Board of Education Meeting 5/20/2020 @ 7pm

001okay Rosa we are live all right thanks so good evening everyone today is Wednesday May 20th and I call the regular meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order so let's stand where we are for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] okay we have all of our board members in attendance right so first we have public comment is there anybody that wishes to speak okay there's nobody raising their hand right I don't have my whole screen up okay all right so singing we're gonna move on um do we have our student representative here tonight I didn't see her either no Monty's not here tonight okay all

002right so we're gonna move on to written correspondence okay Carrie Nadel Elijah huling and Megan Leticia wrote regarding spring coaching stipends Laura Orban shared information about a school finance webinar Trina and John Capone Irene Korea Lisa Waylon Roger and Katherine CLO Steve done rich anger on oh and Brian Muller wrote regarding budget concerns and Tom and Jennifer mix Jeff Kane and Julie Lewis wrote regarding the budget and athletics thank you on to approval of Board minutes I'll make a motion that the board approved the minutes listed below as recommended the regular meeting on May 6 2020 and the special meeting on May 11 2020 I'll second okay any discussion on these okay all in favor aye hi okay motion passes thank you on to the superintendent's update he's a mute oh I'm you're well on

003me body I'm sorry you would like me to stay on you and I could appreciate that oh so good evening Thank You Rosa I the board is aware I sent a couple of really nice fielded videos some of the camaraderie going on at some of the schools and the student of the week education program video just to show you some of the really good just song of the really good pieces that are going on learning and next in the camaraderie of the community so I also asked Eric to share the channel 8 news piece on our students AG advisory group that was done I think Thursday evening last week we had a chance to see it but it's a bottom minute minute yeah and I would like to show that before I get into the

004rest of my report if a parent would be able to show that for us yep play that for you right now these are difficult days for everyone especially high school students seniors are missing their final spring sports seasons proms and so many other milestones Eric dough brats tell us how the kids at Brookfield High School are making the best of a tough situation all is quiet at Brookfield High School the sun-soaked playing fields are empty the gym decorated with the reminders of athletic glory from years past superiorly the seasons canceled it feels like everything that you worked for it was kind of taken from you so that's extremely hard well when I heard school was officially canceled I think I cried all day like it's just it's so um frustrating I think because we all

005look forward to this and like it was ripped away but instead of sitting around and feeling sorry for themselves Brookfield student athletes are trying to stay upbeat the positivity definitely just puts everyone in a better mindset every Friday afternoon about 50 students plus a handful of teachers coaches and administrators jump on a zoom call and try to problem-solve meetings every Friday because I know I get to see some of my classmates that I don't get to see anymore they get to socialize but also brainstorm and come up with ideas to help others like their idea for a public service announcement that included CI AC schools from all over the state we the athletes of Connecticut are coming together to help flatten the curve of kovat 19 or promoting mental health for students working with guidance

006counselor's at school for an action plan reaching out and talking to somebody helps me tremendously athletic director Stephen Baldwin helps organize all these events but insists that the students run the show their meetings are student driven you know III played high school sports you know I'm there for them they they need to tell me what I what I can do better you know they're using athletics as a vehicle to really drive so much change and bring so much positivity to the community and that's really because of the group of kids that they are in Brookfield I'm Eric dough Bratz news 8 sports thank you Eric I appreciate you showing that and you know that's just another example of the great work that's going on the leadership of our students the celebration and support of our

007upperclassmen especially our seniors and the gratitude that I need to share for mr. Baldwin and all three or he's doing so you know what I wanted to start with in my super superintendent report there's a number of items on the report itself and then I have a couple of things that come up during the day that I thought were important to share as well I wanted to start with with us with our slogan create year tomorrow you know we I often say and I and I've stolen this from the organizational guru Peter sengai but to paraphrase the best way to predict the future is to create it and we're really keeping all health and safety measures in the forefront of our thinking but it is now time at this time of the year where we

008are continuing to get updates with CDC guidelines and really think about the end of the year and then think about the summer in the planning and getting ready for the fall we can't wait any longer and we're ready to put a reopening team together and really get going on that we're really excited about it and it's I think it's it's an energizing opportunity not only to think about reopening school but certainly reimagining what we do in education first and foremost in my role in the western Connecticut superintendent group we're working with that advanced partners that we've had for a long time names like Jeff kitchen Jonathan costs the folks you know helped us with our strategic planning we've put together a regional team of representatives from all of our different western Connecticut districts and try

009to get some of the best thinking to develop a template for the action planning we'll all need locally to reopen schools things like focusing on elements of teaching and learning student staff and family well-being spreading mitigation of course preparing for second wave contingency operations and logistics we've all talked about those that seem overwhelming right now and sir coordination communication so we're really excited about that in addition our leadership team is preparing and it begins next week we are preparing to be part of a professional development group with the senator school change and it's a series of four workshops again with some of the best thinkers in the state and a number of districts across the straight across the state straight state excuse me in terms of getting ready and and being ready to think about

010the best practices and trying to reopen then the next part of that is really locally what are we going to do in beginning the first week of June after the regional work that occurs next week our leadership team along with ana talked with Rosa about this along with the asking a Board of member or that number or two to participate as well as maybe somebody from the board finance the school nurse a teacher to be a part of the reopening planning team I think it's really important that we get a broad cross-section of people to work on realistic concrete actions that we're going to need to take and maybe the resources that it's going to take to make that happen and we want ownership from people in the community and the other part is of

011course we're going to go kind of outside of that group to get input but I want to remind everybody that through the thought exchange program that I had sent a link out a couple of weeks ago we've done input from stakeholders across the state so we have a real sense not only from local to regional to state of where the public is at in terms of the comfort level and things they're concerned about the real pain school so we're gonna get going on that with a goal by the end of June having a relatively concrete planet you can commit to and begin to cascade communication out to families what that will do for us is give us an opportunity to get feedback from families on their comfort level with coming back to school will we

012will a parent be comfortable having their child on a school bus will a parent be comfortable sending their child to school with the plans that we have in place and of course those plans will be in alignment with CDC guidelines Department of Public Health and certainly all in concert and working with doctors all of it so I just wanted everybody to know that we have a handle on things we have a structure and a plan in place to begin that planning and we really had some great minds on it including our leadership team so just wanted you to know about that and we'll be kicking that off we certainly can talk about that a little further as time goes on the other thing I'd like to share is that we're really focused on paying attention

013to the celebrations and the transitions so not only thinking about our seniors which we do a lot of talking about because they are missing out on a lot of things but our eighth graders and then thinking about the elementary students and their transitions from school to school the main thing I want everybody to know is that both all four principals but certainly mr. Boland and mr. Renda are working with their teams synthesizing all the information they've received and feedback and input they've received from folks in their communities as to how we're going to proceed with those end-of-year celebrations and while they're not ready to devolve develops this evening it will be communicating soon what the graduations in eighth grade step-up ceremonies look like I will tell you that they will not be traditional we have

014to follow the governor's executive order which is 7 X and 7 PP regarding gatherings of right now 5 or less and all the other social distancing protocols that are in place and we will run everything by dr. Sullivan before we move forward so just so you know those things are going on and again all of these plans that we talked about I go right to dr. Sullivan and run them by him to make sure we have his blessing and then he gives us feedback and ask clarifying questions to to crystallize our thinking in our plan let's see tomorrow marks our first day of faculty and staff pack up their rooms and offices as well as pack up student belongings that have been left in the classroom we have bags or all sorts and sizes prepared

015not only for teacher pack up boxes as well but to bag and label student belongings so once that is done over the next week where the adults have packed up and moved out we could then begin to develop a student belongings pickup plan you can imagine the logistics that go into that in terms of hundreds and hundreds of kids descending on the school and that's not what we really want we have to do it safely we have to have bags labeled probably outside the school and each principal will work with their community to make sure that that's done safely let's see there was a there's also some questions on that same line of thinking how much students drop off and return their textbooks or Chromebooks and devices and things of that nature we're working on

016those plans we make ordinate them with a belongings pick up where they can drop things off well we're looking at that maybe a combination maybe dropping off books with no one there at on particular carts and things like that and then bringing them into the school after a certain amount of time only on nice weather days you know really protecting our equipment one of the things that Eric's department NIT is thinking about is keeping the devices with the students over the summer not only to be engaged but also to again limit the contact of bringing kids and families to the school to drop off exposing staff and then immediately just in the next couple of weeks really it goes by so fast returning them to students we could be in that situation quite quickly so

017we have a lot of logistics to work out a lot of planning and a lot of Health and Safety to think about so those those are big things that are going on let me see really the last thing I wanted to talk about I'm actually going to invite Mary Rose diamond our CES principal into the conversation is just to let everybody know kind of where we're at with kindergarten registration and also compliment our team involving Denise Walsh who runs our power school department and Eric obviously with all the technology but bringing registration into an online format and so we've had to move we didn't have registration as an online format we've had to move in that direction Mary really certainly as a principal has so much knowledge about that because not only do we have

018moved ins across the district you know parents are planning to move to a field while all of this pandemic is going on we have to register all of those kindergartners on I think we're projected for 190 this fall so Mary Rose can you share a little bit about kind of your numbers the typical at this time of year and some of the story absolutely yep so you know it has been a huge task to move registration online and I will speak as I'm also registering my daughter in our town for kindergarten next year and they have not nearly we've not got a whole lot of communication and all about that I will say from our perspective in Brookfield we put out emails to families who have already started the process I'm letting them know where

019we are we have been communicating with them on a regular basis we've had since the closing we've had about 10 or so new registrations come in which is much fewer than we have in the past but not surprising given that we've kind of been we've been shut down our our systems kind of in the in process so as John said Denise Walsh has been amazing I can't say enough wonderful things about her and the office team at center school Lisa Ruggles and Claire denisovitch they've been walking through the process I think most thoroughly because they are the ones who deal with a hundred you know 50-plus registrations every year so they really as of today we've had countless conversations and lots of discussion about it walking through it doesn't make sense for families is it

020going to be clear and obvious what the process is there is Denise has done a lot of research with other states and other towns to see kind of what they're doing as well and taking the best from that to make our process move as smoothly as possible so we're anticipating that by the end of the week it should all be up online I'm ready to go and it's not just for Center obviously but for all four of the schools and Denise met today I understand with each of the registrar's I think there was one on vacation but the other three registrar's today went through the whole process with them to make sure that everybody's on board and that it made sense we actually like right we were as if we were registering a new student

021we walked through the process and that kind of thing so it's been I think tedious in some ways but it's really in a good place so as of right now we hunt we have 146 kindergarteners in the process for registering last year at this point we had about a hundred sixty-four students so we're down a few again not surprising given that we've been we've been closed for two months and we just process has been kind of on hold so we're working we've revised our process in terms of preschool visitations so are we have two kindergarten teachers who are contacting all the preschools we've got permission from parents we set up a new forum and that kind of thing for them to get permission they've been reaching out to preschools or what we're trying to revise

022as much as we can and keep the process intact you know whenever possible we're starting we're orientation or putting together a video of kindergarten orientation video for families that will be available some behind the beginning of June and the kindergarten teachers are all part of that to kind of as much as possible bring the spirit of center school to families despite the fact that we can't actually meet with them so we're really really working hard to make sure that everyone feels comfortable they're sending us okay it's for the first time and I know again in my own experience how I'm experiencing that and so we're trying to be sensitive to our new families coming in thanks very really and that's my overview Rosa I don't know if anybody has questions we said a mouthful there

