Board of Education Meeting

001[Music] in high school but there's only 130 pounds but he was only a hundred and thirty pounds so they put him on the basketball court good evening everyone I will call the regular meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order please stand for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God okay we are seating our full board - Jen who will be a little bit late tonight and here she is so tonight we are going to start off with our student spotlight and we are going to highlight our wonderful ASL program and as some of you might be able to see on camera we have an interpreter live here tonight for our meeting so mr. Blanda

002and Miss Holly speaker your mic oh there we go very well sorry good evening we're very happy and excited to present our student representatives from our American Sign Language level one class here with us we have Kerry Birdsall shaylen Dimond Shane plush and Jamie lamendola we are very proud of their progress and they're here to put on a very special presentation for you we hope that you enjoy it okay just presses press the sponge right okay hey good evening everyone we will be doing a presentation on our ASL course that we've been taking here at Brooklyn high school huh so yeah let's let's begin hi my name is Carrie Jamie and it's nice to meet you so by the end of the night you will all be able to introduce introduce yourselves and ASL alright

003so one second as I just this cuz I'm quite short so when we started learning I saw there were a couple things that we needed to start off just learning the basics before you can really get into the language you got to learn a little bit about like the grammar rules and all that stuff so with ASL we found that those grammar rules were more the five parameters so there's a couple different there's a few different things with that for one example there's handshape so if you look to the left where it says example one father the handshape is in the number five so for the sign for father you put on your forehead which is which goes into the second parameter which is location and then we also have movement so we have the

004double tap for the sign as well and the position of your actual hand so the palm is facing outwards and then facial expression which is the last one and for that sign is just neutral but for other signs we find that it is quite important to change your facial expression in order to tell in distinguished versus signs we also find that it's very important to use all of these simultaneously if you look to the right there's the signs for tell and true the handshape is the same it's just one pointer finger but the palm orientation so the way that your palm is facing changes and it completely changes the nature of the sign completely so that was really important when we started the curriculum that we needed to get down those basics and then we

005could really get into the nitty-gritty of that so now you can come over here okay so the glossy is little bit tricky since glossy is more like grammar but like in ASL and stuff in English we use like verb subject objects for grab for glossing we're gonna change like the location different but a little bit like for example if you look at the number one if you can see your time should always come first whatever you're signing because this way it's just gonna make easier when you sign two for the other person who can't hear we're who under understand only ASL to understand a little bit easier and quicker so time comes first and then you're gonna the next one will be the topic so like the first one said do you want to a

006hike next Wednesday so that's the English version but we went costing your time comfort so next week next week Wednesday specifically the time time comes first and then the topic was hiked and then you're gonna say next week Wednesday hike and then the comment was do you want to and then you're just gonna make a like comment about it say like next week Wednesday hike you want and like sometimes it people get like confused and they like it's easy to get confused but if you get the location type a comment this way in the same locate in this same same warder then it should be pretty easy and they just practice move on and we're moving into the alphabet so for certain words in the language not all of them have their own exclusive sign

007so that's when you would finger spell them and this is when the alphabet comes in very helpful very it's very helpful so to sign a through e I would start by going a b c d e and those are the first few letters and those are helpful for spelling words that don't have their own specific sign like a lot of them do and then if you also want to notice letters like i and j i starts out like this and then j starts out like this but then j finishes with a motion in like a 180 type of deal and that is you know a differentiator between the two and even z if you can see the last letter z looks almost like d but then you have to remember to make the z motion

008in order to be able to sign the correct letter so if you guys want to sign a few than go ahead yeah so I can do a 3 again so I have a and B and C and then D and then e the thumb stays right onto the first top four eight I'll pop over here are s t u v w x y and z so like Shane was saying like Shane was saying we get to use the five parameters specifically location or not occasion movement in signs like I and J so that's what he was saying but we see the five parameters come through and even the alphabet so we can use alphabet also for personal pronouns that's right tend to see them use the most like when you sign your name all right

009yeah don't go over here so now we're gonna help you guys learn how to sign your names and how to sign nice to meet you so in front of you you should find a slip of paper that says Lord's hello and nice to meet you and it also has some hand shapes on it so those we've curated them specifically for you to be able to sign your name and introduce yourself in ASL quickly before we end I would also like to mention some of the things that ASL has given us the opportunity to do we have started an ASL Club which I'm the president of and Kerry and Jalen are also a member of which is wonderful I am also participating in a poetry contest and I will be signing a poem in ASL which

