely need to be prepared to back up what we said we already support and what we want to do and I I I totally agree we should back up the mission statement we work so hard on uh I just don't I I don't want to you know throw money at something that doesn't satisfy the mission statement I'm sure it will I I have not sure I'm sure it will is $25,000 of I'm sure I will no I mean pretty sure that the committee being as how we have an entire committee focused on this will absolutely be bringing their suggestions to the
170board and every one of their suggestions has to back up and support and defend that vision statement so that's what I mean by I'm sure it will because it has to that's the entire purpose of their of the formation of that committee we can debate their recommendation and they can tweak their recommendation based on our input but to make it fulfill the mission but right now we need a placeholder and what I would say at this point is I think we've asked the question the board's asked the questions we've answered them thoroughly and I think we've exercised it um when we get to the the last item on internet capacity we've got a few to get through here uh the the board I will ask the board to give the superintendent his assignment for a
171comeback right you know because there's a number that the board may want to arrive at or there there's things that you might want us to explore in the next two weeks and there might be a reasonable comeback uh that we can have the time to to do uh to conduct over the next couple of weeks but we need to continue on um and if this is an area that the the board collectively wants to reduce or increase or leave as is then that's the board's probative all right let me keep going so same same thing any other questions on this one because we'll come back to it I think but and and and a general show hands of of putting this placeholder in the budget okay it's not unanimous so we'll but we'll come back
172to it I think it might be a question of how much do you put in more than a question of do you put something in so um all right let's the next one is technology integration so we as we talked about there are several uh new technology uh software platforms that we're utilizing uh especially in our uh transition to distance learning and that we brought forward in this year's budget um and we reallocated and mooved some materials around and we need continuing professional development in that area um and uh so Dr Ruby and the principles have been thinking that through and what that might look like and we have a budget of $155,000 for that um Morin if you could share a little bit uh more uh detail about that please basically um the work
173that we started at the high school which went very very well um Mark can comment on that if he wishes we want to roll out to the other schools and we want to do it next year because this year they're up to their eyebrows and um everything else that they're doing and so that's what that money represents we worked with a technology integration specialist from CES um which is a resque in um Trumble um we did not use at Advance because they don't have a technology integration specialist at this point although I'm sure they'll be getting one um and so that's what that uh that represents Mark do you want to do you want to um share a few words about how this uh sure it was the the P the professional development is very
174well well well taken and um well structured um the the consultant we worked at with Jackie Whiting was fantastic um she really does she worked with our small group plc's so by content area so groups of um some really was groups of two or three um and sometimes we combine multiple groups into Humanities and she really provide provided a great framework and instruction that that'll help not just for distance learning where we are now but just really you know it's it shows up now because we're in distance learning but the technology integration these are skills and strategies that um that we're going to be able to use when we're back to some level of a typical school year where we're in person you know the importance and integration Strat of technology is huge um and
175our teachers left uh at the end of uh uh some of these PD sessions with you know they created some unit plans and were able to actually integrate different phases of technology and different it was it was it was so well done um you know you always you know I could tell right off the bat after meeting Jackie initially when Mor and I met with her um but this sort of thing is is really important um it really it's highlighted that we're we're good at some of the things that you know integrating technology on a pretty regular basis um but there's so much more we can be doing and uh this really brought brought to light some of those other things that are going to be helpful and really engaging to kids because that's what
176we need to be right now to get their attention away from devices and other things um you know and hold their uh their engagement and attention throughout the course of a lesson or assign and it was just it was it was it was very eye-opening and fantastic training so we're really lucky to have it one of the things that folks might not know is when Connecticut had a mandatory ceu um program which they stopped facilitating because they weren't going to spend the money to keep track of everything that they had to keep track of when they did at the state level they've they've put that down on the districts but there was a um a ceu requirement in Tech technology for teachers every year because um back even before uh 2000 there was that requirement