023I know that I'm of course for mayor Rose good all right Mike Maris did you anticipate the the low enrollment to may be spiked next year first grade second grade with parents maybe just choosing to home-school a year that is certainly a possibility so far we've had one parent who contacted us and said that they are choosing to keep not even keep their child's home they're choosing to send them to another school for a year and then send them to center school and that's not unusual you know that does that does happen occasionally and we've actually one student who was planning to go to magnet school has decided to return to center school so I think it's going to be very dependent upon you know family's comfort levels if we're able to help them feel

024comfortable how our plan rolls out you know in terms of communicating that with families and just what its what its gonna look like in the fall so I don't know what to expect but I would I certainly would think it would be a possibility well I was thinking uh maybe you know kids that live with their grandparents that are older probably we're gonna you know would wait maybe another year maybe that'd be a situation but I I was kind of curious if the if the real numbers were kind of skewed because of the situation cuz that's a lot I mean that's like 20 less kids that's that's a DS that's a class absolutely I think that I would attribute it more to the fact that we haven't been taking any real registrations you know for

025the last two months because there hasn't been a process you know that for us to accept the registration so I think that it could who knows I mean when there's so many unknowns right now I think that once we could get it up and running we will send out again we've alerted all the pre Ches that we that we work with that the preschools that we will be starting registration again so we've gotten communication out to the preschools to let them know so I'm anticipating that we will get the word out again we'll let people know that that registration is happening and what we usually call the pediatricians office is that kind of thing just to let them know that you know that we have a new a new process so yes yeah oh yeah

026we do we want to know what we're dealing with as early as possible that doesn't doesn't prevent them by you know the historic leaders there is a large influx you know a good a good number of Bin's that kind of register over this summer so we anticipate that will happen and I do think that to your point we might see families waiting later in the summer to register once until they hear what the plan is going to be before they decide to commit so not yeah I think you know Mike to your question and Mary Rose you said to emphasize that with the later in the summer even without the pandemic kindergarten is always a moving target for us and you know as many people as are as many students that are registering there's that

027many stories and so it varies anyway you had at what we're dealing with now and I could see parents who in any other circumstance would have read you know register there's children right now waiting till August to see where you know what what's going on what the numbers are saying what the experts are telling us of what what the changes in CDC guidelines are I mean we all have lived through got 50-plus executive orders the CDC just came out with some updated guidelines literally this afternoon I mean it's constantly changing its methods it's not even daily anyone's hourly that the changes are coming in and that's also a function of certainly social media access and so forth but it is it's just unbelievable the one thing I wanted to add which you know Mike your

028question and Mary roses conversation there made me think about you know as an overriding piece that I probably left out at the reopening big picture for everybody is you know it's really important that we reopen the schools for the reopening of the economy for the reopening of America I mean we hear it we know that that's very important the childcare portion of of what the the fabric of public education the public education in the fabric of our country and in our state in in Brookfield is to all of us I mean it people get jobs and have careers built around school schedules I mean that's a reality so it's a critically important industry that we need to make sure is open and safe and help it however we do need to think about you know

029we have a spectrum we need to think about there may be an opportunity where while all the technology and some of the things we've learned have changed things we may be back in school that's probably wishful thinking and very optimistic we may be back in school mostly regular like we're used to very traditional on the other end of the spectrum we may have to be out again and as dr. Ruby calls it distance learning 3.0 and a whole different scenario for the students to ensure sustainability in between there are all of those last week I said use the term hybrid but all of those operational and logistical and safety pieces and resource allocation pieces staffing pieces so much that we'll have to go in new cleaning protocol pieces that have to go in into our

030plan and we really need to have up and running somewhere at the end of June by the July 4th holiday weekend so we could disseminate communication to the public so they know what we're thinking what we're committed to and where we're going under the current guidelines of course things can change over a few weeks in the summer so that's the big picture and I think it's important to understand the scope and the spectrum and how vast complex and complicate all of this planning is with a constant moving target so sorry I need to share a little bit about that I know if there's anything else for my report thank John thank you Mary thanks everybody all right anything else for dr. Beryl okay so we can move on to the subcommittee reports and first up

031is facilities okay so we had a regular meeting on Wednesday May 6th we briefly discussed the BHS locker room project and about the board of finance decision to slash the funds we will continue to work on it by looking into state reimbursement considering having the project redesigned and having a partnership with the MDC will reignite this project at the end of the summer mr. Kolbo gave us some project updates the first one was a BHS hvac controls project so phase one is complete they finished the audit of the existing condition so Dan will follow up with a meeting with them phase two and three is to be determined there's two paving projects one at the high school one at the middle school and they're working on putting together a construction schedule that should be starting

032soon the third project is the middle school fire pump generator it's on order and we're waiting for the delivery date this should be a summer project the fourth project was the high school gym floors so both wood and gym floors were resurfaced and the fifth project was at center school Mitchell oil had to pump out water from the oil tank and it's a work in progress that happened the last couple weeks mr. Cole WA also gave us a staffing update the high school custodian position paperwork is ready to go when we're making progress the fingerprinting process is holding it up due to kovin 19 so or a little bit of a standstill with that at the middle school the head custodian position is being maintained and at a standstill due to the current situation as

033well the committee received sections of the knee ask report that referenced our high school facility and we decided we need time we needed time to review the information and we'll discuss that our next to ensure alignment with our capital project plan we also discussed cleaning equipment that's needed for next school year and capital equipment needed for our school kitchens specifically going over the equipment needs in the kitchens and replacing aging equipment like stoves ovens sinks vent hoods etc and the priority at this time is the middle school in high school and that's it unless Tony has anybody has any questions ok thank you any questions for joy alright thank you we can move on to Finance hi everyone so we had our our monthly Finance Committee meeting on May 11th I'm going to be very

034brief tonight because we have a discussion on the budget later and that's what we talked about in our meeting for the budget I will just point out you have the financial reports in your packet and Ken's outlook for the for the year-end this year is that we would have a 562 thousand dollar under run which is about a hundred thousand dollars more than we had last month when we talk about this most of that was driven by the transfer final final settlement of transportation if you remember the discussion last month he was still in the process of working with the bus company on what that looked like and and in fact our under run on transportation costs overall and you'll see in the package is about half a million dollars and that's the biggest savings

035when you're not open to be frank and and that's even with paying the bus company enough to keep their employees paid so that's that's just really the cost of operating buses effectively in this period so so it's a very significant under run we will use some of that under run as part of our budget solution for next year by actually pulling the doing a pull ahead of certain items and we'll talk about that later other than that our but our discussion was all about potential solution items around the budget I'm gonna just pause and just we'll deal with that later we got a brief update from Ken on where we are with the cafeteria fund and we're a little more aggressive on our use of the cafeteria fund going on to next year and you

036know be able to cover some monitors costs and things like that which we all seem to be in agreement but that's a reasonable and appropriate thing to do so other than that that's pretty much the report on the Finance Committee and and we'll talk more we'll use the last half of this meeting I'm sure on the budget items so actually that just sort of reminded me because I had just mentioned stuff about major appliance replacements or repairs in the in her Facilities Committee report Joey is or maybe I've I'm sure Ken would probably know more but that's could potentially come out of the cafeteria fund right or is that maybe something that really said something we should look into no the intention was for them to come out of the cafeteria funding okay yes cool

037all right any other questions for Bob okay thank you healthy start time okay hi there everybody so we had our healthy start time committee last meeting last Tuesday and we are ready to give you our recommendation we have a really amazing committee which consists of teacher staff member or athletic director parents in the community board members John and we've really coalesced around a recommendation that we're excited about we've analyzed lots and lots of different options a lot of things pros I'm gonna move this I the one room in my house sometimes isn't good am I better is this better yeah okay sorry so anyway we after analyzing lots of research and lots of options and consulting with lots of people we've developed an executive summary which is like a two page communication of our major

038ideas which we thought would be good an easy way to share our thinking with the community at large but we've also developed a presentation that we're going to share with you at our next meeting with our recommendations so I think I'd like to I'll get it out to the group when you get the board packet so you can look it over I think that might make sense and then we'll I think you know we'll deliver the presentation the committee will be here for questions and we're excited to share our thoughts with you on that Thank You Jen any questions okay you can move on to the consent agenda okay I move that the board approve the items on the consent agenda as recommended retirements in March and April financials second okay yeah everybody can see

039on there that mr. Llewellyn genuine veteran math teacher from whisky near has decided to retire and I'll just say that it was one of the my favorite retirement letters to receive not because mr. Llewellyn is retiring but just her tone her energy her gratitude their view on students on the district it was just beautiful to read and brought a smile on my face and I'm just so happy for her thank her for all she's done as he Dean nodding there and just wish her well in all her future endeavors you know one of her opening lines was I can't believe I'm old enough to retire just couldn't believe the time and gone by and so we just wish mr. Smith well all the best I decided to revive definitely okay so all in favor all

040right thank you on to new business first up we have the approval of the IDE a grant application I move that the board approved the annual submission of the district IDE a grant as required by state law second thanks joy okay is there any discussion or does the broiler dr. Ruby want to say anything here actually I could let miss why Gong share a little bit about the IDE grant I know we were nearing we prepared to submit and ready to go so maybe Gina could share a little bit about the grant and maybe answer some questions for hello everybody um the IDE a grant was submitted on May 11th we did receive and it was submitted and so far so good it's been approved we haven't heard any haven't received any information on anything

041that needed to be revised as you all know what's a two-year grant in that grant we have those 18 paraprofessionals two teachers professional development BCBA information in there about the non-public and that really sums up as far as what we have it is a two-year grant but we tend to use the grant within a year's time and if we don't it does roll over into that second year any questions all right so all in favor bye thank you the motion is unanimous okay up next we have the 2021 Board of Education meeting dates I move that the board approved the 2020 21 Board of Education so I took oh sorry do I have a second house I can thanks joy why your designated seconder time I don't know as long as you move the move

042that we have two meetings one on Cinco DeMayo and Saint Patrick's Day and my birthday we definitely have Patrick's Day meetings yeah we missed some celebrations this year so I just took a quick look at these dates I didn't see anything you know obvious like coinciding with holidays or anything but I didn't take a look at how it overlaps with the school calendar so was there anybody that happened to double check to make sure that there's actually school in session on these I mean hopefully like will actually be in the building for meetings but thanks for bringing that up Rose if anybody has any thoughts please share with Lisa and and we actually the other day with our masks on we're in the old purple checking this to make sure it didn't have any conflicts

043and we didn't see any it does come inside well please let us know if any if there's any issues I don't even think we hit a Monday holiday or anything here I think it all works out this year yep all right any other questions on that okay so all in favor aye aye thanks the military is unanimous okay so now we can go to subcommittee meeting schedule July through December of 2010 I move that the board approve the subcommittee meeting scheduled from July to December 2020 second okay I actually have one of my own this is something I had mentioned to my fellow finance committee members a little while ago but totally you don't remember me saying so but so on in the fall I teach on Monday evenings so if it's I don't know

044if it's possible if it's okay with you guys if we move it to another night during the week that would be helpful which meeting was that Rosa finance so Rosa I'm actually so first of all we are asking the staff to stay a little late on the whatever night it is so I'm sensitive to also John and the finance team on their schedule so but I'm okay Tuesdays are generally okay Wednesdays usually we have other conflicts before our meetings so I don't know if any of those who my going to look at whether they coincide with our meeting weeks so Thursday's are probably okay most months oh um just one thing we need to think about I think I can speak for my calendar I think Tuesday's would be okay but I know Cape is