010has been really fun to try and learn and get the emotions in my face and everything so I would like to give you all the opportunity now to be able to sign your name just want to put that out there but it's been a pleasure getting to talk about this beautiful program and thank you [Applause] so in front of you you have signs if you want to practice our our students will walk around really quickly and they can help you actually practice it you know I see people manipulate try to manipulate sign shapes if you walk around will actually come around and help you figure that out and see if you can actually figure out how to finger spell your name you know we're very proud of this and they can they can as they

011walk around I'll just share with the board how how excited we are that this is a is something that came to us thanks to help from the board us is fantastic to watch people struggle with the new language yeah Jeff [Music] oh no oh thank you very much a special thank you to our students that give another round of applause I appreciate their time and effort coming out and I'm just again to the board just I appreciate your foresight and allowing us to explore this you know bringing in a new language this year was was a big deal for us we ran into obvious obviously some roadblocks getting there this is all done through an online program with a facilitator that you helped us secure you know things that are really important it was great

012to hear Jamie talk about going to the poetry contest the Kohl poetry contest is something we've done for several years now and it's usually done in the native language we have students who do it in Spanish we have students do it in French we have some students do it in Portuguese or perhaps some of the other native languages to have someone who to do it in ASL for the first time it was fantastic that's a wonderful representation of the learning that's going on and then I'm gonna brag about shaylen for a minute shailen you know she just got she officially committed to the school that she's going to and she's really excited they do have an ASL program and she's thinking about we're not sure but the very least they have an ASL Club but

013they also have an ASL minor that she might be thinking about doing as well so I just want to thank everybody and all their time and effort here tonight so thank you Mark I'd be curious to hear from some of the students how you like the online learning platform you know how is it compared to having a teacher in the classroom with you do you want to come up say Lenny look like you're ready to walk over here already so online program is like I don't mind it it's challenging at first because like the teacher is not visually out there to help you and then you have to email your teacher back and forth and you don't know when your teacher is gonna response to you and then like the whole week project like homework

014is all out there and you have like a week to do it it's almost like college courses but like once you're learning your time managing managing means skills and then like you have the plan out like every step say like one day I'll complete whose task and then the next day I'll complete one big task so like once you get your planner out and then you're you have a clear goals of every day your accomplishments then like is pretty easy like forward down like you just I guess many is time management skills is big one if you can't really plan your time out is really hard to complete the goals and like you have it's gonna create a problem later on with like it when they have like the ASL midterms it's gonna be longer

015homework and harder projects you have to complete so yeah time management been a big piece you know when he released the the assignments one week at a time and the students have the opportunity in class to actually work those assignments it's been I think a challenge for some most have gotten on board but it is it is a different environment but like like shaylen said it definitely is more similar to what a college experience might be like when you have class sometimes twice a week sometimes once a week in some places so it's they've developed really well and learn those management skills thank you so much thank you and we're going to stay on our spotlight tonight and invite mr. Ron Jaffe up from Brookfield cares to present the preliminary data of the developmental aspect

016I figured study do you want the presentation I'm a Mac guy so I need all the technical help I can get thank you I'm Ron Jaffe Robin Montgomery who's chair of Brookfield cares can't be here this evening but I think we'll be able to get you the information you need so thank you for the opportunity I'll get right into it and I'll be you know handing out copies of this afterwards the attitudes and behavior survey is something that we've been doing with the schools now for a number of years this year we surveyed students in grades 7 through 12 and a question that was asked at the Board of Selectmen meeting is you know did we get good response well you know was it representative and the fact is that virtually every student who was

017in school that day participated so we had 97 98 percent participation so this is really good good information and one other question that we have had about the about the survey is you know how sure are you that students aren't fudging the answers and what I can tell you is that search Institute the organization that we do the survey that with has been doing the survey for over 25 years they have surveyed over 20 million students they know how to do this the questions that are asked on the survey are not a single question so the answers that we talked about in the assets that we talked about are are you know combined answers of dozens of questions and so they they know how to phrase things and they know how to do this so

018I think there we can do this we can look at the results with good as really solid the other thing is our our results are really they mirror what's happening in our neighbors and across the country so while the results show that our issues are not greater than comparable towns it it does point to the fact that we have issues to address as a community and this is the fifth time that we've done the survey so we have history I jumped the gun the survey was developed by search Institute but the sir the survey is based on developmental assets a research based framework that shows a clear relationship between high asset scores and thriving behaviors the framework of developmental assets identifies external assets and internal assets and external assets can be provided by the community

