Board of Education Meeting 12/2/2020 @ 7pm

001at Brookfield just B OE okay it right now okay Ros okay Rosa we're live you can begin all right good evening everyone today is Wednesday December 2nd and I call the regular meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order in ordance with executive order 7B suspending sections 1- 1206 1 d225 and 1 d226 of the Connecticut General statutes the public will not be able to attend this meeting in person but will have the ability to view or listen to the meeting in real time by way of the Brookfield Board of Education YouTube channel furthermore such meeting will be recorded or transcribed and posted on the board's website within seven days of the meeting and made available as required by law all speakers taking part in the meeting are reminded that they are to clearly

002State their names in titles if applicable before speaking on each occasion that they speak individuals wishing to participate in the public comment portion of the meeting May do so by calling the following numbers area code 6099 or area code 301 715 8592 and the meeting ID is 943 2135 so let's stand for the plet I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we have a full board in attendance tonight so let's start with public comment um so the number that is ending in 815 um you can go ahead and unmute and I'll just remind you to state your name and address for the record and uh you will have three minutes

003to speak so go ahead the floor is yours my Jackson Shar I'm presenting this with another individual so how would I uh allow them to like join or like present it with them what is it that you're presenting um today we are presenting a BHS boys volleball team uh I think you can you know if you sent the presentation to the board we can view it but is there any comment that you need to make yeah there's comment along with the presentation but well I don't think you'll be able to view it without reviewing it first um okay the public comment is just a place for uh the public to make their comments on anything that the board may have jurisdiction on okay okay um if you could maybe just could he give us a

004brief synopsis of what his presentation entails certainly would you like to do that yeah um our goal is to establish a boys BHS volleyball program which would include a varsity and JB team by the spring of okay um was that was that it other than your presentation that we will will certainly review that's all for now the rest of the information within the uh the Google Slides okay and could you just state your name and address just for so that we have it on the record my my name is Jackson sharp and my address is three parkw Drive bfield Connecticut great thank you very much um I'm also uh Jackson Sharp partner in this project um I could State my name and address if you'd like yes go ahead uh my name is William Fox

005and my address is one Dearfield Road Brookfield Connecticut okay those are the only two phone numbers that I see on the line uh is there anybody else just make sure I didn't miss anything okay um so let's move on to the student representative report oh my camera is a little blurry sorry um so hi I'm Tami chenu as the Brookfield High School student representative um so we're are continuing with online learning until January 15th but I do think the transition has gotten a lot easier and students and faculty are adapting well to it and honestly I think that me and other students I've talked to have actually started enjoying online learning more than the hybrid learning because we get to wake up a little later and by going to school it kind of feels the

006same as if we were at home so we would just prefer to I guess be in our beds and take class um some of my classes and teachers have been doing mood meters and have just been checking in with students before classes start just like how you're doing and what you've done over the breaks and weekends and stuff like that which was which is really nice just like as a general way to d-stress kind of um the first marking period ended on November 11th so we're already a quarter of the way through the school year which is kind of crazy um fall Sports have also ended um across the state there were about 36,000 students involved in Fall sports with 13,000 games and meets and also winter sports have been postponed I believe in until

007January 19th which means there'll be no practice conditioning or yeah practice or conditioning um on November 11th the class of 2021 we took a senior picture out on the football field um we were in a formation which I couldn't quite tell being inside the formation what it was but um after Logan White had a drone so we also were able to take a couple videos which was really cool and also I have seen my whole grade in one spot so that was really nice um I've also talked to Mr Blanda about some possibilities for senior activities including a possible pep rally which is probably going to be way later in by the end of the school year um either the whole school outside or even just the senior class if possible and I know last

008year the seniors had an Instagram account for um that just said where everyone was starting to apply and deciding to go to college so I kind of wanted to create one for our grade soon because some seniors have already started making their decisions and class of 2021 t-shirts have also gone into production um a deadline for senior applications passed on November 1st which was most Ed deadlines which was also when I applied to the University of Pennsylvania so fingers crossed um the human rights Club finalized and sent out a Google form for English classes in order to take the temperature of the school basically asking about the students experiences in the high school or if they've witnessed or been victim to discrimination of any kind and we've already been started getting responses which is really

009great and the BHS faculty attended a full day diversity and inclusion training with the Cooperative educational servic in Trumble on November 3rd and I know Mr bland is also working on some new school climate training for staff and students and that would be all thank you thank you Pandy any questions all right thank you all right so um let's move on to written correspondence okay Laura Orban wrote regarding Health Data Eileen cook wrote regarding the decision-mak process regarding the school learning model Elena Lopez Amy Frost Sarah coffee Sharice Payne and other concerned parents wrote regarding the school learning model Josh flowers wrote regarding the new school name the Bea executive board wrote regarding the school learning model and Heather Buckley and Chris deia wrote regarding the extended school closure thank you okay on to approval

010of board minutes I'll move that the board approve the minutes below the budget round table from November 4th the regular meeting from November 4th and the special joint meeting with the NBC from November 17th a second thanks Joy all in favor thank you that's the superintendent update thank you Rosa um so welcome everyone I know we have a lot of uh administrators here on the meeting I thank you for attending uh for for those who aren't typically involved uh with the board meetings it's it's greatly appreciated that you're here this evening uh on such an important evening where we present the the next year's budget and I really appreciate you being here so thank you um uh I'll be brief tonight as we have um a good number of our subcommittees to report um for

011which I'd like to share information on that and so that's that will take up a good chunk of time uh this evening and then certainly I'll be presenting the budget for next year so I'll keep my comments brief I do want to thank um all the folks that were involved on um developing our annual all hazards security and safety plan um I know the uh security former SEC formerly formal security task force uh had been involved with that as well and um our principles and their teams at each school as well as Lisa gramling and Dan Caldwell and all the other folks involved uh really did just a great job it's it's a 150 plus page document uh everything from where our boilers are located to fire drills uh to communication processes um and we

012also obviously involve the fire marshal the police chief um and emergency responders and all kinds of folks in town to keep our facilities and our our faculty staff and our students safe and so I really thank everyone for that it's also a very valuable document in that the state of Connecticut the Grants Department um at actually personally gave us a call to make sure that that was handed in on time because that's involved with one of the the the check offs for the reimbursement grant for the new school project which we know is over $16 million so these are very important documents to complete complete well uh to ensure the functionality of our school system but also in compliance and uh making sure that we receive the funds due to us so I want to

013thank everyone involved with that it was a big undertaking this fall and uh we just submitted that to the state earlier this week um the next one I'll be very brief on because it's going to be a whisk Ander Spotlight at the next board meeting um but I had the pleasure of being in uh Mr Figaroa and Miss show show shots um arts for Connecticut um resident in artist program that's been going on over the last few weeks with the seventh grades this happened to be with the seventh grade students and it was just absolutely amazing um I didn't get to see their artwork but I got to hear the kids and and the teachers and the Poetry they produced um it was absolutely amazing so I really want to give a shout out to