045on Tuesdays so we want to make sure we don't interfere with Cape or if there's any change in members of subcommittees for next year that you know we don't want to have a conflict if somebody's on Finance and Cape I just have the conflict on Tuesdays Jen you're on the Cape that's right right well I can't go on Tuesdays for Cape either because now I'm starting starting my doctoral program is on Tuesday nights yeah there you go well unless I mean if you if um if you guys want to move it even just an hour earlier or an hour and a half and you can't do that yeah okay I'm full I'm fully employed during the trust me know that sometimes hard to get there at 5:30 and Thursday what I could do Thursday's usually

046yeah nothing yeah okay I knew you better Thursday's yeah I might be able to do it the other thought is do we would Jen and ROS wanna switch I don't know that that's an option but that's something else too if we want to keep two days if Tuesday become roses switch on what if I don't know because roses the board chair so it may be important for her to be on the finance subcommittee but it rose it went to Cape on Tuesday and Jen but again but Judge done John Jen's on both that's right yeah also I think Rose is really important on the finance oh I know you could probably go but not Rosa we usually use that meeting to whine rose up to go to the border finish presented us really well so

047we need to think about that this would be a kind of a Bob and Rose a question because of your experience with the Board of Finance meetings on a Wednesday is there anything we need to think about with moving to the finance subcommittee to a Thursday will that throw us off for being prepared you need to make sure it's on the Thursday before the Finance Committee meeting I can't Thursday after is the I hate to be so complicated in a full full meeting here the Board of Finance meeting what Wednesday of the month is that on is that first second what is that first third one it's absurdly okay so it's third third one fair second Wednesday I gotta go what hold on because that's what we need to have time for Ken and his

048team to do the monthly and they need time into the first week I mom so that's the only thing I was thinking about there make sure well what can I suggest we table this we have a lot of conflicts yeah we yeah and and I'll I'll get output I'll get out the Finance Board of Finance meetings I'll send those to can and will have ken what I have you do is look at those from a point of view of will you have the data to do what you need to do alright because we'll be squeezing you timewise I think so we just need to look at it and when let's see if that if that doesn't work well to think of another alternative yeah probably better do this offline than in the full the footboard

049Gambas yeah that sounds good we can work on them and at worst case I'd have to go squeeze my calendar and would start the meetings early but it sounds like it's a problem for Paul Chen and I so I can get more clarifying some of this stuff is still a little bit up in the air because I'm not even sure if the University will be like open in person and you know who knows like I might have an asynchronous class next year it's not a conflict that also so yeah do you um do we want to approve this pending sort of I think there's the conflict with tape and Finance right so what about the is everybody happy with the committee's that they're on in terms of the makeup so we can everybody's good sticking

050on their committees alright we generally don't change mid-year I just only not keep constant yeah but I you know what's the first of the meetings that's being addressed here is July so we could table it to the next meeting I think and not not get in our own way can I throw out there just for the K people would Monday's work instead of Tuesday's for you guys for me not well I have faculty meetings and professional development three Mondays a month okay yeah so I may have to switch off the camera John and Maureen we got to put that in our next contract Nagar we don't get all those days off school kid alright so I think we have to go offline on this cuz it's a little better yeah it is common I agree

051yeah each committee could take a look and get a resolution we can all circle I'll get that information and Lisa and I can circle on the calendar and put it together for the June 3rd meeting okay that sounds good all right thanks everybody so we'll just table that for now and I just like to say when I looked and said there was no conflict with Monday holidays we were talking about the board meetings of course I know the board meetings are on Wednesdays I was thinking about let me just ask a question to everybody if the conflict starts showing up in the fall right mm-hmm that that's when all so we could approve the July and August meetings right now yeah right I ourselves some time to do this right and then come back and

052revisit September to December what do you think I think about that yes that works for me that okay why don't we do that all I'll vote to amend the motion that's on the table to to be it to make it an approval for July and August all much okay have a second on the amendment I'll second okay so on favor hi thank you all right now what do we need to vote on the amended no I think you've got it I think that was sufficient as you take a vote on pushing as amended its public for all right okay so on to old business then which is our first item is our budget estimate for next year just that you guys I sent an email out to you immediately after the Board of Finance the

053last Board of Finance meeting I don't think they're gonna be changing their number at all they have canceled all of the remaining meetings in May and there wasn't any discussion further on the budget at their last meeting so it looks like June 3rd is when they will be reconvening and voting so that's two Wednesdays from now and again I don't I don't have any indication that they are going to be changing at all um so what we should let's see our first meeting in June is also the third so we probably could vote then on our actual budget adjustments then but today we should you know get sort of a better idea of where we stand and doctor Burrell has some new suggestions that I think we should talk about and hopefully we can have

054some good conversation about that so doctor Burrell do you want to I'll initiate the discussion so actually it was really helpful at this point if Eric could put the spreadsheet up on the screen for everybody to see so we could talk about it I sent this to the board on Monday this is what the board had asked for which is more of a larger list than $769,000 that we need to come up with we came out canary 1.3 million dollars in areas for us to examine none of the areas will be surprising there are all things we've been talking about for five to six months now and and I know we talked about these a great length in great detail there are some gray shaded areas that I took the time as a superintendent to

055share as what I would call not my recommendations that I want to see happen necessarily but my recommendation is considering the context in which we exist and the timing and the fact that we need to start we need to make decisions and I think the best thing I could say is I'm just going to give a little highlight and then I'll turn it back over to you Rosa into the board members there are very modest increases to the K and 1 class size guidelines based on the sections that we were looking to add based on some new enrollment projections there's no reduction in force with the exception of one small reduction in the grand scheme of the entire organization which has to do with the closing of st. Joe's and needed nursing services at this

056time we do the Spanish program remains we're able to keep our freshman and middle school athletics which includes you it's sports you don't have to go to participation fees and the the the real consequence of this this recommendation I'm putting forward is that we do delay the majority of our investments that we've been talking about for the for this budget campaign so that's kind of the high level I know you've had you know a couple of days to take a look at this individually and that's basically where I'm at if if the final decision was up to me this is where I would go at this point we need to make decisions speaking of you know the Board of Finance I know they're waiting until June 3rd to make their final decision on the budget

057there's there's a consideration that that we haven't really talked about and a couple of weeks probably since April a couple of months now since April 1st which is our non tenure teachers are still living under the threat and the pressure of being non-renewed that's all 80 plus teachers the sooner we have a budget reflective of the recommendations I'm providing here we could immediately send letters letting those teachers know they have jobs for next year and they will stay with us and and obviously all the investment we put into them and you know the camaraderie and morale and connection with students we can make sure they're employed and continuing to contribute to Brookfield so I will leave it at that thank you doctor well um so I just want you know everybody that that's listening here

058tonight um we have gotten a lot of emails you know in favor of keeping certain things and you know really asking us to go back and look at the budget and look at the budget and there's got to be somewhere else we can take it from and I just think it's really important and as I've responded to all these emails but I think it's important to lay it out here also that we have gotten to this point because we have exhaustively looked at this budget over a million dollars has already come out of it through various risk strategies and other adjustments that that are fair that come along the way but at this point you know there there really isn't anywhere else that we can think of to to look maybe some things can break

059our way in the next couple of months but that doesn't change the need to close out this year and start actually planning for next year so I just wanted to say that but I would like to hear from my fellow board members about this particular plan that's in front of us now this is Bob Caen I'm gonna make a suggestion because John just skated very quickly over all the options and what the implications are we have a lot of people who are interested in what we're doing here and I think we ought to go slowly through the spreadsheet one item by one item here is what it is and here's why John's recommending it or not recommending it right and just so everybody can hear the things we're thinking about because then we can we

060can debate you know you know whether we agree with his recommendations or not agree but I do believe that it's worth the time for us to for the for we've all had a chance to study it right I don't think the public can deal with it as this high-level quick summary so I I don't know if you guys are okay but I think we ought to take the time and do that yep absolutely everyone okay with that yeah so so Bob on that suggestion would you like me to walk through that is that kind of what the exercise is okay yeah John you oughta just do take each category do a brief description of what you're considered and then why did you recommend it or not recommend it in your highlighting here which I'm gathering

061the gray is the things that you're recommending we proceed on but I think we ought to talk about even the ones you are not recommending right and when what why you concluded them because you know what I will echo what mrs. Fernandez said is we're to the point where we're making hard decisions here this is not this isn't like oh let's just go trim here and there and go trim here and there we've already done that ten times alright it's and we've all lived through that so we're making decisions that are you know you might you're trading off things like class sizes versus sports for example and and those are nobody wants either of those but we need to be clear on John publicly you know what what your thinking process is and then the

062public ought to see what our thinking process is and then we kind of go go from there but you know at the very least John describe what it what what is the each of the categories that adds up to a million to 8007 t9 right so that and then which are you recommending it or not so that's that that would be very useful maybe five or ten minutes on then go through this list here and Eric I'm trying to look here is there's another piece to this slide because this only gets us to the 769 as you look at the spreadsheet doesn't know it okay good John what I what I did was I took the UM what I do is I took this spreadsheet and rather than scroll up and down all night I

063just moved the second column over his work work down the left column with it over on the right sure sure and actually why don't I share some good news about this as well I think I shared some of the positives of my thinking kind of in the overview ken found out today actually that our renewal for student accident insurance was reduced by 15% and that's gonna be realized in next year's budget the savings of five thousand eight hundred dollars so that that helps us you know and so that's part of you know I didn't want to change what I sent to you on Monday but that as you'll see there's some items in there that maybe we can find put that money back into so but I'll start Bob with the and Rosa would pull

064ahead pretty straightforward these are one-time purchases that we're going to they're set for next year it we're going to use as Bob mentioned it is Finance Committee report that we're going to use the under run the the additional funds we have in this year's budget due to the school closure to purchase as it's about a hundred and four thousand dollars things like furniture for new classroom sections instructional supplies for those sections and textbooks the investment in the technology program for the spatial temporal map which has had great success in our lower grades and we want to bring that forward and roll that up into our older students finishing off the science kit implementation grade to the new scheduling software that mr. Blandon needs to manage students in organized schedules in the new schedule the really

065the need we put off for at least a year the art computer lab bringing in new high-powered machines for all of the work that goes into the some of the art courses there's some technology rewiring that has to happen in the TSO that's our central office area in concert with Town Hall so err its budget eight thousand dollars for that and then instituting our pre-k curriculum so those are things that aren't necessarily a recurring year after year so we're going to buy those digital planets to purchase those now so they're not included in next year's but it's pretty straightforward and just remember for everybody listening this is to get to the seven hundred and sixty nine thousand dollars so I'm recommending those Paula heads then we have a number of other things on the table

066that I'm recommending again with the goal always staying as far from students things with dollars with budget with being more efficient again to stay away from negatively impacting students and we have Student Activity funds that we are going to be able to apply we have a transfer from the food service account on Bob talked about that again earlier tonight being a little more aggressive with those additional funds in the cafeteria fund to pay for the time that our monitors are actually monitoring lunch that's permitted and just a quick I there's always new folks from the public listening in the cafeteria count is non taxpayer monies that is those are funds from students purchasing lunch that are put into our cafeteria account that we could use to improve the cafeteria and in this case pay forward

