Special Board of Education Meeting 5/11/2020 @ 6:30pm

001we're live all right good evening everyone today is Monday May 11th and I call the special meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order let us stand where we are for the pledge the 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 thank you everyone and thanks for the flag again Debbie we have all of our board members here tonight is there anyone from the public that is here that would like to make a comment if you do just unmute yourself or give a little wave okay seeing none I think we'll move on so we can we really only have two items on our short agenda today and hopefully we can get through

002them and and not take up too much of everyone's evening but the main idea of the main purpose of tonight's meeting is to not only continue our discussion that we had started last week on Wednesday and start to coalesce around another idea that's sort of our second point on our agenda but we really didn't get to talking about any of the necessary spending in preparation for the Cova 19 and what our school year might look like in terms of what we need materials and procedures so dr. Brill do you want to maybe walk through some of those things first sure thanks Rosa so we actually just talked a little bit about this in the finance committee meeting which was Curtin directly prior to this meeting as everybody knows it's hard to plan for what you

003don't know but what we do know is that regardless of how we come back to school whether it's traditional things will be changed or in some kind of hybrid that people talk about and there would be a heck of a lot of planning for that or distance learning 3.0 as we've been calling it on the leadership team there are a number of things we have to be ready for physically in terms of a healthy and clean environment and also in terms of technology so I'll just talk through a couple of quick things and then I can certainly turn it over to either the roses Jen or mr. Belton from the Finance Committee to talk a little bit about some of the mechanics of how we might go about this we are actually just talking with

004mrs. Miriam from the town side about FEMA reimbursement and application and so forth so the first thing that we have done it has worked with our nurses and our special education director who supervises the nurses iconic and developed a itemized list of personal protective equipment that we need to purchase totaling about $15,000 that would for about six months something we need to activate soon because of the lead time in ordering such supplies for the beginning of the school year in addition to that working with mr. Caldwell our facility director there are several misters in sanitizers disinfect er type pieces of equipment that along with the product that goes in those equipment wear their backpack from our handheld that we'd get for each building that could help sanitize and disinfect their areas in addition to that

005there are a lot of sanitizer gel that we want to be able to purchase an additional dispensers to be installed throughout the school looking at about fifteen thousand dollars for that equipment and then working with Eric complan our technology director and dr. Ruby we have identified a strategy for technology not only for students but for our employees or teachers to make sure we're ready at a moment's notice to be working from home and that would include purchasing all new laptops for our faculty and then repurposing existing laptop tops that the faculty utilizes for our secretaries paraprofessionals nurses other staff and that would total about one hundred and thirty thousand dollars this is all in addition to some of the pull ahead items we'll talk about when we talked about the 2021 budget on our second

006item this evening so there's some mechanics with that the town would like to be involved with purchasing that so we do it all through our purchasing agent we get the best price we can but of course acting on this is paramount and I don't know mr. Beldon you're the chair of the Finance Committee I wasn't not sure if there's anything you'd like to add to that I just wanted to make sure the public and the board is well aware of our thinking in preparing for next year's budget and utilizing the existing under-run from this year's budget due to the school closure due to copa90 so I can oh well let me just let me just add the Tobin 19-under run shir and once let's back up so that we're under running our spending this year

007because we don't have the schools open right it's not under running salaries really it's it's under running all the things that's around running a school and being in the school including certain things around transportation including our heating bills including a whole bunch of things so it's a little over $500,000 under run on spending this year the town has similar dynamics but the town has added expenditures in terms of ambulance and first responder type costs so both boards the Board of Finance and board of that and I believe the Board of Selectmen are all engaged on okay we're gonna have an under run this year what should we do to be smart looking forward number one on everybody's mind is PPE and so dr. brillo you mentioned it and there's a meeting on Wednesday that we've

008we've talked about at our last committee the meeting on Wednesday is to really get a holistic picture between this town size and the school side about what PPE we need to go by so we can make the decisions and move on on whether we're going to stop buying that now and so that's high priority meeting Wednesday I don't think anybody other than asking questions is is against but getting the right PPE that we need for all the different functions of the town need to do including our schools and and so that's a that's a meeting on Wednesday and then there's the second discussion about pulling the head things that we can do this year which we'll talk about as part of our budget review those could add up to half of the under-run that we

009have this year so even with that discussion there will be a chunk of money which will go back into the town coffers which the intent is that we'll use that as a emergency fund because nobody knows what's really coming yet and so we're going to have a lot of you know learn as we go type of thing as we go into next year so the Board of Finance has been very clear let it go into the general fund we'll have a lot of decisions we'll have to make as we learn more about what it means to open what does it mean to the schools as we open and there will be an ongoing and very active discussion so I think that the decisions were facing right now are let's get on with a PPE and

010let's get on with the polar heads and if we have the blessing from the Board of Finance that's a shared procurement agent for the whole town including the schools we can just get it going and get it behind us and I think you told us jonatha bout 30,000 for cleaning equipment and masks and things like that and and the real issue money-wise for the schools is computing equipment so that the teachers and our are properly equipped yes the teachers but also the additional staff we have to work remotely or in a hybrid fashion and so we want everybody to have access to all of that technology we want our students to have the technology in terms of some staff we you know err Eric would use the phrase scrape the bottom of the barrel you're

011really stretching to get enough machines into everybody's hand so it's something we need to be ready for and we have the funds to make good on that so we need to be wise in our decision a yeah and so that's exactly the I was going to use we need to be wise and thoughtful because the money is coming back into the coffers anyhow the question is what do you spend now versus what do you hold off on we've got some great allies on the board of Finance to help us think through that yeah and the last thing I'd say Bob and thank you for giving some context there is the timing whether it's devices you know technology devices whether it's PPE everything needs to be manufactured with these orders so they're not just sitting in

012art or whatever house waiting to comfortable field we do need to make decisions swivel so Bob are you familiar at all or can you tell us what's the process that the Board of Finance would need from us to go ahead and make these purchases essentially with money that's still in the board budget well so in the normal world all we would have to get from them is you know if you guys are ready to go just go right we're just a nod if you will right because it's our money wait we can make the decision ourselves to proceed we have a board meeting also on is it on Wednesday we can one what we can one said we can make those decisions we can get on with it that FEMA reimbursement right the trick is

013here is that there's a potential for a FEMA reimbursement and so what marshal Marion our town controller said was is a discussion about whether we ought to flow all that through the town side budget in order to apply for the FEMA reimbursement and so that's part of part and party to the discussion that's going to happen at the Board of Finance meeting and so we'll need to rely on her expertise and the board's position the easiest thing for them to do is just tell us just go right we don't have any issue with what you're doing yeah you know you know it's your decision just run it all in your budget then our under run is just a little less than it was but if it's a but if it's got some complexities with FEMA

014we might do some different things and it's a and it's bookkeeping stuff it's not big decision things so so but I agree with you at this point the important thing is we got to know who if we should get going and how right yeah do you have any um maybe even if they might just be like rumors at this point but do you have any sort of are there any sort of ideas in terms of what schools may look like in the fall I know that there's so it's either a hundred percent online or a hundred percent in schools but we're sort of wearing protective equipment I don't know I guess some sort of like hybrid in-between but that's probably the more dangerous right because that would walk I won't and and we've we've started

015to have these conversations as a leadership team and we're you know people with different members of leadership team are attending webinars and and listening to what other districts are doing and thinking about and the advisory group that's helping with the reopen Connecticut initiative met today and I know there's a teacher union representation on in that group of the governor and there's also superintendent representation with cave representation so really trying to work together on that in terms of what it's going to look like you know there's videos online right now dr. ruby shared one with us today and it's a matter of fact it's one that mr. Feldman had sent to me last week of students in China and how they walked to school and then there's literally sprayed and disinfected as they walk into the

016building their backpacks and everything I mean it's very significant there's major social distancing considerations social distancing on physical distancing on the bus that gets into cost consideration so there's a lot of things we need to be thinking about the you know old-fashioned staggered schedule you know how do you work this where do you get the funds to do these kinds of things there's all kinds of things we have to think about we have to think about opening up the economy and students who need to be cared for during the day and educated especially our younger children you know below middle school so all that is there Rosa I think a matter of fact I was talking to mrs. Y Ghana earlier today we're awaiting the extended school year recommendations and guidelines from the state that

017should be coming on Friday I think that'll be very telling what those recommendations are or what we might be looking at come the fall up again as you said the Finance Committee meeting and we stay here it's changing every day and every week some of the thought process so we're working on all of those things and you know I know that like in facilities for example mr. Caldwell getting direction and support from Hilliard in terms of you know what cleaning will look like I've talked with mr. Dunn and he's talked about how opening up town hall what that might look like so I'm getting off subject a little bit but there's a lot of sanitary and considerations across the board Thanks yeah I mean there's no information that you have like sort of other than

