001hmm okay rosa whenever you're ready okay good evening everyone today is monday august 24th and i call the special meeting of the brookfield board of education to order um tonight we have all of our board members present so we can actually go right to the first item on our agenda which is um 2021 covid cost impossible motion regarding a re-prioritization of our existing budget items so um ken i'll just hand it over to you or john whoever you'd prefer to walk us through the material i'll just do a quick introduction rosa so ken has a memo that he can share he sent it to everybody but he can share his screen um where eric whoever they have set and ready to go if they're sharing while i'm talking um we have um some uh curricular
002tools and equipment that we um as we moved into the hybrid model realize are critically important for us to have um a robust in-person and um remote learning model uh in addition to that we have um some savings and what we wanted to show is uh ken is showing in this uh memo and he will walk us through it is the uh opportunities we have for the reprioritizing of um items that we want to purchase as well as savings that are in that we know are in the budget and so this is a budget neutral transfer that ken is requesting um so we could move forward on the items that are on the list um and also demonstrate the savings that we're closely monitoring uh throughout our new operating budget this uh this year so
003ken is there anything else we can share about this memo i can show the worksheet which gives a little more detail in uh itemizing the cost of the specific items we're asking for sure sure and the so that's the memo for the request the spreadsheet is um what we started to talk about last week and it's quite detailed there's a number of different sections in the spreadsheet if you had a chance to look at it you may have noticed that and it will overlap with um item four as well on the uh board agenda tonight but certainly uh appropriate for the conversation so ken uh please want me to walk through the whole worksheet or is just the items we want to talk about i think i think for now just the items right okay
004just the items right now but i just wanted to preface it that there's a lot of information on there and we're certainly happy to walk through everything tonight but yes ken please highlight highlight and walk us through so these are the items we're talking about uh the exception that you do not see on the um on the memo is the news ela because we're using the title two grant money to get that but we wanted to be transparent and show everything that we were getting for the remote learning so eric can probably talk to the document cameras better than i can so eric you want to start us off with document cameras and we'll talk a little bit about that and then we i can walk into uh some of the other items sure um
005uh and i i will uh talk to the document cameras and dr ruby may have a uh a comment or two to back up on uh as well we we've been working on this together so the idea of the document cameras um was a multi-purpose um lack of a better way to put a kind of a hybrid solution um that can be used for years to come so basically what a document camera is um its main purpose is to act like if anybody remembers i keep forgetting the name of those um the the big things with the lamp and you had the clear sheet of paper um they were there they were there when i was in school too overhead projector is oh my gosh i keep forgetting the name uh um so uh anyway
006uh these are basically what those replaced um they are um cameras that sit on a base with an arm that comes up and um you put a piece of paper um something 3d some kind of item you put down on the desk and then it projects it out on a big screen they come in handy when you have big presentation stations um they can come in handy when staff are trying to when teachers are trying to share something on a zoom classroom they can share their screen use the document camera put up put a textbook put a workbook down there one of the coolest things about a document camera though is that most of the ones if you buy the right ones they actually come with an arm that swivel um and that arm can
007actually swivel up and be used as a webcam with a built-in microphone that webcam can uh we can put a long usb cable on it um and that um document camera can be kind of moved a little easier and a little more frequently than taking and picking up a laptop and moving it around to show yourself on the screen um you know and and so this is kind of the the gap in realizing between um you know simple desktop webcams and that 2500 per classroom solution that we talked about uh back in july um uh you know the the idea of document cameras has become extremely popular across districts in connecticut and in the country so um i i won't i won't uh i won't say that availability is not an issue we we will
008have to find um items in you know in stock if that comes down to it um but the district does have a number of them already we we actually have staff that ask for them all already so this number is actually not to outfit every single classroom um it's to supplement um for what we don't have um we actually have about 25 of them we have all but uh for center school for example we have uh one for every teacher except for the two new teachers that um are starting with us this year um we have about 25 or so at huckleberry um and we have um you know uh probably a close to uh um if i remember my uh documentation correctly about a dozen or so for each at wisconsin and the high
009school that could be used um you know and in looking at this um you know we've talked about the term kind of um you know a permanent solution for a temporary um problem um you know we wanted to also look for something that isn't exactly that um and we actually have requests for document cameras every year um and when we do return to a 100 in person model um these document cameras can continue to be used um they can be used for our students that choose to do 100 remote they can be used when all 20 students are back in every single classroom uh you know five days a week um teachers can use them to present up into the front of the classroom um and they can be used in all specialties grades um
010you know arts any anything any program in the district they could they could find use in um so it was it was important to find something that not only will give better quality and instruction but could be used for years to come um and that's kind of where the tech side of it maureen i don't know if you have anything you want to put in on the uh instruction side uh no i just want to make comment that you know we looked at the initial solution of 2500 which is you know having the cameras and then we spent eric and i spent a lot of time looking at websites looking at what different districts are doing eric talking to um tech directors myself talking to assistant superintendents and curriculum people and this for all the