014the the seventh grade classes and to Mr Renda Dr Ruby and the teams for for bringing in the program and um it really was amazing and I cannot wait for the board and the public to see the spotlight in a couple of weeks at our December 16th meeting so um just so impressed and so proud so I want to just let everybody know that and then finally I'll just be brief um it's no secret everybody saw the letter today um working with Dr Sullivan and with Dr D us we had to make the very difficult decision to move to to continue with remote learning for the next few weeks uh into the winter uh recess and then uh for the 14-day period after the winter recess um because of covid uh cases positive cases outbreaks

015and staffing issues that come along with the quarantine protocols um so um we don't take that decision lightly um as everyone knows uh I actually put in writing that I was thrilled earlier in November when we were thinking we're going to get the kids in 100% and uh like all of us on this this meeting we want our kids in 100% not even just in the hybrid fashion um but we have to think about safety in the health of our kids and we have to think about safety in the health of staff and also that we could effectively efficiently and adequately uh supervise students and instruct students when they are in the building so um we've shared the information on that I don't know if anybody has any questions uh regarding the decision-making process or

016anything about moving to remote learning but those were uh the three items I wanted to discuss in my superintendent report and I wanted to end with the co update um just to make sure I can answer any questions of the board and that's all I have Rosa thank you John I I I just wanted to make one comment about that um as far as I know we're the first district in our area to have made that decision to stay remote till the end of till the middle of January and um I just wanted to thank you for your leadership and your decision making you know sometimes it's easy to make that decision when everybody else is making the same decision but um to step out in front and make that decision now and give parents

017you know time to plan I think was really the right thing to do so thank you for that thank you Deb and uh I'd be remiss if I didn't thank um this team that's on the call and this board uh the team put a lot of thought into the decision-making process and what we could do going forward during the during the early part of this week and um uh two of our neighboring districts we're not the only one in the state that had to make this longer term decision um but certainly in our area um if you don't you take Danberry out of the mix they've had difficulty since the beginning of of the school year um but two of the other towns are moving from our area are moving into this direction as well

018I believe they've announced this evening uh as well so um as we know the the the health metrics are are quite High and the staffing issues are significant um but thank you very much for those comments yeah thank you Debbie that it was very well said and I couldn't agree more um any other questions okay uh let's move on to committee reports up first is facilities can you hear me okay because my internet's been spotty okay all right so we reviewed the school do reports uh one important thing to mention is that there have been an abundant amount of HVAC work orders um many complaints from staff members about temperature in the classrooms but it's important for all the board members to know that we have some very archaic equipment especially with our unit ventilators

019so maintenance is constant and replac equipment is a priority custodial Staffing update although it's updated just of as of tonight but Green Life custodial is still working with us we've have made some progress on filling positions and transfers at the high school uh we filled the position but now we need a night position at the middle school night position has been filled internally however we need another night position filled at Huckleberry two need to be filled although we um heard tonight that those positions have been filled so there will be updates at our next meeting regarding that for at WS the water testing uh we receive the Water Analysis we want to be very transparent but know that this is not an emergency if it were health risk the water would be shut off the

020Middle School exceeded the acceptable lead level two out of 11 samp showed this the state will be supplying us with an administrative order and they will direct us to what we have to do but we have until June 2021 to remedy or take corrective action we'll be doing two rounds of follow-up tests and we'll submit it to the state and wait for review emails will be sent to parents to make them aware as well as all of this is posted under the facilities on our district website so in closing we will look into this further we are not going to jump into any water treatment system our focus is to identify the problem even if there is a problem um our miscellaneous discussion Dr BR updated the committee on the status of the boys locker

021room project and we discussed the mice situation at the high school we have increased our Pest Control they come out weekly we have set more traps we are sealing up openings and we have increased the frequency of our monitoring our largest occurrences of droppings and sightings have occurred in the home and career rooms and our life skill rooms and we're also addressing uh food in the classrooms so if anybody has any questions that's it thank you anyone have any questions for Joy all right thank you uh now we have the new school naming committee H everyone so last week sorry two week AG uh we had our meeting uh on Tuesday uh we had a really really great presentation by put together by Deb Deb should get a uh definitely special mention for that little

022PowerPoint you gave a nice history on the school or sorry on the schools and on the town of Brookfield uh which I think everyone uh at the committee learned something new including myself uh at that meeting we also discussed uh the architecture sorry if you hear my kids scream in the background they're they're uncontrollable animals uh we we discussed the architecture of the new school building being that it has a lot of resemblance to uh maybe the still River Point out by Mr Josh Fields sorry Josh flowers and uh that was it was productive it wasn't really any we we were were considering in the past and then we all discussed uh what we're going forward uh we brainstormed a few names we put a Google sheet together by Brenda uh which will be done

023by the end of the week after a short little assembly again referencing Deb's great presentation of the history of Brookfield and the history of the town so our next board meeting we should have three to five names uh open for public debate we're going to uh discuss maybe another Google sheet with those three to five names and get public input on those names so Mike Ju Just to to share a little bit more with the people on the call the the Google sheet is to collect ideas from all the students in all the classrooms in Center School and Huckleberry and then the teachers will funnel that to the principles and the principles will provide uh three to five recommendations to our committee at our next meeting and when is your next meeting again I think

024it's December 8th Tuesday yeah 8th Tuesday the 8th yep and um has there been any way other than you know in during these meetings to reach out to a more broader general public I know at some point we'll probably have to do that at the board level um but I was just curious if um you know there was any anyway other than the representatives on the committee that the Public's been involved well the public was involved in meetings before with the NBC uh Colette stro brought a list of names that the uh that public has um put together it was a it was a short list they're mostly sent around Candlewood in some way um but there yeah there was a already a kind of a short public form at the NBC meetings that was

025collected okay uh one thing I haven't actually heard of um what is the makeup of the committee in terms of you know how many parents how many you know which administrators yes so we have two PTO representes one from Huckleberry one from whiner we have uh two principles whis I'm sorry not whis Center yes uh so Huckleberry and Center school PTO presidents uh Brenda and Jen Peralta we have Mary Rose diamond and Melissa liscano from uh principles so that's our administrative pool we have our uh committee me not committee our community members Colette Strom and Eve uh which is a nice benefit because they were you know a big part of making the school project happen in uh as former board members and now as community members uh we have two teachers we have Kate

026ZaZa and we have Kim Rachel Kim yes Katie and Kim I knew we begin with a k um as our as our teacher represent and one's from Center School one's from Huckleberry and I feel like I'm missing well Deb and I and I feel like I'm missing somebody I think that's everyone no that's it yeah that's that is everybody all right that's that's a pretty good pretty good the the board policy had a set guidelines on how on how the committee should be made up and we pulled from each one of those categories but we doubled it because it was this involved uh Huckleberry and cental school so we got representes from those schools on the committee yeah that's important I and I think I I probably should have make this pretty clear the goal

027of the of the committee is to uh really represent the student interest and really make this a a student run and driven process uh within the school well with within the two schools to name as they come together good and just to uh remind the public of the board does have a policy on naming uh school facilities and um if anybody's listening and wants to you know either write the board or write the committee um you know one of the the names um one of the stipulations for the name has to be that the school facility is named for the location in town in which it's located so it has to have some sort of geographical reference to where it's located um and so and obviously has to have significance to the students so um