018you know the extended school year information is that I don't know when we might sort of I mean I'm hoping that a call from the state you know wouldn't you need August but there's and there's also some models out there I just was able to I didn't read it yet but I located Maryland is doing they have a pretty comprehensive plan together for for maybe you know for reopening so I'm gonna take a look at what they're doing is we don't have anything Connecticut yet and this is where we get our ideas we're all surfing the net we're sharing with our colleagues and learning as much as we can throughout this process I wish I had a more clear answer for you but and a lot of this is not only going to be health

019Riven but then it's going to be budget driven things are going to cost more to make it happen where we get the money to do that that's that's the other consideration we have we must think about so is everybody sort of um you know okay I I know John you had mentioned in our finance community that you have you know this list of stuff that we need for next year ready to go is everybody here sort of does anybody have any other questions about these potential purchases because you know then what I'll do is I'll just you know I'll be talking with the Board of Finance in terms of how best to to make this happen because obviously it's it's for us it's more important that it when it happens and it needs to happen

020soon everybody else is okay with that okay you guys are all I mute so it's super quiet okay okay so unless there's any other questions on that we can move on to the discussion or continue our discussion on the twenty twenty one budget I think it's you know the the public hearing is going to be tomorrow night and I thought that it was important that we have this special meeting because it's uncertain how much you know sort of air time and really understanding our process and really getting to to start to the coalesce around some sort of main idea I don't know how much you know of that is going to be available to the public tomorrow night it is a Board of Finance public hearing it's not our public hearing so I wanted the

021public to sort of whether they're watching and now are watching it sort of after the fact really understand that we are looking at this incredibly closely and that none of the reductions that we had talked about last Wednesday because we have gotten a few more follow-up emails none of those reductions are recommended or advocated in any way we do not want to make any cuts and we I believe I speak for all of us when I say we stand behind the budget that we adopted months ago but what we're faced with now and these are really difficult times for everyone is some really tough decisions we're gonna have to make reductions the extent to what they are is still a little bit hazy but it's more than likely fairly firm and so what I think

022we need to do is you know when John had made that and shared that list of you know what he what these options are to meet that obligation of a reduction you know teachers sort of fell at the very bottom of that list and I think it's very easy for us to say no absolutely we need to be good employers on top of being you know a really good district to our students but we need to really make sure that we have gone through every list and things might need to be shuffled around we need to look at everything and we need to say okay well maybe we can't do these investments but again these investments are needs these investments are things that meet current needs of our students our students needs have changed and

023we need to respond to that it's not something that we can ignore so one one thing that Jen had recommended which i think is a really good idea is if we kind of dial it back to the beginning and sort of really look at what are our priorities are as a board and as a district what are our values and what sort of rises to the top of that are gonna be the things that we need to make sure we have the most of in our budget next year so Jen you did a really good job of explaining it in the finance committee meeting so if you'd like to sort of lead this little roundtable that would be that would be great okay so yeah I saw I just thought why then what makes this

024really difficult is that we're all parents or grandparents or were neighbors or community members and we have personal touches to a lot of these different things that we're going to be talking about and so we all have to acknowledge that well of course because we're from the community that's why we're on the board of it but I guess I'd ask us to think about as best we can the larger idea and what are the things that we know that are happening in the district what is the district that we really want to build and aspire to and always to keep sort of that larger idea at our forefront and as we're making having discussions and decisions about what we're really trying to do and I'm just gonna you know sort of say some things and

025maybe John or Maureen you want to you know amplify or add but really if we think about we're really you know to steal a title of a book here we're looking to take a district from good to great and there are really good things about Brookfield and there's really great people who are working to make it great but we also have a changing clients out we have people with more challenges whether it be English language learners or special needs or just I mean the world has changed and so have our students and so how can what are the things that are going to be most important to help us go from good to great or keep getting closer to great because it obviously never d it's almost impossible to get there just keep moving in

026that direction and as we think about the discard decisions that we have to make how are we best preparing kids for to be active citizens in this sort of changing economy and changing world so if we could sort of you know focus on that big picture and as we discuss and debate like let's let's keep that in mind as best we can Thanks so um you know I'd like to sort of open it up now to anybody that would like to make a comment in terms of maybe what's most important to them and and you know and not you personally but you sort of as you see you know the Board of Ed and the district in terms of a priority I know one thing that floated out of last last week was was equity

027making sure that students have an equitable experience is something that is is high on our priority list and I think that that needs to whatever we end up putting or taking from next year's budget you know needs to fit that yeah I would agree and then I would just build off of that to say along with that how are we taking care of the most vulnerable in terms of in our community how are we making sure that we have the programs to support them so they don't fall through the cracks feel free to speak up anyone else I'm just gonna look for a presentation that I can maybe yeah I think you're looking for it now I think it'd be really helpful to dovetail with what Jen said to pull up those those priorities and

028our goals from the Mary the presentations that we did throughout the process okay so this is our original budget proposal presentation that was initially presented just after we adopted the budget and that was back in February so [Music] no did we did just recently last year create that you know making sure that you know the experiences students get in brookfield is you know something that drives them to being critical and creative thinkers communicators collaborators and changemakers and that's very that's very general but obviously you know for I think for all of us and this has sort of been driven by dr. Rubin and John too but you know is the curriculum and the necessity to continue to move forward you know regardless of the budget that we have and how best do we move forward

029you know when major reductions come I don't I don't I know I personally would not want to be you know sort of looking in the rearview mirror and trying to always get back what we lost because that sort of stalls us from making progress I don't know how anybody else's feelings about that but I'm gonna go towards our goals well I was just gonna add I think somewhere near the top of the list has to be academics and curriculum I mean if I think that includes as Jen said supporting our vulnerable students but also challenging our students at the other end of the continuum you know we can have nice things and great buildings and and lots of programs and activities but if the academics aren't there or or are and what we wish them

030to be you know I think we're not being true to our values I would agree with that I mean one of the first budget goals that's always been in shinned every year is maintain class sizes so you know how this is one of the things that is affected by is or potentially affected by this reduction so you know how are you guys feeling in terms of I mean this is if you really look at all of our budget goals to be honest every single one of them is in jeopardy and maybe not this one because we can't obviously reduce resources that are you know in alignment with state and federal law but how far can we move in terms of relevant curriculum instruction assessment learning that's all of that curriculum work and professional development that

031goes along with it and we've done we've invested so much in the past doing that it seems to to sort of you know ignore that and not keep that really high on our priority list is is going against our mission counterproductive to everything working for exactly technology we talked really heavily about the need for technology and now looking at what next fall might look like that seems to be even more important so technology needs to be I think technology has to be really high on this list enhancing programming and really and this is sort of the something from people in the public is you know well they're still gonna be investing there's hovering and you know that may or may be true but if it is again these are not sort of I don't look

032at these as sort of investments that are Oh wouldn't it be nice to have this and let's cut something else so we can get it this is sort of these are things that meet very specific needs that we're seeing we see kids struggling in math we have to do something about it we cannot just ignore it potentially just because we want to keep Spanish um these are incredibly difficult decisions because I do want to keep Spanish but you know we we have to sort of were forced to reshuffle our priorities here I mean those are our five major goals Rosa if I may at this point back to that first goal in in my list that I updated for the board after last week's meeting and provided to the board you've had a chance to

033look at that and and we have that prepared to display as well as evening slide five six and seven I believe are very solid dr. ruby was very articulate about class size and the need while class size is certainly important it is not the end-all and Beall it's the hike a teacher with the students day in and day out that is the most important piece but with the class size will be more important than ever considering that our students are going to have missed almost a half a year of instruction when we received them again next year and so that's that's a consideration there notwithstanding the fact that when people talk about what school might look like there's concepts of class sizes of 12 not only because of social distancing but because of distance learning

034in the combination narrow the net the next slide I think it's six Rosa so so let me stop there for a second so in the in the proposal I shared with the list of reductions when the Board of Finance was able to put back $400,000 when we found that out last week that was very helpful because that was the last item on the list was increasing class size and so we were able to in my suggestions to the board is I took that off of the reduction list because the the reduction went from 1.1 million down to seven hundred and sixty-nine thousand I think so we were able to address that in terms of meeting the needs of students in terms of being aligned with state and federal law or adding the parent educators we

035put back in the budget the special education clerks which have been a tremendous success the not only efforts in compliance but in responsiveness to parents and timeliness in terms of invitations and PPP's and all of that they've been incredible and also the transition I mentioned last week the transition to electronic records and transmission of records electronically in our special education department has been fantastic that's as a result of those part-time clerks in the leadership in that department and then slide 7 we we don't have to kick if you can just click over to that for me I believe still in our budget we have the s TMF and we are I have to ask Ken we may have reduced the curriculum line for social studies that's been in and out a couple of times so

036forgive me I can't I need to make sure of that and then the pre-k curriculum those are part of some of those are part of the pull ahead items we talked about that we take out of this year's under run to pay for for next year in to reduce next year's budget so the first three slides were definitely able to still achieve considering the initial eight hundred seventeen thousand dollar reduction with some of the risks we took with retirements and special education contingency so we're in pretty good shape with five six and seven and and you will note that those are not on the reduction list that I provided up certainly we can share a little bit number eight our goal on technology we talked about purchasing the devices in this years with this year's