011reasons that eric has shared just seems to be a really wise decision that provides flexibility in the use of the document camera for now for multiple purposes and then for years to come so it's not something that's going to be obsolete what about the webcams that we already received are those sort of redundant or what are we going to do with them those webcams are you know just to be sure are you speaking about the the original that were asked by the board of finance um as part of the first 90 days so those were actually for support staff um those were purchased for nurses secretaries um you know basically anybody who who really sits at a desk all day in the offices um and we gave them yeah we gave them laptops obviously to
012work from home but we need those laptops back um we need them for staff we may need them for students um and and um you know so as we hold virtual staff meetings you know where appropriate um you know that that we do need our support staff to be able to to um jump in and they have desktop computers with no camera and no microphone so i have a question and comment so i think it's really an investment for the district we want to you know deliver that message that's really important also how many document cameras is that for 45 000 how many are we getting for that number um yes so that number is based on 150 document cameras at up to 300 um and a piece um they have a huge range um
013they can go anywhere from um a hundred dollars which are hard to find right now um all the way up to eight to nine hundred dollars um you know so um in in all in the vast amount of dr rubio and my research um in communication um you know we found based on what's available and what we might be able to realistically get the sweet spot seems to be right around that 300 mark yeah professionally for me i mean there isn't a day that goes by that i don't use it it's really so critical well that's good to have that endorsement because thank you you're in the school and you know so we would not be requesting these if it wasn't um an absolute necessity all right so i think bob had to stand up
014sorry i had a question um the uh so eric have we actually been able to test out the visual quality in a zoom meeting uh yes um that we're gonna be doing more later this week um with with dr ruby but um i've had i i put um stephen clark our tech at um center school has been working with mrs diamond um and they've kind of taken the lead um they started to do some testing um so i kind of had uh steve take the lead on on doing some testing he actually messaged me back this morning um and i said that has told me that he has had um some really nice success with it both video and audio quality um we do want to next though we were speaking in an empty classroom
015um you know so we might try to grab some staff and and socially distance and put us in the um in a classroom because when you fill up a classroom obviously we know when you fill with people um that can change the sound um you know the video quality is not our concern based on where they stand um it really comes down to the audio quality and we want to make sure we position these things in the right spot um for our staff but yes we actually have been doing some testing um uh in in with with a couple of we have about two or three different models of these cameras and um so we've tried one um and we're gonna go try another one this week at huckleberry okay and would it i'm just
016picturing our screen here this would show up like ken's document does it's in the display part part of the screen that it would show up correct so the document camera is obviously dependent um uh is dependent right back to the cam um back to the computer um you know so basically these are um just more flexible desktop webcams where they have that arm that comes up so you could you can present so um you know a staff member would take the document camera set it up and then do a screen share just just like ken's doing okay yep yep okay all right thanks everybody um just moving on to some of the other items that are uh important to us let's talk a little bit about lexia uh lexi is a digital platform that engages
017our students in um differentiated literacy instructions pre-k to five the program provides systematic and personalized instruction in all areas of reading the program also helps assess students as they use it and it allows teachers to assign specific lessons to students to target target their identified needs it can be used by individuals and for small group instruction we used lexia this past spring and have data that demonstrates significant gains for our students so we're really happy with the product additionally we supported students this summer who made gains again given the transition between in-class and remote learning and the hybrid model and some of the other unknowns about the year it's important um that that we move forward with it with a a consistent learning opportunity such as alexia uh that that provides the valid and reliable
018data data excuse me um and when students are not present um you know in the classroom it's very difficult to uh assess because a lot of the assessment we do um is is in person with the in-person tools so um it really is important for our students and um we're excited about moving forward with the galexia pre-k to five um so so that is one uh opportunity there and again it fits fits with any of our models that we have over three models going forward so is that the cost for a year subscription um i believe that is a one year right right yes yeah i'm sorry we'd be planning probably to continue that you know even after it's it's a it's possible however we feel that with the unknowns that we have um in
019this year and i'm just going to backtrack a little bit we were using lexia and district for a very few number of students who had lexia on ieps there was also a small grant for 10 subscriptions at um center school that were being used for students who qualified for that type of instruction when the virus took over the world lexia and a number of other companies were very very sharp in their in their marketing tools and so they offered these products to school districts in support of school districts during coped free of charge and they did that it was a very smart marketing tool because it got their product in the hands of teachers and teachers could see how um how powerful some of these tools were so while we have a very strong uh
020curriculum and we have very strong curricular tools those tools were not designed to be used in a remote uh hybrid flexing in and out of different models type of uh curriculum setting so what we're looking for this in this year and i can't predict for future years is the fact that it allows for more seamless transition and and less interruption to students who are um in need of extra support whether it be enrichment or remediation and to build on one of the things that dr burrell said while the program is k5 it is remedia it has remedial uses in grades above five so this particular summer we had students in who made really nice uh gains i'm sure everybody in this room has heard how some kids who didn't do well in classrooms did better