177because the use of Technology the integration of technology is um is something that is absolutely needed and ongoing it's not about having the device I mean we talk and we've talked at nauseum here over the past several months about the number of devices that we have in the district and it's that's step one but you have to know what you're doing with the device and for this pandemic situation the device was essentially a Lifeline a connection for the students that were in the home to the school but what we're talking about transcends that remote uh use of a of a device for a connection the type of training that Mark and his um faculty had what like he said was not just for this hybrid or remote situation it really transcends remote hybrid and in
178the classroom and it really opens up opportunities for teachers to um have students do things with technology that they've never done before that really um re first of all engage the students in the learning and then help them to become more independent in their own work as uh as researchers because they're not using a Chromebook or an iPad or something as just electronic paper they're actually using it as a tool because the the technology is integrated into the learning and that's really um that's in alignment with what Andrew was talking about before when he was talking about um the uh the technology it's using technology for a purpose and this PD is to support teachers in purposefully and intentionally integrating the use of Technology as a tool to advance student learning and student Independence as
179as users of knowledge rather than just using it as an electronic piece of paper or an electronic folder so it's um we're we're very committed to to this work and I will be transparent um I found out um through Mark actually about a grant that I applied for yesterday to if we got it to potentially cover some of that but I can't say that I got it yet because I didn't get it yet but I did apply for it so stay tuned that could be something that Ken would have to adjust if we got the money all right further questions on this one sorry I'm going to push us so long because it's 9:29 at night um and uh and I know everybody's had a busy day um any questions or debate all right all
180in favor of taking this one forward hands all right all right good um swipe attendance system all right really excited about this one I'm gonna turn it right over to Mr Banda because he's he's Beyond energized at 9:30 at night to talk about let's go um so the number you see reflected there that $9,800 uh is more than half of that is actually Hardware uh cost initial Hardware cost there would be a recurring cost um year after year um for software and uh and some you know purchasing of things so basically what this does is this um this 9800 allows us to have a system uh that we would station um we'd actually have stations swipe stations one at the main entrance and one at the student entrance that as students come in they have
181their IDs their student IDs and it's a it's a really quick they can you know they've thought of everything I mean they've got you could swipe your ID you could punch at a keypad your ID number um if we had RFID we could do that there's a fingerprint scanner and there's a mobile app so kid there really isn't it any way so the kids said I forgot my ID um I don't have it it's a way for them to check into the building so we know where they are and I think in the age of accountability we have a lot of conversations about the security task force and the things that you know I'm charged with running you know a small City and it's not that other principles don't do that I think Dean and
182I you know when it comes to rotation in the number of different kids in different places at any given time um it's it can be a challenge to really accurately keep track of where every kid is at every given moment and you know I'm always thinking about you know what happens if unfortunately um I need to know where kids are at all times um and you know when we had to do some contact tracing for example um out of no mistake of the teachers there was a student that was marked present but really wasn't right um they were absent so you start thinking about what the implications are if we don't have an ACC and that was just it was it was an easy mistake we all make mistakes now and then but this is
183a way that also integrates with uh Power School our student information system uh for realtime attendance so as kids check in and I scan um when they go to to Mr beldon's first period class um teachers will know they'll pull up their power school and they'll be able to see it integrates is the student there do they come late were they on time are they here it's all there so they can verify that attendance we'd also have stations at the two biggest places that we have um you know students attend throughout the course of school day there'd be a nurses station and there'd be a School counseling station so we could actually keep track of where kids in those high traffic areas when they're going in and out just so we know where they are