037under run for next year considering what's happened with kovat in our post Kovac preparation but these items here have not been reduced at this point for next year in next year's budget so we are achieving this goal as well in the current proposal that forward and then the last one this is this is our investment some new positions with all of the work that we did last week to reduce what remains from this list in the budget is the interventionist for math at the high school and writing text the Flex scheduling software and did we leave the coaching camp that would be the only one any question on or did we put the we left it in we let the coach in yeah the scheduling program does that mean we wouldn't be able to transition

038to the new schedule or we need that program to run it we really needed to run it I didn't because the meeting went long last week and mr. Blandon gave a lot of detail that I want to a pine for a minute we did it and I was a high school principal a very similar schedule with that common time that intervention block that mr. Blandon wants to put in place and we did it by hand and it was not as effective and efficient as it could have been and we spent time probably three-quarters of the day one of our clerical positions was spent on trying to schedule and maintain order and a sense of attendance and knowing where students were at at all times this for a very small investment is going to allow in

039automatic efficiency with that where students could be scheduled by their teachers who need intervention so right so you said was it taken out or it was the Avenue it's still in the budget yeah okay they're important because his schedule change really will not be successful well this is one of the pull ahead right and this would be a pull ahead yeah we're really getting it this year for next year yeah so what was not in the budget or as a poll ahead is the English language learner teacher yep the part-time tutors for math at the elementary school and the after school security recommendation and the math interventionist - right no we agreeable I put the math with the pay to participate I was able to put the Matt asking me to participate bringing that back

040bring the math interventionist back in so this is where the tough decision starts to come in you know any word you know if we're talking about how important is equity is it more important than the kids that are struggling in math I mean these this is sort of you know and is there some other way that we can achieve it where you know maybe there's well the the other piece Rosa that's important to be mindful of here is that I have a reduction to the elementary or the k-6 Spanish program to achieve all those goals I just went through so there's a loss of the the world language program the English language learner teacher the after school security and then bringing in bringing back pay to participate that's those are the big big swings I

041guess is the best way to explain them can we also mention though that having me intervention Bach does scheduling the Flex scheduling program in place that should really I don't say pick up the slack but really should help with intervention for math and well in all subjects but that's the really the goal of that flex new flex scheduling program at the high school so I mean I definitely like to kind of talk about that more in depth about removing the math interventionist if we're trying to reach that goal with the sketch with the Flex scheduling program yeah enjoy that's it's a good point you bring up because mr. Blanton did say one interventionist in the school is not going to pick up all the math intervention you know the whole point of that intervention block

042is that math teachers themselves during that time could you know in addition to the after-school or the for school time would be the generous would donate their time to support their students that time in the middle of the day they'd be able to schedule students to meet their needs as best they can so the new schedule at the high school is not dependent on having this one math interventionist that's active a relatively accurate statement I would say yeah do you guys want me to pull up the list of the options dr. brill head put together yeah that would be helpful I think I was a hero Roza I don't know if you have the most updated one I know based on our Finance Committee discussion Eric has one that he can share where we adjusted

043this yeah thought they were actual recommendations and recommendations considering our situation I certainly don't want to have those those are rows before we get too deep in the the reduction list would it be useful for me to take a quick run over what are we been already yeah great all right so Eric in liable the share screen here like yeah I have it turned on for participants to share I just disabled mine so you show no hold on sorry now you're all set all right I was saying I'm disabled so you know I got it I had a reunited success there you go all right can you all see that spreadsheet yep okay so look what I what I've been doing just to get my head around what's going on are in our budget is

044to just kind of talk about year-on-year what we've been looking at and if I and I want to go through the three phases of the budget when we presented our budget at the end of January after we went through three Scrubs with dr. Burrell and his team we presented a budget that has 6.8% increase you guys probably remember that we all had the oh my god that's a big number and that was about three million dollars of spending growth year on year but it was made up of some really important things that we can't forget we had a big increase of special ed for out of district placements which we've been struggling with all this year they've never been in the current year budget they show up in budget wise and next year's budget that

045was about an $800,000 spend I was almost two percent growth on the budget by itself and that's based on the the known and anticipated kids we had at the time we had about a two hundred thousand dollar increase due to increasing enrollment which was another half a percent spending increase year on year and then we had inflationary of about 1.7 percent and that was a combination of our normal contracted union contracts but also big growth and health insurance at that time it was a very large growth of health insurance and we actually had some revenue losses you know Medicare and some and we had used the one-time non lapsing fund in the current year so there was some real revenue things but kind of holding our own was a 3.8 percent increase and I want

046you to stick that number in your head but that was about 1.7 percent and then we had a small amount of investments three hundred thousand dollars which is a whole litany of things that we talked about in our budget presentation that was the whole picture the first just Maga which was eight hundred and seventeen thousand lowered the budget increased to two point two million growth year-on-year in about four point eight percent so on the surface that looks like a big number we attacked that if you remember we took some risk in the salary lines by assuming we were going to get some healthy retirements we've seen some of that in the past but we we said we'd taken eighty thousand dollars with a risk we upped that to two hundred thousand dollars of risk and

047it's risk it's weird it's not in the books that people don't retire we don't get those savings but we've had some history so it's kind of supported by you know our history of you know when people leave district we also took out all our contingency on special education we had a number of students that we didn't have slots yet identified so with the board of finances agreement to you no letter that carefully and they would be there to help us we agreed to take that out of our budget health insurance actually we got some good news on health insurance that allowed us to save some money and then we had a variety of other small updates that Ken was able to walk us through what that left us with was inflationary spending of about 2.4

048percent and I'll stick that in your head because that's lower than our contractually required a payment and you know increases that we have for teachers administrators nurses secretaries and the like it left our investments about the same and we did lower the special ed by a couple hundred thousand dollars because we took out that contingency so we're at the point after the first adjustment where we are actually at a budget that we all said we could go support that's been scrubbed now five times that has increases inflationary increases at less than our and most of the reason it's less than our contracts is we took salary risk on the retirements and then with the second adjustment which we have to decide on tonight the spending and the next spending increase goes to 3.2 percent the

049special ed doesn't go away and I don't believe unless dr. Brill tells us we have some magic on enrollment that the enrollment increase goes away that build yields one point four percent or six hundred thousand dollars roughly year on year for all the other stuff whether it's investments or inflationary and that's a lot less than what is in our contracts so as you kind of get in your head the magnitudes of what we're dealing with here tonight is we you're not gonna do the 1.4 percent increase would actually act without taking things out of the budget part of it maybe are part of it maybe are the investments have to be on the table but part of it will be existing program staffing and the like that we have to deal with in order to

050make it so just in context people will react 23.2% seems a lot but when you take into account the special edge issue and the enrollment issue which were particular things that we talked to the board of finances the Board of Selectmen around that means what's left is actually very very tight with this budget especially with a two point nine percent teachers contract and I think it's about a two and a half percent administrators contract and the other contracts up for renewal so this is a challenge and I just thought it would be useful to have those numbers in our head as we walk into this discussion and they said does that make sense to everybody as they kind of look at the numbers it does so with that in context I think you understand why

051we're looking at potentially significant issues in John's West and I just thought that it would be useful to understand why that's there and it's not an easy discussion for our Board of Ed to think through how are we going to deal with this budgetary situation driven by the revenue and I'll just remind everyone this isn't just somebody going in and saying oh we just want to cut the hell out of the board of that this is all driven by the fact that revenues are drying up and there's a strong feeling that we have to Amin it manage tax rates with that that's not an outlet in a world when you know we just can't just raise taxes in order to make up for lost revenues so this is all coming off the back of the

052situation we're facing I would believe that the Board of Finance was ready to carry forward that middle column until they realized what the kovat is doing to the town and that's what's yielding this this this right hand box that is so hard for us to deal with so with that I will take a breath and what turn it back to you Roza yeah so see if I can clear that screen all right so actually Eric you have the most updated one could you share the most updated go this will look a little different from what Ken sent you but I wanted to make it onto one screen so I didn't have to scroll so I know to the left and then head over to the right it all stays on one screen for me to

053see so why doesn't everybody just you know actually for the most part this is fairly the same except I had asked dr. Morell to come up with or you know sort of report some numbers that are related to athletics because you know K through six Spanish is not the only sort of in the hand I guess program enhancer another word for it but that we have that's not not a mandatory program so I don't know if you guys want to take another glance through this this most of it is stuff that you've seen so but I'd like some you know feedback and and I'd like us to sort of you know be fairly solid with again we're not voting tonight we don't have to make any decisions that are super final but I'd like to

054have the public going into tomorrow night's public hearing understanding what will happen the very real implications of of the situation Rose if I may just I said it earlier but now that it's up and in front of everybody that first tier where's the poll Ahead's last week that was at 81 or 87 thousand now more because I took the general elementary classroom teachers off of the reduction list which meant we would have more sections and therefore the pull ahead number goes up because we need to buy materials for those additional classrooms and furniture so that's why that number is about 20,000 more than it was last week okay so this I could just summarize what that first the first section there 104,000 as items we could spend on using our under run this year that