019and I will give you copies of this so but again the more our students exhibit these assets the less likely they are to go into [Music] behavior that is is not really deemed you know good and while I won't show the the video here I urge you all to go and look at this three minute video that search Institute has that real that talks about the 40 developmental assets and the importance of them so what do our students tell us specifically these are the strongest assets that we have school engagement family support integrity responsibility positive peer influence achievement motivation honesty and positive point of personal point positive view of personal future and you can see that we're reporting history now the history that were reporting is not seven through twelve the history were reporting his

020grades nine through twelve because that's the comparative data that we've got since the first year that we did it students tell us that we are weakest in these assets reading for pleasure creative activities community values youth parent involvement in schooling caring school environment using youth or children as resources a caring neighborhood and neighborhood boundaries know some of these may be surprising but this is what our kids are telling us and just as a side note we did meet with the Youth Commission recently and we talked about this we presented this survey to them nothing that we presented to them was surprising so this is what they're telling us for some very specific things alcohol twelve twenty four percent of our ninth through twelfth graders used alcohol in the last thirty days twelve percent got drunk

021in the last two weeks and we've broken it out grade seven nine and twelve you can see a progression driving an alcohol drove after drinking in the last 12 months three percent overall Road once or more in the last twelve months with a driver who has been drinking sixteen percent overall and I'd be willing to bet you that a portion of that is adults eating disorders seventeen percent have engaged in bulimic or anorexic behavior twenty-one percent felt sad or depressed most of the time in the last month and you can see as the numbers change as they get get into higher grades twenty seven percent in twelfth grade this was a surprise to me gambling gambled once or more in the last 12 months 14% you need you need to pay attention to online gambling

022it's a new thing illicit drug use not very much used heroin or other narcotics multiple times in the last 12 months 1% small number but there 26% frequently depressed and/or have attempted suicide 14% engaged in three or more acts of violence in the last 12 months 6% have been involved in three or more incidents of antisocial behavior or bullying in the last 12 months some of these were were surprising to me again just broken down a little bit differently alcohol marijuana and prescription drugs passed 30 day use marijuana 27% in 12th Greg and perception of risk is something to take a look at as well if we just look at marijuana usage percent of perception of parental disapproval 84% in 12th grade perception of peer disapproval 43% probably not a surprise from some additional points

02396% of our seventh and eighth grade students and 89% of our 912 students feel using prescription drugs that are not prescribed to them is wrong - very wrong 2% of seventh and eighth grade seventh eighth grade students and 24% of our ninth and twelfth grade students feel smoking marijuana would not be wrong 17% of seven of nine to 12 grade students report threatening physical harm to someone in the last 12 months and 10 percent of 7th to 8th grade students and 44% of 9th and 12th grade students report attending parties in the last year where other kids their age were drinking specifically our middle schoolers 18% report getting hurt by someone in their home 76% use a computer cell phone or tablet to email play games surf the web message or text with their friends

024for two hours or more a day no shock there 65 percent watched two or more hours of TV or videos each school day and 50% say they have more than one hour per day at home with no adult supervision this year for the first time the survey included questions on vaping and as as expected number in the high school much higher than the middle school almost 18% have vape tour jul 2 during the past 30 days in the high school of those who indicated they had eight and a half percent say they baked marijuana but it's important to note that while student use of marijuana alone is reporting down the number now reporting vaping marijuana virtually offsets the reduction in marijuana use on its own so the issue with marijuana remains pretty stable the means

025of delivery has changed and the perception of how easy it would be to get electronic cigarettes or other vaping devices changes as our children get older okay ten percent of of seventh to eighth grade students think it would be very hard 35% or very easy I'm sorry 35% of ninth of high school kids think it would be very easy to get to get this stuff so what have we learned alcohol continues to be the number one drug of choice choice for our kids marijuana continues to be viewed as less dangerous than other substances with less parental disapproval but use has moved to vaping we need to be continually mindful of suicide risk of students an onset of at-risk behaviors such as drinking can start as early as 10:00 or 11:00 and without going into details

026that we can't we do know that we have dealt with student and students from crisis in the schools including drug and alcohol abuse self-injury behavior eating disorders and these are the numbers that have been reported to us for hospitalization drug alcohol abuse suicidal thoughts or attempts and non-suicidal self-injury so while these numbers in and of themselves for two years are not huge these are numbers that we do have to deal with and we need to know that it's out there mark Brackett founding director of the Yale Center for emotional intelligence and lead developer of the ruler program which we've adopted reports national trends which our survey mirrors in many ways on mental health and the the fact I'd like you to focus on here is the bottom right hand corner 20% increase each year for