184in any emergency situation those are the two spaces other than the cafeteria where we find the most kids um it also integrates with um you know so teachers and administrators would be able to actually send messages so you can Envision they can process kids very quickly to come through these two stations as they swipe on either side or they plug in their app parents can actually sign up to get notifications just like they do in power school with attendance so um that is a little big brother to some kids I'm sure they may not love that idea but you know when you're going to be there that the parents will know when you're there you know oh no Mom really I was in class I swear you know I went to school or I went
185to Dunkin Donuts or the new Mitchell gas station before I came to school um will know when they're there and when they're not and when they leave they'll swipe out um after the school period school day starts as kids come in there's the station is rolled into the main office and they scan so we know they're there so it's just it really is an accountability piece uh it makes it a lot easier for us to keep track of where kids are and then the other thing is too is we can use it for a notification system so we'll be actually able to notify kids if there's a meeting after school for example Key Club you know sometimes kids forget about the Key Club meeting the Key Club adviser can go in and through administrative rights
186can send a message to us and we can create a list of Key Club kids and so when Key Club kids scan in in the morning they scan and they'll hear a beep and then on the screen will say reminder Key Club meeting today and then just so they don't like we can do those sorts of things to to push in reminders so it's it is an accountability piece but it's also uh it'll print late passes we can you know when kids come in late we can you know with their totals of attendance we can really customize things to be that way um so when I think about it some larger school systems in Connecticut uh one in particular I know is Manchester a friend of mine works over there and they've had the swipe
187attendance system um and it's it's been very helpful for them um and their student attendance has increased we don't have a treny problem or anything of that nature at berkfield high school but I think this would just go a long way when I think of security and I think of reunification you know I I don't lose sleep over it but you know that that part of me where I take uh you know ownership and responsibility for all the kids in the building I want to know where they are at any given time because the last thing I want to do is when a parent calls and says you know could you get my kid at a class and I look and it says they're present and they're actually absent that is a difficult convers for
188me to have and that happens on occasion mistakes I'd like to reduce those things and make sure we have everybody accountable and any emergency situation we' be able to keep track of those kids so that's my presentation thanks Mark I I I I thought John was kidding that you were going to be really energized I thought he's at 9:30 watch him he'll be energized right oh no you're energized on can see I've lived Mark's life and when when you and when you were a principal of any building and you responsible for all those children and all those staff you you are excited about anything that's going to make it safer and make sure you know where everybody is at all times there's no doubt about it well the way you were describing it it sounds
189like this system would allow you to see if kids were in individual classes um the swipe but the swipe stations are only in a couple of places so so yeah so the swipe stations would really be you know they'd be at the at the main office uh the front entrance and the side entrance so that initial when they get to school um you know teachers will also have access they can change the attendance as a kid comes into class but like I would know um you can get to a point we can add modules on where I mean it's it's that I think is a whole another step where individual teachers you can have a scanner in your classroom and that's how they take attendance as kids come in they scan um that's one way
190to do it there's a few schools that are doing it that way this get you they're in the building right in the building which is really that's that Global piece that I'm looking for and then often times we do have kids who need to go to the nurse and go to school counseling for any number of different things that are there longer than a typical bathroom break that in these situations it's nice to we we it helpful to know it's helpful to know when they check in and check out it doesn't change their overall attendance we can look and say okay they checked into school counseling at at 9:25 and they checked out and we know they're going back that they should be back in class by now so so you'll start finding out when
191the seniors really do leave huh yep you Sly dog all right any questions for Mark on one uh just one is this um this 9800 that's a every year thing no the 9800 is that that includes uh most of the software and Hardware the software and Hardware that goes on it's initial cost the annual maintenance fee is I think it's uh I think it's ,500 for the program itself plus the plugin I think it ends up being like a little over $3,000 a year maintenance fee for the the software and the program to integrate with power school and then in terms of buying extra roles of you know I printer paper and things like that that IAL cost 9800 is only for that first year because that's where you really have the equipment purchase piece