021in remote learning some kids who did you know who didn't do uh who did really well in the classroom didn't do well in remote learning there's all types of learners but we had um and if dean were here he could speak to this at more length but we had some students who really at kind wisconsin connected with lexia and since we had the free um subscription through uh the end of july july 31st we provided them with support through the summer and they continued to um to build on that breakthrough opportunity that they had in the spring so we think that this is appropriate for the upcoming year but i wouldn't i i don't know that it would be a forever thing um i really we wouldn't we would really review the data and see
022what's appropriate and what's best for students okay fair enough thanks dr ruby you're welcome similarly uh with ixl math it is also a digital platform we also used it this spring we also had some really nice games for students and it provides personalized learning and math aligned to our connecticut standards the plans are accompanied by built-in diagnostics and analytics that also provide remediation and acceleration opportunities for all students and um so similarly uh to what dr ruby just explained about lexia the ixl uh software will help us in math um moving in and out of uh remote hybrid or or uh you know full in person um so it's it's similar but it's it's the math end of things so um uh i think the questions you may have asked i know rosie you just
023asked it's a similar i think response uh going forward uh analyzing how it works for us um looking at what the future holds depending on how we do with the virus as as a nation and as a world and you know what what the future looks like as we go through our budget process uh this winter and spring so and i would add to that that ixl is not something that's new to the district we um in the past have had pockets of subscriptions in the district at different places and eric and i spent two years analyzing the data from ixl and we stopped the subscriptions because in the um 100 in school format with all of the other tools that we had um we found that the usage was not um worth the expense
024at that time because when we went through the usage data by classroom and by student um there were some students that were just using it you know like it was candy i mean like just like all the time they were on it but that the number of those students was so small and the gains that they were making um wasn't powerful enough for the expense that we had now come the free version that they gave to us last year during spring and the situation that we were in we found in reviewing the data that the usage data was significantly different because of the circumstances so based on on the usage data and what students did when they used ixl it um and parents um when we stopped the ixl usage because of the the data
025that we reviewed we had parents that weren't happy the parents of the kids that used it all the time um and the teachers whose kids used it all the time remember these as a small number of people were not happy now we're happy because we saw that it was actually being used and for this i'll call it let's hope let's hope that this is a bridge year this is bridging us back to being healthy and able to be in school and make whatever adjustments we need to make so i would say as as dr will said the same thing um the the outlook is the same as lexia we will examine the data we will look at the situation that we uh that we're facing as we go into the um the school year after
026this and then make decisions um and report out on it uh i just want to make a quick comment about ixl math although i i really do like the program and that i think it has a lot of great things to offer and i think a good teacher will do this but i think that it's it's a very frustrating program for students because when they get something wrong they go down like a lot of levels so we can take you know a student an hour or even two hours to complete you know one concept or standard but i think there were years where my kids had some teachers that say you know do it for 30 minutes and stop or you know get to 75 75 proficiency and stop you know i think it's how
027it's kind of it's used the message is how it's used is important yes and this and because of the situation that we're enjoying because you make great points it's very different than how it was used um i think probably in how you're describing it because it wasn't used as a curricular tool it was just like it was there and teachers would say you could use it and so there wasn't a consistent message and i i can't speak to this but it doesn't appear from the data that we've reviewed that there was a real um intentional use of the tool it was for kids who wanted to use it or not wanted to use it and there wasn't um it wasn't i'll just call it teachers hands-on um so i think that what we saw last
028year for a larger number of kids was that it was being used in a very different way and that's what our intention is for this year right so i think you made a good point though the message is really important um and also a good thing to look at is if for higher level students you know if someone's in sixth grade they can do seventh or eighth grade level work exactly so that's great thanks for bringing that up that's a good part about it the the other um opportunity that that we have in here that we're pretty excited about is a software program called talking points and talking points is a translation service which supports students excuse me and families it translates documents translation of educational materials um two-way translated communication uh and many other
029uses and as you saw at the beginning of the meeting i we we invited uh mrs holly uh to talk a little bit about talking points and how it's used with our english uh language learner students and how it's really helped us as an organization and help the families so maybe kevin you could share a little bit about talking points and the importance of the program of course good evening everybody and if the board doesn't mind i you know me i have a little presentation to share to make it a little more palpable is that all right with everybody um yes all right so i'm gonna share my screen it'll be really quick let's um can everyone see the presentation yes great okay um so um as dr brill stated uh i'm gonna talk about
030talking points the uh app that um as it states here and this actually this is a presentation that was shared with staff when you know um i'm sure everyone remembers uh school districts across the country we're all being bombarded with it take this free thing there's there's this free app there's this free resource and um eric conklin and i we we took a look at talking points and we said hey you know what this free resource that's being offered during covid um this could be a solution for simplifying and eliminating communication barriers with our non-english speaking families but also just facilitating communication in general with families and you know since the goal of ours is always increasing uh family engagement parental engagement we thought that this was a great tool so i um shared this