027the last six years in college students seeking mental health treatment this is a national crisis the colleges are not you know staff to deal with this they're not trained to deal with this but we need to prepare our families our kids we need to know that this is coming and frankly if you look at some of the some of the results in the survey it begins at this age it's just some general numbers you know we had three over Resident overdose deaths reported by the state in 2019 and the revealed Police Department disposes of over 50 pounds of unused prescription drugs each month so what can we do increase awareness of assets and behaviors and all constituent groups including parents school staff caregivers care providers clergy effect elected officials community members collectively work to identify

028assets that we as a community can increase continue to listen and talk with our children and neighbors work to lessen the stigma surrounding behavior and mental health issues and for those who who are feeling anything don't be afraid to reach out for help or support so next steps these are suggestions from Brookfield cares continue to revamp the health curriculum in the schools to address issues starting in grades before at-risk behaviors begin so hopefully we can affect the behavior continue a series of meetings presentation events to keep community engaged in educated continual antutu annual parent meetings including freshmen forums at schools and freshmen forum is coming up schools and town continued for I would provide data on a regular basis work to reduce the stigma of mental health through education conversation and support and ask for

029the community's continued support understanding and involvement and just a couple of things really quickly the you know I say I I told you that we did meet with the Youth Commission Liam and Nia was particularly helpful then he had a couple of suggestions that I'll just pass on real quick and I will note that they also participated in a vaping survey and we'll have the results on their version soon and we'll get that out but he suggested that while there's a word of the week that is circulated right now that the idea of a data point on a regular basis would not be a bad idea not to replace a word of the week but additional communication perhaps as an infographic just make it make it pop a little bit and the other observation that

030is that we we have talked to our neighboring communities and you know to learn how to talk to parents how to have more effective communications how to better communicate and one of the things we found is that our neighbor to the north New Milford has as a community they've devoted a they had invested in a community care coordinator who happens to be in the police department and he's not he's not a cop per se but that's where he is and he does everything you'd think a community care community ordinator would do going forward but also when there is an opportunity an unfortunate opportunity for the police to go to to respond to a crisis whether it's suicide or overdose he will go with them not to penalize but to offer immediate on-site support to people

031who desperately need it so kudos to our neighbors for figuring out a way to do something the last thing here and I will pass out packages to you all after this is we're working on presentations for important constituent groups beyond the Board of Education we want to have a larger community event where we can present key findings where we talk to neighbors caregivers organizations businesspeople policymakers in language that they can understand you know more of a you know give parents language that they can use we also learned from our neighbors in New Milford that presentation to students who participated in survey is really something highly worthwhile these are the people who talk to us we need to tell them what we learned and so the three presentations I'll pass out to you tonight are what

032you just saw a more complete deck on each of these so apologies for the tree that we have done away with the but I think it's important for you to see the the difference in approach that we're talking about with with the various groups so with that I thank you for your time and if you have any questions I'm here to answer thank you very much I just want to say I think it's while some of those results are not surprising it's nevertheless it's yeah it's um it's humbling and it's stunning at the same time and yeah there's there's definite things that we can and should be thinking about enjoying Iran is there a specific date you have in mind that they're gonna be sharing like these key findings with the community cuz I know

033parents a lot of parents out there eager to hear the results I know they can watch this presentation the answer is you know we will certainly put this up on the brookfield cares website and you know that that actually is up right now and so which is for field - cares dot board but if but you know we are you know it takes a little while to organize a community event particularly with the number of people in the various constituent groups that we'd like to get you know the closer we get to graduation the less the less valid I think the you know in terms of you know you know we need to make sure that we're doing it in a time frame that makes sense so we're thinking late summer early fall right now

034I know this is important the facts won't change and we're certainly available if any group wants Brookfield cares to come and make a specific presentation will come to PTO meetings will come to you know Lions Club will come to church organizations well you know we are we are dedicated to get the word out and make it as as good as possible so Ron do you present at the freshman forum we have been invited to make a present okay good good because I think that's a there's an interception point with absolutely middle school to high school absolutely well absolutely that's in there and then the other piece Robyn Montgomery and Ron have had a chance to meet with with me and we've also talked about and you've heard from me that we're planning hopefully for the