067to take to reduce the budget and pay for some of the lunch supervisor monitors we have really I've got to get the principal's credit you know they went through their budgets line by line by line and really looked at the budget to actual they're requested proposals and really trimmed at all four buildings in also a little bit of central office as well to get to that sixty one thousand dollars on those are instructional materials and supplies but again we were looking at actual spends now the problem that the only real negative about that is that our actual spends are actual because we go on budget freezes typically they would you know utilize the majority of those funds but we've been living well within our means we're going to continue to do that professional development we

068basically are reducing by one third the time that Amanda Aaron's will be working with language arts professional development for our mainly for our ela teachers and the teachers you'll see eighty two hundred eight thousand two hundred ninety two dollars our teachers union has been incredibly supportive and gracious and trying to work with us knowing what a difficult budget time it is they typically have twenty thousand dollars by contract that we have to have in an account budgeted for them for individualized for the most part professional learning opportunities annually they work with mister quas the union president and graciously said you know reduce it make it work for whatever you need to work for dr. Borel and so we reduced it but we didn't zero it out because we still want to have some opportunities if

069teachers wanted to engage in professional development specifically on their own not the kind that's supported directly by the district and we're at a point now where we really need to reduce it all and would work with the teachers union we executed in MOA and we can't thank them enough for helping to contribute to controlling our budget as best we can so there's another one where yeah before you move on could you or dr. ruby talk about you know the the implications of you know reducing some of this professional development especially with you know Amanda Erin's you know it seems like we professional development is one of the first places that we end up trimming and we trim and we trim and we freeze year after year and I really would like the public to understand

070you know what that does in terms of our ability to support the district's mission yeah you know I would say Rose I'm going to turn it over to dr. ruby in just a second the old saying goes if you don't move forward you fall behind we all have to be lifelong learners our staff is no exception and when I say staff I don't just mean our teachers it's our paraprofessionals or administrators we have to keep learning and learning and learning all the time and so we have to believe in it and I think more than it's the first thing necessarily cut I definitely think it's one of the first things people look at right away on they start talking about well just cut there it's really such a critical component in all the things in

071our strategic plan that we have implemented over the last four years as a board as a community as an administrative team as a faculty I've contributed to the incredible results we've had and everything has contributed to that you know matters then you can't just point to one particular thing there's a number of variables that professional development is an enormous part of that in improving organizational capacity I'll leave it there and turn it over to dr. Ruby specifically to talk about some of the items on that list dr. Ruby I'll be brief originally we had $60,000 planned so it's more than a third we're down to we've cut two-thirds and we're at one-third of what we originally budgeted by cutting the professional development it just simply means that we're going to have one-third of the amount

072of professional development that we had originally anticipated I mean Aaron supports our k-8 teachers in the implementation of the teachers coloreds curriculum which was purchased prior to John and I being here and there wasn't a PD plan for implementing that it was just purchased there was a professional developer who was doing some work in the district but she was not and the appropriate person for implementing the PD so we we had a little per year to find Amanda Aaron's and it just means that if we have twenty thousand dollars to spend on PD that that's the will have to be very skillful in cherry-picking the work that we can do and that's really about all I can say all right thank you I think that was just important for for people to hear um you

073know it just seems like PD is is unfortunately you know some of the things that always gets cut and you know it's it's sort of critical to what we're trying to support but thank you for adding that extra clarity all right so I would recommend that we reduce in those areas so there's the first year and the second year the next year that was on the table that we discussed with the Spanish program the Spanish program K through six that we had discussed is our exploratory Spanish program and it is a beloved program and the one of the solutions if we were to eliminate what really the solution if we were to eliminate the Spanish program was that we would have to have a backfill on the loss of the two elementary teachers the plan

074would be to backfill that with a science and social studies curriculum extension opportunity which is critical because at elementary school and that this is no secret in any elementary school probably in Connecticut but you know certainly in Brookfield with the work we've been trying to do with the length of our school day we're bringing in a new curriculum you know we really could use more time in social studies in science and we exhausted this discussion last week but we would reduce for Spanish teachers eliminate the k-6 program and only save half the money so there's some thinking that we needed to do there and also it's it's really a popular and beloved program that I know many of the board members know is important it hear from our constituents that's very important students really enjoy

075it and so while I was able to look around and look at other priorities and other reductions in my recommendation here I'm suggesting we leave the Spanish program as is okay the next if we continue on so I'm going to the top of the next column for anybody at home watching so this was our investments column these are things that we put forward because we need to have them we need we need to move forward of them for student learning but we are functioning without them in spite of ourselves right you know there's things we know we need we want to produce and we want to provide for our students and these are things such as an additional TESOL teacher that would give us to in the district instead of the one that we have

076now a math interventionist at the high school we have a number of students that you need to struggle or are new to us who continue to struggle and we want to ensure that they have all the opportunities to learn math the way they need to and meet the standards that we expect of them as readily as possible this also folds into partly into the new schedule that mr. Blaine has developed at the high school then similarly at the because we do have interventionist opportunity at the middle school at the elementary school we're looking to add a few math tutors those would be non-certified folks in terms of how they would be compensated you may hire a certified teacher that is not is doing the true the role but the that's where you can see the

077cost is much lower than it then for multiple people that are part-time and so that's that's another piece again your risk with with the TESOL teacher or the tutors or the math and Rebekah's is that you you risk not meeting the needs of all of your students that's that's the bottom line with that and then the handwriting text was such a minimal cost and it's already part of our program we needed to continue rolling that up through the grades and ensuring the full implementation didn't make sense to touch that the cross-country coach while we already have a cross-country coach there's an incredibly popular sport at the middle school we handled it with the 70 or so students with the one and so we're trying to look at opportunities and so I have that now as

078a reduction quick sidenote with the savings we've just realized in the student accident insurance I think this is an area we probably might want to replenish and take that off the reduction list and then the security service well that was a recommendation from one of our one of the consultants in taking a look at security it was really a security service to not only secure for safety in general maybe maybe checking in at doors at after-school games and things like that it was more a security service to secure the property and be walking the buildings because our custodians should be cleaning there they're not to provide and not there to provide security although they're there to help and keep an eye on things and so it was a recommendation it wasn't a immediate need or

079threat or major recommendation the security task force was a big part of that discussion so they certainly did opine to suit my recommendation to reduce that but again this is you know we only have so many dollars and we need to get to seven hundred and sixty nine dollars so the investments with a lengthy answer here these these we've lived without them so we have to sometimes you have to finance your goals and you have to yeah you have to delay what you need to do and so that's the thinking that went into it's very simple athletics we heard quite a bit from our contingent constituency heard quite a bit from our board members that this was an area we really didn't want to go near which was all the social emotional reasons that we

080talked about athletics or any activities for that matter where students are able to be part of a group be part of something bigger than themselves set goals be part of the team and just learn so many great life lessons it's just such a healthy activity we didn't want to get into taking away athletics so I'm not recommending that we touch middle school athletics which does include our war training literally number one in the state Unified sports program and it wouldn't make sense to perhaps leave middle school sports and cake freshmen sports out or have eighth graders who've missed out on all these opportunities and then they go to high school next year and say hey welcome to BHS now you can't participate it's just too it's just too important to kids and so took that

081off the list and work really hard with Ken on the numbers and pulled out the recommendation for participation fees didn't want to go there again heard from people that this was a regressive tax and believe me it's one of the first for me it was I thought it was low-hanging fruit when we really started digging into the budget and obvious when you first got on the board we dug in and we were able to take participation fees out in the first budget that we did together so we don't want to go back there and then the next part is increasing taking a look at class sizes we have very low class size guidelines here in Brookfield that we're proud of and really work hard to stick to the kindergarten and grade one sections these are

082additional sections we were adding for increasing enrollment to really stay at I think an average of 19 18 19 kids in a class we are able to again these are not existing sections if we don't add the extra kindergarten section to go from it would be nine to ten and we reduce one of the requested grade one sections we planned to go from eight sections to ten and just make that nine sections who reduce those two we save a considerable amount of money and as you can look the average class size estimates are still 21 point one and essentially 21 for both K and one so I think that's very reasonable it's a modest increase and so again trying to balance priorities and make hard decisions that's the thinking that went into that we even

083heard from miss mrs. Larson when a borrower comp crackerjack kindergarten teachers have said you know she would rather have every resource you can have and lower class size but whatever happens we're professionals and we'll make it work we're all in it we're all tough time this year and so these are the tough decisions we have to make we wouldn't touch any sections in grade 3 or 4 this is how we'll start to get at the no reduction in force of walking but earlier you add the Spanish not taking that out you don't move the grade 3 in 4 sections you get to a point where you're not reducing or laying people off which is really another priority I heard from our desire I heard from from the public and from the board and then finally

084you heard me mention that st. Joe's has has closed and so right now under the way the state law works the PUC the local public school has to fund the non-public schools nursing services and so we provide one full nurse between San Jose and a Christian life Academy with San Jose closing it only makes sense the logical decision that we would need a half nurse to handle Christian Life Academy there is one caveat though student needs change on a dime as we all know in many times nursing services fall on the under the auspices of pupil personnel services which also is under the umbrella of special education and so there may be needs that arise at Christian life where it is demanded that we have to have a full-time nurse for a student or two

085that may have very significant health concerns so we always just need to be ready for that but it's a logical step to take that out at this appointment and then with the reduction of the two sections of kindergarten and grade one there's not a need to increase the PE section the point one so I said that's an easy aligned reduction and then we took a look at you know reducing extended duty again that goes into what Rosa was asking dr. ruby about which is kind of the extended duty which really is the curriculum writing folds right in with the same logic on the professional development and we looked at reducing that to make the budget work again it's less curriculum work that gets done and the curriculum professional development teaching and learning that's our business

086that's the backbone of our or work but perhaps some of that savings from the student insurance that we just found out about today could be put back there to make that less of a reduction that guess what's the $769,000 I hope that was helpful yeah so it's also important for the public to understand that some of the numbers that we have here are already reduced in a previous sort of iteration and deliberation and of this budget so when you see like for example the extended duty that still is a reduced this that still is a reduced item this is just you know in this round of sort of budget deliberations a further reduction of 5300 so you know I don't want people to think that's sort of you know we're just trimming off a little

087off of extended duty we've already as dr. Ruby pointed out before we've we've really cut into some things already what you're seeing here are just additional additional cuts so I think my my only concern is is really the the math tutors I feel I know that's it's a new investment but I you know the risk you mentioned about you know not meeting the needs of some students troubles me I know we've we've seen you know our math scores you know I think our kids need help in that area Rose I'd have to agree with you especially going into the situation that we're in now they're predicting about a 50% decline in math proficiency for the students coming in in September so I would say that that's very important to put back those math tutors and

088for sure given the circumstance that we're into yeah I'd also like to say the cross-country coach I think is very important I think 70 athletes to one coach is not acceptable and it puts us in a very bad position with title not and time online so yeah yeah enjoy that was it was so nice to hear when he was very excited when he called me know ken is not known for his exuberance but he was very excited to find a reduction today in the indian surance so i was thinking that's a--that's a really very easy area to find that and be able to take that off the reduction list with that in 58 and 59 hundred dollars savings and insurance again when you can see on the actual management operation those are those efficiencies when