028yeah we're looking forward to um to hearing those names and you think you'll have those prepared at our next meeting right yes well three we have three to five uh one thing to add on that is also we can't use a name that's already been used even if it's on another building even if it's in a neighboring District right right like yeah we can't yeah okay we can't have Great Plain Elementary right okay um one more thing that we Mike and I have been tossing around this week um maybe as a way of getting additional public involvement is the possibility of reviewing the list of names that the kids come up with and then possibly doing a you know like a Survey Monkey kind of thing out to the community for the community to vote

029on their choices from what the students recommend so it would still be student driven but um members of the community could possibly you know could weigh in and cast their vote for which one is their favorite so we're we're talking about that possibility okay all right so um we've got a lot to accomplish in the next couple meetings because we definitely want to have a name for this building before groundbreaking so so all right so we look forward to uh your next update at our next meeting any other questions for Mike all right thank you h on to finance um okay so we had a very uh brief up State tonight uh we did a couple of things at this month's finance committee meeting uh one we reviewed the financials um they're not dramatically different

030from before but we had a little bit of additional spending in the special ed area um not for outplacement which we've all been tracking but for in school uh support uh we talked about that for quite a while actually um and then but overall our current Outlook is is that we would overspend our budget by about $200,000 of which $250,000 is the spending on covid related items so we've actually underrun on other parts of the budget so that's an area that's we we actually reviewed that with the board of Finance they stand by their commitment to cover the covid costs so we're in actually pretty good shape All Things Considered and had a very positive reception from the board of Finance when we met them um the uh second thing we reviewed was the formats

031for the budget and uh if you remember last year there was a lot of noise about uh budget formats and uh um Mr post and the town controller uh Marsha Marian have spent had spent a lot of time coming up with a set of formats that would work for the uh for the town to be able to absorb our budget proposal as well as fit into how we're doing things and there was consensus from our Board of Finance member and from Mrs Marian that the formats are exactly what um is needed so it was a very positive energy meeting and we as a committee had a chance to flip through them and we had a couple of small suggestions but nothing significant um so that's what uh Ken is putting into the details of the

032budget books and the budget process uh which hopefully will mean our process with the board of finance will go much more smoothly this year than it has La did than it did last year which was the goal of that and other than that um it was a relatively uneventful meeting okay any questions for Bob all right thank you up next is policy okay uh policy committee policy and Communications committee met on Wednesday November 18th and um not surprisingly we are still dealing with um covid and pandemic related policies we went over about seven policies that are either new or uh need to be updated and um you'll be seeing those at our next meeting all of them are policies that are related to or somehow connected with the face mask policy that we recently approved

033um they're all related to viruses and pandemics and communicable diseases so it was a fascinating meeting but um you know has to be done so in our next meeting you'll be getting quite a few to review um we also John also talked to us about uh the possibility of um having cab hiring cab to um update all of our policies or assist in the updating of all our policies so um we were interested in finding out more about that and John will be um contacting the representative from cab to see if he can come to our next uh committee meeting and tell us more about that um so we can understand the cost implications and exactly what they provide um and then other than that in terms of communications we just talked about um John's

034ongoing covid Communications I I forget what letter we're up to now update o or p r r um and also the new John to talked to us about the new covid dashboard that um was unveiled shortly after our meeting that keeps track of how many students and staff in each of the schools are um infected or under quarantine so that's about it and and Deb I'd like to just uh thank our entire nursing team uh and Miss laforgia as well our nursing coordinator for for making the uh the dashboard happen tracking everything so accurately and then updating that toward the end of each week when the state department updates their numbers and uh and together put you know making sure everything's driving so thanks to the nursing team for that thank you D yes thank

035you that's it for policy all right thanks up next is K okay so um we've been sort of continuing our work this year to receive some curricul ulum updates from different parts of the organization to help us better understand sort of where they are and their needs and how things have developed so uh to that end we had a presentation by kemin Holly who's our uh K to2 curriculum specialist for World Language and Esau and really um learned a lot of detailed information about our esol program for those listening that's um you know our English language Learners program um and uh just some of the highlevel summary is we have a approximately a hundred students that are English language Learners um in the district and the highest uh concentration of those students are at um

036Huckleberry Hill School um and those almost 100 students are serviced by one uh full-time teacher um with the assistance of two um tutors um so there's a a lot of great work being done on behalf of the students but it's with a very very uh barebones staff so that's something to think about um when we um talk about some you know budget uh implications um and our needs instructionally to support all of our Learners um something to think about um even with that barebone sta we've had impressive results in their um last links achievement results that's sort of like an uh you know tests that the students will take to demonstrate their proficiency uh or their improvements in the English language so the students have done quite well uh and that's something we're really proud

037of um but again it's just um we want really want to be mindful of are we kind of putting our budget and our support um in places that the students um you know all of our students really need uh in Brookfield um we also had a presentation U by Mark Banda the principal of the high school about a program called Ingenuity uh which is a online type of a program um that can be used for credit recovery you know when a student hasn't passed a course um maybe enrichment or even test prep um so that's something that uh Mark has uh looked into um and he is we gave him um the go-ahead to um I think I'm remembering it's it was like a pilot type thing where he's going to take a look and

038investigate that um and then lastly um Deb FAS uh our curriculum one of our curriculum leaders um talk to us about The Curriculum maps that they've been working on for quite a few years um and she took us through Rubicon Atlas which is the uh program we use to um house our curriculum um and that's going to be uh available on the website um so if parents um other interested folks are interested in sort of digging in and looking at our uh curriculum they can see the fruits of all of that uh labor and all the resources that we have uh devoted to uh or of our curriculum work I think that's I think that covers it um Joy Mike if I missed anything please jump in that The Curriculum maps are are available now

039online the uh morina they're going to send something out to the parents notifying them there is is a letter that's online and I we haven't sent anything home to parents at this point because we figured they're getting so much email right now about um everything else we're gonna wait until uh and and John is really careful about not bombarding people with too many emails so we're going to wait for a lull to send it out I don't think people are going to be running to look at it but I just wanted you to know that it was there but we have cover letter Moren if they parents wanted to find it where should they look on the website um it's on um if you go to the administration page and you go to uh assistant

040superintendent it's um on the left hand side of the page under I think it says Curriculum maps oh that would make sense Eric is gonna show us okay there we go it's it's about here it's about halfway down um it will be moved up to the top um so we do want to make it one of the first things that you see when you get to the page um the the web page is having an issue with me moving it but um eventually you would go to uh District administration main page of the assistant superintendent and it will be the first link at the top here okay thank you Eric and uh that's my report Rosa great any questions for Jen right thank you uh up next is equity and inclusion okay um Dr Burell

041Dr Ruby Jen Le and I had two meetings last month on the 16th and the 30th we reviewed the committee's purpose and goals following up from our board retreat on October 22nd we align the committee Vision with the board's Equity statement and Dr burill and Dr Ruby prioritize the committee objectives in alignment with District plans we've categorized the objectives into four categories which are each under a different purview there's the committee there's curriculum professional development and policy and we also completed the quite difficult task of selecting the committee members Dr Ruby and Dr burill initiated a rubric design that Jen and I agreed on and we use that the criteria from that to select we had over 30 quality applicants who submitted really thoughtful essays which I wish we could have included everyone but ultimately