055therefore we could take out of our budget next year rs1 people listening to this oren is familiar with this chart is we might be so involve are actively straightforward to do or there downsides to doing that I think it's straightforward the purpose of us doing that was to effectively lower next year's budget with one-time startup type purchases or you know set the classmen furniture or something like that we didn't want to artificially lower accounts in next year's budget because in the following year it would show an incredible increase and then that becomes a big history a big history lesson for everyone in the next budget deliberation and becomes problematic so we wanted to be very clear that these were one-time initial startup type purchases or finishing off purchasing something like the grade two science kits

056or something like that then the second category the first two items and there were things we've talked about before which were other accounts that we could use to cover some things or transfer funds into our budget those seem to be not too difficult either that 52 in the 30 questions account is that something that we you think is like a sustainable expense that we can continue to do year after year or is that gonna maybe not next year but somewhere down the road create sort of a big jump in sort of our monitors line who's a question who's your questioning I probably 10 I think for the near term for the next several years I think we're fine the program currently generates enough money to support that and we have a surplus right now so

057it's certainly sustainable for several years okay I'll just have to keep an eye on it okay fine I'll add Rosa I was one of the things I was doing and the chairman of the board of Finance also did a model on it they that fund is used for it's basically a flow in and out of the meals and it does generate a surplus each year and they each year's new surplus is enough to cover some capital and and and things like monitors that are used in the thing and so when I stared at it it does look like there's enough new surplus to do the monitors and we have a healthy balance in there right now and that over a period of time we could continue to fund capital out of it but it might

058over a period of time and I'm thinking three to seven years time that's not like imminent you might have to make some trade-offs decisions on capital versus monitors as you do bring the balance down so but I don't think it's an imminent thing and it's the right thing to do given this budget in my view and the Student Activity Fund that's gonna granted that's in the grand scheme of things that's not like a huge number but is that obviously if we reduce the budget by that amount next year sort of jump right a little bit it will create a problem the following year in the budget no doubt okay good jobs but it's the right thing to do to release that funds sure my sorry yeah so the kind of dealing with some of the

059fallout from the st. John's oh sorry st. Joe school there I think we provide we pay for the nurse there right is there a savings there yeah that's a great question would that apply to this year's budget or the year after yeah Mike that's a great question it is the savings that we took we took a look at that one of the things that were in I gotta be very careful how I say this depending on the needs at Christian life now the things you is closing when mrs. white onyx monitoring that very closely it's probably not feasible to reduce the nurse at st. Joe's to half because we split between the schools and so the thought right now is it would it would be be too much of a risk to reduce that position

060at st. Joe's because we need that at Christian life but pretty straightforward interesting we did talk about an eyes it's it's doing if it isn't and if they're an opportunity for not an all-or-nothing but do a take it to a point eight or something like that we had that discussion there might be an opportunity but right now the recommendation from mrs. white Ghana was not to do that and so I'll just leave it at that that she is privy to meet student needs based on the conversation she has with those schools and so that was something we explored but we are not ready to make any kind of decision like that is there any other kind of potential savings that were maybe not mentioning because they're not easy to find so I mean there's there's

061I mean that I mean I guess there's decrease in Boston I could actually turn that over Ken can could explain how that stays there shared blessing but the Rob's still run but I'll let can give a little more detail if there's something you know yeah we won yes it's not even twenty kids that we transport and it's up spread across multiple buses so you know one or two or three on a bus there's no nothing to be gained there and I'm not aware I think we might provide a little bit of tutorial services for some special education students at both of those schools but we fund that through the IDE a grant me so I don't think there's an opportunity there either no I think that's all the course we have related to that it's

062kind of dark I know it's kind of dark looking for savings out of school clothing but I'm just we got to turn over every Rock I'm glad you're the questions can I ask a question about the athletics line where it says the middle school sports was about 27,000 and the freshman is about 17,000 and then participation fees is about a hundred thousand can can someone explain participation fees so we understand that a little better that was a proposal I put forward as a way to mitigate the reductions that's the paper paper play yeah yeah sorry I'm sorry sorry I thought that was I'm sorry I thought that was something in addition to that I'm a bad guy okay just so you know that is that really is a placeholder number based on past experience with

063that account we are currently preparing for these meetings right now but Ken is working on a model of that the principals are providing the participation and all the different activities and then of course mr. Baldwin in athletics and then we're looking at how kind of the going rate in our league in our neighboring districts a charge so this number could be different than the $100,000 we're doing that as a placeholder for that I misread it I thought that was money we spend for our teams to play in games and buildings I misread it okay thanks can you guys have a question about the adding the two elementary specials teachers if eliminating the Spanish program so would those be general education teachers hired to do additional or to do science and social studies but it would

064be viewed as a specialist time well one of the things we're talking about doing joy is a curriculum extension opportunity for critical thinking and in those particular subject areas of science and social studies those are the areas where we really have a difficult time finding enough classroom time for science and social studies and so we're looking for more time there and we thought that would be a tremendous benefit to our students if unfortunately we had to go in you know with a difficult budget season in elimination of Spanish the other part that we put we talked about before last week was the need to backfill based on the teacher contract and the special subjects schedule and in the way you need to have the instruction plan for the students and the teachers still need to

065have their preparatory time and that that if this goes through these particular proposal ends up going through there would be a lot of summer work to develop that program what social studies and science extension would look like and is that going to be that's gonna be accomplished tubule with weeks is it extended do to be that sort of pace for that summer work or what that would be to two salaries so remember there's four Spanish teachers we're talking about if we eliminate the case or six program and then the savings those only I think a hundred and eighty two thousand or something like that that's because you'd really only be saving on two teachers but to do all that work over the summer to sort of prep for it we you know have spaced elsewhere

066in the budget or is that and I would think the creek home specialist could work on that yeah we'd have to work on that the curriculum specialists they work the year and then they had their stipend and then their that are part of their summer work would be part of extended duty or working with missus various or you know however we determine we need to do that so just to clarify so those would be two teachers and the position would be some sort of stem extension special of sorts that we don't currently have and we'd use that time to do that sort of work that we think would support social studies and science yes and they you know that we would look at the certification becomes an issue meant recertified there's a lot of there's

067still a lot of thinking and work that needs to go into that John I'm still not following the number so this would eliminate the program up to what grade up through would there still be the v it would so how many of the for reduction is in in the middle school to two at the middle school two at the elevators going on that's two of each of the two elementary schools and two reduction in the middle school and the two people were adding back in our middle school or where are they would be elementary school Bob because the the way the middle school schedule and time works we would be able to increase social studies time because in in some of the unit other unified arts time so without without changing staffing correct mr. Ramnath

068looked on that for a while that was something we actually discussed I think it was at this time last year we were having a bit of this discussion and we hadn't figured that out so at the elementary school were reducing to teachers and putting two teachers back about how I'm hearing yes when you met it out that yes so are you saying that instead of Spanish as a special at center in Oakland Barry there would be like a stem type of special instead of what we did before like having gym twice a week you're fairly certain that that's feasible yeah I just want to be sure that you know we don't come to find out like and they're no fault of your own but you don't come to find out that that's like not feasible

069down the road and we end up with you know kids just having an extra gym or an extra music or whatever it is no no because we would purposely those new hires those replacement years that they would be dedicated to that that work and is that the number that's netted here I know that's for the additional two hires is there any additional equipment or supplies I mean this is all like theoretical because you don't know what that really looks like yet but is there the potential that that number you know could be lesser we're gonna have to make up for some sort of I don't know supplies materials books or whatever that they might need I'll be honest with you Rosa there could be some supplies in there that we need to purchase and you

070know we might look at that from the school perspective to see where they are in their supplies it's we're doing our best here with what we have and trying to get this these are all things that are questions we still have and I'd have every single Lance around there like you know I have the crystal ball and I'm rosin so kind of piggyback off what you just said I mean it's just an example in our district we use like a STEM program a good STEM program to can use resources from home that you know parents send in we've sustained two years now going on you know Carver boxes and paper towel rolls and there's so much you can do with stem there doesn't have to be a big you know line item of expenses so

071that's a great program okay so in our curriculum development hey so can you hear me so in our curriculum development I think that you've heard us talk about providing enrichment opportunities for all students and in our development we have been talking about the different buckets of assessment and what we've referred to and we've you know we've had Murray Alcott come to talk to the board we've done convocation explaining all this and we've had PD so in that bucket three as we call it it's a it's the opportunity it's it's where we're headed it's the opportunity for students to do independent and I don't mean off on their own but independent research to take what they've learned in terms of their work towards meeting the standards and exploring something their own interest now we've talked about