035end of April beginning of May apparent University and this is something that we might be able to incorporate as one of the mini workshops as well to continue educating and then perhaps even tonight this could be part of maybe three important things if the board feels so is so yeah part of our dissemination and posting on Facebook and things like that could we put the results out to parents over email or we post the presentation we could post yeah yeah we should we should yeah the brothers earn any access to raw data mommy studies the the raw data deep the answer is the raw data is available we've never released the raw data I'd be happy to sit down with you know percentages are not great but I like to put you know raw data

036behind those percentages I understand or something are put but I will also tell you that a spreadsheet without understanding how it's all put together it can be complicated to look at so I'd be happy to sit down with you okay sure I said one worth so I know there was some feedback given regarding you know some of the language that was used in the survey terms that a lot of children I would say aren't familiar with because they were from a long time ago was there any talk of our discussion regarding how that comment set up with the survey with the company that does a survey I know you said they've been doing it for over 20 years but I I had a lot of concerns about the language used and the format of the

037survey I read every single question and I had extensive conversations with my child after it so my concern is to follow up you know after the survey and what I can tell you is you know having you know and I had some concerns about certain things as well and and you know I will tell you that they have been very responsive you know to you know to Brookfield cares in terms of answering questions and they're also appreciative of suggestions going forward as well so more question I mean how many questions are on the survey total about you I can't tell you off a lot it's a lot a lot okay yeah it's like taking the SI it was around the 15 pages hmm you think other questions for run okay thank you very much thanks

038Jeffy thank you for the time of course up next we have public comment and I don't think there's anyone signed up on there anyone from the public here that would like to make a comment okay so we can now move on to our student representative report hi everyone so I just want to start off by saying like those are very those are two very like different presentations that are coming before like my words but I'm just I was just so amazed at the sign language thing like that was I don't know that was very inspirational to me I didn't realize that's how in-depth they were going so I just found that very interesting and I feel like the points I'm kind of talking about honestly tie in to what mr. Jaffe was talking about so

039first of all something that are happening at the school that are going to be happening so we have a blood drive from NHS which is gonna be on March 3rd so like all day at BHS we're gonna have students and staff members come in and people from the public that have signed up and donate blood in the the small gym we're having peer counseling is like having our st. Baldrick's Foundation fundraisers so that's basically people go in they get their heads shaved we usually make about ten thousand dollars every year over ten thousand dollars every year and all that money goes to pediatric cancer research we're also having our so that's gonna happen late March and then in May so like I'll be talking about this again later but in May we're gonna be having

040our NHS 5k and we've decided that the beneficiary of the pro like the proceeds we make is gonna go to dissident Omiya International which is an organization that basically researches and treats patients with neural like damage and it directly relates to the heart so we all we all know someone in our school who is going through that so we thought like in her honor it would be nice to have to donate to that foundation and I feel like this ties into what mr. Jaffe is saying just because like our school like we're doing we're helping out so many organizations like Leo Club just don't like donator like a large amount of money to the harvest patch which helps third-world countries like get money we're helping st. Baldrick's the Red Cross dysautonomia International and I feel

041like a lot of these behaviors that we're seeing like people getting involved in these types of clubs and like seeing the impact that they make I feel like that's like personally I feel like that's important and kind of I guess lessening these behaviors like I think student involvement is really important because you see that like you're benefiting someone else like you're seeing the you have like a more global mindset so I just thought like because I was going to talk about how we're all how all these clubs are like benefiting different parts of the world different organizations different causes and I think like Student Involvement which is very high at BHS but could be better I think that's important like tackling some of these problems so yeah thank you thank you very much up next

042we have sherry regarding special ed Ron Jaffe wrote regarding public comment at meetings Melissa Jaeger wrote regarding special ed and Mike majority wrote regarding security at the new school thank you now we have approval of Board minutes I'll make a motion that the board approved the minutes listed below is recommended for the regular meeting January 22nd and the special joint meeting February 13th second all in favor okay now we have our superintendent's update Thank You mr. Fernandez I will be very brief tonight considering the guests that we had presenting two items on my superintendent report for this evening first one is as part of my public engagement efforts I will be holding superintendent office hours in March April and May and I will disseminate that those those as announcements whether they're to be held at