089you get the opportunity you certainly want to be able to utilize that I think we can get that back back into the budget John is there anything that we if school were to be like fully closed again in the fall is there anything is a tan you know come September that we might be able to you know maybe add back into the budget sort of you know like because if we have big savings and transportation again you know could we have math tutors that are that could maybe work distance and so we can you know something yeah Rosa I would say you know that's something again you know you've heard me say this before we have we this administration this this Board of Ed the former Board of Education we pride ourselves on being agile

090and versatile you know we really do this is something we've talked about in my superintendent report I was talking about all of the you know the contingencies and flexibility we need to have in our thinking to be ready for the fall if we were to be fully distance-learning there might be a savings for sure and and you can you can order see from from Ken talking about it a little bit and Bob's or or can I significant savings when you're closed I mean there just is but we also need to know on the other end of that there you know there's always a yin and the yang if we're in school this the the reopening school team is going to be working there may be resources we really need yeah just doing some skin some

091not some simple math but some simple just taking a look and planning the partitions that may need to be purchased additional tutors additional staff because you have to socially distance and you can't just have kids by themselves you know when people socially distance in their office is very well it's not easy it's not it doesn't even come close to the challenge of trying to operate a school you have adults duck walk or even wear masks they'll spread out you could put a partition up they'll come in at different times they provide their own transportation you know you can make it work I've been part of the town hall meetings in getting ready to reopen Town Hall you know that it's under mr. Dunn's leadership it's very straightforward what you need to do it's very different

092in a school and so I don't want to get too sidetracked here while we might have savings if we're not in school and we don't want that to happen of course yep we're likely gonna have expenses and you know I don't want to even think about quantifying those at this time we're not there yet if we're in school or in a hybrid some kids are in some kids are out you know every other day all these things that people put out there as logistical opportunities so I just wanna put that out there as part of the conversation for people to be oh yeah it's a good point I'm sure even if we have savings you know math tutors are gonna just be scratching the surface of what we really need very good chance of that

093the other thing I wasn't I mentioned to the TESOL teacher I mean our demographics are changing you know I can't imagine kemon doing all of that testing all of our you know ENL students and you know our need in that area is just gonna continue to grow and it just seems that we're not doing our due diligence if we're not going to put that back into the budget to help you know some of our most needy students yeah - Joyce point you know let that I do hear that a lot about increasing SL population kid I don't some maybe some of the principles maybe give some insight onto what that looks like or maybe Maureen or John like how true is that is there a quantity on what the increase is I mentioned last month

094a lot two weeks ago that we're probably going to have I think Emma gave me a number of could be as many as 15 new students keep in mind that while that is a real number we also do such a great job and it gets harder with more kids with the number of staff we have that many of our kids exit but kids continue to move in so it's just a projection we don't know and again that's endemic is so different than anything we've seen we don't know families are gonna be moving in together you know what oh how that's all gonna work out here and broke though we just done that if it's moving to be a lot more like you know how many kids like kind of in this program toll like how

095many is so the only one we have right now is Kevin as far as a t soul right in three kut'rs and Kevin three tutors and about a hundred I know that I'm not the you know in front of me but it's our bottom so over 100 have we also have another TESOL teacher we had kemon does not service students she's she oversees the k-12 language program and the k-12 ESL program we have one full-time TESOL teacher and we have three part-time tutors - that are paid for out of our operating budget one additional that we pay for out of a grant and we we are doing well in terms of how our students are performing we were about our date I looked at the data with kemon earlier this week because we got our

096test results back it's about the same but we are anticipating you know the the one TESOL teacher is itinerant over the four school buildings and the tutors are apportioned to work certain hours and days in the different buildings chemin works with providing professional development to regular ed classroom teachers in the buildings and works with providing making sure that our TESOL teacher we talked about pd being important getting professional learning and support as well as the tutors we put in for this TESOL teacher because we believe that in order to provide the students with the service that they need that it's very difficult for one full-time teacher to service four buildings with the support of three Paris so we asked for it because we felt that we needed it and every single year our TESOL population

097goes up as john said it is true we do exit people but as they as they exit as I'm making this number up as five exit eight come in so it's you know it's not an equal in an outflow that we've seen historically we just for you know you weren't on the board previously we have we recognized this need for an additional TESOL teacher years ago when we put in for two TESOL teachers that we cut one and um it was kind of a trade off for Paris and our Paris are wonderful but we do need another TESOL teacher but if we're not able to have one we will do the best that we can do what about Amy Debbie Jen and I'm sorry I know you just asked them that can I just jump

098in really quick and I'd like to really look at putting some of the the pulla heads back in you know and still looking at eliminating the elementary Spanish and really considering the you know st math and the science kits the cola head things we're gonna get now I'm reading it now right so Joey the polar heads were getting we're just right we're buying it with the the budget under run this year and so we're just taking it out at next year's budget - right okay so we're getting all those we're definitely getting all those it's just coming on in the budget so you know I mean obviously none of these things are good to lose and we could all make arguments for all of them I guess I'm hearing you know from from John thinking

099what is he what is he what is most essential does he think that the district needs and what are things that we can wait and then I do hear that we do have - I'm hearing that the untenured teachers we do may need to make a decision to let them know because that's a big piece we we got to keep our good people we don't want our untenured teachers applying for jobs and looking elsewhere during this sort of unsettled time so I do feel like we need to make a decision and I I think overall I would support John's recommendations in and John just for my own clarification just because I want to make sure the reduction in kindergarten and grade one those are new those were additional ones right so that we're not actually

100we're reducing correct currently have we're just not adding correct the one kindergarten section and the two originally it was two originally grade one sections those three total sections at Center School were proposed new sections based on projected enrollment you know not well projected kindergarten enrollment in actual none enrollment for grade one so there were new sections it would not impact any of our current teachers in terms of it would reduce those sections it wouldn't affect the current teachers that it rose it can I can I ask some I feel like we haven't really talked about the math and adventurous yeah enjoy yeah joy just said 50% I forgot what I heard I remember the 50% yeah they're saying they're estimating a decrease in fifty percent proficiency in math more than Eli a lot more than

101mila i mean that uh you know i always kind of viewed i well you know it's not ideal I've always kind of viewed the Spanish K through six program kind of a you know the more efficient of these painful cuts because it adds more social studies which is you know good and now I see that we can add more social studies and math I mean my baby Mike on the the proposal if we were to eliminate the Kasich Spanish was we we by contract that there's a lot that goes into it we went around and around for a long time last last time so I don't want to have to revisit all of it but we our plan would be to do curriculum in we develop a curriculum extension opportunity and science and social studies

102but we'd have to backfill that with two teachers right okay I just want you to know that that's that's well that's the that's the one seventy eight and one of them is not four hundred thousand dollars that's why it's only a hundred eighty tumor right well act and it wouldn't but it's science and social studies not math that's all I'm talking about the math and event venture list and the tutors like you add those tutors in yes get them back by cutting Spanish right yeah that's so I am correct in saying that we did my proposed license in math by the K through six exploratory bathroom and that was in my proposal last week and I didn't sense the support from the board that that was something the board wanted to do I didn't get

103I mean I guess I think I was always on that contract now you kind of put the numbers on it it's easier to say so I write for yeah I know you know we had those numbers there as well and so that that's an annual discussion we have when we get down to this crunch time right it's there every single year so I mean I think it's it's it's unfortunate I know that no matter what we decide tonight we are going to upset a group of people except for cutting the investments and I think people you know unless they're intimately involved with sort of you know what we talk about in these meetings I don't you know but because we're so intimately involved in all of these investments to me those are really important because

104they they are our path to the future they if we completely eliminate and abandon any sort of plan we're gonna come out of this Cove it'd you know crisis you know really far behind and I think in a really bad position and I think we are unfortunately just we're in this position of of having to upset some people but we have to remember you know that we have to have a plan we have to have to keep thinking of the future so you know as painful as it is you know I I do think we need to look at some stuff that we have and maybe prioritize what we need over it is there does it make sense at all I'm trying to work the numbers in my head does it make sense at all

105to consider reducing Spanish for just kindergarten and first grade maintaining Spanish 2 through 6 instead of K through 6 you know and getting a savings of you know I don't know I know they're not it's not a whole position the kindergarten and first grade but would there be enough savings taking a piece of Spanish out that we could perhaps save you know the math interventionist or the math tutors or TESOL teacher what it wouldn't be all of those but we've explored that talked about it part of the part of the issue is like we talked about last week is the backfill on Elementary so if the priority is exploratory we're all language and that's the board's priority if the board's priority is more more social studies in science time then that would be the plan

106we would go with if we eliminated center school and huckleberry Spanish the problem to what we've asked the same question you've asked every the problem with that is that part of the equation is not a budget savings so if it's strictly a you know there's priorities here in value and that's the board needs to decide that but you're not going to get a budget savings because you have to have a backfill at the elementary school this actual savings dollars comes from the positions at the middle school because you're able to move the students around and not have to have an a.1 for one teacher backfill no and it wouldn't make sense to have a Spanish program at the elementary school but not have it for hittin sixth grade and then starting again that wouldn't make

107any sense so that's we that's been bandied about over the years as well but it's a great question you know when you're trying to you know problem solver can I ask a question about and maybe the elementary school principals might be able to answer this but so I see you know we have NGSS science kits for for those for our elementary grades how is science and you know how is the time for science and social studies being allocated now and how would you anticipate it you know changing I mean in addition obviously if we get rid of Spanish we have like a whole extra period every week to do something but I'd like to understand first like how you know are we are in are we in a crunch time right now for in the

108elementary levels with science and social studies I think we already answered that we said that they would be getting more time for socializing science first like seem type but is it a problem how they're doing it now it's at the elementary I understand in the middle school it honestly seems to make perfect sense science and social I have always been on the back burner and they have they don't do it every day I mean it's it's been neglected for years so I don't know how we keep supporting a program that only gets proficient low proficiency for an exploratory program but we're willing to sacrifice science and social studies I don't understand why we keep having this conversation I mean if we want to put academics first and I know some people are very passionate about

109it and I know people are passionate about certain things but we keep going around and round we're trying to protect something that we're scared about what people are going to think it's not we're scared about how people think we're trying to protect it because it's a good freakin program our children have no proficiency yet it doesn't make sense you can measure think the proficiency and you can measure things on the wholeness of the child and you guys have heard me give my speech about why why language is important for young children to get exposure to language we never entered into this program to make our kids proficient professional Spanish speakers we did it because it was good for the kids and so you're talking about it like it's a fungible thing it's not just a

110fungible thing it's a good thing and I understand your point by the way on trading it off against other priorities I'm okay but don't discard it not people are gonna get angry at us it's a good program and we talked about this early on in the budget process we said if it's not working we need to fix it we don't need to get rid of it but I think and I think this is what how we fix again working for at I think it's working for what we expect it to be we don't expect it to be a language program we expect it to be an exposure program and as we know the young line develops I mean you don't just not talk to a baby because they're not gonna converse back no you talk

111to a baby because that is how their brain develops and it's good for their brain development to have that exposure to those multiple language sounds those have you know implications and and that's really an investment long long term that's if we value it you know and I it is very it's difficult to me because I I see the value in even an exposure program but you know I I do want to hear from our elementary principals in terms of how is science and social studies you know how is it happening now how would it happen ideally we can certainly turn it over to Melissa or Mary Rose did ever like this universe so from center school perspective we as Joyce said we there we're always kind of fighting for time for science and social studies

