001oh okay hey you are gonna have amy's you might have an issue later i'll walk around but that those lights will time out okay good evening everyone today is wednesday september 16th 2020 and i'll call the regular meeting of the brookfield board of education to order um i do have to read something first so just bear with me in accordance with executive order 7b suspended sections 1-206-1-2 of the connecticut general statutes the public will not be in 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 uh the url is provided on tonight's agenda furthermore such meeting will be recorded or transcribed and posted on the board's website within seven days of the meeting and made
002available as required by law all speakers taking part in the meeting are remembered to clearly state their names and titles if applicable before speaking on each occasion that they speak individuals wishing to participate in public comment portion of this meeting may be so by calling the following numbers area code 929-205-6099 or area code 301-715-8592 and the meeting id for tonight is 936-885-3432 thank you okay so let's stand for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic under god indivisible with liberty hey we have all of our board members here tonight at brookfield high school and we have a number of our administrators and other guests joining us in this hybrid meeting so um up first we do have uh some public comments so um eric
003are they all already in or are there still more in the waiting room um no we do have all of our public comments in um so what i'd like to do is i will call on the phone numbers that are here there if you like um number ending in 643 to be public comment and it is a request to unmute so the person that um likes to publicly comment if you just accept the request on you and um there we go all right um sorry i don't want to cut you off but just to remind you um just state your name your address and you'll have three minutes to speak oh fabulous hi my name is tatiana preston i live at 17 crestview drive and i would like the board of ed to address a
004major oversight of our ais students lacking of transition into the brookfield system in the past 14 years students from the ais have been placed in the seventh grade spanish classes when entering back into the district now they are only allowed they are not allowed sorry now they are not allowed to take that spanish class they're only allowed and offered two 20-minute mini spanish lessons in their social studies class there is no policy or written district directive yet students are not allowed to be placed in level classes the cape committee was requested to review a presentation that was led by ms hawley that was misleading and inconclusive as a concerned parent and a taxpayer i am requesting the board of ed to put this matter on their agenda and to make sure that our ais students
005are giving are given equity and the right to further their education in foreign languages when they reenter the brookfield school district thank you for listening to my plea as a parent and as a taxpayer this is something that the ais is strongly urging that you guys put back on your agenda because it has been overlooked and affecting students at this time thank you okay thank you um eric do you want me to hunt are you going to do it you know i just i just remembered that i gave you the co-host ability but uh the next the next number will unmute is um ending in one one four i'm gonna send a request to ask to unmute for your public comment perfect yes hello name is david bento address 33 crespi drive just wanted to
006also call in and echo the sentiments of miss preston we have uh students who are returning from out of country with advanced spanish language skills and on requests to also be placed into higher level spanish course we're told that this was not possible so we're also looking to uh lend our support here in in a review of this uh policy or or decision that's been taken thank you okay thank you do we have anyone else here for public comment i'm just gonna take a second to see if we have any other phone numbers on here i don't think so okay okay so i think we're going to move on um up first we have the introduction of certified staff members all i want to make sure right everybody hear me okay very good so this
007is john burroughs superintendent of schools um we're going to be introducing our new certified staff members tradition here in brookfield we're really excited to introduce a incredible cadre of talented new staff who uh certified staff members and so i'd like to start with mr velanda hey john john you're not on you're not on the you're not on man i don't hear you through this i don't hear you can you hear me now i can hear you now okay so we're going to start again this is john burrell superintendent of schools um we have a tradition each year at our uh opening board meeting after school starts to have our principals introduce our new certified staff members and we're really excited to be here uh like many years uh we have a cadre of staff members
008and we're so happy to introduce them and each principal introduce those new teachers and i will start with melanda from the high school mr bolando please take it away all right thank you uh dr barrel i did notice also that mr murphy's microphone is on too which is causing an echo i don't know if there's a way to turn that off it also doesn't help um so i'll start by first of all um introducing and and we have a a small number this year compared to what we've had in previous years um so we're excited about that retention we've kept a lot of people on board but we're so excited to welcome uh three new staff members two of which i see are on the zoom now i will check to see if the third
009one's there um but joining our math department um we have a new math teacher uh his name is isa and he's i'm not sure where he is on everybody's screen but issa if you can give a wave and and say hello there's isa um hello perfect well done well done isa thank you um also i did see in one of these let me slide through all my screens here and see if i can find him um he was here yeah there he is okay there he is um so joining our english department we have a teacher um we had a teacher that retired after 26 years in brookfield high school and um andrew steinbeiser is replacing uh trish o'connor um he's done a great job we're so lucky to have him on board and let
010me tell you he's already working late hours i saw his car there pretty late the other day so ranjo say hello and welcome hi everyone really honored to be here and the third person i have joins us in the stem department his name is phil mcardle i'm not sure that he is on i don't necessarily see him as i scroll through my list of people but phil does join us he is our our long distance recruit we actually interviewed him uh via zoom from england so um we're very proud of that um he's jumped right in was ready to start day one uh so it's been an amazing transition we're really happy to have phil mcardle teaching physics and um earthen energy essentials so that's my new certified staff thank you mr velanda i really
011appreciate you introducing everyone and welcome i'm going to turn it over now to the whiskaner middle school principal mr dean renda and we're going to forgive mr randa ahead of time for the lengthy list go ahead mr renda i have to apologize at the beginning too my son is actually in his band class right now so you may hear a little bit of the trombone going um i am very excited to introduce our new staff members we did have a longer list i think when we did the uh with all the brookfield staff um but i have five uh teachers that i'm gonna introduce to you in fifth grade we had three new literacy teachers one of them is christina wiggins you want to wave and say hi hello it's nice to be here um
012we have uh claudia tavis who i don't think was going to be able to make it and i don't think is she here hi thanks for having me good there we go and samantha kaiser at wms and brookfield alum hi everyone it's great to be back and see everybody it's so funny what i'm saying i'm like seeing different cameras go on here um and then i also have in sixth grade we have caroline croissant who's coming from texas to us in sixth grade social studies and uh hello we have christy trotta who is our new sixth grade um counselor hi everyone very excited to join the whiskener family and a damn berry product give her a little bit of that and last we have aaron boynes who is our one of our new school psychologists