072you know there a very high interest particularly from our parent community and we've heard them loud and clear in terms of a gifted program and we have talked on several occasions about the fact that we are building you know just like we have in our tiered instruction we have differentiation and intervention we're building into the curriculum the opportunity for extension on the other end for all students and so when this situation came up with the need to figure out what we were going to do with our options to meet the budgetary constraints that we find ourselves in the fifth the fifth and sixth grades Spanish reduction if that was what the board you know chose to do wasn't going to require any substitution of instruction because the instructional time would go back into social studies

073and into the UNH cycle however as John previously explained we have the need for providing guidance for students during the time that teachers need to have their contractual prep time so if we eliminate the the Spanish program we would need to provide instruction for students so that teacher would get their prep time by having what John just described teachers that would be working with science and social studies it then makes it much more feasible for us to provide the time that is really needed for those little guys to engage fully in self navigating opportunities for extension and to follow you know personal interest in a guided way because there would be a certified teacher who would be using the curriculum that we've developed it's not a different curriculum but it's using it to get to

074that that what we call bucket three where they're taking what they've learned what they've you know hopefully achieved mastery of and then applying that to two new unique problems that they purse they are interested in and it has it also has a research component for those little guys K through 4 so I don't know if that supports your understanding of what dr. Perello was explaining dr. Ruby thank you for explaining that that was extremely helpful and well articulated and I think we talked a little bit about that last week as well you know it just it goes without saying that we're trying to make the best of the situation and the budget constraints we find ourselves as I just want everybody to know that this there's this is what where we're at and we're trying

075to make the best of it for our students and in the children of Brookfield and I don't you know I'm not looking to beat a dead horse when I say that but there's no joy in eliminating programs or having these conversations and I think it's important for anybody who's watching that they know that that I know I speak on behalf and board event when I say that as well as the administrative team and all the educators John is there um there's a special certification required for a TESOL teacher yes there is yes special certification so just as a follow-up to that so can you I just want to understand more the impact of not having an extra TESOL teacher it where are we in terms of our growth of our English language learners and how

076will we service them next year if we don't have this additional teacher you want me that yeah would you dr. Ruby I was gonna say I'd ask dr. really to reply to that all right so we are we are I'm just gonna put it out there we're really blessed that we have Kevin Holly as our k12 administrator for supporting else we do better than pretty much everybody in our derg and we rank very highly and chemin is on this call if you want to hear from her she knows these data inside out and backwards we rank very highly in the state and we do that with not a a complete complement of the teachers that we need we're fortunate that we have some two tutors that work two three tutors that work with our TESOL

077teacher and we have kemon going from one school to the other meeting with regular ed teachers and our special ed teachers and our t saw support tutors and our seesaw teacher we have where we're doing the best we can so we're understaffed and what our goal is is to take our students and using their lost links scores which is the state test for that's required for ELLs every year and to examine those scores and be able to provide the types of supports to the students directly as well as to the teachers in the classrooms to try to move those kids from wherever they are it's a five there's a five score level ranking on the the lost links for reading writing listening and speaking we have to address all those domains and we could quite

078frankly if we had more we had another teacher we could get children up through the rankings of one through five to be able to be exited from the ell program which means that they are able to participate fully in the English instruction that we're providing to every other child without support and that's what we're trying to do and that goes back to the question of equity we do not want kids to be on crutches any longer than they have to be we want them to be able to be independent and so right now we're doing an amazing job because Brookfield as you recall some of you were on the board when John and I first came in this was a red flag we needed to our population was growing we had 19 languages it's fluctuated

079between 19 and 23 over the years depending upon who were who's in our population and we have put together a program that everybody can be proud of we get we get the state referring people to us to ask us what we're doing and how we're doing it and we're doing it but we could do it better if we had more teachers because we're not giving the kids the amount of time in terms of instruction and frankly the the regular IDI teachers in the classrooms the amount of support that they need because they're not trained to to to teach children who don't speak English and they need the support in in the classroom and I know that might not make sense to a lot of people that might be listening like why can't teachers do everything

080and unfortunately teachers aren't pretty much miracle workers but they they do need support to be able to perform some of the miracles that I think our teachers perform every single day Maureen thank you on that and I think another point that needs to be brought up I need to emphasize what Maureen ended with there which is you know we talked about differentiated instruction we asked our regular classroom teachers to do everything and they need support as well because every every time you know every moment they're not spending time with one child but there's been kind of one child and not spending it with another so we need to make sure they have the proper support the other piece to this is our enrollment there was I think one of the questions from the board member

081was enrollment what does that look like it looks like at least 15 more students English language learner students projected for next year so it could be more than that so that's another piece to this there's more students to service and this is as with exit students which is you know our numbers are very good for that students exiting the students continue to enroll in our school so just so can I just one follow-up and then I'll just get off of that so when we have special education students there's like legal requirements that we have to follow their IEP s and make sure we're staffed appropriately just for our education and the education of the community are there not sort of legal requirements in terms of staffing for English language learners what's the difference there's to

082my knowledge there is no guideline for number of teachers per students I will add because you you dragged my mind to say something else we also have English language learners who have special needs so they're duly identified and a lot of our our TESOL teacher and our tutors time is spent in supporting the regular ed teachers that have these these students in their classroom as well as the special education teachers because it's a lot more complicated when you're dealing with a student that has an IEP who also doesn't read write speak and comprehend in English so there's there isn't a legal requirement for the the number of teachers that there are there are standards and it's pretty much left up to the individual districts to figure out how to make that work and the the

083the ESL teachers also provide guidance to teachers with you know reading and a number of other things it's a it's a I I would love to have when we get back in school whenever that is have any board members that are interested come and see what we do with our English language learners because it's it's very impressive and we are understaffed okay just thanks for the clarification Laureen you're welcome how many staff members do we have doing their testing the a male population to do okay I want to speak out of turn but I believe that because we were concerned about the reliability and validity of the scores that chemin is going around and then Holly is going from school to school and administering the lost links assessment to the students and we have that

084takes place in the spring okay so Kevin's doing all that and it's three tutors yes I'm sorry I just want to make a note that the all of the tutoring time is not paid for out of the operational budget we have a title three grant and when I wrote the grant because we needed more time if you remember a couple years ago we asked for we also asked for an additional TESOL teacher and we asked for two and we got one and up I can't remember right now I think it might have been to Paris and we then paid for through the grant that I wrote for title three an additional tutor rather than a pair excuse me and more time for the Paris the tutors rather to keep them under the maximum number of

085hours for part-time but to give them more than what we had budgeted for in the operational budget so we are getting more services than what's actually in the operational budget because we're hat we have additional services through title three that makes sense so does anybody have any questions or comments about this because I know Debbie had shared some of her ideas with us via email I just want to make sure to be to that and let her have an opportunity to sort of share those opinions yeah I don't know that that my spreadsheet makes sense anymore because I I hadn't seen John's this spreadsheet that John did I somehow overlooked that in my email so I can still I can still talk about it basically you know I don't I don't want to give up

086any of it I hate to see Spanish go away and so I was trying to move numbers around and figure out you know if there was any any way we could be creative and save part of that program or all that program one thing I just like to add about that Debbie since you just brought it up you know two really important things that I heard dr. Burrell is saying dr. ruby was that they we don't have enough time to meet the science and social studies needs so according to our portrait have a graduate army and like you said to you w said exactly that our main goal is curriculum right academics and curriculum and and those are mandated programs right that's what we're mandated to provide our students are children and we're don't have

087enough time to meet those signs and social needs I don't see how we can keep justifying a program that's just an exploratory program if we're taking away their our number one goal of meeting the curriculum and educational needs of our students I'm not saying I want it to go away I think it's a great asset to have but if we're sticky with what we said we're gonna stick with our goals on our portrait of the graduate then I don't know how we can justify that especially if we're adding two back in to address where we do not meet the science and social use needs of our elementary students it's been a problem for years so I think that's great if we could we're moving into the future right we're building our students to be lifelong

088learners and we're going to be doing like a stem type program that's the way of the future good I was just gonna say before we were faced with having to cut this much money from the budget you know before eliminating Spanish was on the table what was the solution to this science and social studies gap that you're talking about I don't think we really had a solution but we brought in Smithsonian science to help bridge start to bridge that gap but you can't make up time if you don't have it so we are I think I would say dr. urban you would agree bringing in Smithsonian science was one way but we hadn't addressed the socials our social needs because we just hadn't gotten there yet we dealt with the LA we've dealt with math

089we're still dealing with science and we haven't really touched social studies yet so just to piggyback on what you said joy we selected Smithsonian because we needed a curricular tool as we that would support the NGSS standards and the science curriculum hadn't been updated to align with the new standards so we were very fortunate we looked at a number programs and one of the drawbacks to the programs is that they all of the one all of the major publishing companies that publish curricular tools for elementary science their programs were written for forty-five minutes a day five days a week every day of the year so they would not work for us because in the lower grades we alternate science with social studies so the students don't get science every day of the week every week