192okay and you'd know when the students went into the building but not necessarily when they went out right so during the course of the day so you would we could if if students are dismissed let's say for a doctor's appointment right they have to come to the main office we have that pretty well uh well managed in terms of where kids are they would swipe out for the day to leave now at the end of the school day at two at 2 o' um we wouldn't be doing that um when the when the building dismissed um but during the course of school day if students had to come in late or leaving early they all dismissed the main office so it would be a way to really keep track of that and keep it accurate
193Mark do will it tell when students leave a classroom like to go to the bathroom for example no it wouldn't be that you we could add on you can customize these things to be really really um have some really intense oversight it won't tell that we'll still do passes of the bathroom and and have ability to track where kids are just generally um these are the big picture things when they enter the building when they're in places that they they tend to be a lot other than class which is the nurse or the school counseling office when they're there longer than they would normally uh be at a bathroom or to get a drink of water or something along those lines those things were still going to be a typical pass system um you know
194so it it would not do that level we could eventually if that's something we wanted to get to um but it's it's possible but just not right now okay any other questions all right everyone okay carrying this one forward I we ought to have we ought to have Mark do the presentation as long as I'm not counting how many times kids go to the bathroom I'm P this we are not doing that I'm not counting how many times kids go to the bathroom I do keep track I do keep track for contact tracing though Dr Murphy so we know when kids are in there we do do that now um but that's only because of contact tracing so and they will read signs that tell them not to Vape in the bathrooms all right presentation
195stations right the next two are oh go ahead Bob I'm sorry uh I would just make a comment before we get to the next two I feel like I I banged uh Eric and Ken around a little bit last meeting I want to tell you they did a masterful job coming back to the finance committee and uh and I want to thank both of them for giving us a very thorough look at the finance committee and I appreciate that oh thank you Bob and and I know they'll appreciate that they worked very hard in initially getting the budget ready and then obviously on the follow-ups and speaking of Technology the next two items are for the man who's running the meeting behind the scenes which is Eric Conlin our technology director um one the presentation
196station that's that's a carryover and in lie of some other things we had to do this year because of the pandemic and internet capacity is always something we need to increase so Eric I'll leave the last two for you um sure so the presentation stations um if you um remember from last budget season um I had originally budgeted to do a um a big push um to uh start to finish out the high school and move on to whisk andir um you know obviously with with certain budget restraints and and other needs um we we had uh brought that down to 10 presentation stations um that uh come in uh came in at 23 ,000 um covid changed that um when we needed to rep prioritize um and get software and licenses for zoom and
197classroom microphones um and things that are used for hybrid learning and um yeah remote learning and you know the idea that we may not be in a classroom for the full year with these big giant boards cemented to the wall um just didn't seem right in in the environment that we were in um but looking to next year um you know we need to get back on track with getting those uh presentation stations um getting them in classrooms and finishing out the high school and moving forward to whisk and ear um the new school will get them all in every single classroom um you know so it'd be great to have the high school done and whis skyer catching up um on that as well um so this investment here is um for an additional
198uh five boards on top of the 10 from last year that we brought so this is um this is a requesting for 15 presentation stations at the high school um Bob do you want to talk about the second one too you want to just do this one first go ahead and want you're on a roll talk about the next one sure um so internet capacity um we uh Connecticut is um one of few um States um if not one of the only um I have to confirm that where uh they have a state run and provided internet access service um so we use the Connecticut education Network or the C it is run out of the University of Connecticut um and provide us all the districts in Connecticut um police departments towns um First Responders
199hospitals with internet access and internet connectivity um and uh they've been very reliable excellent um service for us um they offer um internet bandwidth connections all the way down from 25 megabytes um all the way up to 10 gigabytes which um you know 10 gigabytes is a lot um not not something we need now but um is a lot of bandwidth um that uh will'll probably see become a standard in the future um so my increase is actually to go from one gigabit for the district to a two gigabit connection why the influx of devices and the need for technology we got all of the software um you know that has been discussed all that software needs to use technology all that technology um increases a um creates a uh High increase in the number