013hello everyone and that's all i got tonight john thank you dean much appreciated nice job thank you and welcome everybody it's great to see all of you here tonight um i'd like to turn it over now to mrs lavroshano the proud principal of huckleberry hill hi everyone good evening so we did have a busy hiring season at huckleberry we actually hired a lot of staff for our special education and our resource providers this year so elise de simone is our new school psychologist hi everyone jenna egan is our new speech and language pathologist i think she's here and we also have chris polizza who is one of our special education resource teachers hey everybody very nice to be here nice to meet you and i'm not sure if uh shayna stebbins was able to join
014us this evening but she is our new es elc special education teacher so that's our new members all right thank you mrs labrashono welcome everybody great to see you all tonight um thank you very much and now we're going to turn it over to mrs diamond from center elementary school go ahead mrs diamond good evening everyone um we have two new members of our central school team that we're so proud of and happy to join have joining us um first we have erin goff who is joining us as our music teacher hi everyone it's nice to be here aaron was hired like the jfp she joined and uh um and we also have our first grade teacher alicia macbeth with us this evening hi everyone i'm so happy to be here alicia is also a
015parent of students in the sk in the system and comes with lots of experience and also hit the ground running has been working with us all summer so we're very happy to have them with us thank you thank you so much mrs diamond greatly appreciated uh again welcome everybody and it's just so nice to see everybody tonight um i also um in these incredibly unusual circumstances have to thank mrs cavanaugh the hr department and all of our school teams for all of the work they did in hiring such great staff thank you terry you give a big wave there i see you there terry thanks for being with us and uh thanks to all the teams at the schools and the hr department and all the support work that went on to uh to make
016it all happen um i'm gonna turn it back over now to mrs fernandez and actually i'm going to turn it right back over to you uh for the opening day report or from our teacher or for the building principles yes thank you mrs fernandez so we'll start where we left off and go right to mrs diamond and we'll talk about we typically uh in brookfield each year uh we're doing kind of an opening day report uh opening week report so it's been about a week now and uh we've had a full rotation through our cohort a and cohort b um again in his most unusual start to a school year mrs diamond can you tell us a little bit about how things are going to start the year sure um so as you know i'm
017mary rose diamond proud principal of center school and i'm happy to be here this evening to share some information about our unusual yet fantastic start to the school year um it's become a habit of mine to introduce myself with the principle um but this year i feel more than ever before that we're proud really applies to so many of the situation that we've we've kind of found ourselves in over the last six months um i'm so proud of our community and how they pull together to support our schools i'm proud of our students for how well then how quickly they've adjusted to our new procedures and plans that we put in place and for demonstrating our school expectations of being safe being kind of being responsible pretty much throughout the the you know the entire
018week or so that we've been in i'm very proud of our parents and guardians and families for their commitment to partnering with everyone at the school in support of their children for the sacrifices they've made to ensure that their students have what they need and for the patients that they've exercised amid our new constant of change and i'm also so incredibly proud of our staff for bravely delving into synchronous learning for doing an absolutely amazing job of connecting with their students and providing an exceptional learning experience i was i've been able to be in in in some classrooms and and we have you know literally four five and six-year-olds that are building those foundations not only in math reading and writing but also in technology and problem solving um and and just it's going to
019help them be better thinkers and learners as they you know kind of code through the brookfield schools um and our our staff have just really demonstrated a great amount of grace under pressure so um you know just this afternoon i participated in a zoom meeting with a teacher um a parent who um speaks uh not a native english speaker um and it was amazing to see that the teacher and there was there were two teachers there supporting this this um this parent um and the parent just saying again and again how much he just wants to help his child so like seeing that partnership um even via technology and through all the challenges and the interpreter and all those things that we had to make to happen i had to do to make it happen
020really again made me feel incredibly proud um so our enrollment and center school has fluctuated greatly over the last few months we've had students moving in and out and as families plans have changed but as of today all of our classes are comfortably within the board of education's guidelines for class size and we continue to process enrollment so we are um at in in our kindergarten kindergarten enrollment is always a question we have 136 students currently enrolled in kindergarten our projection was 176 so we are off of that projection obviously because of kind of our situation we're in um but we again we continue to process uh registrations and that kind of thing um that was a big huge thing for us this year the online registration process um which i i can't uh i
021can't um continue without saying how proud i am also of lisa ruggles and claire dennis savage our secretaries for all the work that they did and working hand-in-hand with denise walsh um the district data coordinator to build the system from scratch and make it work um so that was a there was a huge undertaking that they that they've been um that they've been taking managing um and doing it all while also connecting with families and making everyone feel like they're part of center school so um it's really been a great thing to see um as we look ahead to kind of what uh is promising to be a year full of ups and downs and changes and adjustments and all of those things that we've been dealing with um we're really trying to remain focused
022on three things that's first building connections with our students and families um so that we can preserve the special sense of community that's at the heart of center school keeping students safe and healthy by uh vigorously adhering to the guidelines and procedures that we put in place uh and making sure that all students learn um we are resolute in our commitment to making sure that students are learning is accelerated uh and utilizing all the tools and resources that we have that have been provided by the community and the board of education uh and our knowledge base of our staff to make sure that we are we are making sure that students learn that we're not letting them uh slip through the cracks no one no one is going to uh to not to escape center
023school without having the skills that they need in order to be successful if they move forward um so just a couple i know we all have the same kind of thank you when it gets to this this point of the year um if we've kind of made it through the beginning so central office to dr brill dr ruby uh mrs farias mrs wygonic and mr post for all their support um in preparing for the start um as i mentioned earlier our office staff lisa ruggles and claire denis savage and beth o'connor our nurse who has been amazing in terms of helping to guide us through all of these this uncharted territory uh this year um our custodians barbara fuller steve toth uh frank cardero and mike mcgasty um for making the building really keeping it