090of the year they get I'm just gonna throw 50% of the year they get science and 50% year they get social studies and so the Smithsonian program was developed knowing that there are schools like districts like ours and many others that that do this that they don't have the time and they they they call it content and they split science and social studies and teach it in that content time and so they had undergone some of the same curriculum development principles that we implemented in our curriculum development for literacy and mathematics and took the standards and bumbled them across the year and created these they're pretty amazing modules for teachers to use that fit into our time constraint and social studies is the last of the four major subject areas not that any of the

091other ones aren't important but the you know science social studies ela and mathematics the basic four we left that to last and we are currently during this coded 19 period one of the things that our director of instruction and missus various does is work in the schools on curriculum instruction and she is working on social studies curriculum right now and we have a plan because I talked to you about that I don't know last meeting in the meeting before about how we would have to not have the teachers be involved and the writing of the social studies curriculum because we just can't wait that long we would we would get it done somehow in central office and with our curriculum specialists helping us so we're working on the social studies right now we spent January

092through right when we shut down researching and reviewing a curriculum for social studies for k4 and the reason and I think Deb asked a question about what did we do before the the the need for more time for teaching social studies is not a new topic for this board of education either in the current configuration or previous configurations before the current board members were on the board we've talked about this many times and there's we we've never come to any solution of where we could get the time from although social studies and and this the elementary Spanish program have kind of been on the table in these discussions many times before so while we were certainly aware and cognizant of the need for more time it had been discussed and we did get a little

093bit more time back in fifth grade and sixth grade I believe three years ago but this is something that we've dealt with since I've been in Brookfield being forced yeah I I remember the discussions I wasn't implying that it was really a new topic just what would have our solution been if we didn't eliminate Spanish the answer is there was no solution no there's no solution because there's only so many hours in the day so this is an opportunity you know what's that phrase they always say when you're dealt when you're given lemons you have to make lemonade so given you know the situation that we're in we with this the timing and the need for student coverage for contract obligations with prep time and the budget cuts that are needed this this presents itself

094as as an opportunity to do something that is highly beneficial for students given the situation that we're tasteless and I just want to make sure my understanding is right I know we discussed this at the last meeting but I'm not a hundred percent sure right I get it so let me check so before we had elementary Spanish those kids would have extra what did they have extra of during that time do they have extra phys ed or are like where were they and how did we staff that time I still don't a hundred percent understand the Marine explained it last week again I'll just I'll try to go through it very briefly so it's not confusing and overwhelm anybody would be means specialists teachers at the elementary school employed as 1.0 full-time equivalent staff although

095there wasn't enough students or sections of classes to have been teach full-time their specific content area so they picked up other two or three classes a week perhaps of whatever it might be intervention monitoring a classroom so a classroom teacher could go out for a data team whatever it might be in additional content time something you know depending on how it worked out but we did not absolutely need for example a music teacher at centers school full-time 1.0 that's when two years ago we made the move because we were being good stewards of the taxpayers money as this administration continued to evolve into its role and really dig down on existing practices and looking at it with a fresh lens we understood that with the schedule and faced with a year just like this like

096it is practically this is obviously an enigma but every year is a difficult right down to the wire with our budget we reduce the students didn't lose any contact time with their specials but we reduced from 1.0 in most cases in some of the elementary cases to 0.7 FTE for music on our teacher at center school for example so the students still get out there once a week special of whatever the special was our music PE etc but the teacher position was less than full-time and that was a budget saver for being as efficient as we could with our staffing a couple years ago yeah that part I totally remember so but so did we never have time for kids to do science and social studies every day it sounds like we never did so

097this might be a solution to add that that's the part I don't get so when kids didn't have Spanish they had where were the kids extra specials they did or that you said the special teachers were like giving the other teachers a break through like intervention or or so I just don't know understand where the kids will gen I can speak to the middle school okay and I know this was prior to you guys class but I can speak to the middle school with certainty yeah I understand the middle school I don't understand Elementary had they had a full period of social studies right I know that I'm just wondering it did like maybe it is any of the elementary principals here remember yeah it wasn't push in when my kids were my middle school

098or my eighth grader was a huckleberry it was a cushion yes it was a push in in the it was a push in model um and we were finding it was not as effective and so we moved to the special model that was basically our as looking back on years is how we moved on that and it also was the the classroom teachers were still in the room and there was a a vision a long time ago that the classroom teachers would also learn some Spanish while the Spanish teachers were teaching to the students and then maybe integrate some of that work into and throughout the regular general education experience with the students throughout the day is my understanding of the kind of initial thought on the program years ago so this so the time

099came out of general classroom time that's I guess what I wanted to really make sure is the way class showed if you're getting at gen I'm sorry that the kids had more time with the classroom teacher now they have less because of Spanish and that more time could have been science and social space time maybe I guess but at the end of the day you're always the time has been finite the classroom the day hasn't been lengthened or shortened in years right no I think now they have more time because it's not a pushin anymore it's a special we're on before they still had a special but it was a repeating special because yeah because sometimes there was a reason yes I gently FPE of that other special Amy to your point right looking at

100this list - I just want to say like seeing unified go at whisk and ear is really kind of heartbreaking especially after everything they've achieved with it and the last here - Amy you want to talk about it painting me as we talked about freshman middle school sports and that kind of a thing because if you look at middle school sports that's where Unified sports is budgeted so that's part of that $27,000 there so yeah I mean we're everywhere we turn we are gored once we get onto the you know down to the Spanish program and you know start looking at people in programs it's just yeah dream on can you can you walk us through I don't know it's all I guess it's all on this sheet but I'm having a hard time tracking

101how many teaching positions are eliminated and then how many are added back in just looking at this sheet that that you have here for Spanish for everything there's no teaching position no teaching positions other than the Spanish teaching positions eliminated so that's what I mean so there's four Spanish teachers and then you would bring in the science social studies which would be two teachers and then in this model I have before you the it was one of our investments was the math specialist is added into the budget so it's four four three two clean on your FTEs Debbie get into your classroom okay and then the the TESOL teacher was an investment so it's not a loss of correct it's just perhaps not adequately meeting an existing need can I just some curious and if

102conversation to one other topic I'm curious about what other board members feel about the adding and the change participate I sort of feel like I'd feel very strongly not to do that I know it's a big chunk of money but I feel like if we offer programs we shouldn't at require kids to pay for them in agreement with you Melissa that's our first value is equity right so first value I mean that I think that particularly speaks of that because it's gonna be time for someone to administer so it's gonna come out of busy people schedule somehow you need to know that too you know we're not hiring the clerk to manage that that's that becomes more work in a couple of places for sure yeah just like a quick anecdote I have a brother

103who lives down in Georgia and he's a teacher and they charge for everything I mean thousands of dollars to be on the football team and his wife is an ESL teacher and she says none of the ALL kids play sports because they can't afford it and and you know it's not even something they would consider so I would just hate I know we don't charge thousands of dollars per sport like they do down there but I just think it's I I was shocked when we moved to Brookfield years ago and I saw that that's what they do here and it was just kind of what we did so I don't think anybody questioned it too much although I I know the board you know really sort of fought years ago to get rid of it

104so yeah I just and again I was very proud of that that was something we were able to do in my first budget was to eliminate that and believe me it pains me again back our back is against the wall to make this make this budget work just so everybody knows in the Southwest Conference now remember this is pay to participate so it's for everything but in the Southwest Conference in terms of definitely paid to play half of the 14 teams in the league 7f pay to participate seven do not were one of the ones that do not have paid over dissipate so just so you guys know that as a reference point so one of the one of the things I was thinking about when I sort of created my own spreadsheet and was

105moving numbers around was I know that we don't want to increase class sizes but the scenario that was on the spreadsheet we saw the other day was increasing class sizes in four sections in kindergarten first third and fourth right so how do we feel about maybe not doing all four but doing one or two in order to save unified sports and or eliminate the participation fees I mean I think that's the only other place to go right and I think another consideration Debbie is you know we would really both middle school and freshman sports are there but if we're going to have continuity at the high school it'd be more important to keep the freshman Sports than the middle school sports and you know again when you're down to the wire on hard prioritisation just

106something to think about and believe me the last thing I want to have that the conversation about and then I think like we mentioned earlier I forget who maybe it was joyed that brought it up you know what about the math interventionist and with the new high school scheduling system do we still feel that that's a strong of a need as we did before yeah I think that's something to think about and I think that was a good point that joy raised I mean I do think that that was by design that program was hopefully to meet the needs of some intervention and often I feel like if your own teacher is providing the intervention it could be perhaps more effective than another interventionist so I would be open to considering that as well you

107know and I think that's a if that's a further discussion we should talk about that next week's meeting a little bit and I know we want to get rid of salad tonight but we do have some time in building on the last one who wants to extend this conversation but will I be very intentional and strategic we didn't invite mr. bowl and ax to discuss that a little deeper I just wanted to share that what Mark said last week was that if he had to choose between one or the other the block scheduled the new schedule or the intervention math interventionist he would choose the intervention time period the software to do that because it would serve many students because it wasn't just designed as those of you who are on the cape committee it's