031presentation with teachers to you know ease the anxiety and offer them a possible solution for communication barriers and pretty much what this is is um it's a parent teacher messaging app what it says here with translation teachers compose messages in english using the web or mobile app and talking points as dr burl says translates it and sends the messages in the parents home languages which is great because last count we had 17 different languages and this messaging app offers over a hundred different languages and each of our language needs is met with this app and how it works uh pretty much the staff members sign up for free online but however we're asking for because it's free for individual teachers but we're asking for a district license where we could do a lot here and
032they could do it online or their mobile device our teachers uh prefer to go online none of their personal information is shared with the families but it's very easy then we add the contacts every teacher does that from their class roster and perhaps eric you could go into more detail later than i can but we worked with our data specialist denise walsh and she found a solution as to how to connect this to power school to facilitate sending of the messages to families in their home languages and also in english and then they could begin sending messages to families and what's really cool about this is the teacher could tell whether the parent read it or whether the parent didn't get it and there's also a data tool in here that lets you know and
033actually we found out many update outdated numbers uh because of this app so that was great and we were able to contact families and get updated information to make sure that they were getting uh all the communication necessary during this time and pretty much like they they're all about parental engagement uh family engagement and actually this is great because it goes uh very well with the new flexibilities and the teacher evaluation plan as one of the student learning objective goals of teachers can be family engagement so this app could be something that potentially facilitates that and these are just some examples of how our teachers actually used it with whole class announcements reminders what students are learning in class as well as positive behavior messages so it was great that teachers were given these examples
034because it's actually how they used it and then also here um you know there's little parent engagement suggestions to not overwhelm families with messages so you could here there's a suggestion where teachers could send routine messages two to three times a week set a limit that won't overwhelm families and also setting parameters as to when you would be checking messages um and then here are just some examples of how to get parents engaged and this presentation also shares anecdotes from real life teachers so uh we got buy-in when teachers not only saw these anecdotes but also started using the technology themselves and i have to tell you and you know being completely transparent i've never received so many messages from our educators particularly during the summer to advocate for this app how awesome it was
035and how much it increased communication and family involvement during a very stressful time for everybody and it was very refreshing and this is just some of the statistics from talking points that you know really helped us get on board with this because we saw how it's impacting other districts across the us and we really wanted to bring this resource to our district and then finally these are just some more anecdotes that the company shared with us but like i said the um i've received so many emails from teachers saying you know just asking please please please can we put this in our budget it's awesome not only for non-english speaking families but also for english-speaking families they prefer so much to receive a text and they just get it right away and they respond immediately
036and that's it thank you kevin well i really appreciate you being here with us eric please adam yeah thanks kevin yeah before before we go to questions i did want to add two two points that i thought um you know um would be uh would be interesting one is um rosa to your your point before about looking for you know software to the future um this is one piece that that i i would like to propose that we talked about past this year um it has benefits for literally everything um you know in the district and that's what actually leads me to the other point i wanted to share is um kevin and i actually sat down and talked about this um this program many times before the pandemic um we were actually looking for
037initially for a solution for our school office staffs to handle registration um they were really struggling with struggling with language barriers and that's where actually the look of talking points um came up we had a demo uh we realized this can be used for way more than operations and in fact it was really meant for for you know parent-teacher communication so um this is something that can be used in and out of the classroom in the district um even even up to this up to the tso level um you know when when parents want to talk to administration and what's so great about this is that it's not like google translate it actually picks up language nuances because there's actually people behind this translation software um that vet the messages and also we received very
038positive feedback from our non-english speaking family saying that the translation was right on or there were very very few errors but they understood everything so my question was gonna be yeah yep that's good yeah having used google translate i was going to say that is a big difference from google translate so kevin what happens when the um tell us what happens when the parents um respond in their um in their own language in an email sure so when they respond in their own language it gets translated back to english to whether it's the registrar or the teacher so that's a key a key thing so it puts parents at um at ease they don't have to be um embarrassed or and or in any way off put by the fact that they are not um
039writers in english they can comprehend in their own language when they get the translated message and they can respond in their own language and know that the receiver at the school end is going to be able to read it in english so quite question on the cost um you you said during the presentation that it was free for teachers to use but that you like the school-wide license what do we get in the license that we don't get with the free version well it's that um where we could connect it to uh powerschool and we have uh more control over our student data and as we know student data privacy laws you know when something's free we have we don't have as much control and that was just per teacher and that was also during
040the covid time this is a presentation that um i presented well we're still living in it but you know uh free apps during that time quickly became now you have to pay for them so um during that time it was free and it is free for individual teachers as well but it's up to just x amount of students so with a district license you could have whole class sets on there um like i said you have more control over student data privacy and it syncs right to our power school so we have pretty much district-wide control over our student data and then the second thing is i heard dr ruby say the email was being translated back and when i heard your presentation it sounded more like it was text messaging does it connect into