042we ended up choosing a core Committee of 16 in addition to us right now it's comprised of four students four staff members and eight community members and to the applicants who weren't chosen we asked if they would like us to keep their applications on file as we anticipate forming subcommittees down the line and maybe reaching out beyond the core membership and we finalize by setting the committee's regular meeting time is the second Thursday of the month at 4:30 p.m. our inaugural meeting is set for January 14th and the four of us are going to meet one more time on January 5th just to discuss plans for the first meeting and to set an agenda so we're looking forward to starting this very big undertaking it is thank you that's that was a good any questions

043for Amy all right look forward to hearing more about that in January okay um on to the consent agenda I'll move that the board approve the items on the consent agenda new hires resignations terminations retirement and the October 2020 financials second thank you Joy um any discussion on this uh yes Rosa um I had a couple of things I wanted to share uh before I I I talk to the consent agenda I just wanted to take the opportunity to highlight the leadership of the board and all the work that's going into um our strategic coherence plan and our district work and all of these different reports from subcommittees it just demonstrates the collaborative work of this board of our teacher leaders of our administrative team uh and in the very thoughtful process we have for

044all aspects of the organization and um Rosa thank you for your leadership and uh everyone else for their leadership and their commitment it's uh it's incredible and I I don't want it to be lost as we just move on to another agenda item it really we need to stop reflect and say wow it was really impressive just to watch and be a part of uh observing it so thank you all um in terms of consent agenda um I want to um let everyone know that um uh you'll see a name Jamal Adams uh he is a gentleman who we met through Green Life the supplemental uh custodial service and he is now going to be working for us full-time so that was an interesting piece that was uh you know exciting you know when you

045have opportunities and and you're able to recruit and so forth um Ronnie Meltzer one of our par educator who's been with us for 22 years at the high school is retiring and moving on um we just wish her well and thank her thank her for all her years of uh uh service um we unfortunately had uh two um of our longtime employees uh pass in the last month uh Mr Dave Warren who was a longtime custodian at the high school and then most recently at Huckleberry Hill um we send our condolences to his family we're going to miss him greatly he was incredibly loved and gave a lot of his life to Brookville public schools and um similarly um uh Linda Hillyard the longtime secretary from Brookfield High School um passed away um in uh

046mid November and um we uh just have missed her since she retired in 2016 and uh she was just beloved and uh we have nothing but fond memories and again want to send our condolences to her family and just um think about her for a moment uh as part of this so I want to just put those out there for everybody thank you for the time Ros thank you um any other discussion on these okay so let's vote all those in favor all right thank you that's unanimous uh on to new business and first we have the board subcommittees I will move that the board discuss and approve its subcommittee structure and other board representation Magnet School bef Education Connection Brookfield cares arbac NBC from January to June 2021 do I have a second second

047thanks Joy did everybody get a chance to look at these I don't know if you can pull them up quickly Eric just so anyone else listening can maybe see it um you know typically around this time we kind of we approve the January through June committee members ship and makeup but um typically we don't change um unless there's you know something that's um maybe extenuating circumstances that aren't allowing you to go to committee meetings or um some other fit issue so does anybody have any adjustments that they feel need to be made Ros I just I told Lisa um they have to swap my name for um for Jens for the bef okay okay um so oh good Eric's GNA share it so is your name down here I can't see it no it's still

048Jen's I think yeah yeah so I'll be doing the book field Education Foundation representative okay um so I will move to amend the motion so that uh the board approve the subcommittee structure as edited tonight with Joy Greenstein as the Brookfield Education Foundation representative and J leaden the representative for uh the youth commission are you swapping no I'm still on the youth commission okay okay so with joy Greenstein as the representative for the bef I'll second correct all right um any other discussion on this okay so all those in favor of the amended motion hi hi hi thanks everyone I think that was unanimous yes all right um so the motion is unanimous thanks um we can move move on to the superintendent 2021 2022 budget proposal all right thanks Rosa um Eric's actually going

049to pull up the um PowerPoint slides for this evening and what I'd like to to start with is um while the while the title slide is up is similar to my comments at at the beginning of the uh cons consent agenda after the committee reports um much of what we're going to go through in the PowerPoint this evening which um I'm saving you all it's very brief and ver very uh simplified um and really having taken the input and the work we've done with the finance committee uh has helped that and certainly with with the uh with the leadership team um all of the the you you'll just see a a stream of coherence um in in alignment with everything we're doing um and many of the things we've worked over worked on over the

050last few months uh obviously beginning In The Summertime with New Year um but you'll you'll see that Common Thread all the way through um and uh I'm really I'm really excited for this presentation um I'm excited about uh the the the uh the work that we look to that we're proposing and and look to bring forward uh that is really very student centered um and it comes in at a very responsible figure uh for our taxpayers as well so just really excited about that and I can't continue on without making the statement that I I make annually at this time which is that the budget is a financial statement of our values and beliefs about educating um our our students our most precious assets uh here in Brookfield so um with that uh let's MO

051move to the first uh the next slide here so uh as you can see in some of the pictures here uh this definitely represents uh things that are going on uh this year uh we see uh still a lot of community effort a lot of action and a lot of other things happening but a lot of maske wearing as well and uh certainly The Matrix of people on Zoom meetings um our our mission in this district is to Inspire Challenge and prepare our students to live meaningful and productive lives um and the board will recall having uh at this time last year uh developed um and moved forward on adopting uh an updated um portrait of the graduate which includes critical and creative thinking uh having our students become excellent communicators collaborators and change makers

052and uh we are working uh in all aspects uh Dr Ruby and the cape committee were just reporting on uh the teaching and learning work that's going on just just a small part of it that's going on and um all that work leads to those four big ideas from the portrait of The Graduate and certainly um specifically at the high school through the NES uh work that principal Banda and his team continue to work on um they're all they're working in that uh direction as well so this just this this is not a slide that is a placeholder it's very meaningful to us and it's our goal all the time and it's out in the Forefront of all the work that we do next slide please thought it was important this year and this is

053a slide I I haven't included and I have one at the end called next steps uh just to remind the board of all the work that goes in uh and remind and inform the public frankly of all the work that goes in this is um right from the adopted calendar uh for the budget calendar that our um board uh adopts uh just last month at the beginning of uh October uh actually two months ago now at the beginning of October um so it's important for people to see that tonight while December 2nd is still feels early to be talking about the 2122 school year and and planning for the resources uh to to make that year uh productive for our students um there's a lot of work that goes into it and just to get

054to this presentation this evening uh and all the backup uh materials that you received uh yesterday and today there's initial discussion and planning that starts in midep um our ad our school administrators and department head seek input from the the people and the the Educators in their departments um the administrative uh team at each building level develops their budget they bring that forward uh and have a a discussion with central office administration which is uh Ken post and Dr Ruby and myself um we then have a public budget Round Table the board hosts that that was just last month and we invite the public to suggest questions etc for what they'd like to see uh in the education system and then the superintendent and finance director um kind of organize and submit a status quo

055budget uh which you received the board received last week status quo simply means um the cost of doing business uh inflationary and contractual uh cost increases um and and uh if we were to continue doing business uh exactly as we do it in current year and then uh tonight the superintendent presents the budget proposal to the board so there there's a lot of steps and it takes almost 3 months just to get to this evening um and so it's important to share that so I go to the next slide please each year the board uh works with Administration and adopts what we call Budget assumptions and priorities we adopted those early in October and that provides guidance for budget development process um at the bottom of this slide is a link so when the public