112so it becomes a lot it's easier at the elementary level to embed the concepts into literacy and look for those kind of interdisciplinary kinds of things so we're you know we're doing a nonfiction science units and we're talking about the science that's in the happy Sofia the standard you mean that that kind of thing so it's easier to embed it I think at the at the elementary level but it's definitely something we are looking for time to make sure that we're covering all the standards adequately and at huckleberry we four days a week um is allocated to Stan's or social studies which is about 35 minutes a day four days a week usually the teachers teach science or social studies in cycle so they may teach a science unit and then switch to a social

113studies unit you know for example in fourth grade they actually do a rotation where the kids go to the classroom different fourth grade teachers so I mean we're always looking for more time that you know time would be great but they are doing either science or social studies four days a week huckleberry I should say to the deaths at least been my experience in in other dishes I've worked as well I don't know if that's being experienced about but that that's kind of how it has been that there's science the alternate science especially sometimes it's by the day sometimes it's by the unit so there's definitely that's I don't think that's necessarily unusual at least in my experience working in elementary schools in Connecticut and my colleagues and that kind of thing talking with them

114but it's again it's something that we would love time for it to do a lot of different things and certainly especially bizarre them Oh guys I I had a thought as I was looking at us that may be a reasonable middle ground if I could give up you know just share that with everyone the I always approach questions like this with two things in my mind one is what do I have and are we going in one direction or another and I'm only I do value the fact that we have a program that we've developed over the years and we've gotten investments we'd like to make or need to make I should say to the benefit of our students so I don't just discard programs lightly unless there's truly a heavy priority I don't just

115I don't eliminate jobs in this environment unless we can avoid it to be frank so it really is valuable to think about our new investment those jobs we don't have yet it's a bird in the hand versus a bird in the bush type of thinking there's an option in here though knowing that we need more support in TESOL and we need more support and math to maybe take a half step on the on the Spanish language program leave it as it is at the elementary school for this year we don't have to make a massive shift from from Spanish to something else in elementary school right that's just that's a that's a curricular decision we should have our keep committee go look and is that a better trade often we can do that at the

116rate and pace that we'd like to do it and not as part of the budget and it's a zero budget savings you know the whatever we decide in elementary school I would suggest that's where you've got the very popular program it's where it has its most positive impact for kids as you get to the middle school we're talking about fifth and sixth graders when you go look at the statistics I sent around to everybody on the amount of hours we actually want to but top districts in all the comparison group on the amount of language we're providing the fifth and sixth graders and in particular I remember this discussion when mr. Enda and dr. ruby brought us the discussion fifth grade in particular still has the double need for language arts and sixth grade and

117seventh grade it starts declining away and that's when you can start introducing more and more see more and more language that's why world languages traditionally started as seventh grade type of program so one thought would be half our investment in fifth and sixth grade there's two positions take it to one ask mr. Renda to go look at how the scheduling would work and how can we have some reasonable amount of world language for fifth and sixth graders but it's lower than we have today it would probably still be competitive against what other districts do and not disappear completely save half of that amount of money and invest it in some of the the needs we have up above and and maybe we put I wouldn't put it the high-school intervention program because quite frankly we

118just made a decision on redoing the block period so that we could have more direct teacher intervention at the high school and I would actually considered putting some into some TESOL support or the math tutors to be frank and the math tutors at the elementary level and so I think there's a room here for a half step as I guess my point mister you're looking at me really weird like oh no no I don't mind I just I want to be one person that s you know both the specials from I've been sick that could happen but I have to say if that was the case then it would cut we wouldn't be able to have the amount of push in that we currently have it at the end up being it'd be different the

119amount of time I know you'd end up what you'd end up doing is probably trading off the push in and letting the science and social studies start increasing with those with those teachers and that's where it's going to be most valuable in my opinion is as you start getting the kids are at the age we're getting the more advanced texts and the more original content stuff it's really you know that fifth and sixth grade is a transitional period if you're going to go invest in more hours and science and social studies I think that's where I'd do it first before I go start doing it at the kindergarten first grade second grade level that's just me because I mean I've had a wife who's been a science teacher and she said getting kids in the

120youngest grades it's not as valuable as it is those fifth graders she says are very impressionable and if you can get more of that stuff in there instead of language and still do some language right maybe in the special so the UNH block you know you got something that keeps the language going but you acknowledge that we we got some momentum early and we're bridging to the full program in seventh grade and I hear what you're saying I just want it again just clarify that we did talk about if that was the case that this students in specials again we could do those things but if they taught those if we didn't have the budget but we had the time you could have it for a semester in but not over and then not have

121it again the rest of the year or held at the end of the year so it wouldn't be consistent enough to continue to you know be not as much knowledge I guess is is the way um we talked phone and again I'm just giving you an idea of what I'm making but racing the fact that it's an exposure program not a skills program okay and I think that's that idea can be explored to Bob's client with the cave committee and certainly miss miss Holly is not with us tonight but that's just i'm not comfortable saying that yes we're going to go back and make that decision that has to be explored as a curriculum and instruction decision that we would have to make we seem to be willing to throw away the program altogether without

122going through that process so that's I'm kind of going down to middle Court middle ground here but I quite frankly I looked at your list of recommendations and I would embrace your recommendations as you presented them and keep that program and keep the bird in the hand and and not be investing in not progressing right I'd love to progress but we wouldn't be progressing in a really difficult budget year but but it's if as a second alternate is something that's a small step in order to get a little bit of progress doesn't bother me too much but I wouldn't eliminate a program that I think it's valuable very you know with a stroke of a pen about to summarize your thinking perhaps were able to eliminate one world language position specifically at the middle school

123to where you and Dean were just going back and forth and we could use those funds to fund a specific investment I'm going to say it very clearly if we put your proposal to a vote I would vote for it yes board is uncomfortable I offer that as an alternative to a thank you John I see the the note by the way I agree with Bob I just want to say that before we move on to another question I see the note at the bottom about Deb on which part do you agree just so we're clear I'm in favor of keeping K through six Spanish if we can't keep the whole program I think Bob offered a good alternative so what I wanted to move on to is the note at the bottom about if

124a kindergarten teacher and a first-grade teacher are removed from the budget the there's money that we don't have to spend on supplies furniture and textbooks so is it correct that that the numbers that you have in the pulla heads are not reflective of reducing the kindergarten teacher and the grade one teacher I believe they are I better let me take this one because I'm the one who pushed them to put that foot on there so Deb in the poll ahead we took that money out of next year's budget right we said we were gonna spend it this year right if we don't have those sections we don't have to spend it in either year right right so but the fact it's important for our budget considerations it's already out right because we said we were

125going to pull it forward so you don't have any further savings by by by not having those sections because you already took it out you thought you were gonna pull it ahead and so now what you're just not going to spend it in this year instead of next year that make sense but wouldn't that free up twenty three thousand dollars from this year maybe we guess it would actually let us under run our budget more this year right so is there something else that can be saved with because we can't the polar heads are on all these you know one-time non-recurring purchases so we can't you know take that and use it for a position or or something like that because you know it's all of our under one's just gonna revert back to the

126down well what like why couldn't we use it for like instructional supplies under Spanish or handwriting texts because it's just gonna create sort of a bubble the next yeah what what that does if we use this year's additional funds from the under run to purchase non one-time things in next year's budget just for the sake of reducing the budget which I appreciate where you're coming from what happens is it creates a false lower budget next year and then when we start this discussion again in December and have to put the real numbers back in of what we actually need to spend and then he proposed increases and those yeah it looks like a bigger increase you got it's a false increase in and you've been part of this board for a long time now you

127see even the budget to actual conversation we have due to freezes produces so much confusion frustration anxiety all that you know between the different count elected boards well we're trying to you know so that's why we're using the pull ahead strategy for just those one-time pieces we don't want to continue you know we're looking long-term you know the art of the long view and we don't want to confuse the budget going down the road okay yes the rationale behind it so the other thing I'm looking at I I know it's not a lot of money but I can't I don't quite understand the reduction of point one FTEs for the PE teacher because overall our enrollment is up over last year right or this over this year and we're adding one additional section at center

128school so do we still need a reduction point one we took that we took it out right if it's me taking them yeah so we if we were going to add three sections we need to point the one-tenth FTE of physical education if we only add the one section we're not going to need that so that's why you wouldn't need the the cost of the point one PE goes away so like that was an ad Debbie and we don't need it anymore okay that's what I thought was my question I didn't realize it was an ad before and now it's okay I got it yeah I'd like to respond to Bob's point if I could you know about the being value you know it being valued and that I mean if it's sold value why

129don't we call a world language program why on the call Spanish program seems like we've gone back and forth we don't know what to call this it's so valued we call it world language and Spanish program just seems hasn't been very organized for very long I mean I'm new the board here but also I want to make the point that you cut the Spanish program you add back in a math interventionalist three math tutors the cross-country coach and you still $50,000 left over I mean this is a I mean how do we how are we gonna say to the town that we care about equity when we can add to our math science social studies add to our cross country codes one for seventy kids one coach for seventy kids we have to add another

130coach there I mean it's only 2000 bucks but we can add a math interventionist three tutors and a coach and still fifty thousand dollars left over if we cut the world language program or Spanish program or whatever calling it I'm not saying don't value foreign language cuz I do but that's kinda I mean I I got to come to a responsibility here of we can add to the math to Joy's point 50% reduction I don't know where that stat came from I love to know if it's you know how true it is or you know we could back it up but that's that's that's significant I think we got to talk about that 50 now now we're talking about what do you want to add back in with fifty thousand instead of what we have

131to cut additionally a question to you and Loreen regarding the math interventionists how what kind of effect will that have on special ed maybe I think you know I think Gina is on and I think I'd like to ask Gina to answer that question I'm perfectly happy to do it but I think she can really give you on this perspective from what what the we know we know basically that as regular education students who have gaps and math we need to provide them with intervention under the state s RBI guidance documents however that being said there's a bigger impact from a legal standpoint in special ed when students are referred to special education and there's certain paperwork and as the director of special services Gina can you please speak to that yes you know we

132go to PPT and there is a student who has not been provided intervention within the specific area it is very hard to identify them the learning disability because we have to show that it was not a lack of instruction so the intervention piece you know is significant when we when we are identifying students we do have to make sure that it is in a lack of instruction and we can't do that if we don't have the intervention piece for the students and so current that's a current need that we have because what there are two forms in the state of Connecticut I'm sure other states have their own similar forms but we have what's called a reading worksheet and a math worksheet and those are documents that need to be filled out by the regular

133education department so classroom teachers and interventionists that are in regular edie when a child goes to a PPT and if they're having problems they've gotten you know poor assessments they're having problems in class week but we haven't provided interventionist in a in a structured way we can't feel the forum because it's the state forum specifically asks you provided the intervention how many times a week it was provided for what amount of time and what was provided and right now we're having challenges with that because while we can today they're getting help from their teachers we really don't have the human resources to provide what is detailed in the state s RBI guidance document that's correct that then becomes Gina's problem when she has children that are referred to special ed we're all set with that

134meeting we have that well under control but this is a district need in addition to providing services to students that they need in meaning the mandates in special education all right so does anybody have any specific questions I mean I feel like we're gonna we're gonna just beat around the bush and we have to we have to just get to a point where where we make these actual decisions I mean Rosa do you want to ask is is if who's in favor of voting for John's recommendation just to get you can actually just we can actually just vote on it and then you get a sense of the group yeah I mean can I can I just say well we're kind of just add more thing so I inquired about cost savings for appliances that