200of wireless devices the Chromebooks we're bringing in um the Chromebooks we've already brought in um and any student that beod basically we are going to see um massive increases in the number of technology devices connected um on a given day and um we want to be ready to handle the load um and um right now all five buildings I do include Tso and that um all five buildings share one gigabit connection um that's um a good you know that's a good amount of bandwidth um but that again that's shared um so to share a higher amount of bandwidth over the um devices pushes more bandwidth out to our wireless devices our desktop computers um and then all these you know various initiatives that do require te you know connections to technology um and so uh
201you know rather than jumping straight to you know looking at you know a 10 gig connection or um you know something really high that's just not needed at this point um you know we can kind of Step Up um as as um technology allows for it as um technology gets used more and looking and evaluate each year you know is one gig enough is two gigs enough is four gigs what we really need um you know but we're really looking to reliably support the high increase of devices that we have coming in so do you have statistics on usage and uh and uh and contention on the network um not not not on me Bob but yes we can get those uh I can certainly get that for you um actually a lot of that
202data is is derived for us from the Cen um all I have to do is ask them for it um and get a history but as you look at it are we getting to the point with one gig where we're actually you know running into contention issues and uh and low lower lower speeds because everyone's going at it at the same time what's your experience yeah so so truth be told um we have not seen that increase yet um you know we are we are doing we are doing okay on one gig truth be told we are doing okay um but the only data I have to go on is um what last school year looked like which you know was before the uh new devices we got this year and um any data I
203have for the fall of 2020 is based on hybrid learning which was only half our population in a given day got um you know so so it's it's really hard to tell we were actually slated to um test this with the Cen and December um alongside with a core you know um a an infrastructure replacement project um in December but we went remote um so so that's that's kind of pushing us back um so we're hoping we we got a contact with our vendor today we're hoping next week to have um the demo of this increase put in um in anticipation of our return on the 19th umti sorry they'll give you a demo of it you can see how it it helps with uh spee and connectivity um yeah you know this one's a
204little you know this one's a little less of a demo than a uh take advantage of um a um option that um is so sorry yes they would provide us with a demo if we talked to the Cen and said listen we want we want to see what look going up you know to this many gigs would do um however the way we approached this was actually a benefit given to districts um due to covid is that the Cen had offered to increase bandwidth of school districts for this school year at no cost um and so uh we were tying that in with our infrastructure core project um and then we were going to take advantage of that free uh upgrade we were going to get the upgrade it ends on June 30th um and
205then my intention was to keep that going for the next school year I gotcha I gotta yeah okay that's good all right so on these two topics any questions for Eric I'm seeing no some head shaking no because these are consistent with things we've talked about in the past too um I actually was going to ask you Eric if we should go for more than two gigs but you think that'll be enough from everything you know um yeah you know I'm I'm weary to um I'm weary to go too high right now based on um you know you're you're only as fast as your slowest connection and although um you know most of our schools can handle this connection um you know we are running some older infrastructure equipment at Huckleberry um we know that
206um it's not necessarily causing performance issues um but we know that um we're going to be investing in all that in the new school um but giving um you know giving a double the connection for example to Huckleberry is only going to slow it right back down when it comes to our infrastructure equipment so at this point I I think it's Overkill I I think we're okay on I I sorry I firmly believe um that we will be able to reliably provide service at two um but would like to look into increasing um you know as as we move forward with the new school um you know that that's it's a lot of students in in one school and a in a given day and uh to be able to dedicate bandwidth to each building
207um in the future will be something we can look towards okay got it all right so uh everyone since no one had questions everyone okay carrying these two forward okay I got thumbs up from everybody all right so we went through the list took a little time but you know what um I'm going to start with we're our next thing on the agenda has got to be three main points I think we ought to give a pointer to the public to this uh this section actually have we still have the new school building project but when we get there this will be number one on my list um yeah I want to send I want to send the pointer to the board of Finance let them listen to this so this has been really good