041email as well well it's just through um instead of email it's through text messages but they could be used no but it could be used on the computer as an email-like message i got that i just i just wanted to try it with clear that's all it's both web-based and there's on top of the test machine there is also a mobile app for iphone and android too yes yeah yeah is this something that students would be using too like i know a lot of teachers now use remind for classes like would this sort of take the place of her mind and then a student then and teachers could do over my like tests coming tomorrow etc or is it more just parents and teachers communicating this is just parents and teachers communicating this is for
042uh family engagement uh purposes okay i guess my only question is uh you know you guys came across this program did you come across any other programs like it or i mean can you speak to maybe the decision process on this talking points and actually uh the question actually would go with also the alexa and the math program like how many programs are like these things i mean you know with the math one that thirty thousand bucks twenty five thousand for alexa is what's the what's the shopping around process if you can take me through that um sure um you know i can speak to talking points i i unless unless anybody else um has uh come in unless you can speak i've never seen um a competitor that can do what talking points can
043do um as well as it can do um you know our direct kind of competition to what we were looking at was google translate um you know that that we bring up um you know one of the benefits to to these software is uh you know fortunately and unfortunately these these these places all gave their software software away for free as dr ruby um alluded to before and and that was a way to kind of promote their software right so talking points gave their software for free um until the end of june um you know so we actually got to use it for uh when did we sign up caminad the middle of april i think two and a half months we got to use it for um yeah and eric you and i did
044a lot of research too we were looking for a school messenger-like app but to uh you know create a greater communication equity for everyone regardless of language yeah and and i mean no in no purchasing process do we um you know just jump on the first one that we see um this is the only one uh there was a specific criteria there's one language in our district chemin and i forget it was um it was a form of arabic i believe um or mandarin that's very unique and most translation programs do not have it and this one does um if i'm trip if i'm jogging your memory kevin i forget what the language was um you know so that was another selling point as well um you know this is also um a non-for-profit company
045um that um um you know really focuses on translation for for family engagement um but we did do um you know we looked at the option of google translate which we we've just talked about you know as as free um we've looked at our existing platform school messenger um they only have english and spanish um we've looked at um um availability and some of the other software that we purchased like just classlink um which is our single sign-on solution offer translation services for the apps and programs and they don't um you know so we've looked at existing software and then other companies out there and um i i just have not been able to see anything for talking points that that can do what this this brand can do yeah and it's for less common
046languages in this area at least we're talking about like gujarati urdu tamil we just haven't found other software that supports these unique languages in our area and i can speak to lexia and ixl um i can tell you that we didn't spend a lot of time um this year looking at lexia and ixl because we've looked at lexia and ixl and other similar products in the past as i explained that we've we've used them before and both of these are front runners in the field of digital um software for supporting reading and math and they have the uh what in my opinion particularly with lexia has the strongest research and evidence-based um database for um what they what it can do and for what the student outcomes are and the other thing is um we
047have teachers that are trained already and that there's training um in these packages so it's uh you have to look at the the entire picture you know what what the software does um what it does how user-friendly it is for students how user-friendly it is for the teachers what the research basis is how long it's been out there how many revisions they've done over the years to keep up with alignment to national and state standards and a variety of other factors so there really wouldn't be anything besides lexia or ixl in the area of uh digital platforms reading a map that we would um be comfortable with yeah i'm just putting on my board of finance hat on like they're going to want to know did we vet other options so they sound like it
048sounds like i like i love hearing evidence based that you got me there like that's yeah those are great points that are nice to be included so thank you thank you thank you everybody and then the last one on here that's that's interesting and i'll let dr ruby share a little bit about this one uh news ela where we're going to be utilizing our title 2 grant to pay for that but very interesting and i think it's exciting so maureen would you share a little bit about new zealand so new zla we've also used in district before um but because we were in school we weren't we didn't have a district-wide um subscription to it we were using it mostly at wisconsin in the situation that we find ourselves in we need to be able
049to put text and i'm going to say literally figuratively in the hands of students and because we don't have everybody in the classroom all the time and because there's an uneasiness with um and sanitation that's required with um with actual books and texts this is a digital platform that has advanced significantly over the past 20 years and it provides access to texts in english language arts social studies science and in sel across the grade levels from grade 2 through grade 12 however it is able to be used in kindergarten in grade one by teachers because you know students really aren't reading independently at high levels in k and one and um we really are obligated to ensure that all of our students have access to text that they need number one for their daily reading
050instruction and text sets so that they can be doing research and seeing different perspectives on a singular topic whether they're studying characters or they're studying an author or they're in social studies and they're studying uh content there to be able to see different perspectives and to look at whatever it is they're studying from a variety of viewpoints the other um thing that is available in nozella well we want all kids to be working with um challenging grade level text we want all kids to be able to read so there will be times where um we a teacher would be studying it's teaching about a topic and there's a wide variety of reading levels in the class and the um if teacher selects the articles or the the text that he or she wants to be