135are used in the classroom so that could be nine thousand dollars that we can use to save positions that directly impact students I don't know how that works though with the budget as far as finances because that would be a cost savings in the future Joey would you like me to just respond to that because I was I really appreciated that question sure and especially with you being the chair of the facility committee I think it's really a great question so I think overall that is something that that's an estimate that that I provided to you guys from mr. Caldwell from the work he did back in the summer big picture just reminding the board that a couple of years ago we looked at in energy savings program that we were looking to initiate it

136just it didn't work out didn't get off the ground something I think I'd recommend that as the facility committee and you know working with joy that we can work with Dan and Ken and pursue that again one of the things while it may look simple and I'm not suggesting you're saying this Jones and just saying in general when you say oh well if we you know we unplug all the a number of appliances we might save $9,000 typically on that particular estimate of these refrigerators and one of the things that we would have to look at it very strategically you can't just say everybody eliminate because there's a lot of exceptions there maybe and I can't speak to all of us but there's specimens and some we also have lactation considerations in some of these

137refrigerators so we don't want to just go broad rush and say we're going to take all those out and that's going to save us $9,000 put it somewhere else we have to be very specific it doesn't mean we can't find those savings and put it towards something else but I just wanted to provide that perspective I think ultimately in a more organized energy savings plan that would be a place we absolutely will save right away on but it is something we can continue to look at there's no doubt about it and John if we let's say for argument's sake we approved we want with your recommendations and then is there a possibility that we discover that we're have a little more saving somewhere for whatever reason could the board when that's discovered say with that

138savings we're going to do X if it's operational savings it's very very straightforward if you're looking I'm not sure if you're thinking about personnel savings at all gen that becomes a whole different complex situation but are you thinking more efficiency savings that we could find and then we could apply them because we definitely could I mean yeah I was thinking more efficiency say yeah absolutely those are things like we found today the savings insurance I mean immediately my thought was with that $5,800 the the first two things I thought of because it's not a large amount of money but we could put that and it was in my mind was Joy's question earlier this week about about the appliances in energy savings we put that toward the the cross-country coach at the middle school and

139we could put that toward adding back the extended duty that I have in my proposal here I think it's a reduction of fifty three hundred so we could you know we could we could get some of that back most of that back all of it back so it you know those are absolutely areas that as we find them we could apply in other areas keeping in mind again the yin and yang of everything is as the natural progression of the year goes on and we expend our budget estimate we also have cost overruns in areas and those efficiencies many times backfill cost overruns so and we've already taken a huge risk just sort of get to this risk in special education but we know the Board of Finance has put that two hundred ninety four

140thousand dollars aside for us so we go to them with those needs as I understand how it's going to work mechanically my worry is the salary line savings risk right now we only have that we only know about miss Llewellyn's retirement we don't know of other retirements and if I remember correctly my recollection of 2008 when this one went down and a lot of us remember that when the economy went south a number of teachers who were ready to retire administrators as well looked at their other supplemental retirement accounts and realized I might need to work a couple more years and they didn't retire that's something that could very well happen by this time we usually have a sense if we don't have all of it in writing we have a sense of you know

141maybe two more teachers or two more you know folks that might be thinking about retirement I have not heard that and our principals are paying close attention to that and we just haven't heard it and that's typically where you get you know you typically get some savings oh that's a big risk so guys weak but we could vote on a budget and have it be subject to the Board of Finance approving their budget right so that we actually have a vote in place and if Wednesday you know when the Board of Finance votes and they say it's the same number it just automatically you know it takes effect so we could go through our voting process tonight I actually think the Board of Finance would find that useful to tell you the truth the or

142we could take direction vote I think Jen that's where you were heading to which is is this what we would be willing to support if you know when we get there so and and I just offer those both those alternatives and but I do think it's probably useful for us to we're not there's certain things we're not going to agree on so let's go figure out where the mood of the board is only majority one foot or the other and let's start exercising ourselves well well I'll go ahead and make the motion I move to approve the reductions a 2021 2020 2021 budget as recommended by the superintendent okay Bob that's you I got one so does anybody have any further discussions on this and feel free if this is not where you like feel

143free to vote nay so I'm actually gonna blow this up cuz I don't see everybody on my screen I wanna make sure this the savings John that you were mentioning with the insurance are we able to put some things by a vote to put things back in right now you're on mute you're on mute John we could put it right in you know it's right here in the minutes it's on record that we could amend the emotion to accept the superintendent's recommendation as as discussed with the ad in the ad back of the whiskey near cross-country coach and apportionment of the extended duty you know based on the savings and insurance I'm being complicated with my language I'm sorry joy but it's fifty eight hundred dollars so I mean we can easily get the cross-country

144coach back take the balance and put that back into extended duty it wouldn't recover the full 5,300 an extended duty but it would get us almost halfway there and then what about Bob's suggestion about middle school Spanish are we gonna go through the exercise of looking at what that would save does anybody feel like that's worth doing I paraphrase Bob's proposal it was an elimination of one position and I want Dean to be part of this he believes that schedule can work you know hey I want to run this when I went into the next cave meeting not till next month when not until next month yeah and I told June the third Tuesday in June what does that date the 16th June 16th yeah I think it's tricky because I think what you brought

145up before bob is these are real curricular decisions yeah and by just I mean I understand when you're coming from it was a good compromise suggestion but like if we go back to the world language thing for a minute I feel like we need to have an evaluation of the program what's working what's not in order to improve it we're going to do X or we can't improvement it so we should get rid of it and we're gonna do this fabulous steam program or stem program to replace it like I feel like that needs to be a curricular decision yeah and I get though that it is can be a budgetary decision because it's a lot of money and we're in a tough spot so I definitely understand that perspective but I would prefer to

146be a curricular decision that's my viewpoint I'll just interject and then I'll let the board talk I apologize but that is something just so you know that is something we had miss Holly and we did do that as an overview I don't remember what it was a maybe a year and a half ago but we've gone through that or me certainly can do that again perhaps with a cave discussion first and then maybe or if we don't have the time we can just you know make that work and have a conversation presentation yeah guys I'll by the way I I have some history on this whole discussion on world language and I'll just share it with you all a number of years ago our world language was kind of falling apart and and the all

147we had was a high school program the Spanish was pretty strong at the high school but French enrollment was falling down to nothing and there was no leadership to speak of and so early on and my role on the board and John actually brought us a recommendation which is the first thing you needed to do was get a leader who was going to own you know by the way the prior board put in this k12 program then but John said we need a leader who's going to look after world language from K through 12 and and they will be our guiding principle on how to do it the first priority that came out of that discussion wasn't let's eliminate anything it was let's add the world language tools that we put in in terms of

148the automation and the tools and you know the at both the high school and at the middle school right and we've done those those have been that was a big investment on our part and I think it's time for chemin to take the next step up of what what should the next turn of our crank be on the world language program I think it would be a really good discussion for us to have because we were going from a position of weakness on world language to a position where we actually had a speaker come in who said here in Glastonbury we got you know four languages at the high school and we got two languages that go all the way back down to kindergarten so what do you guys come on get on with it

149and and we were like oh well are we doing something wrong well we weren't doing something wrong but we may not be as thorough and as strong as we could be and I think that's a curricular discussion and I think that's why we have a world language leader to help us lead through that and that's why that's the number one investment we make was to put a leader in place so that's just my two cents worth I I think we can have a vibrant old language program and it will start in kindergarten and some flavor and it'll get stronger and stronger as you get to the high school maybe lots of options at the high school I could see that it's just how long does it take you to get there and a what rate

150and pace so I would make a motion to amend the motion on the floor if we could to take the savings from the insurance that Ken's told us and revert the cross-country coach to keep it in the budget to revert the extended duty reduction and leave it in the budget and put the remainder against professional development just as a placeholder would everybody be okay with that as an approach yeah yeah so that gets I'd is that good John there's that kind of a reasonable thing from what you were saying yeah what it would do at fifty eight hundred dollars total in the savings so equal seventy eight hundred and we're using 7800 yeah it just may be pennies up and down for the one over that lap yes you know it's fifty eight hundred so

151what is it for the coach twenty I'm kind of find it good I don't know just make it simpler we'll put in the coach and we'll put back to extend to duty I just yeah it will reduce the the reduction of extended because we won't be able to make it whole on that fifty that's 7815 right that's that's about the savings the total amount of savings is five thousand eight hundred and thirty nine dollars yeah oh I thought it was seventy eight hundred no 5,800 so fill I mean it redo my motion let me just read it we put back the cross-country coach and the remainder of the savings goes against extended duty why and that'll be three thousand three hundred $24 three thousand three hundred and twenty-four dollars we're putting back unexpended doing do

152I have to repeat that to make it I'm gonna say it very simply I won't I propose to amend the motion on the floor to revert two thousand five hundred and fifteen dollars and keep the cross-country coach in the budget and revert ken what was the number of three thousand 3324 3324 put back into extended duty I second the amendment okay so yes so if we're voting we're voting on the amended motion amended all those in favor I just make sure an all post our wheat wait can I just ask are we voting on those proposed John's reductions or on Bob's motion no it's on it's on says proposed as amended for this little $5,800 item so so just to clarify I have joy and Mike opposed Debbie were you you're an i I'm an

153i okay and everybody else's and I am using it was because I feel like there were some scenarios laid out there and I kind of want lay up my own is we remove world language program we add in a math interventionist we add in math tutor cross-country coach is already done sorry three math tutors and we have around fifty thousand dollars to spend that was that was what I'm that would be another option and I know we're not voting on it but I feel like everyone was talking about options so what that's why I'm voting now okay I that's why I'm voting no as well okay so the motion carries five to two joy and Mike if you if you want to I don't know draw up a you know this is pending or to

154find the official vote on the Board of Finance you know we can we can put another vote before the board if you'd like if you know if you feel strongly about that I mean as it stands now this is this is the vote is official so I mean if you are growing you know of you know we'll put something more on paper we'll make I'll take this and I'll make it what I was saying and then I think a Cayman sorry chemin coming in and talking to us would also be helpful before we vote on this again I think that'd be helpful for everyone that vote we're not gonna vote on it again by the caller well I think I think chemin should also talk to us I know she's presented before John could we

155have chemin give us a update at the next meeting sure I am also here now if you would like to know how are you been talking about you sorry I was on my doctoral meeting I apologize so I don't know if you want to start over yeah I mean where to go with this now well we have the boat so I you know that and it's great that Kevin's here yeah I mean if you're I know I sort of like just came is you sort of put you on the spot but if and I don't know just to sort of catch you up to speed but we have just voted on the recommendations that you can see on the screen which maintains or keeps intact the elementary Spanish program and at the middle school as

156well so I think and Joe and Mike you can absolutely step in here and make sure to clarify you know your position but they wanted to see you know I guess the how we might better work this program from a curricular standpoint so that we maybe it's better if Mike enjoy sort of clarify their position on what exactly you need from chemin you guys so I came and I know you already kind of gave this overview once before maybe if you can reiterate again I mention that where our students were when they were tested come seventh grade or at the end of sixth grade as far as proficiency and maybe review quickly what they're exposed to you know through each of the grades or each level so as I presented before where we didn't have