024uh shining and beautiful for us every day um dan caldwell um and and joe and now we have brian on board i think too so really for their help from preparing the building deb jones who has been absolutely amazing at the bus company managing all the changes back and forth um with that that kind of have come up over the last couple weeks uh major buckley's and um officer grambling for helping out with our arrival dismissal and procedures and that kind of thing uh parks and rec i want to give a big shout out to them dan came and he the day before school started painted the lines we needed they bought special colored paint for us they just did a fantastic job um and then after we had that big rainstorm like the third
025day of school they came back and did it again so um they really were just excellent and then lastly brenda kuiper was our pto president um and the whole pto for all the support that they've given us the the items that they've purchased to help us start the year um and just just in general they've been fantastic so um it really has been unusual uh continues to be unusual um but it's been great to be together and have school open and really um be able to to kind of come together as a team and a family so it's been a great start thank you mary rose really appreciate that and boy a lot of great energy there i'd also like to thank you for all of your hard work and not only your leadership of
026center school but your leadership and support of our team all summer long and the great work that all of us have been able to do together and you were a big part of that so thank you like to turn it over now to mrs lavrochano the proud principal of huckleberry hill tell us how the first week went hey everyone i love following mary rose because she is able to give all the thank yous especially all the names of tso and everyone so i do want to just start by simply saying thank you everyone too many people to list for supporting me and our staff and students through this reopening journey the list goes on and on and i truly appreciate you all so at huckleberry we did welcome four new certified members who met tonight
027and also a paraprofessional sandy palace who's coming back to us from wisconsin middle school there was so much excitement and nerves regarding the opening of school it truly wasn't opening like no other there was so much more anticipation and we really did not know what to expect teachers are amazing human beings having the eight days of professional development prior to the start of the school year was truly a gift staff really were like sponges learning as much as they could in preparing their classrooms for their new students as a building principal it has been amazing to watch the school year unfold as you all know all of us worked very hard over the summer to get school up and running for the first day and there is something to be very proud of the way
028we all accomplished a great reopening we are still learning and navigating our new normal together and with each day adjustments are made i'm just very proud of the staff at huckleberry hill when i got home after the first day i was absolutely exhausted i'm sure everyone was and being that it was tuesday and knowing we would be welcoming a new batch of students on thursday all i kept thinking was i was living in the movie groundhog day the kids were so excited to be back and have been wonderful following new protocols and procedures the students are so sweet and personally i love greeting them every single morning overall whether students are in person or remote they are super happy to be back in the midst of it all we did welcome 40 new students and
029of course all of our second graders to huckleberry i have received a lot of positive feedback that the transition to huckleberry has been easier than anticipated over the summer teachers got together and crafted a six-week plan a welcome back to school unit which included ruler lessons technology lessons and procedural lessons our focus this year more than ever is to build positive relationships and connections with our students and i want to thank our families for their continued support patience positive emails and phone calls it means so much to all of us at huckleberry so it's been a great start so far thanks melissa it really sounds great and really appreciate those uh incredible incredibly uh appreciative words and uh reflective words it really yeah there's a lot that's gone into the planning and preparation i'm just
030so glad it's gone so smoothly it didn't it didn't happen without a lot of hard work from you and your team i'd like to turn it over now to mr renda at wisconsin middle school how are things going over there mr renda am i on all right welcome um as we all know this by far is one of the craziest and angst-filled years we've ever had to start a school year and i've been coming to brookfield schools as a teacher for 26 years and by far this is one of the craziest i have to say uh echo what mrs diamond said about it just i'm so proud to say that i'm part of the brookfield school district and just really appreciative of everyone that has come together to make this possible for all of our
031students um i'm going to start off with thanks uh thanks going out to deb jones at all star again for working with us and making our for those of you who have a wms student our new bus drop off and pick up as smooth as it could be along with uh officer flynn really really uh worried about that at the beginning that it was gonna be um a debacle to say the least and it's been uh it's been uh run very smoothly so that's a good thing all of our custodians are especially our head custodian dennis heil for getting us up and running shuffling around all the furniture in the classrooms uh setting up student desk shields and doing a lot of these things you know last minute and moving things back and forth to
032make sure that that first day was perfect for all the students so thanks to those uh all of our custodians our nurses uh anna leforge and patty richards for taking on and dealing with all of these as you know the new health and medical guidelines and plans that have been mandated by the state and also the health department uh the questions we've had for them have been endless and they've done an amazing job helping us out and making our staff feel uh comfortable to all of the secretaries at wms dealing with me and all the craziness that was thrown uh their way um like scheduling uh miss usco had to actually rebuild the whole schedule she had worked on at the end of the school year and over the beginning of summer um we had
033to rebuild all of that to be able to make sure that we had it right when we started school with diane sarasota and our purchase orders that we have and um ordering of our supplies with uh donna gullen's registration and online it was a new registration online process and bob mccarthy and obviously um eric for all the technology requests and so much more that uh had to go into making this the beginning such a great start uh and a special thanks to my secretary mary liz for keeping me sane and organizing organizing me because i know i'd be lost without her to our my aps mr bernard ms gordon and all of our district building administrators and central office staff all the um people also that maybe didn't get mentioned yet i want to just
034thank to terry with uh human resources with beth and michelle uh joan and um um ken uh for helping out hoy and heather also in payroll and of course uh lisa grambling um who i'm sure uh dr burrill will thank tremendously um for all the countless hours that they were put in to make it all possible to open our doors last week i feel like we broke records with the amount of text that we went back and forth over the summer and leading up to school to our board of ed members the brookfield community to the parents and families and most importantly the students that have trusted us in us to do what is right understanding that this was not an easy task and to me the most important thing is being patient and flexible
035as we made our way through this new path i really want to point out the students that have been so understanding and intolerant even though almost everything at wms is so much different than ever before especially now where they are in the same class all day with the same few students like they were in elementary school i know one of the exciting things of coming to wms is always when students get to move around and get to be in classes with different students they're not getting that chance right now walking single file down the hallways is something that's that's new at wisconier also just being so patient as our staff made its way through the glitches we have have every once in a while while you know with the technology or the zoom meetings and