056uh when this is posted on our website the public can take a look look at those uh assumptions and priorities and uh those lead into kind of summary area uh five major goals for the budget um and that is uh providing the necessary resources to ensure that we're meeting the needs of our students in alignment with uh the mandates and and and all the laws that we are obligated to um abide by also um maintaining our class siiz guidelines and of course we'll adjust just Staffing patterns accordingly um and if we achieve efficiencies we certainly would work to do that um providing for our rigorous relevant curriculum and using best practices and instruction assessment and learning uh that really uh is is the the nervous system of the entire District that's what our core job

057is it's the teaching and learning of our students and so um we're we're excited about what's going on in that particular area this year additionally the the backbone of technology and uh a digital world and having the necessary infrastructure ructure to make things happen uh look forward to sharing that with you on a couple slides from now and then all of the enhancements uh to our program that we want to ensure we're continuing to improve you know the old ad adage if you don't move forward you fall behind and we want to make sure that we're constantly moving forward improving not only our processes and our efficiencies but really improving experiences and opportunities for our students so I'm going to summarize over the next five slides a go a goal slide and then what we're

058going to be doing accordingly with the budget so Eric if you can move to the next one please and before I go on to the the first goal I wanted to um share with everybody exactly uh what is going on let me just minimize something here um exactly what is going on in terms of the dollar figures I think it's very important to share with people not only at the end of the presentation but at the beginning um so in our current operating budget for 2020 2021 uh from last year we had a 3% increase uh and that budget that we are operating in right now is $ 45,400 th000 the proposed budget uh for the coming year the status quo increase and this includes like I said earlier contractual in inflationary cost increases um

059is a 2.7% increase or $1.2 million we also have Investments these are investments we've been working to um ensure we have implemented over the last few years as well as some new ideas that we want to bring forward um that we're really excited about for our students um and that represents 1.26% or uh 5 $572,000 the total increase proposal um is $1.7 million over last year's budget or a 3.9% increase which is 47,2 next slide please now we'll get into our goals specifically what this budget is trying to accomplish so in terms of providing the necessary resources um it it's incredibly important to remind uh everyone that um we are are in in a strong position um with our special education budget many of you will recall that last year that was a major increase

060and um it it contributed to limiting some of the other things we were looking to do um but we had to meet those obligations this year our special education budget is nearly flat I think it's a just a just about a $122,000 increase over the current year so I have to thank um Mr post and uh Mrs wgon and the team for really managing that budget well and that's that's also a credit to our finance committee who we've been working uh monthly to to Really uh monitor our costs there um but still provide students with uh with uh incredible opportunities so what are we looking for in gold number one um making sure we remain in alignment with state and federal law and provide necessary resources uh the first thing is we do need uh

061you will recall from the enrollment report um our um case load for the speech and language teacher uh the existing teacher at the high school is extremely large and we have obligations to make sure we're meeting the proper hours of all our students and giving them every uh bit of attention that they need um and so that uh we address that by looking to increase Staffing there uh for a .5 or half FTE speech and language teacher we've also for the last couple of years um Jen talked earlier about our our tsol uh English language learner program and our our tsol teacher and our uh uh elll tutors um we really need uh and we we've talked about this the last couple of years an additional uh teacher uh to be brought forward to support

062our students and this would be another District level teacher um uh to address the needs there uh what's nice about this investment this year um we've worked with Miss Holly and what the plan is is uh not to have the two tutors going forward and actually bring in a teacher instead so there's actually a limited impact on the budget by bringing in a new teaching position because we would not be bringing forward the tutoring positions uh in next year's budget if the teacher position is approved um the one thing that's important is just a brief story um and some of you have heard this before the uh um tutors get such great experience and such tremendous professional learning opportunities in Brookfield that they actually work on becoming certified t-a teachers during their tenure with us

063and then they leave us so we spend a lot of time and resources training our tutors who then become teachers in other districts and so we don't want to continue that cycle we want to invest in uh a team that's going to be able to stay here um and really do some do further uh in in greater things for our students so that's um bringing in another t-all teacher is a is a proposal in addition to that last year we'd asked for a math interventionist at the high school this is u a need we've addressed reading needs at the high school we really need to address the math needs especially in the times we're in now we're going to need that next year so I'm proposing a math interventionist in addition to that uh some

064more math support uh for Center school and that would be in the form of a part-time math tutor and then finally there's been a need for a while and it was actually um it almost made the proposal in last year's budget and then um in looking at all the different needs and priorities I had to pull from that but what we'd like to do uh in the coming year which would be for the coming summer of 20 uh 21 is to uh have a regular education opportunity summer school for our Center School and Huckleberry students um and those would be kids who would be in need of an intervention and additional Support over the summer and so um we put that into the budget okay let's go to goal two this is a very brief

065slide tonight this has to do with uh staying within class siiz guidelines and uh moving our staffing patterns to reflect uh enrollment changes and what you can see here is very simply uh our enrollment patterns really are only shifting for the most part at Huckleberry where we will need one less fourth grade section but one additional um grade two section so we'll be working on the Staffing patterns there with those sections but net it is not asking for any new elementary teachers that's goal number two we can go on to goal number three so this has to do with our teaching and learning um and uh there are uh several uh exciting opportunities here and things the board uh has been talking about for quite a while um so for professional development we're we want

066to invest in technology integration training uh while that's ongoing we need to continue to uh invest in that area for our teachers and our admins uh our pair of professionals there is so much technology being used and we've been accelerated uh uh in large part due to the pandemic over the last eight months and so the need is even more urgent to continue investing in that area we're also investing um while we don't have uh the actual professional learning all planned out for equity and inclusion need to be ready for that so we've built in budgetary uh resources um for Equity inclusion training for staff you already heard that Mr band is working toward some of that at the high school there's a lot of good work uh ongoing and we look forward to the

067committee's work which will help with Direction setting for the equity inclusion professional learning um literacy we had to hold on some literacy uh training uh this year and we reallocated that towards some technology software that we really needed uh again due to uh our hybrid and remote learning uh models and so we need to bring back that uh professional learning for literacy uh for next year our social and emotional learning needs for our students in trauma and informed instruction we need to invest in that area and then of course um curriculum development um it's critical that we continue um to to invest in that area as we uh as the cape committee started to talk about earlier tonight in addition to that uh under this uh goal number three in terms of equity and inclusion

068one of the things we've uh worked on for a number of years is trying to really bolster the the classroom libraries uh prek to 8 and um that has been an area that when push comes to shove in the stress of trying to make a budget work as uh the spring unfolds and uh we're getting uh uh down to the nitty-gritty of trying to fine- tune a budget this has been an area that we have um uh reduced in the budget and so we really wanted to push forward with uh bolstering our classroom Library specifically in the area of equity and inclusion uh again you it's a common theme going uh through the presentation this evening uh with materials that are written about uh and by individuals with diverse backgrounds it's a really important part