208guys so thank you and it sounds like as in terms of comebacks um uh the only item that we all didn't unanimously jump on was um and and say we support was the uh that 25 ,000 item um and uh and uh for the you know the placeholder for diversity training and I don't think any of us are against diversity training the question is the right amount of money so uh so we could bring that type a question back at our next meeting as a discussion point on how we're positioning the budget and uh and that's an easy discussion to have um I think um is there any other assignments we ought to give to the uh Administration to come back with given the discussion tonight no I mean I had I had my couple
209of things in the beginning and Ken's nodding so I know I know he's on he's working on it all right well then what I would suggest is that for our next meeting we all review the budget documents and that we'll come back there not a lot of open questions left anymore um what I would like to have us put on the agenda for the next meeting is to go through like this one the capital budget right you know because we do need to submit a capital uh project submission um John you gave walked us through it but I want to go through the just the next year one more time to make sure that we can all like we just did here that we can all say yes that's all stuff we support going in
210with it wasn't a long list it won't take as long as this one but it was just I think we ought to just put it up one more time maybe we could do it a little more General um but I think we need to vote separately on the overall budget and on the um and and on the capital budget that we're going to submit and Bob can just help me with that one for a second I'm I'm thinking that we we did the approval and then I went to Mr Dunn and I think it might we might have tidied that up and I I think reviewing it's a good idea can anybody help me with that I because there's so much that went on this fall I'm recalling that we may have approved it because
211Mr Dunn had asked us if we could get it to him earlier so he could start you're you're right we did actually formally approve that submission didn't we but we haven't really talked about it so you know it would be a good idea to review it there's no doubt about it let's review it and I'll go back and look at the minutes or maybe you should go back and look at the minutes and you know if we don't have to vote on it again that's important but you know what it capital budget's a big thing for the board of Finance important that we look at it and uh one more time and say yeah that the amounts are about right it's not just the items it's the amounts right you know and and uh so
212are we okay with the items and do the amounts feel correct for what we're asking for so sound good um and then Rosa I don't know I mean I I for one would be okay taking forward a 4.1% budget I don't know about everybody else's anyone have a different feeling about the budget I mean it's uh the different you know I I would I was thinking about whether we should bring it forward with 3.9 or to keep it under 4% but the that was oh go ahead that was that was my only thing I wanted to keep it under four you know I liked the 3.9 number I think we need to try to keep it under four what would you suggest we remove because we can certainly have some of that discussion I know
213tonight's getting really long but we could have a special meeting no we could do it at the next meeting it could just be a comeback item if if you had to bring it in under four what would you have to do and that could be well I think that could be a charge for the administration so you know he asked for something to be able to come back with so I don't think I should need to answer that tonight I think that's right I think that would be that's usually assignment you would give to the administration um how much money John is 0.1% on this budget it's uh oh uh well it's really 3% yeah yes so I'm just thinking about what it is point for Point 3% 1% of 40 200,000 can K is
214it about or is that a little much 200,000 to get it 0.1% would be about 47 48,000 we're so we're talking about a little over $100,000 here right because basically it's the insurance increase right we increase Insurance about 130,000 I mean that's that's what you're talking about yeah so I so I'll tell you what why don't you guys you know if you had to bring it in at 3.9 something right um you tell us what you what would be the first things to go in the budget and then let's and we can decide if we're going to carry it forward or not carry it forward so this is this is generally sort of the the position that we always find ourselves in which is do we or do we not have them exercise that because
215again that places a menu of options to other boards now of course the budget is in our control but it demonstrates that there are things that we could or would be willing to remove wow we're we will we we will show whether we're willing to remove them or not right um what we've chosen in the past is that we don't do this exercise until we have to so if there's something that this board does not value then by all means Bring It Forward but if this is a list of things that we value then we need to adopt it and we need to support it and be willing to defend it so that's why I don't think pre-adoption that's a task for administration Madam chairman you you decide how you want to play it well