036letting students in because we have to take attendance for every single class that's that's all different for us i know i was in numerous classes and even on zoom classes where the students were just amazing amazing and even offering us technology us us as the staff and teachers offering us technology tips which always makes me laugh they know more than us uh lastly to my wisconier staff and all the brookfield staff who pulled together to make this happen at wms everyone pretty much is on a cart as teachers rotate into their rooms with their materials their anchor charts their computers and sometimes multiple monitors everyone's on a car some looking like they're performing at a concert with their microphones all to make this the best experience for their kids the first week getting to know
037the students and going through the expectations and creating our classroom charters has been especially important as we know there was and still is a roller coaster of emotions with starting a new school year and with everything that we know is going on in society at this time we've tried to put a focus on our social emotional approach to learning utilizing the ruler tools that i know we've spoken about before just to kind of help in this process and just to continue to keep that positive mindset and upbeat vibes at wms because i think it's really i've i've noticed just a vibe in this school that's been really awesome to see and i hope has really helped our students to feel at home at wms numbers we have a 790 students at this time we had
03840 new students come to wms as far as brazil we had 12 students move away or withdraw from schools so we're about to net 28 students at wisconsin this year and lastly um i just wanted to tell and uh uh dr brill will laugh because i always have a story he says my story is that i got a text from my father asking me to call him because he was worried about me after the first day i called and asked what do you what are you talking about and he told me my mother had heard from a friend who has a granddaughter at wms that the student felt bad for me and was worried about me because my face was all red and i had to yell at parents as i was doing parent pickup
039i told them that my my face was probably red um probably from being overweight um but from being so hot and i was yelling just to keep the traffic moving but also as people know i was having fun with it i told them that there's nothing to worry about and although i do feel like a little kid where my parents still know everything i'm doing i guess so it never ends but thank you again to everyone for everything they put in to make this uh start of the school year so successful i appreciate it thank you thanks so much dean that was great and you didn't let me down with a little story thank you very much wise words from a wise man really appreciated dean thanks a lot and let's hope your face isn't
040red the rest of the year mr bellanda how about you tell us about brookfield high school and how things are going sure thing i want to say to uh melissa you think it's hard to follow mary rose it's even harder to be the last one to go you've thanked everybody you know i i there's so many people that i certainly want to thank and and i'll highlight some of them as well as we we go on i'll probably do that towards the end but um a different start to brookfield high school than we've ever had it was certainly a different end last year with graduation uh and it definitely led right into a crazy start of the school year um i i think it's just been it's i'm so amazing i'll tell you that when
041the staff came that first day of professional development and i had them out in the bleachers you know socially distanced and the look on their faces is where it's like we're doing this this is gonna happen um over the course of those next eight days you could see i got people saying it's i feel a little better than i did the day before a little bit a little better and then once the kids come back it really does change your perspective i think as an educator um we were we could not wait to have the kids come back and was so glad to see them in the building even it was some of them whether they're in person or even on zoom um you know meeting classes for the first time in high school um
042sometimes the first time you saw a student as a teacher was on online which was so different than it was in the spring when we had to go to this model but i've been so impressed that you know really starting with the students and their flexibility they have jumped right into it we have an online pass system that we're working out that there's plenty of kinks um they're so great it's nothing they've ever had to do before they've got to go to a signed bathroom they're not complaining they're doing it um and they're really doing it because i think they realize that the better we do this the sooner we can all be back in school and they're really enjoying the you know the the camaraderie and being together um so that's and then in
043the classes they're being flexible and you know sometimes there's five kids in front of you and then there's another 12 online and they're just running with it which is amazing you know i think as principals as administrators in the district we get a lot of people saying oh i don't want your job it must be hard and it is but you know all the prep work that we've done leading up to now now it's been in the hands of teachers since day one and the support staff the paraprofessionals the people whose jobs have changed significantly since we started and they're doing it they're it just it never ceases to amaze me you know they're the ones working so hard it's not that we're not working hard but they day-to-day have to implement all the things
044that we put into place and trust me it's a lot of things that we put in place across each of these buildings that we were expecting teachers and support staff to now do so it's amazing with teachers parents um as well being flexible and understanding you know from the different emails i sent an email out on on a friday at like five o'clock with you know the wrong date in it and people are you know you sent the wrong date out and like oh my bleary-eyed i'm not i screwed that up i'm so sorry um but parents are understanding um you know sifting through emails i've got a couple emails where they said it's really hard to sift through all the emails we've been getting whether it be from teachers or district but they're working
045through it and they're being patient which is amazing and particularly at drop-off and arrival i'll tell you the first day of school i was convinced we were not going to start normally the first period starts at 7 15. um i was convinced we were gonna be starting class at eight o'clock when i looked down on my watch and saw 7 20 and everybody was in the building already parents students ready to it was unbelievable and same thing at dismissal it gets smoother and smoother every day so it's just been wonderful in terms of you know the arrival lunch has been such a change for our students um lunch tradition used to be at tables and now we're at student desks individual student desks in the cafeteria we've exercised once so far the alfresco dining option
046where you can go into the courtyard um and mrs diamond i'm not sure you must have a much better relationship with park and rec when i said you know i need some help painting x's i got a can of spray paint and a thing they came and did it for you twice they just given it to me and so we did it we took care of it but the little ones need need that more support so i'm glad that they're there to help you but park and rec has been great to work with to help get things ready to go uh we've also introduced um the caffeination so that when students uh if it's not so it's great weather or it's been a little wet in the grass outside we've transitioned them into the gymnasium