108not just designed for intervention it's also to support students on the other end of the spectrum but he did not say that he wouldn't need the interventionist and I know from knowing from data team meetings that we have we have a considerable number of students and mr. Hill could speak to this as well that are in need of really heavy doses of of intervention such that an interventionist might be teaching an intervention class we we we used to have intervention you know real intervention support for students when mr. Jewett was at the high school that was just something that he he did as part of his department head position and we don't have that for men anymore so I just wanted to clarify that you know mark didn't say that if he had the intervention

109period and we had the software to do the scheduling that he then he would not need the interventionist and as more as jaundice said he could speak to that for himself and another board meeting if you so wish no so that's good information because so maybe instead of thinking is it more appropriate for us to think about when we it's a really like some of these kids might have to math classes so they might have they're taking algebra but then they're also taking an extra support class because they're struggling is that not right now not right now I understand that it's a possible it's a possible interventionist yeah yeah and it could be for a short term or a longer term you know it might not be to you know to that model you're talking

110about Janet might not be something that's a full semester but it's an opportunity to get students in for key intervention they need for a few weeks maybe there's a lot of all kinds of variations and when you think about because it for reading we have you know all students take English however we have students who have reading difficulties and we have two reading specialists that teach reading classes at the high school they're not teaching class that's in lieu of English because English has standards that were the nine through ten and the 11 through 12 standard bans in the common core they are getting that and they're getting differentiated instruction provided by their classroom English teachers at the same time they're getting intervention in reading based on their reading data and their progress monitored and and

111supported so what we don't have the corollary for mathematics and by the time they get to high school is their last shot so so if I could sum it up here we're down to about 300 thousand dollars of controversy here it sounds like we keep going back and forth but that's that's basically what it comes down if I come if I'm doing my math correctly and so you know we've got some decisions to make and I just I don't know where the board is that anyone we don't have to vote on anything tonight for the for the administration to execute but we do need to start seriously getting need to get closer and of course we need to know exactly where the board finance lands and they out there you know the town meetings tomorrow

112night and then there's another meeting on Wednesday meeting on Wednesday night I mean I guess I just wanna know from everyone you know is this okay if I tomorrow at the public hearing you know there may be some questions about this you know I just need to be able to speak for us as a group that this is this is pretty much right now where we stand I I don't feel like I'm ready to sign off on this like I said it's not like a definitive thing but you know I just need to be able to tell people like yeah this is likely what's gonna happen I like Deb's point on seeing what of the list can be saved with bringing taking some of that 400,000 or whatever in that in teachers and teacher savings

113and seeing we can play with the number a little bit so from the boundaries from the original list where it was eliminate for teachers thinking that last year bringing back the possibility of eliminating teaching Jenna I want to say I'm not saying that I don't see away cuz I totally see it your way because I don't want to cut any teacher jobs harm cent know why he did it I'm just I'm trying to do some risk assessment is all with with some of these things i I know the the I think I share I mean that's when the Athletics those are those some that's a big number 145 and that's a big number that that definitely helps us to the to the 769 but if we're gonna keep our equity value which is number from

114listening to conversations that seems like is number one and I agree it should be you know we I gotta find some some subbing in for that and hopefully maybe maybe some cell being in and out for math maybe what he's an attitude or something you're in Debbie's point I know where Debbie's coming from is and and I was very happy because our very first goal is all sizes within the guidelines will be teetering on the edge of those guidelines on the on the high end or maybe just over but I know you're looking at saving jobs that's part of it were your guys are coming from yeah the K there was okay section in one of the additional to grade two sections that were in that list so by keeping those positions the sections the

115new positions in the budget we keep our class sizes there those don't exist right now so they're not actual people just so you know that and I know that's what you're trying to get at Debbie I you know with your scenarios I had a very quick look I didn't get a chance to to analyze it but I thank you for that so if that helps you with your perspective as you continue to you know let this marinate and think about it just want to make that clear that's helpful to know maybe I mean for your communication do you want to do an or so you could say we're considering these programs are eliminating - yeah so as long it yes yeah those are the sounds like those are still things up for debate why don't

116we just different karo say here's all the things that are under consideration we haven't made any decisions yet even list everything I'm sorry loading auditioning positions yeah the tooth decay in the one for example the way can budgets those in with benefits I think is 88 or 89 thousand so you're talking close two hundred eighty thousand for two positions those are big sound enrollment keeping our class size guidelines intact we'd be going against that and knowing that for well we'd be sacrificing that knowing that assuming we come back to school regular or not in the fall kids have missed coming in especially K going into one miss the law school this year and so they you know all of the kids well be behind where they should be so the other thing I was trying

117to figure out was are there any positions and I know we can't get into name you know naming specific staff or whatever but the hope would be that for example if we eliminated for Spanish teachers would anybody be certified to then be a TESOL teacher you know those kinds of it's still a position we can't afford to have so it doesn't matter but Debbie when there is a RIF a reduction in force just so you know the HR goes through a whole litany in their process of looking at certification there's similarly by teacher contractors all kinds of things that no matter what happens occur you know the matter in that is not or level that happens you know by US administration looking at the contract and going through all that process yeah the pumping rights

118of teachers and all of that an attack that you know we follow all the protocol for that and so if someone is dual certified you may have heard that term before then maybe there are other certification there's a popping rights but again everything is very by contract and then certainly in the individual depending on the person then we come to the question I was you know which to do we look at numbers projected enrollment and you know which of those four teaching positions looks at the two can itself I would ask in this because he could pull up he could I don't know he could pull up the one from last week but he could certainly share with us if he's able to pull up on his own machine the what the numbers would go

119to if we reduced the pay in the one as a review because yeah I've got that in front of me K would go from nineteen point zero to twenty one point one grade woman would go from eighteen point seven to twenty point eight and we've got twenty as our class size twenty is the max for kindergarten as well that's our max guideline first in the garden and first correct and the other two were fourth grade and what they would go from what do we have it with with them in positions there or max guidelines huckleberries are 21 so grade three would go from twenty point three to twenty three point one and great for would go from twenty point zero to twenty two point five and because I know this is important to the board

120with the three in four sections those exist so you can start to look at risk adoption divorce so the new positions are at center school for next year correct and they're still aiming to reducing the 1k in the one grade one we still have an additional grade one we're putting in the budget because of the significant you know the way the enrollment and that's after adding an additional for this year right no the additional for this year was in kindergarten first grade oh yeah so next year so we're adding to to first grade and one to kindergarten and the budget document so this would just put one additional in each right if you were to do that or zero on one depending where how might have big deep your appetite is John have we considered

121scaling back pre-k no our needs continue to grow and that and that's because we're mandated to provide those because it's a special ed program correctly yeah the regular ed kids who attend the program pay so maybe um could we just maybe get like an update of this exact sheet but with the teacher reductions also on there just so we can see sort of all the numbers in one spot yes we can I can do that for you get it to you it strikes me that the way the discussion is going we should have a list of things we're considering as a board that is actually greater than the reduction so we actually can make choices right so bringing in you know here's where some spot calm spot reductions or staffing might be in the range

122of the discussion equal pain to some of the other things is a one option eliminating those interventionists at the high school might be another one and just we spend our time at the next one maybe with a list of eight hundred and something right and debate through or nine hundred right and debate through where we go where the least pain would be I mean it's painful no matter how you cut it I wouldn't want to do us any of the stuff but but at least board we should have choices to make not just here's a list that adds up to seven hundred and sixty nine thousand the teacher you know can't bring that the teacher stuff back in maybe we take a look at some salary lines and I know we have to know these

123we have to get these numbers in quick we can save some negotiation yeah a million dollars like we were last week and let the board take a look at it again next one yeah do you feel like you're good for tomorrow's meeting Rosa yeah I mean I don't really feel like we made any you know sort of progress but I'm maybe not that we have to at this point but you know at some point this is gonna become a real decision so it has to sue not for the Board of Finance mate what is the schedule on the Board of Finance is that we have a public hearing tomorrow when do they get back together again to make their decisions on what they're gonna vote on they don't I think they're still gonna be meeting

124every Wednesday until they officially vote on for um eileen is actually on the line am i I don't know if you hear if you're hearing and Eileen but could you confirm that do you have a schedule yeah we we do have a meeting on Wednesday and then June 4th is our deadline for making a decision so and you're gonna be meeting will actually I didn't get to them but I think we know that we could schedule them so I think we'll see how the meeting goes and how the meeting house Town Meeting goes and how the meeting goes on Wednesday ok thank you Rosa maybe for us there's a little bit of homework to think about like I felt like what my purpose today is I wanted to ask some questions so I really understood

125the impact of these potential reductions but ultimately we have to make the reductions right so we're all gonna choose have to settle on things that we don't want to to rewrite like we're all gonna have to at some point but we have to make some decisions so maybe our homework is to look it over and you know if there's further questions ask them but you know start to be ready to at least explain our point of view on what we would prioritize over other things you know I think I think we should start to be and and but you know what what I enjoy about our board is that I'm listening to other people's questions and it's helping me learn and inform ideas as well but then I also think we should remember that what