216what does everybody else think if it's an exercise I I obviously Joy I I presume that's what you would want to do right if it's an exercise I don't see any harm in it it's not doesn't mean that's the be all end all okay Mike uh I I guess I I I uh don't I don't understand what you mean by like so we we task the administration for our suggestions no so typically we've had we we always get to this point in the budget where we don't like the number but we like everything that it represents and so we get to this point where we say well the board of Finance isn't going to like this number so let's see if we can make a little more um pleasing I never said anything about the
217board of Finance no I know I know but I know that's would i' rather have a budget that's under 4% but I could support the 4.1 that we have so it's let's be clear we're not doing this to dance to someone else's drummer this is our decision and I'm not saying I don't support everything either you're making assumptions so I guess then I'm because of people's perceptions that's that's that's the that's not my problem okay can I can I weigh in here yeah we knew at the start of this conversation that it was a 4.1% increase and we just spent an hour going through the list item by item and ex with the exception of one line item we all unanimously agreed that those things were important to us so I don't see the value
218in doing that again I I just feel like we we just all by a show of hands voted on what we thought was important to keep in this budget you're right about that yeah I agree D to just go to knock it down 0 2% I I think we should just that to me is an arbitrary cut right right I mean we know where we all stand and I think it should go in the way it is and we should adopt with the superintendent recommended and then if we have to cut after that at least then we do that I agree I'm I'm definitely for a discussion on what if if we had to cut or we don't have to have that now because we don't have to cut anything um but in the past
21910 years the average increase has been between three and 3.2 and 3.5% so I do think we have to in some ways prepare for the reality of we gonna have to sit down and make some cuts that might be but this in time we're talking about which budget do we want to adopt right not which budget do we think is going to pass at referendum so right but we still we still have to I mean we're not done we're just we're gonna have another discussion later so I don't exactly understand the question right so what I'm saying is if there's something that you don't value in this budget then we absolutely should and can have that discussion okay but to task Administration with saying hey you know what let's just cut 3% out what would
220you do you already said you've valued those things so I don't see again to Debbie's point I don't see the value in doing that right no I don't I don't either point in time yeah okay so now I think I understand the question a little bit more yeah no I I don't see the the point in doing that either so at this point we won't task Administration with doing that then okay that would be my vote all right I don't think we need to formally vote but I'm assuming there's a general consensus at least so so the uh the only agenda item then for the next time our our last meeting before we have to submit is to go through the items in the capital budget we might not have to vote on them but
221it' be good to air them out and then we have to each have researched one more time our uh um our uh budget books and make sure we have any last questions answered right um there are other questions send them to Ken and John as early as we can let them get the answers to us they've been really really good about getting us and documenting answers I I've got to say that I've been very impressed at the turnaround this year thank you Bob um the other comebacks uh were to um on the on the chart have clean up the chart in terms of the diversity uh are inclusion areas um the SLP in the in the budget itself the tradeoff show that in the chart and um the items Rosa talked about at the beginning
222with Ken on just being prepared for uh updates not to the full budget as an approval but updates to changing accounts areas where we can highlight and make more clear Y and let's hope there's some things that who knows maybe we can naturally reduce the budget when we sort of take a look at that so it's every week things come out and let's hope and and at the finance committee I'd like to with with the town controller I'd like to spend some more time on the insurance rates and what are we learning and and stuff like that I just that's a that's been a big D Dynamics there's a story to be told there and I want to make sure that I'm really really clear on what we're hearing or not hearing right I've been
223doing some work on that already and I was I was planning on having that discussion Monday night yeah yeah I think that would be really good so because I think that's a big swinger on this budget that you know that moved us from 3.9 to 4.1 by itself so so and and there's just one one last thing I want to end with and I do not want to belabor anything is I didn't verbally say but it's in my slide that during all of those finance committee meetings we had a board of finance representative on you know at the meeting as well as um a representative from the town finance office and it's really important because that's part of the vetting process of this budget from December 2nd all the way through till tonight and and