047uh mr baldwin's been great to help us kind of transform that space into a socially distant um lunch room um for all the things that are going on our kids our staff they're they're following all the rules the the state of the right the best of possible it's hard it's not easy i know the arrows remind them but sometimes they forget but they're great gentle reminders and they're right back to it so um it has been just really it's hard to believe that you know we're already two weeks into school essentially it feels like um you know we started a week ago but uh i would always tell staff there's plenty of time left before school starts it seemed like there wasn't going to be and it felt like sometimes we could use it as
048an excuse to say there's not enough time before school starts but i would say oh it's it's only it's only monday we got plenty of time you know school starts tomorrow we'll make it happen there's a lot of time 24 hours in the day to make it happen so it's been it's been amazing um you know just a little bit about numbers uh certainly i won't go as in depth as dean did but i can tell you where generally we have this big bubble class come in from eighth grade so our ninth graders are up we're about 32 kids compared to students compared to last year um so our totals up to 902 students at brookfield high school at this time so um last year we're at 870 at the same time we're offering a
049couple new courses uh the second in the sequence of american sign language we have asl 2 we're working with virtual high school again to do that we have the second year of a sequence of course for ap capstone called ap research which is a fantastic class we're excited to offer that and then you know for our advanced french students we're offering french cinema which is great it's um it's a great way to explore the language and do that that way um you know i talked a little bit about the online past system we're getting new student ids we're really excited about um we're happy to be able to offer the school day s.a.t because last year our juniors who the class of 2021 were not able to take the school day s.a.t in march which
050is normally offered by the state department of ed we're actually going to be giving that in october um athletics unfortunately tends to be something that we're not sure it goes day to day we're currently practicing first games for some sports beginning the 28th and there's a constant debate right now about what to do with football and volleyball but that's that's to come we'll continue to have those conversations um you know dean talked about a support staff whether it's cindy wartman who was doing schedules with support by um susan griffin on my part whether it's terry park who's doing my accounting stuff and ordering things left and right and at the very last minute you know the people who get to deal with um most of the calls you know lisa genovese um carol ann dark
051angelo karen howe um lisa missouri in special ed roseanne school counseling gladys who has been in the kata who's been in the the library media center who's not just doing that stuff she's also helping with chromebooks kathy eric and and of course my student logan white they've been running around they can't catch a breath and today with power school issues they were they've worked non-stop and they'd really deserve so many kudos um you know and you know also i can't forget um um mary negri in athletics who's every day there's something different going on from the ciac they changed their mind they say we're doing this we're doing this now so she's been all over the place as support staff uh roberta mateer and casey scabbard honest as our nurses been managing amazing amounts of
052stuff from a medical perspective but i i do have to thank also nick castellano and steve brontos they're helping us in the morning making sure everything goes smoothly and then to my colleagues and not that i i i appreciate certainly dr burrell dr ruby and all the support we get from them but i have to tell you i am the worst in terms of returning text messages on our principal group chat that does exist uh between the four of us uh i don't think any one of us would have been able to make it through this summer uh without the constant text messages back and forth and understanding um yesterday i was apologizing to the group and they're making me feel it's okay mark we'll we'll be fine we'll figure it out um it really
053the collaborative nature of this whole thing you know for me as a leader to be able to work with such a great group of principals you know these other three people that i work with and then at central office um the collaboration just is not nonstop and it's with my teachers it's between us so i just want to thank them as well because we don't really thank each other enough but you know we're we're making this happen and i appreciate uh all of you so thank you that's great mark thanks for that report and thank you for thanking uh your principal's uh colleagues because you know we can't do this work without without great leadership and um i expressed that saying thanks as well um and really appreciate you sharing all that with us uh
054tonight just a couple of quick things i know i have a superintendent report but uh on the tone of uh thank yous and collaboration and uh exercising patience and flexibility one of the themes of the uh convocation this year was circling the wagons taking care of one another and genuinely loving each other loving the families loving the kids and working together to make sure we make it through i think you hear that the tone of the reports from the principals tonight and just briefly i definitely need to put a big thank you out to the board of education for all the support from them this summer it has not been an easy summer been extremely difficult extremely stressful especially knowing that you're accountable to many things that are not in your control and that's one
055of the most difficult things i think as leaders we all face this summer but we open the year safely and uh we're really excited about that uh in addition to that uh two groups that don't get thanked enough and they were they were briefly mentioned tonight i do have to thank the brookfield police department for all their support specifically with traffic but also with all their their advice that they give in terms of security and safety chief purcell major felicity they've been incredible uh our youth officer gary grambling uh just all of them in their leadership thank you um our fire marshal does not get enough thanks jason de sous has done a great job ensuring that our shields are in place but they're the right material they're not against fire code all the different
056things we're doing as a matter of fact we arranged for our nurses to be fitted for n95 masts uh today as a matter of fact so thank you jason for dr ruby and her partnership and all of her leadership uh directly as part of those text messages many times and often with our principals over the summer to make sure things were happening um uh i can't thank dr rubino for her partnership and leadership through throughout my tenure here in brookfield and especially this summer uh mr post all things finance and operations thank you um and certainly mrs wygonic with all of her work with our students with special needs uh and the supervisors and the work they have done not only through the summer with extended school year we're really having a smooth opening to
057the school year and really working closely with the families of some of our most vulnerable kids it has just been an incredible start and then finally our nursing coordinator anna laforgia i really do need to thank her she is kind of working hand in glove with me literally as the compliance liaison to ensure that we are meeting uh all the things we need to meet uh in these coveted times and ensure that we've opened safely so uh thanks to anna and her leadership of the nurses and liaisoning with dr sullivan and now dr davis as well as dr ferrara so at this point this portion is uh completed and i certainly will turn it over to mrs fernandez thank you and i know there's a lot of things going around but um i just have