069of the equity inclusion and inclusion work so those are investment areas there go on to goal number four all right this our technology goal not only infrastructure but our digital environment for our students so in addition to the investment we've made uh from the summertime and just recently received the the orders on Chromebooks we have an additional three uh 300 CH Chromebooks to continue to work toward one to one for our kindergarten to grade seven students uh we will not have enough Chromebooks to consider ourselves fully one: one next year even with the purchase of the 300 um but we are getting closer and we want to continue to work toward that go um we're really excited about this um in addition 15 presentation St stations we want to round out the upgrades at the

070high school and finish off the high school project to update all of the classrooms with the presentation stations and we need 15 more this along with the literac CPD the presentation stations funds from these areas and we discussed this with finance committee this uh earlier this year were were in the budget but we reallocated for some other software that I'm going to mention in just a second and so we didn't get the presentation stations that we originally B budgeted for because we had other urgencies we had to address uh in in large part due to the pandemic in addition we want to upgrade our internet for obviously more reliability and and bandwidth with the continued um uh uh work with student and and staff work with personal devices um so Eric's got uh some great

071plans for that uh in addition to that there are two status quo areas that I've kind of mentioned before and I just wanted to briefly explain so uh in lie of the uh literacy PD that was in the budget for this current year uh in addition to the 15 presentation stations that were in the budget for this year we actually didn't spend the money on those two items and we we purchased uh talking points Lexia ISL newa and invested further in our spatial temporal maap um uh platform and so those are um already purchased and already in the budget software items but I wanted to address them because they are newer and so they are part of the status quo and I just want to be very transparent with that in addition to that our

072single sign on technology called class link we've been implementing that this year and that's um that's another budget investment it's currently in the status quo budget and so we're going to continue working on that it takes time to implement that but what's really nice about that is that is where uh our our our students can go and staff can go and have one area where they sign on and all of their technology needs are met in one space they don't have to go to different areas to look for the the signon so it's very not only efficient but convenient um and really makes a lot of sense for us um so we're going to continue with that that's technology so goal number five our last goal and this is the enhancements to our existing programs

073um and uh being responsive to changing needs we're really excited about this uh proposal this is to introduce a um new technology teacher position at the high school currently we only have one technology teacher at Brookfield High School and um we just like uh those of you who are watching board activities uh five or six years ago or those of you who may have been on the board five or six years ago will recall that we had one business teacher and we couldn't offer the courses we wanted to offer so we added a business teacher and it's it's been incredible for us in that department similarly in techn ology in our stem Department there are uh course offerings um that are ex that exist in the program of studies mainly sequential type courses that we're

074not able to offer because we just don't have the staff we only have one teacher um and and we just don't have the staff to run those courses and kids do request those courses uh some examples are architecture uh and design uh Advanced video production as you can see there and and computerated drafting uh in our in our robotics uh one of our robotics classes they're often requested and we're not able to run them because we just don't have the staff so we want to bring in another technology teacher so we can continue to build our stem program and offer more courses to our students and these are courses that already exist in addition to that um and this is while it's an investment and an enhancement it's actually not a large expense we want

075to bring into the high school several new programs in both our humanities and stem departments um introduction to Human Rights introduction to programming forensic science and actually an emergency medical technician or em uh class so we're really excited about those uh options for students uh and enhancement we talked about from last year is bringing a girls Cross Country Coach uh over to whiskin ear U this not only will ensure equity which is Inc critically important um I think there's 60 or 70 kids who are interested in Cross Country maybe more um at uh whiskin ear and we want to make sure we have the proper supervision uh and training for those students so we want to bring that forward as we brought back uh brought forward last year in addition over the last two years

076Mr Renda has proposed an art club for after school for her students and also an allies of diversity club we want to bring those two clubs forward um these are long-standing requests um and obviously uh this will support student leadership in the area uh of equity inclusion and give tremendous opportunities for kids uh in extracurricular Arts opportunity and then finally and I think this will make our public comment students very happy um Coming forward from the athletic department Department uh we want to bring a full uh boys volleyball program forward that has been something that's been discussed uh with a lot of boys bringing that to both Mr Banda and Mr Baldin over the last few years and in addition to that uh we had some public discussion last year about gymnastics and bringing that

077forward uh there's major student interest for both uh Sports and if we add these two sports to our programs Brookville High School actually have a full complement of all c c offered Sports so these are the enhancements um I'm proposing to the board uh in the 2122 budget next slide please so enrollment uh back in October the board received enrollment reports so this is just a a visual display of enrollment um the light blue bar chart is the uh current enrollment by school as you can see there and you can see on the very right side in the light blue we currently have 30 students who are in outplay situations as we track all of our students and in the dark blue is projections for next year as you can see and while we have

078increases in some areas we have some slight decreases in um the middle and the high school and then at the bottom of the chart I put there you could take a look in the current year on the left hand side uh you can see the number of students we have enrolled this is all as of October 1 so again things fluctuate um as of October one 2564 students that's about 75 less uh than uh last year that was not our uh a projection that we'd have that many less having said that that has a lot to do with the pandemic uh and there's a major um uh disenrollment right now or lack of registration in the kindergarten area which has been repeatedly reported to the board over the last few months as we Mrs Diamond

079her came do an incredible job tracking that um and you could see for next year we're projecting an increase of 72 students so relatively stable uh enrollment uh projected for next year and you can see our student special students with special needs numbers uh year to date down 22 and as we analyze things Mrs wgon and her team are seeing that we likely will have a plus 16 for next year but again that was a snapshot of uh during October and we continue to monitor um the situation there on the right hand side uh it's important to monitor our English language learner students in on October 1 uh we had 89 students uh you'll remember we talked about the extension by the state uh for continuing to submit uh the numbers of English language learner

080students through later in the fall uh as of right now formally we have 89 students that qualify in that area um and that's down year-to date uh by 26 students and we'll continue to monitor that and can report back to the board in addition to that our um pre and reduced lunch number of students 5 41 students remains relatively stable so that's enrollment um snapshot October 1 and projections for next year and we'll go to the next slide which has to do with class size average um oh boy that's a little off there Eric you can see that at the bottom um the um as we take a look for 2122 we have our projected class size sections uh and you can see if the uh square is in white that means we are um

081within our uh target range um for grade for kindergarten grade 1 and grade two we're slightly uh over for grade three four and six and in 5 seven and eight we are right where we need to be so we're keeping a close eye on that and um we're we're satisfied with with the numbers um based on the class sections that we'll have and the Staffing that we are prepared to uh have going forward all right next slide so to bring it all the way back around this is the same slide I talked about early in the presentation uh you could see that the proposed budget for 2122 um is 47,2 35,000 and that is a total of a 3.96% increase over last year's budget or almost $1.8 million increase um um and so uh it

082moving forward uh it is a under 4% increase and you can see that the status quo if we were to keep everything the same um we would have a 2.7% increase because we have to take into account um the contractual obligations and the inflationary costs all right and I go to the next slide all right while not part of the operating budget it's important just to share with everyone the Capital plan this the board also looked at this over the course of the fall and the finance committee I mean the facilities committee excuse me um did a really nice job we had a lot of work to do here um the many of the projects that are on this year one just as a reminder for everybody were put forward at this time uh last