157any proficiency data before I came in and before I evaluated the program now we do and in grades 7 & 8 we found that students had grown from the novice low level of no level to novice mid novice High through the exposure of the elementary program now in order to as Bob was saying before because I was also watching on YouTube video is kind of doing double-duty grow the program even more what we've been trying to do but unfortunately due to budgetary freezes we haven't been able to is use the extended duty funds to revitalize our curriculum to also include interdisciplinary opportunities so the vision of our program is that students are essentially seeing what they're seeing in other disciplines also in Spanish in a second language context and unfortunately our work there keeps getting

158halted due to the budgetary freezes you know which is why we are where we are but you know I'm sure that you discussed last time too our students were outperforming those students in the magnet program as well so just based on the programming we currently have now of course in order to turn our elementary program into a girl based program we would have to increase our minutes to have at least 90 minutes a week currently we're averaging 45 minutes a week and that's why it's an exploratory program Kevin yeah can you please explain I'm sorry to interrupt you but it's very important because it's driven by the budget how do you get more time for Spanish and the things you thought about or is it more staff you know that's really the battle we also

159fight so can you talk a little bit about time right because right now we're up to the limit with our time because if not we start taking from other content areas which is why we currently have an exploratory program if we wanted to add more minutes we would also a need to add more staff as well in order to build a skill based program so as we are right now we're we're kind of you know at our at the parameters we've expanded the program as much as we can with due to the budgetary confines and it's correct that in grades v or spit and six they're getting a push in of twenty minutes but it's exposure to the Spanish culture right it's not necessarily a language so it's a push in the language is a

160push in 23 minutes every other day plus there is a rotational UNH block which is purely culture and that's 60 minutes for 18 class sessions and do we have any type of assessments that go along with these classes or experiences yeah most formal assessments that the students take and what are those yep we have our portfolio based assessment which is based on our standards of the American Council of teaching of foreign languages the actual standards and we also have the Apple assessment and I put in the budget for the assessment which is possible to test students all the way down to grade one so we do have standardized assessments in order to further evaluate proficiency so could you share those results at each grade level K through six so Kate because I've never seen results

161of any kind of testing for that yes okay and and this is also done through the student learning objectives and the the group set the because due to the budgetary confinements as well the teachers are only able to test their seat groups so we essentially test groups I'm sorry and their seed groups which is a sample size of their all of their classes so what we're doing what we're seeing is within the novice level we are seeing a growth in the acquisition of the what we call the can-do skills what you can do in Spanish so for example in kindergarten they learn how to you know say their name say their phone number talk about their family then in first grade they build upon those skills to start saying hello and introducing each other to

162themselves and we get a little more interpersonal and we grow that way I'm sorry this is a very general overview but it's all done within the novice level which is the novice level is novice low novice mid and novice high they don't get to the novice mid and novice high levels until seventh and eighth grade when we increase the minutes to everyday novice low level from K through six however within the novice low level there is an increase in the acquisition of the skills that we would consider to be novice low so they go from having absolutely nothing in kindergarten to being a full novice low student at the end of sixth grade but they're still remaining novice low thorough yeah if you could present to us or cave or you know the data test

163or the seed group does that change every year yeah the seed groups do change every year that's per grade level there's a seed group of how many students per grade level so it's 50% of the teacher population the student population that the teacher has okay and the elementary level we have about for example 300 students so they take they test about 150 students however the teachers are so devoted that the form of the common assessments that we make the common formative assessments that we make for our seed groups they also apply it to their non seed groups as well so they're what they in fact were I review for them during their formal evaluations is that seed group data that they keep at Excel spreadsheets and what we do is we choose the skills that

164we want to target and we're seeing for the past three years that I've been there we we see that at least 90% of the students in that seed group are meeting all the targeted skills that the teachers select for that grade level in collaboration with me and is there a curriculum map for the spanish or world language whatever we're calling it so we we are building that map in our atlas curriculum mapping system that's what we've been doing we've completed our year-long context and now we're building our intended curriculum for all our grade levels we are more advanced and more in some areas and others we we have been struggling to advance at the elementary level due to the budget freeze in terms of the curriculum and so in what way we haven't been able

165to write it because we don't have the extended duty funds and we don't have the prep time minutes during the school day you know that that would be required to do it and it's very challenging also if we don't have the extended duty time for teachers to write that curriculum outside of that extended time right yeah I can't imagine how they would have time to do that and when they're assessing these students isn't during their side push in time or because I can't imagine that getting pulled out to test yep and essentially we've worked to do that so the first couple of weeks they take for example the dipstick assessment where they have students and different stations and you know in one station will evaluate their interpersonal speaking skills whatever those targeted skills are and

166another station will evaluate their interpretive skills listening and reading skills in Spanish in another station will evaluate their presentational speaking and writing skills and in another station we evaluate their intercultural speaking skills which are both you know how do I behave appropriately to a Spanish speaker or to appear and you know just at a linguistic level the comparisons that they make in English and in Spanish for example this year what we did with our k4 teachers is we tried to compliment the open court program and you know whatever the students came in the same letter sounds that they were learning in the open court program they were learning in Spanish in their in their classes as well so the students could make a comparison and you know I must say if we're talking about equity

167whenever I walk in and I invite all of you to you know when we can to walk in especially when you see the ell students in our classes where they hear another language they they this smile that they have in their face and then they start talking about their own language like Oh in Albanian we say it this way it's cool that in Spanish they say it this way or in Mandarin all we say this we have this sound we have that sound too in Spanish so you know that that's something that you know it's really good to see when you walk in there as well just you know with our else they start feeling like you know they're an equal playing field they go from context where it might be challenging to them where

168in Spanish class they start possibly learning about their own culture you know I I know that in the middle school our teachers there have done a great job of connecting with families to bring food in to talk to the classes and actually two of our teachers at the middle school were planning a family night for whiskey near which mr. endo was nice enough to help us facilitate but unfortunately because of this context we had to cancel it so you know I think this is this is a really worthwhile conversation and I think it is probably best suited for for a committee discussion and potentially the full board as well but for a future meeting we have we have voted so the the vote does pass in terms of the the reductions that were presented so

169I think it's time that we that we move forward with our agenda tonight so but thank you coming for providing all that information and you know I really I can't wait to hear more about it in the future and thanks for popping in - thank you so our last item here on our agenda other than our three main points is the new school building project I sat in on the NBC meeting the other night not to too much of a major update other than you know what I can give you guys on the budget as I mentioned before is it's just a budget is a little bit over not dramatically so they're working with the estimators to reconcile and make sure that you know everything is does everything that they designed is is priced accurately

170we still have ten classrooms per grade so right now they're not looking to trim that area you know that those component of the building just yet if it does come to that because you know once they go through this whole process if it gets to the point where you know that the scope has of this project really has kind of creeped up a little bit and this was you know post referendum for it it may need to go back to sort of a town level discussion everybody's just really hoping that it doesn't get to that point the next big milestone that we have to pay attention to and this is something that you guys should mark your calendars for is that the NBC has invited us to their meeting on June 16th which is where

171Tecton will present sort of the finality of the design development phase they'll show us the all of the most updated markups mock-ups of the of the building exterior interior layout and that will sort of we have a meeting our own regular Board of Ed meeting on the 17th so ideally what we would do is kind of like how we transitioned into design development we will go to the embassy meeting hear the full presentation ask questions and then we will vote officially the very next night and that will transition in a project into the construction phase so I think that would be something well it's something that you should definitely mark your calendars before we got to try to get to that and get you know all of our questions answered and I think Eddie sent

172you John the the presentation so maybe we can maybe that's something that you can forward to the boards just that we can I don't know take a look at it prior to the meeting in case there's any questions we can formulate ahead of time here and any will have you know there's a lot of work that's gonna happen between now and June 16th so he'll have an updated final design development PowerPoint a couple of points I'd like to add on because I was at last night's MVC meeting as well it's really fascinating to listen to the architects talk about what's what what in the business is called scope Creek where you know you all the user groups we've had so many people be a part of it really getting all the program ideas can't forget

173that we had a major adjustment in the a projection by almost 150 students once we were underway well after the referendum so adding those classrooms I mean you're talking about probably 12 classrooms we dad it into the scope of this project I'm still remaining almost within budget right now and again I want to be very careful because though this is a public meeting and people watch the project is not over budget this is part of the natural process of design development and working to get everything you can into the program the instructional program and everything you need in that building everything you want in that building right to the allotted budget so there really isn't a desire from by anybody to have to go and have a town conversation as Rose was talking about that

174would be a last resort kind of a situation what we're looking at is again going back to that fascinating part for example and I don't even understand what this actually means but I know the level of the building is that a number called 403 Eddie talked about bringing that down to I think a 402 right Rosa I think that was what he said and so that takes you know 150,000 square feet at one foot of soil away from the project significant savings they're looking at the driveway looking at the materials inside the building looking at many experience bases always in moving things four inches six inches and when you add that up over that's that kind of square footage you find space and so that's the real fine-tuning they're doing to do everything they can

175to make sure we come in on budget that's part of the process right now I do have last night's PowerPoint I certainly can forward that to the board be happy to do that take a look to see where things are at this point but the key to remember is that presentation from last night is not the final design project there is still a month to go on did that cover it rosette I thought yeah they do to make you know as part of that whole give-and-take you know we've never been going in puts and takes you know to get to the number you need to get this off yeah okay so any other questions on the new school project all right so let's move on to three main points the budget budget budget budget yeah

176I guess we really didn't talk about anything else I think the new school update yeah we can definitely you know have people tune into the the MBC meeting maybe that was a good update for people but also John's update about the committee that's gonna be forming to talk about school reopening yeah yeah yeah I like those great up thank you okay all right no upcoming events we do have some upcoming events oh I'm quite a list chair yeah so at center elementary school the spring Book Fair is ongoing until May 31st order online and shipped to home tomorrow Thursday May 21st is another edition of sweet dreams with mrs. diamond a zoom storytime that starts at 7:00 p.m. there's the alphabet countdown to the end of the year that's ongoing students can share pictures and

177videos on flipgrid the links for all these are on students Google classroom and miss diamonds daily announcements and weekly updates and also at center there's a PTO meeting via zoom next Tuesday at 7 p.m. and dr. Glazer the school psychologist will be joining in as a resource helping parents cope with challenges they might be experiencing at home for huckleberry their spirit day going on every day this week they also have an ABC countdown to the last day of school students should keep posting their videos also on clip thread links can be found in the Google classroom streams incoming second grade orientation details will be forthcoming by this Friday and Wednesday June 10th is the date for the virtual science fair and Thursday June 11th is the virtual Art Fair at whiskey near we have Friday

178June 12th to eighth-grade virtual dinner dance and when stay June 17th will be the moving table ceremony details will also be forthcoming on that and also mr. Renda is asking students to send in pictures or short video of something they're doing outside of school so let's get those submissions in WMS and at the high school upcoming virtual events are the undergraduate towards June 4th at 7 p.m. senior scholarship night June 8th at 7 p.m. senior athletic awards night June 9 at 7 p.m. and at this point those will all be live stream to YouTube and just for scheduling for Friday we're following an early release module and schools are closed on Monday and observance of Memorial Day that's all right so that actually concludes our public portion of today on tonight's meeting board members will

179have to meet me in a virtual executive session but thank you everyone for hanging in tonight and we will see you and talk to you again soon thanks Rosa thank you hi everyone thank you have to make a motion to enter executive oh yeah I'll make a motion that the board enter into executive session thank you joy for the purpose of discussing the superintendent's evaluation unaffiliated salaries and contracts and security procedures second all right joy thank you I'm all in favor all right all right thank you everyone