058to say how appreciative um this board and me personally um we're so proud of that all of you are leading our schools and um you know as as parents and board members we are just so thoroughly impressed and um very very proud to have you guys um leading our kids and um my daughter loves going to school which is something that even in this environment um you know i'm this it's all because of you guys so thank you very very much okay um we have a student a new student representative um is that them in the waiting room eric there's one person there but i wasn't sure of the name okay cool all right so i just let time be in well let's see when they connect hi tanvi andrey shenry tonji how are you
059good how are you this is actually perfect timing so um i'm going to let uh dr burrell uh introduce you so welcome we are so glad to see you we know you had a busy schedule tonight and you just made it over to see us um and i know that you're not prepared with a report for this first meeting but we wanted to make sure that you were introduced and so you can meet the board members and we can all the public can meet you the whole town is watching you tommy not to make you nervous um mr belanda was there anything you wanted to share uh in terms of introducing convi that i may have missed other than you know clearly she's committed and dedicated um you know i got the email over the
060summer i think it was july right i think i got the email from you saying that we're ready and on board for the board of ed meeting and it kind of it slipped my mind i know not surprisingly with all the things that we're being focused on but uh we are so lucky to have her on board i've known her for the last four years um she just got out of swim practice that's why her hair is wet right um so we're it's it's exciting to have somebody who's so excited and she's been doing more than just um you know work with student council she's also involved in some diversity work which i'm sure she'll talk about at some point in time um you know we're just really blessed to have uh her on the
061board so i'll let her say hello introduce herself and and talk a little bit about herself thank you yeah so i'm a senior as you probably know but um yeah i've been working on like student council and like peer counseling and stuff and i've always seen like how the school works like within just brookfield high school so i was interested to see like how it works throughout the whole town so i'm excited welcome and i hope i hope you enjoy our meetings and we're really looking forward to your report next month thank you welcome tom b and yes october 7th is the next board meeting just so you know if you want to put that on your calendar october 7th and welcome thank you all right uh up next we have written correspondence okay jamie
062clavins wrote regarding school reopening peter girardi wrote regarding food allergies in the classroom nancy brown regarding the cohort schedule nicole ferdinand regarding spanish classes and salihad denman wrote regarding the diversity committee okay thank you uh approval of board minutes i'll move that the board approve the minutes from the regular meeting september 2nd 2020. second thank you joy okay any questions or edits on this all right so all in favor aye okay thank you that's unanimous okay the superintendents update i was on mute my apologies so this is the superintendent report here we go a mask a microphone a mute button holy mackerel um so i want to share uh briefly tonight with my report it was a very lengthy report two weeks ago and we had a lot from our principals tonight so i will
063be very brief bhs will have a school day sat scheduled for wednesday october 14th for our seniors you may recall that our seniors missed out on the school day sat because of the school closure this past spring we want to make sure they have that opportunity uh very soon with literally within a month and mr blanda will be sending out communication on that uh an enrollment update very briefly we are still at the 82 percent um uh in person eighteen percent remote in terms of our student population as a reminder uh october first it still has not been moved uh october first is when we submit our enrollment to the state of connecticut uh department of education and then later in the month in october usually the second meeting in october we share those enrollment
064numbers as uh especially as mrs diamond indicated but all the principles indicated there's a lot of movement there's still a lot of registrations happening there's still several withdrawals going on so there's a lot of moving parts with the beginning of the school year and then you add the pandemic and a hybrid model and the opportunity for students to be educated remotely there's a lot of flexibility excuse me a lot of volatility frankly um in the enrollment numbers right now so we'll continue to track that the next item on the superintendent report is the national school lunch program participation some people have questioned and wondered if we are going to be able to participate uh in the free lunch opportunity for all students in the brookfield public schools through december 31st mr post applied uh brookville
065has applied for that we're just waiting for communication back uh to um let us know if we um will be approved for that program in all likelihood we will and as soon as we know mr post will be sending out a communication of parents i imagine that will be in the next couple of days and then finally in terms of unified sports we have some great news bhs brookfield high school has been identified as a special olympics unified sports high school we have met national standards of excellence for inclusion advocacy and respect and so under mr baldwin's leadership and coach castellano and coach stevens we have been recognized for that prestigious uh honor and we're just really excited to thank them um and i know mr baldwin is here mr baldwin i want to just
066turn it over to you for a second is there anything you'd like to say share a little bit about the program for us uh it's our unified sports program obviously we put a lot of time and effort and we get a lot of support from everybody um we're recognized as a national banner school means we met all 10 standards um to accomplish that goal and i'm just proud of all of all of our coaches and our kids you know they they do all the work and they do such a good job we have great coaches and you know again if we don't get the support from the board ad superintendent and the assistant superintendent we wouldn't be able to get these nice awards for you know all of our hard work all right thank you
067mr baldwin is there um any questions for me from the board that's all i had for tonight any questions all right thanks thank you okay we have uh subcommittee reports and the first up is facilities okay so we continue to review and revise a 10-year capital improvement plan some of the project updates and ventilation so the majority of time and focus has been put into rehabilitating the building or building infrastructure and prioritizing health and wellness for the reopening of school a tremendous amount of work has been done with the hvac and the exhaust ventilation work is finalized and the hvac is under control and running sufficiently for reopening the custodian staffing update and reopening cleaning protocols we've hired nine new employees from green light llc for custodial work hilliard has been working hard to train
068them in our cleaning and sanitizing procedures and protocols and we still have one custodian out and two vacancies to fill how we clean isn't changing we are just increasing it in frequency and that's it anybody have any questions all right thank you okay uh and we have a verbal report from the finance committee and actually yep can you hear me online all right good uh so we met just this last monday as a finance committee and i wanted to give a verbal update because it's very timely on a couple of topics the first topic is how we ended this prior school year in terms of our spending and as you remember in the spring we had been uh having a lot i'm sorry i'm gonna do this a lot of discussions with the with the
069board of finance in terms of uh overruns and under runs of the budget um and this year was a very interesting year this last year because we had some very significant overruns in terms of special ed costs in particular but then we had significant savings and because we were shut down pretty much physically for covid as a result we actually ended the year at 638 thousand dollars under budget and uh mr post and uh uh the town controller mrs marion have just finished closing the books and uh that's a pretty solid number at this point that's i think the biggest under run as a whole that a um that our district has ever had if you actually look at that though the we underran i'm sorry we overran on special education costs by 786 000