083year brought through the budget process and approved in the spring of 2020 by our Board of Finance um and that was was the the board of Finance approving everything uh including the operating budgets of the Town per the governor's executive order because of the pandemic we didn't actually have a referendum the issue we have with capital and can explain this uh a couple of meetings ago is that the um executive order didn't cover projects that need to be bonded and in our town Charter any that needs to be bonded must go to a town referendum so these year one projects while there's been some modifications are actually projects that we talked through last year but are not formally approved so need to go through the formal process come this spring with referendum so just as

084a reminder not only for the board but for the public who's listening to the presentation um and as you can see we've got a number of projects here I I won't bore you with going through all the projects but the there is some you know exciting and needed things that have to happen um roof project at the high school right at the top top there it's the number one priority and also to bring a new AC unit on top when you repair a roof you or put a new roof on that's also the time if a if a ventilation unit needs to be replaced you want to do that at that time so you're not poking holes in the roof or anything like that you can seal it properly the original electric service from 1970

085needs to be replaced at whis skiner um 50 years I think we' we've got our money is worth out of that electric service that's for sure uh clearly plumbing and fixtures at the high school need to be updated um the HVAC system uh management system needs to be replaced at the middle school again that's very old uh similar to the original uh the uh locker room project there's been a lot of talk about kind of taking a look at design funding again and maybe working with techon or another firm to get a another estimate um so that has been discussed and then we had a long discussion and we brought it to Mr Dunn as well and he uh he was in agreement with the board that if we'd like to put it in year

086one we certainly could which would be the entire cost to renovate the boy locker room because of the long-standing need for that in addition to that the evening at the seminar room at whiskin needs to be replaced um there's ceiling on windows and doors and security film uh that needs to be updated and repaired um our library uh uh High School library air conditioning is absolutely inconsistent uh you can never it's just not reliable so that needs to be replaced um a lot of Paving and concrete work in the front of the high school and around the corner and toward the back and a little bit in the front at the middle school um so that's always Paving work that needs to be updated and then finally we need a um a new maintenance vehic

087I say new maintenance vehicle for us it would be new would not necessarily uh things don't have to be brand new but it would be nice to get a new maintenance vehicle because we're in uh things are falling apart and we need need some help in that area so those are By Priority the capital projects um going forward next slide please all right so what are the next steps in the budget development process we started with how we got to this evening so what are the next step um on December 7th which is next Monday we actually have a special Board of uh uh Board of Education Finance subcommittee meeting to review this budget um we're going to go through that with a fine tooth com as a matter of fact we also have another

088finance committee meeting on December 14th prior to the next full board meeting where we discuss and continue to deliberate on uh the budget we come back from the winter recess um we have formal dates of January 6 and January 20th uh for board meetings and also public hearing on the schedule um but anytime in January the board certainly can call additional special meetings to discuss the budget so we have the rest of December and January uh for deliberation the Board needs to adopt the budget um by um by January 29th so that that's a Friday so it could be submitted uh by Town Charter to Mr dun and then in February the Boe traditionally since I've been here it's been very nice that we've done this we've had meetings of not only the first selectman

089uh and the board of Selectmen but also with the board of Finance we put a joint meeting together where we present the adopted board budget that's in February those dates are not established just yet so those are the kind of immediate next steps over the next two months um next slide and that's it Eric thank you for work walking me through those slides tonight and thank uh thank you board for your attention and we're up for questions or discussion or Clarity anything you'd like to discuss anybody want to ask any questions I know um John you did a good job I was GNA just um remind everybody that we do have um the rest of this month um one meeting this month and two meetings in January um to go through this but it's never

090too early to dive in if there's any questions um or comments about the proposal I just had a quick question about the class size average page does the fourth grade reflect um when we take away that class or so that number will go up even more no that we take away that section no that that's with taking that section away okay so so it's it's the sections I was big picture just sharing the reallocation of sections by grade but the sections Ken do you have the actual number um it's escaping me right now um for Joy maybe we could leave the presentation up in case there's any sure SL you want to go back to and and that particular class size average slide I apologize I don't know what happened it um the target numbers

091are just a little out of line alignment there and that blue bar John I figured it out and fixed it so I'm posting I'm going to reshare it with it correct ly formatted okay thank you there you go so the 20.4 is when you take the section away correct correct okay and as you can see at Huckleberry the target is 20 U now you can see it much easier on the bottom there the target is 20 students per section with a range of 19 to 21 so so so I'm clear the we're within the range we're just a above the target correct Bob did I did I misspeak when I presented that well I think it's important for us to re really digest the fact that we set a range right and we can be

092in the low end of the range on the high end of the range we know we have a Target in the middle sometimes the difference is pragmatics within a two student range so um these are the red implied to me that it was above the top end of the range and that worries me I actually think I'd like to see the color coding on this chart in a way that says it's yellow if it's in the range and red if it's above the range right you don't have any Reds here Point you're within the range on every class we are yeah I that's a good idea Bob but I do think it's important to kind of highlight somehow the classes that are above Target and not just that's why I I say you need to

093color them but I would would color them necessarily red right you could color them in a yellow or an or or a some different color so y we could put a little I could put a little key there that's something we can make that adjustment tomorrow that's very easy to do I just I I I was I was reacting that we were building a PL a budget that was putting us above above our ranges even and that now that I see it formatted it makes me feel more comfortable great thank you for that Eric quick good quick turnaround hey John one thing I didn't didn't jump out in your presentation is you have about a go back to your summary dollars I think it's a half a million dollars of Investments and then you go

094through Page after page of what those Investments are or almost 600,000 of Investments do do you have the breakdown of where that 572 is relative to your initiatives on the other Pages we have that in the backup materials I didn't put it in the presentation for this evening so that's in the books that we were picking up yes okay and and also um we made sure if you weren't able to pick up the books today we have that electronically to the board and again this all just came forward today Bob so um it's been hard for people on the first night to be able to familiarize themselves oh yeah I picked up my book today because I know how I'm going to spend my weekend and uh but everything you know after this evening everything's

095going to be posted for the public as well okay I think that's really important to talk about the invest you talk about Investments but without dollars and cents it's not a it doesn't hit at home very well right I think we have to talk about what the investment amounts are not just what the investment items are and not bury them into the backup yeah and and and other years they they've been right out front and it's it's across as uh feedback been that it's been confusing so I was trying to simplify this year um more than happy to to bring those forward in a more clear way at our next meeting and certainly to discuss process well let's let's plan to dig around on it a little bit in the finance committee meeting that was

096uh um and thank you for sending out the status quo budget in advance that helped a lot great you're welcome I had another comment on this particular slide um I think last year we was the first year that we really articulated um the increase that are due to contractual and inflationary Investments but then we also had enrollment and special education um and even though you're saying enrollment and special education are relatively flat I think it might be important just to show any sort of increase or their flatness um just to at least is just my thought just to kind of keep it consistent with um the past and so like year after year we can sort of always go back to sort of the same kind of slide and communication and sort of see maybe

097year toe those changes sure and that was something I'm I'm glad you brought it up Rosa we we debated back and forth do we do we leave a zero for enrollment and a $112,000 increase for special ed as a uh outlier type of a driver um and so we settled on this presentation version tonight but um uh duy noted and we could certainly work on that was that a was that a breakdown last year on the in Investments or was that a breakdown on the status quo it was it was a breakdown um we had we had four areas we had the status quo then we broke it down by out Investments and then we broke it down by uh enrollment because remember there was a time where we were working on adding three sections