051using in their instruction the they can um the the program will produce the same text but at different reading levels so that all students have access to the same content so i mean i could go on i know you don't want me to but this is something that's going to provide equity of access without any fear of where kids are or um whether or not parents or teachers are comfortable passing out papers and books isn't this one of the subscriptions that was proposed for this school year's budget but we had to remove it uh yes um whiskenier wanted to include this in their budget and because we needed to cut things it was one of the things that got cut um because at the time we didn't know that we weren't going to be able
052to be handling um books in the same way that we um that we typically do so because of that change now the title ii grant can be used for this yeah well because there was there was not a dire need in the in the fall um because we could we could make do with our the books that we had in the classrooms and whatnot now with remote learning with sometimes being 100 remote with some with the children being 50 hybrid and with the unfortunate possibility that you know um if in if the um infection incidence increases that we would be in remote we need to be first of all we need to serve the children that we have obviously in this in the context that we have them in and we need to be prepared
053to transition quite um quickly without interruption we didn't have that issue in um october and then when we decided to cut that from um the whiskaner budget um we needed to cut you know we needed to cut something and that was one of the things that went but the teachers particularly at wisconsin about that because even in not a pandemic situation they did use it but they had other things that they could use at the time in addition i don't know if that answers your question rosa yeah so so these are you know this is within our own bud operating budget as part of the um item number three on the agenda tonight and then you can see in there we also have um the significant amount of hand sanitizer and dispensers that we needed
054to purchase and then the use of some movers as well to supplement our custodial team um so again this is not just clear up for me sorry i hope this isn't me cutting in and out but um the hand sanitizer and the movers why was that not in like the original tranche that we did uh yeah i could turn that over to ken on that one excuse me i think in the very beginning when we were putting the proposal together first of all we weren't uh we couldn't find hand sanitizer at the time and i don't think we were aware that it would be such a big requirement uh this is over 300 gallons and 150 uh touchless dispensers which we were fortunate enough to find recently but but in the evolution of the reopening
055plan from the state it became uh extremely um it was more required than anticipated in terms of how much sanitizer we would need so you know it wasn't just supplementing a little bit it was a significant outlet um the movers has evolved and ken again could talk back in terms of uh working on you know existing staffing uh leaves within our um custodial team um quarantines injuries things that happen um and also um timelines that we need to meet in terms of moving desks and helping set up classrooms and so i don't know ken if there's anything else to add but i mean that was a reason we had to get the motors and we just they're very very helpful to the principals they helped them set up all the classrooms they uh moved uh
056excess desks and excess furniture out of the classroom so we could achieve the social distancing uh we took some desks from wisconier to use over at center school so we had them do that so things that were beyond our capacity especially like dr bill said being short-handed with with so many people out for various reasons and the urgency to get the work done and so so that is um a detailed a review of um mr post's request to um transfer we go back to your memo ken yes we can there you go so so this has the document cameras the lexia the hand sanitizer and movers the ela was done under the grant where uh what about was there where's the other items yes the talking points oh they're all they're all on one line
057actually sorry bob they're on one line there it's only going in one account okay and the and and talk about the savings that we're booking here that were on the under run side sure professional development is their balance of the amanda aarons which we would need to do in person and we can't uh transportation is the uh extra runs we would have to do for uh st joe's uh for days when they're in session we're not or when we have half days and they don't that kind of thing the special education extended school year program with uh mostly most of that is transportation about fifty thousand dollars in transportation that we did not have to do we didn't have to pay for a nurse to be on site and then the balance is uh some
058of the savings we're going to achieve through the special education life skills program change is that all the savings on that program or is that just some of it that's just some of it just just the balance we need to to make this transfer so how much more savings are we expecting roughly roughly another 50 000. okay that's a lot yeah okay and so these don't all line up against line items then because the special education's from multiple line items correct correct and are all the others lined up against line items or are they lined up um yes category one might item for the other one okay um [Music] so okay so i will go ahead and move that the following budget transfer items uh for the 2020 2021 operating budget according to the memo
059from can post be executed be approved approved second thanks bob is there any other discussion or questions on any of these items okay thank you everyone yep so all in favor aye aye okay uh next yes it's uh it's just one input for everybody i suggested that ken that we need to be more aggressive in doing budget transfers like this this year and you know sometimes we batch them up and we approve them all at once but i think as we go we need to be able to look the board of finance and the board of selectmen in the eye and say when we can we the things we can solve with our own money we're solving with our own money and a budget transfer document helps with that a lot and our formal approval
060helps with that a lot and i think we need to stand up and look those other our partners here um in the eye and say where we can we are so i just wanted to pass that on to everybody so i've asked ken every time we have one of these make it a budget transfer right so we'll get more of these as we go along i'm sure okay uh the next item is a discussion of desks and desk shields and other coveted related purchases in preparation for the district moving forward with the 100 in person learning um and request an appropriation from the board of selectmen uh for that cost so there's another the rest of the sheet we can go through yes so so rosa just very briefly so the the desks uh the