070so to put this all in perspective we're under under running overall six over six hundred thousand dollars while at the same time overrunning on special ed spending meant we saved um huge amounts of money well over a million dollars in on on other line items and those came in the flavors of 658 thousand dollars of savings on our transportation costs because we were not running buses and 342 000 on salaries which was overtime and substitutes and coaches and the like so there's an awful lot of things that we didn't do we underwrite books and supplies because we froze our spending by 240 000 and services by 172 000 and our fuel and utilities by over a hundred thousand dollars so um and then we were able to pull ahead some spending from this year uh
071as we had agreed with the board of finance so it's in your packet um the overall summary from uh from mr post but it was a very solid end of the year i will tell you we actually ended at about 152 000 better than we had told the board of finance back in uh back in june when we talked to them and that hundred and forty two thousand dollars was driven by by many of the same line items but we also had some things like we got a refund on some dental insurance we had we had more transportation savings than we expected and some of that was offset by by pulling heads so 2019-20 ended the year very solidly i wanted the board to hear about that we spent some time also talking about this
072current year budget the 20 uh 2020 2021 budget um and it's too early to actually start having reports on that we'll start seeing those uh in at the end of the first fiscal quarter but mr post was is tracking a couple of key indicators and if you all remember when we established the budget we actually put a very significant assumption in the budget for teacher savings and salaries due to teacher rotation and we are right on track to what we had put in the budget about 200 000 um of savings due to just turnover and so that's good news that's that's a risk that we had taken that uh is actually turned out to be about right and then the second he's they've been tracking uh mrs wagonic and mr post have been tracking the
073outplaced special ed costs and we're also right on track on that from what we put in our budget so both of the key items that we had talked about in the spring about our budget um have been proving to track right where we wanted them to be so i'm hopeful that that will help us with our budget notwithstanding that we have a lot of gives and takes in this budget as we go through this coming year um and the third i just wanted to give you an update on our kobit spending you know with all the school opening and the money we've spent on desks and uh and shields and extra staffing and maintenance we're actually running a little better than we had uh talked to the board of finance about uh we had the
074the the contract for the custodial services came in substantially less than we had estimated but we've had some overruns on things like desks where the we had to switch suppliers because there was not enough supply so mr post will be giving us an update on the school reopening and covet related costs at our next meeting and will keep us updated as we continue through the year so and around that time we will be needing to start go talk to the board of finance for our second tranche of release on uh on covet spent so so that's really what i wanted to tell it's very current and pertinent and i didn't want to wait for the next month in order to get a report to you all um and i'll pause to see if there's any
075questions okay seeing then i think we'll move on thank you um the consent agenda i move that the board approved the items on the consent agenda we have new hires resignations retirements and a leave of absence second thanks joy okay rosa could i just say something absolutely yeah so speaking of new hires uh something i should have done a little earlier in the meeting uh for any of the new staff that have joined us uh you did not need to stay any longer on the meeting we do appreciate your patience and your um responsibility and staying on but please know you uh we'd rather have you focusing on lesson planning for tomorrow in resting so please feel free to turn turn off thank you very much and again welcome great to have you here with
076us um the other thing i'd like to do is acknowledge two of our retirements uh mr art francisco uh a 10-year custodian with the districts especially at the high school has just done an incredible job for us was a was a bright light at the high school and has retired and we hope he's enjoying his time over the last month or so that he has been retired we wish him the best and uh olga weitzman a long time 23-year paraprofessional most recently at wisconsin middle school for years and we're just we couldn't believe she was gonna retire we never thought she would and uh we miss her dearly and just wish her all the best she's just such a wonderful person and another shining light at wisconier and uh wish all the all the best
077so thank you to both of them for all their services thank you okay any questions on these okay so all in favor aye thank you that's unanimous on to new business and up first we have the 21 22 budget planning calendar okay i moved that the board approved the 20 2021 2022 budget calendar as recommended by the finance committee and director of business and operations ken post second thanks joy okay so if you guys take a look um at exhibit d we we just reviewed this with the finance committee so i want you guys to sort of take a look through it it has all of the dates in terms of our budget process um so sorry were you getting feedback from me okay um so yeah so we can take a look through this
078and just see if there's anything that you flag as maybe needing to change or move and and rosa uh mr post is on if he uh he could um highlight a couple of key pieces for us if you would like that would be great sure so uh we begin with uh distributing materials and the principals don't want to hear this probably but on september 28th and they'll have about four weeks to get it back to me when we'll start our review process uh which culminates in the superintendent's presentation on december 2nd at the finance committee meeting monday night we discussed the the committee's work in reviewing the budget and decided to add a date onto the calendar being monday december 7th where the finance committee will do a detailed review of the budget with myself
079and dr braille before coming back to the the second board of ed meeting to discuss the budget on december 16th and then we go through all of the other regular public hearings and and budget meetings culminating in getting the budget to the first selectmen by january 31st and i don't know if the version in your packet has the december 7th date on it or not it does yeah okay but that's a significant edition and the only real aside from the specific uh dates from year to year that's the only significant change so the idea of adding that that sort of finance committee review so on the second which is when you know the first meeting in december we usually see the superintendent's budget that will sort of beat the idea is to sort of be
080more of a high level give you an idea of the budget details then the committee will review that and then we will start our dig in at that second meeting in december so as long as that sounds good for everybody i think all the other dates um line up and rosa if i may just as a reminder of for the public it's very important i know the board already knows this typically the superintendent in brookfield had given the initial budget overview proposal for the next year at the second meeting in december what we realize after my first year here which i can't even believe is now six years ago which is amazing that that much time has gone by we quickly realized that was not enough time for the board to deliberate especially inclusive of