098to Center school but it was all on the investment section is what we had broken down yeah and then there was and then Bob uh there was the um the outlier which was that major expense in special education well because if you remember last year we did have some significant Investments but they were Investments that we really had to do due to enrollment increases so we were trying I think to get away from using that term status quo and instead breaking it down into well these are these are contractual and inflationary costs but we also have these other new costs that are new but there are things that we have to do to meet enrollment but I would I would argue you that like going through John's uh lists of Investments there were some of

099those that um were I'll call them not special education but special needs like I'll put Tesa you know t-a in that category I'll put speech and language in that category I mean there were a number of items on your meet the needs section John that I would categorize into that special the special needs of our students all right and uh I don't think we have much new investment for enrollment per se this year which is good but um but I do think you that's why I'm interested in what the breakdown of the spending on those special items are because if the bulk of the I have a very different reaction to a budget that says I'm going to spend 572 more and that's on real needs because we have students who have those needs versus

100I've got a an exciting new program right and we had some of both of those in there um and I think it's really important that we tell the story about what are we talking about investing and not just lump it into one bucket here I agree with Rosa completely yeah and I think that's actually at at this meeting last year is what we did was sort of go through some of those Investments and say hey wait a minute no actually this is more enrollment related or this is more special education related and I think we put them into some different buckets when we created these groups so I think it was in the second meeting in December so we ought to make that a comeback at the next meeting is let's let's let's categorize the

101Investments and uh and update these charts and then we'll also have a report out from the finance committee so great thanks for the input now one question I had was last year when we went through the budget uh Mr Baldwin did a whole presentation on the rank ordering of the needs of the education program the the I'm sorry the sports programs that we have like yeah remember you had the top 10 and if I remember uh the gymnastics was relative they certainly weren't the top of that list um they were well down do we have an update of the rank ordered uh Sports Investments um I'd like to see where volleyball and um boys volleyball and the gymnastics program fit and how we've dealt with the items from last year that were ranked above them

102sure we we can do that the one uh we we had to make some choices and I certainly could have Mr Balden be ready for our next meeting with that um was the uh strength and conditioning coach and we had some we we went back and forth on that if we would bring that forward this year um or we would introduce the the actual team sports so we definitely could bring that forward as part of the comeback for next meeting well it was so useful last here to see that rank ordering I don't know about the rest of the board but for me I could absorb it and see why we were making what decisions we were making in the context of a priorities list so and I'll I'll compliment you Mr Baldwin on that

103piece of work I'd like to start from that basis and then as a board you know see how see how we address last year's priorities list and see what this year's priorities list looks like and how is it changed yeah I agree great feedback thank you other board members and and as a a point of context for the board um and for the public Brookfield is probably if not the first one of the first 10 school districts in the um in the state that presents the budget this early so it it's it's a function of our process and it's uh something uh we changed a few years ago instead of presenting it at the second December meeting we present it at the first December meeting this gives us plenty of time to do exactly what

104we're doing here questioning wondering needing to see things in in a different way and it gives us that opportunity for the board to start to digest this so for board members who might not have you just received these materials today and you just saw this presentation for the first time tonight even though there in pieces we've been working on things throughout uh the summer and the fall as we built tonight's Crescendo um it's okay if you don't have a question because you need to sit with the numbers you need to look at the presentation you need to think because this is part of our process going forward so I just wanted to put that out there to everyone okay so I don't want to cut anybody off if there is a a question or anything

105um if there isn't we uh we can move on okay all right thank you everyone thank you Dr BR okay um and of course if there's any questions in the meantime before our next meeting um for either Dr Brill or Ken post um we can start that process as well yeah Rose if I may it probably would would help us you know we we have a finance committee meeting um gosh just in in four days next Monday um we have another finance committee on the meeting on the 14th prior to the December 16th uh second board meeting of the month but if there are any board members who have questions um feel free to submit them to Ken and to me and if you do that uh by December 11th which is next Friday that'

106be very helpful to give us time to prepare anything you might be interested in learning about um like Bob asked tonight you know asking Mr baldwi to be prepared with a brief couple of slides to share with us people need time to prepare so we want to make sure we can answer every question uh in is in a in a thorough fashion so um the the further notice we have the better thank you okay um so we can move on to Old business uh the new school building project um I don't have any uh updates other than um what the the naming committee um has already shared which is sort of the big news it's really exciting to be at this point where we're uh contemplating a name for this building it's been so many

107years in the works um but uh there's no other updates than that just to remind the public on November 17th um the project has officially moved into Construction documents phase so um as we get into the nuts and bolts of the project um you know I just wanted to remind the public that uh the MBC is the point of contact for process um whereas the Board of Ed is the point of contact for programmatic um things so um it might be helpful to um direct questions um to the MBC and um I don't know if anybody has any questions about uh the new school project our our recent um transition into that phase Rosa I just had one um One update um Laurel uh some of you have met Laurel who those of you who

108come to the NBC meetings Laurel from om um she's organizing the the construction management I guess of the project best way to describe it um on December 16th right now we have a tenative date uh for December 16th 10 a.m. where biders will be coming in to walk through the school walk through the grounds um and uh you know they'll need technology and Mr Caldwell and custodians to open up every nook and cranny so they can really look at the building because there's a demolition part of the building as well that they'll be biding on uh and so that's now on the schedule and looks like will occur on December 16th so that's the update that just occurred yesterday oh I actually have another update that I just got um from Mr czecho he said

109that the state project today um at the follow-up PCR meeting with uh the office of State conru Construction Grants and um the &r so um the state has approved the project so that's good news Okay um I guess that's it so we can uh move on to three main points I know suggestion the budget proposal and the name the new school name yeah I I was thinking um maybe John's uh covid update or superintendent update about covid uh the budget and then maybe the new school update including the naming committee and the state approval of the project yep I agree sounds good agreed all right uh upcoming events hi all schools have an early release this Friday December 4th for professional development at Center School and at Huckleberry throughout this week students will be learning

110about the history of Brookfield and brainstorming names for the new school as part of the new school project there is a PTO meeting at Center on Tuesday December 15th at 7 pm and a PTO meeting at Huckleberry on Friday December 18th at 9:30 a.m. at whiner Middle School Winter Wonderland Wednesdays started today with a western ho down December 9th is WMS takes a holiday vacation dress like you're going on a summer vacation on the 16th is Dream a Little Dream cozy up in your favorite pajamas to support Connecticut Children's Hospital pajama day for kids look for an email sent with a link to help donate money to that great cause and December 23rd is show off your favorite festive holiday attire the tack year or the better and at Brookfield High School we have school

111pictures on Monday the 7th for cohort a Friday December 11th for cohort B and Wednesday December 9th for cohort C students should have received an email with an appointment time the newly formed Outdoors Club is having its first informational meeting on Monday December 7th at 2:15 p.m. and the drama club is planning a schoolwide virtual winter Cabaret where students students can sing dance act or perform a comedy routine and the date and time on that is to be determined and that's it great all right uh it's not on the agenda but I will move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing strategy and negotiations as it relates to collective bargaining a second thank you all in favor okay so that concludes our broadcast for tonight so um thanks everybody and

112I'll see everyone else at our other link thanks everyone bye bye take care