224it wasn't like she was a spectator she asked par like the rest of us so it was really very effective I thought okay okay so let's move on uh we just have the new school building project I just have um a very small update with that um the bid we're obviously in the middle of the uh bidding process right now um there are currently two groups um that will be sort of bidding and the first group is due to have their proposals um on the 22nd and then the second group is due the week after that so um if all goes well and they get some good bids then the NBC will have a special meeting um at some point soon after that to award so everything is right on track uh mid-February you know
225definitely by the end of February there should be some um Awards going out so everything looks good and then one one thing um I will mention about the the school name survey just to kind of bring it back there a little bit I was reading through some of I don't know if any public is still listening or maybe we'll listen back to this at this point point but um I I was reading through a lot of the comments and I noticed that a lot of um people had commented why can't Huckleberry Hill uh still be the name of the school um and a couple other different comments why can't it be named after a person why Westbrook it doesn't make any sense I just wanted to sort of put it out there that um the
226survey itself did have a small rational for each name and then we've also um there was a really thorough discussion at our last December meeting um that kind of went through it and the board's discussion of it so it's those are just two really good resources to kind of understand why those names were chosen so and Rosa we included links in the survey and and and it links it right to the new school project website people could look at the presentations that Dr Murphy presented um you know the history that PowerPoint that Mrs Brooks presented uh put together and and were presented at the each of the schools by with Mrs laano and Mrs um Diamond so the resources are there uh for the public to review they're they're all very very concrete and very
227easy to to to review um the other piece on the school project I just wanted to share with everybody because there's there's always a lot of behind the scenes Logistics that go on uh representative from uh om will be coming next Tuesday morning to walk through with several folks but specifically Mrs laano and Dr pep sasi and myself uh and Mr Caldwell to walk the property to really look at the impact of play areas once we break ground in March um outdoor play areas for the students as well as the the Bus drop off in the back and and all of that so um we'll be communicating any disruptions uh to to the children and to staff and parents um as those get CL as that gets closer okay anything else or questions okay so
228then we can move on finally to three million points budget budget budget budget budget um I think I think Dr brill's covid update and the information by Dr Davis is important [Music] um and of course budget but I didn't know if you want to also mention uh maybe again the new school project and the an update on the naming yeah we can um we can maybe I don't know how how in-depth in in terms of the preliminary results you want to give but we could certainly sort of add it as another reminder tell people again about the resources um yeah okay certainly share that almost 2,000 people have responded that's a huge number yep and I forget did we have a deadline for for um answers to the survey when is it being taken down
229let me see I don't actually know uh I think we just said that we were going to share the results at the at the meeting on the 20th so I mean we could certainly keep it open until then yeah and that that at the preference of the the committee or the the full board we can Eric and I can make that we can send another reminder out about the survey and then close it midweek next week we could leave it all the way open until the 19th of January prior to the the meeting on the 20th when the board will have this on you know the name uh selection on the actually on the agenda for a formal discussion whatever you guys would like to do we can do I'm fine with leaving it open
230until the last minute there's really only that you know a couple of data points that we're really looking at so it's not too much analysis yeah I think the more people we can get responses from the better okay okay all right thank you so upcoming events okay um all schools have early release on Friday January 15th and our closed Monday January 18th in observance of Martin Luther King day Tuesday January 19th is the plan return to in-person Learning Center fol has a PTO meeting Tuesday January 12th at 7 p.m. via Zoom um Huckleberry has a PTO meeting Friday January 15th 9:30 a.m. also via Zoom whiskin has rescheduled picture days for Monday January 25th and Friday January 29th and the high school January 8th is the BHS alumni panel during ilt for 11th and 12th
231graders and January 14th is the College Planning webinar for juniors that's 6 PM via Zoom that's it okay all right so that is it for tonight thanks you for everybody for uh hanging in so long and um without objection this meeting is adjourned good night everyone