081the holiday break so by starting it very early in december it gives us a lot of time to review in the month of december before the holiday break and then more time in the month of january it really is a quick turnaround when you think about it because we have to by charter have that to mr dunn by the end of january so the rest of the process could start so it's just a good reminder for everybody uh that we say it each each early fall when we start the school year we're starting one year and we're already planning the next year and any of the enhancements and the great things we do for kids can't happen without financial resources it's really important that we make sure we are fiscally prudent but we do invest
082in our school which is always the best in our community thank you okay so does anyone have any questions on this calendar or want to make any adjustments you're good i just wanted i just wanted to ask about the uh wednesday november 25th date the distribution of board budget packet is that a meeting or is that an email distribution that will be the yeah that'll be an email distribution probably okay just because it's the night before thanksgiving and i think it's a half day for students if i'm not mistaken okay yeah we only have one meeting in november anyways and i believe it's the uh first i'm sorry the fourth the fourth of november so that first week um okay so any other questions or comments okay so all in favor aye okay thanks that's
083unanimous okay [Music] um on to old business and we have an update on the new school project so um eric's gonna key up i think eric's gonna key up um the newest renderings of the building's exterior so last night um some board members got a chance to see the newest renderings we had given some comments back to tecton about the exterior um and i think they really took our comments to heart and they um they updated it made it a little softer it's still a very modern 20th century uh 21st century building um but it's they softened it with some materials that they're using it looks very playful almost like a tree house they were saying you know as if a kid would build this in their imagination and so i think it when i
084don't are you sharing it now yep okay perfect so as you can see you know it just looks very playful and it's such a it lends itself really well to the site with some really natural landscaping that's in there so i'm very pleased with this and i um you know i i like and i think i think the board members um you know really found that the uh the design team kind of took our comments seriously and sorry i'm getting some feedback on my headphones so okay thanks um yeah so um so you know there's there's a lot of habitat in the in the front and around the building for some wetland species and butterflies so it's the the entire building itself is going to be a great learning laboratory which i think is really
085exciting and one thing i wanted to point out um and debbie debbie sort of pointed this out last night was that what you're looking at in this photo on the um the right side of the building there's this huge glass wall and really you can in the actual building you'll be able to sort of see straight through so you're looking at that giant cafeteria and you'll be able to see straight through to the other side of the building so there's a lot of bringing the outdoors in and that's repeated in us in several areas of the building where you can see straight through the building and that was done intentionally to sort of bring in um you know the natural environment and the site so it's um it's really exciting to see this um um
086i do i do want to sorry i'm gonna okay you got it okay it's john's okay so uh i did want to update you guys on some more of the technical details of the process um i know a lot of you were at the mec meeting last night but for those that you that weren't the project right now has been cleared through all of the local town approvals except for wetlands nbc members and techton last night in no uncertain terms said that getting approvals from wetlands has been really beyond comprehension and at this point it's there it's not looking very good as a summary just to sort of highlight some of the issues the the building itself some wetlands are being disturbed by either the new building itself or the construction process tecton obviously knew
087about this and addressed every question and concern that the inland wetlands commission had had the inland wetlands commission also insisted on a few outside consultants to come in and weigh in on those findings which they did three firms were hired and all of their questions were addressed and none of them see an issue with the process moving forward uh with the mitigation strategies that were suggested actually the site is being improved um from where it actually is today so we're actually leaving the site better than where we found it um but the inland wetlands commission had extended the public hearing um a few times this this so over the summer and they have not yet voted to approve the project so that's sort of where that stands and that's some of the challenges that the
088nbc is facing currently at the moment so um that's that's pretty much it for the new school project um so some good news and some challenges as well rosa can you just um sort of clarify what this delay means for the next step of the project the delay in the approval from inland's wetlands uh i'm not entirely sure yet um i don't know how this affects state funding um i don't know you know how this you know affects construction timelines so it's definitely something that um the nbc is focusing on heavily at the moment [Music] uh were there next steps identified from inland wetlands that that they're looking for something else or waiting for anything else i think what they're what they current what their motivation is right now is to they would like it
089if the site um actually created more wetlands than it disturbed so you know if we're looking at if the nbc is looking at that as their next step then they need to look elsewhere on on another site potentially you know a site like um like the the open space that's adjacent to the huckleberry site because obviously there's no there's nowhere else to improve on the actual huckleberry site so that is something that i think they might start looking at yeah okay thanks yeah all right anything else okay so we're actually on to three main points already okay um i was thinking that we should uh [Music] summarize some of the opening day reports from the principals um i wondered if you wanted to mention should we mention uh the national school lunch program participation john
090i think that'd be a good idea mr post will be working on a communication soon but something on facebook the way we post three main points would work well okay and then your school project yeah that's what i was thinking new school update yeah we give you get post a new rendering and what i'll do is well debbie take this three main points and last two weeks ago three main points we'll merge them and put them in the spotlight for october for the town okay good everybody okay with that yeah great upcoming events okay all schools are closed on monday september 28th in an observance of yom kippur at center elementary school tomorrow thursday september 17th is the virtual open house the schedule for the evening as well as links to the virtual presentations were
091sent to families at huckleberry tomorrow and friday september 17th and 18th is additional 100 remote student material pickup from 10 am to 3 pm and september 24th next thursday is the virtual open house information will be forthcoming but that will begin at 6 00 pm at wisconia the virtual open house is tuesday september 22nd at 6 pm details will follow in an email from mr renna and picture day is being rescheduled details will be coming on that soon and at brookfield high school on september 22nd and 24th next tuesday and thursday is round two of in-person student photos september 23rd wednesday is the 100 remote student photos and material pickup and september 30th is the virtual open house at 6 pm and that's it okay thank you um any anybody else with any upcoming events
092they want to throw in there nothing at the library okay all right so what is that so uh okay so we have an executive session tonight so um amy do you want to read that motion i will move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing the superintendent's proposed goals second thanks joy all in favor aye aye okay that's unanimous all right so i think that will end our broadcast so um thanks everyone for listening foreign