061student desks that we need um as you can see almost 35 000 there and this the remainder the second half of the desk shields um for sixty one thousand dollars for a total of ninety six thousand what we've been talking about for the last couple of months and uh getting us ready for what we hope is um uh in-person learning hopefully the the local trends uh transmission data uh remains positive and we can uh open up in hybrid and then eventually be back to full time we'd love to see that that is the ultimate uh goal um so that's specifically what ken is highlighted here in gray as you can see on the sheet um but there's also a whole story with everything else that's going on um in in the budget uh savings and
062spends and so forth so however the board would like to either ask questions or talk about it um we could just start with the motion i suppose there's any questions about the desk in the shields i don't know if there's any questions left i mean we need them so so is this the same a subset of the numbers we presented to the board of selectmen on the board of finance uh a number of weeks ago it's just the we're asking for approval to proceed correct it would be like a new numbers it would be the um they're adjusted but they're not new numbers in the sense that the the we talked about 100 model in the 80 model and needing those bob um we always needed the shields to get started in hybrid but we
063didn't need desks but to go 100 to socially distance the students and have them safely in the classrooms we need additional small desks across the district so this is more shields and the desks that we needed correct i've got a backup here guys guys i'm going to ask my question again i'm going to back up when we presented i want to say in the beginning of august we presented a full picture right that we said here's the hybrid here's the fall here i think we're just that really focused in on hybrid and fall in those number and we told them at the time and i want to rem if i remember ken the total of that for those cases were um i want to say 500 remind me the numbers um hi do you want
064me to uh pull up that other worksheet bob please i just got to get it in context because this was the problem at the last board of finance discussion they felt like we weren't showing them the full picture and i think we need to show the full picture here and also there yeah this spreadsheet so you you the if i remember the left-hand side is the picture for full and the right-hand side is the picture for hybrid correct yeah we had an 80 and then we had the hybrid uh oh the 80 and then the hybrid okay and then remote we had as well which had really very little cost um and in the hi when we if you go down to the bottom the total dollar amount for the hybrid opening was 535 130
065and the total amount for in for the 80 is 664. and the total amount for full is 709 those are numbers we showed them correct yes okay so my question is when we went and asked them for our first tranche of funding it was like 200 and something thousand if i remember that you had asked for and it was a subset of that 5 30. right it was the first 90 days right so my question is is this ask we're making a subset of the full that we had already presented to them or is it a or is it new numbers is it a subset of this chart yes it is a subset of this chart okay that was my question because that part of the issue john to go back to your point the
066more we talk about it is new the more we'll confuse them right this is all part of what we talked to you about before release it's the student desks and then the second half of the desk shields now we haven't gotten to the second release of the of the other money because they funded us through the end of october already and is that just that the stuff that wasn't in gray on the other chart yes yes the ones that you didn't highlight yet that's right okay yeah that'll be coming so um we were thinking that in october assuming we have a uh you know we're successful in running the hybrid and it looks like we're really going to be able to reopen full in november sometime in october uh we would go back to the
067board of finance and say okay you know we need the second 90 days for the lunch monitors and gloves and other things like that i'll go scroll over to the right for a second so um to the hybrid column um so we asked them in that first request we asked for fifty five thousand dollars worth for these items and the desks we didn't ask for anything correct correct correct so now are we asking for at the eighty percent or at the 100 percent so if you go there's two columns now to the left of this so the 55 are we asking for the dir are we asking for for to get to the 98 or asking to get to the 122. i i envisioned asking for 100 because our plan is for 100 reopening i
068think we probably anticipate that the students who are enrolled in remote only will probably stay in remote only and and while that is um a logical assumption i think our survey data right now we're somewhere just over of the kids coming back for hybrid um one thing that's really important to remember and i have to thank dr ruby for reminding me of this in our communications is to to let the public know and the parents know that the remote option while legitimate is a still from the state department of education is still considered a temporary option so i think this i think the logical person uh common sense would tell us it probably will be temporary but last for the year this the 2021 year but one never knows and so we want to be
069prepared for all students um to come back should obviously the health data and everything else align in that regard so we want to make sure we have proper functions well the desk shields is the difference between asking for 43 000 of additional purchases versus asking for uh 67 000 so that's a big difference because with if i remember you had 55 000 in the first trunks right yeah they turned out to be more expensive than we originally thought they were going to be oh so there is new numbers here yes you told me there wasn't one that's what i'm trying to if i subtract the 122 492 from the full plan and 55 304 from the hybrid i should get the number that's on the spreadsheet from tonight 61 to 12 and i'm not getting
070that so so the numbers are have been updated i did not i did not update the cost numbers in the hybrid we estimated it where they were going to cost us 62 a piece they actually are costing us 68.70 so so the number on the other sheet is the quantity that we need times 68.70 so we've already how are we funding the overrun and cost in the first case that has not been determined yet we had some overs and some unders bob so far but we don't know what the full costs are yet and the numbers on tonight's spreadsheet are based on the actual enrollment that we expect to have correct based on the parent responses no they're they're based on 100 [Music] okay so you got two questions here so first of all you