126did John and the administration recommend there's a reason they put those things on their list because they're trying to you know run the district as they see fit I think it's something we should also just keep in mind there's a reason why they put they took off the teachers and let's think about that and as we you know kind of weigh those decisions okay and I think Jen it goes back to again what are the goals right you go back to the slides that Rosen throws what are the goals first one is always class size so that's that's priority then we understand that based on the context but just be mindful of that I think is really important thank you so I think we can just maybe I don't know I think it'd be helpful

127if we just you know went around one last time had our final comment it's and then I think we can sort of but um you know my I think my own personal stance and I I do not want to cut anything on this list but especially to be honest I don't want to cut Spanish my daughter actually loves Spanish and I think she has a talent for languages and I would hate to see that exposure even if it's just exposure go away however when something I think is got if we know something is going to hurt it that hurt needs to be spread equally and so I I think you know when we make cuts in areas that only affect smaller populations of our students I think that's a very I think it's a wrong

128way to approach this this problem so you know I look at things like pay to play and yeah Sports is absolutely not required it's not a part of the mandate but kids are gonna continue to play it and we're taking away sort of an opportunity for only some of the kids and not all the kids but I look at the TESOL teacher and the math tutors the same way that's an existing need that we have those are kids that need extra help or that can't access parts of the curriculum because they need that extra support so I think those rank higher on my list and some other things but you know that's that's sort of my my big takeaway friend tonight is just I'm gonna marinate on equity and how how best to achieve that

129I'm sorry I just Kenya was gonna work on some scenarios of how pay-to-play would shake out yeah I we could try but given the circumstances I don't know how quickly we can get a model together to get an exact number I think we have a hundred thousand dollars ami that I don't want to make a promise and what can't speak for himself but I mean it's just there's so many other pieces going on with the budget and facilities right now the response to kovin it's not necessarily a model we can do in the next week but we I do anything for you guys to have you understand have a better perspective put some final comments or thoughts I just I'm taking a deep breath it's this is really hard I don't think any of us

130take the district backwards and I'm hoping our Board of Finance brethren are listening carefully to the stuff we're struggling with and it's a hard thing because I've been on the Board of Finance and when the revenue dries up I know how hard it is and and I know nobody on the Board of Finance wants to take the district back but we're not finding a lot of things on this I mean that you get through the first couple of items on the list and you know I kind of look at it you got you get 200,000 of the 800,000 you can do rather readily right you know all things considered you might even say 250,000 may be 280,000 you can get rather readily but then we hit that line that starts on our elementary Spanish and

131we are straw love us are struggling with how can we do the right thing for students and so it's not last three four hundred thousand dollars is what's so painful here and I don't know if there's any appetite to change the direction but we ought to consider it but John I think we need to take not to take not just these items but we ought to look at where can we do partial steps I like the thought that Mike and that have both mentioned here which is instead of saying we're going to just change a lot of teachers we pick one or two here and there and look at the impact of that right third positions maybe live with a year of higher class sizes in a certain grade because we know some things about

132that grade maybe we do some mix of actions around Spanish so we don't have to one the entire program maybe we can keep most of the savings like being thoughtful about it maybe we do you know some of the sports but not all the sports and so I think there's but you can't do those discussions unless you're playing field is bigger than the 769 right so that's kind of I think to me that's the most important is that we expand our appetite so we can then pull back to what we can afford but I and I know they're all hard right I just know they're all hard so it's we need to keep working here and rose up for tomorrow night I think we ought to be very forthright with everybody that all of this

133stuff is on the table it's we didn't take anything off the table right we it's all on the table because it has to be on the table and but we haven't made any decisions of this is what we're going to do and that's what we're going to do because we haven't and and so it's I think just we have to make sure everybody a public hearing is about informing the public right and so that's what we have to do so and I'd say it that way I'd say we can find 250 K roughly at the 800 pretty readily it's once you pass that line it starts becoming painful for all of us we're struggling with it so and I'd say it that way I don't know I think I think I've expressed how I feel

134you know I'd like to look at as much as it pains me I'd like to look at you know my suggestion about maybe not cutting for teaching positions but to or not or the way John said it was just not adding the new K in one positions although I hate to say that out loud but I think I think we have like Bob said we have to look at more choices we have to just you know think of different ways to cut this up and and I I really don't want to see Unified sports go away I don't want to see the TESOL teacher go away so you know I think we just have more discussion to have okay Amy your turn I'm pretty much in the same boat this is all really painful I'm

135initially really not in favor of eliminating Spanish but it is a little comforting thinking that they're going to have what sounds like could possibly be with the stem and the social studies could be a very beneficial thing for the elementary students that sort of softens the blow a little bit I really don't like increasing class sizes and yeah I'd hate you know I'd hate to see the sports go and again I don't know I don't the equity as well as a problem if we're offering something everyone should be able to to afforda okay joy I think I've kind of been pretty vocal about my feelings on things but I think equity again is important you know pay-to-play is not equitable if you're going to do it that way so I think looking at I agree

136with the block scheduling at the high school and then in turn taking away the math interventionists because you're providing opportunities for all students not just students that need interventions in math so that's that's important to me I think that taking the world language Spanish world language program out is a benefit because then we can meet the mandates of science and social studies and the time that we neglected for those for those content areas to put that back and if we I think we're being neglectful for that and I think that looking at not instituting the k1 positions is important I mean I guess that's it for now okay so we look at everything else yeah how are you feeling great yeah I mean this is really hard I again have learned from my colleagues through

137their questions and I you know kind of agree with some of what Joe and Amy were saying about the world language program you know while it would be a shame to lose it the fact that we could address another need softens the blow as Amy said I like how you said we have to sort of marinate on are we taking away things for just are we spreading out the pain sort of that and not just sort of hurting certain subgroups of our population I worry about us not having a TESOL teacher I feel like I can't believe in a district that is becoming more and more diverse we don't have a full staff of those teachers and and I you know I wonder like often those community members don't have a voice and to advocate

138for themselves and isn't that our job to advocate for those who don't advocate for themselves so I feel pretty strongly about that and I I feel really strongly about the pay-to-play I just feel like that is I just feel like there's something so wrong with that but that that doesn't get us to our number so so we've got to perhaps look at some of the other issues as well I think we're in a tough spot I hope the community understands and I you know I hope they hear that we want to get our district to be really amazing and great and keep growing but we're living in the you know the middle of a real financial crisis and what are the changes that we're gonna have to make just to get through it but at

139the same time sustain our schools in a way that once were through it we can kind of rebuild so I'll be thinking about all those things well if they you know but also be helpful if kemon can kind of present to about what our program kind of looks like because I think it's important for other board members to know too that you know full immersion of these students in the general education classroom is very important and that's how they learn best and that's how they really excel in the language and also to kind of talk about our clustering that we've done at the elementary school because that's important so it's not like well I want to be careful what I say about it's it's not in the past we've had clustering right so one classroom

140per grade level has been our classroom of ENL students so that kind of lifts the level of support that's needed and a lot of the supports that are in place for ENL students are the same for Wregget for general and everyone venice benefits from those so it's really about good professional development also you know so she can kind of speak to that I think it would be helpful and helpful for the community to understand that also maybe we can have her scheduled maybe at our next meeting you know ask Ann to put the investments that are not on this list tonight as well as those teaching positions and of course we'll continue to look but I've looked for five years and I've been looking for seven months with the team so we're looking Mike I

141guess the fun thing about going last is trying to find out new things that haven't been said and I do think that if I'm gonna focus something good it seems that everyone is in agreement we're all kind of saying the same things which I'll start with the good stuff and that I do think that is good stuff I think we work well together and we ask questions and no one's rude to each other and that's that's you know and this is a very hard thing to do and it's easy to lose it but we I think we do I think we do a pretty good job but that's being said it's a tough list to look at and I do think it's a very good practice to go over the values when we go over

142these cuts so that helps take a little bit of the risk assessment the human element of making this you know deciding what goes what so yeah I mean that's that's everybody I mean after you know you know Bob said it best after the two heart that it gets it gets tachi and our to 270 or 280 whatever it is it gets talking so I mean I was trying to find like little chunks the st. Joe's closing or something maybe to save one of these investments maybe the T soul teacher maybe something but I don't know if John hasn't found idea I doubt I could find it so yeah okay so um I think we've beaten this horse so I do hope that everyone here all board members but also anybody listening tunes into the public

143hearing tomorrow evening I think it would be good if board members you know tuned into that I think that would be a good show of solidarity and and maybe if were called on to answer any questions we can we can do that sort of as a group so yeah seven o'clock yes we get us been waiting for that or what's the YouTube thing my god all forward to you the zoom meeting invite they could actually get into and then could actually okay watch too many to YouTube things it's painful against what it's built into if you want to look it's built into the agenda itself if you go on the website but I'll go over to decree you guys and then and then the link to the zooming on the actual agenda for tomorrow night

144yep alright so I think that's it unless anybody has any other questions okay so uh without objection meeting is adjourned thank you everyone thank you