071have to start with what we showed them before right we you know when you have to show us kind of where we started before and we're all getting lost in the numbers a little bit and it's okay we're uh that we're working our way through it tonight but tomorrow night it will be you know they'll throw us out of the office right if we throw them numbers that are confusing so we have to fix that between now and tomorrow um so let's stay on the face shield so the face shields where the difference is the only difference is cost the quantities are the same correct okay so um and we are in fact our real experiences that were spending 68.70 per correct okay um and your comment earlier is that there's under runs that's on
072other line items is that your point yes um so for face shields um i guess the i'm sorry desk shields not face shields desk shields the question for this board is do we want to shoot for the hundred percent back in enrollment or do we want to go get to the 80 percent or 80 83 or whatever the number is what do we want to go ask to go purchase it's a big difference in cost and then i'll work ken with you on how we can bridge it so the chart is not confusing to the board of finance that'll be great bob thank you yeah i just we may have to do it tonight though well i mean i go back i go back to what john was saying before i mean it's logical to
073to think that there might be less students than 100 any number less than 100 but not being paired is a more dangerous risk so you know i'd be in favor of of getting what we need for 100 of the students yeah i i think that makes sense too because i think we have to think that we could be living in this situation next year too it's not necessarily like a one-year and done scenario so i didn't want to have to go there jen but i was just listening to some information this afternoon and it's possible it could lead into through the next summer and into the fall next year until we have everything squared away in terms of the vaccine and everything else we're not we're not out of the woods by any stretch okay
074anybody else on buying at the 100 level versus the 80 level i guess we're going for the hundreds let me join micah sorry i was muted uh yeah yeah i i mean i feel like there's no if you start at 80 then there's no room to go down so i i feel like even if we had to or wanted to so let's go for the heart okay um and then the desks let me just go up to the desks is there a difference in the pricing on the desks ken well we haven't purchased any yet and when the purchasing agent was sourcing them these are the prices he had and are they different or the same than we had before they're the same all right so let me make sure i'm clear so on the
075go over to the hybrid side we had asked and been approved for uh zero right so the number on your other chart is what was what it was thirty four thousand eight ninety five which was 100 and is that time can you scroll over the 100 i just want to make sure i see 34 895 over there on this chart yes i mean yeah that's a scroll left thirty four eight ninety five i got that number and that's all we're asking for correct so this is the second branch of what we told them before yes now what i could do if if you think it would make it more clear i could take a version of this document and in the full reopening just identify what's needed in addition to what we already got would
076that be helpful do you think um [Music] no i think you put it in a cover sheet we'll we'll figure out the cover sheet how to tell the story i think the biggest thing you're gonna have to do is update the right hand column to be an updated version so that all the cost experiences you're not ending up showing in apples and bananas so okay that makes sense and uh and so you want them after when we're done after this call you and i can just kind of go through it make sure we're delivering to the other board something that's clear to them right if everybody on the board is okay me working with ken on us it's more about putting the pieces together so that you tell a story i think apparently um now
077why do we have to order now for november i guess that would be the second question that is the logical question what are the lead times and why is that the same they're gonna i know i'm reacting to you're only here three weeks ago right and we made the decision to order for the hybrid and uh now here we are i haven't even left august yet and we're asking for a tranche for the net for the next opening which is now two and a half months away um why is there why why can't we wait this decision until september when we see a little bit more i think we're we're concerned about lead times that when jerry was looking into it before it was four to six weeks was that on the desks of the
078shield that was on the uh i'm sorry the shields are the longer they time actually they were more like eight weeks so for example bob the shields are due september 1st we ordered those probably around july 10th i think so you know there's definitely some lead time and with frankly all of the school systems in the world thinking the same thing ordering more single desks ordering desk shields ordering technology there is supply chain issues and so while a vendor may tell us four to six weeks it may take longer than that and we don't want to chance it yeah we want to make sure we have plenty of time okay we're going to get them anyway we might get them as early as we can and be ready okay okay uh bob do you want
079to make a motion for this one i'm going back to um i would uh make a motion that the board approves uh taking forward a request to the board of selectmen and the board of finance for a total amount of ninety six thousand one hundred and seven dollars for student tests and student desk shields um uh for a potential full reopening in the beginning of november uh i'm not finished yet um uh that this request has already is part of the amount already communicated to the board of selectmen and board of finance at our previous meeting i will second that all right any other questions on this item okay so all in favor aye all right okay i think that was everyone thank you okay our last item for tonight is a discussion on an
080increase for unaffiliated salaries adding an additional 0.25 to match the secretaries and the nurses from the 2 approved at our special meeting in june on the 11th um so we we had discussed at that meeting that um depending on how the we had approved a two percent increase for all unaffiliateds um just pending uh what the secretaries and nurses unit unions ended up coming in at so does anybody have any questions about this process and how this came to be okay all right um well then i will go ahead and move that we increase unaffiliated salaries adding an additional 0.25 percent to match secretaries and nurses from the 2.0 approved at our special meeting on june 11th 2020. welcome okay any other discussion okay all in favor all right okay the motion's unanimous thank you
081okay um i think that is it for tonight so um thanks everybody and uh without objection the meeting is adjourned thank you thanks everyone everyone have a good night and can you call me at my home office all right thanks bye everyone everybody thank you goodnight everyone thank you take care