043a school or in my office or at a public location the Greenway what's that on the Green on the Greenway for a little stroll we can do that take a walk with Burrell so we'll have that going on and that'll be pointing out soon enough and then the other piece dr. Ruby and I were able to secure Erica Hayes from Connecticut school finance project and she will be presenting Connecticut school finance 101 and I really do have to thank dr. Ruby for the for the connection there with Erica and that is this coming Monday February 24th at 7 p.m. in the BHS baudet aureum and that'll be kind of a general overview of how funding is done in Connecticut for schools I think it's very important perfect time of year for that with all the

044on goings in our budget development process and the other piece the final piece to that and I mentioned it with mr. Jaffee's comments is all of this public engagement leads into some of the work that I know is happening not only with a freshman forum at the high school but some of the work at both at the elementary the middle and the high school so far this year and we'll put together a district our inaugural hopefully it becomes a tradition for us parent University like I said at the end of April beginning of May where we'll have a maybe a menu of two or three different sessions that parents will be able to attend and so everybody knows the survey came back and parents are very interested in an evening week day scheduled event rather

045than a Saturday or a weekday event so we'll be looking at a like I said the end of April or beginning of May one of the weeknights that might be available and we'll get it out there and have our people together in some of the great workshops that we've done over time and some new ones as well that's all I have thank you thank you okay up next we have our subcommittee reports and policy and communications is first okay policy committee met on January 22nd in that meeting we went over several policies we are in the 4000 series so we talked about dismissal and suspension of non-tenured teachers and we presented that to you for a first read at the January 22nd meeting I did not receive any comments on that so I think that's

046on the agenda to send through for a second read tonight then we also discussed use of new web tools and digital learning platforms at the January February 20th meeting or sorry the January 22nd meeting we decided we needed to continue discussions on that which we did tonight we just had a policy meeting before this one and we'll be moving that one forward as well we also discussed acceptable computer network and Internet use that will be coming to you for a first read tonight and then cellular telephones and district issued communication devices will be coming your way tonight so there was a bunch of other stuff that we discussed in tonight's meeting which I will brief you on next time we meet thank you Cape okay so we met back on january 28th and the bulk

047of our meeting was about the program of studies for Brookfield High School so one of the changes that we've talked about over the past couple of years is the senior demonstration project and the initially we were hoping to be ahead of the state and implement our own demonstration project but we decided to instead kind of slow down and make sure we're really carefully planning out our own and and see kind of where the state is landing on it and so we will we'll remove it from the program of studies now but we will introduce it I forgot when the state is doing that again 3:23 okay the other thing is the state of Connecticut is also grouping some state requirement which is kind of interesting so there's a humanities group and a stem group and

048you can sort of mix and match your credits in order to fulfill requirements for the state so in response to that there's been some some changes the social studies credit requirement for local credit for Brookfield is three point five math is three and the sciences three even though we could have been broader in our description of credits like humanities or stem we feel that there are certain core classes that are really important to emphasize we don't want to kind of you know totally open that up quite yet so we're kind of sticking to some some cores there there's the alternative program which we learned a lot about because we didn't know too much about that they've renamed it it's going to be called steps and that's a program that meets the needs of students who

049have emotional challenges we also are going to look at being a little bit more specific on online learning opportunities to make sure that there's a specific process and that only state approved providers are acceptable the yearbook is gonna have a class and and that's gonna help to sort of support that and it'll help manage the work of the adviser and the students as well slight change we're renaming Fine and Performing Arts to Visual and Performing Arts and some other changes in names sign language American Sign Language two will be added so that will be for the students who started last year and French four and five is now called French cinema so lots of changes but it was a great opportunity to kind of ask a lot of questions and learn all about you know

050what's going on in the high school okay any questions for Jen okay finance I'm gonna be very brief we spent 90% of the meeting preparing for the the meeting with the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance and I think most of us were at that meeting so I'm not gonna repeat it but we also did talk about the transportation contract which we've talked about in this meeting more than once and we've we agreed as a committee to send forward a proposal to waive the bid policy but it's on the agenda and all I can talk about that when we get to one so that's it all right personnel and negotiations we met briefly last last week and we entered into executive session to discuss collective bargaining issues and all of the board members

051will be updated on that in executive tonight so then we can move on to healthy school start times okay so we had our meeting last Tuesday and Steve Baldwin our athletic director has joined our committee we felt it was really important to get his perspective on the impact that healthy start times might have on athletics and he did a lot of research on start and end times of the schools that are in our athletic league and he also analyzed currently how many students leave school because of leave school early because of competition there are two schools in our league that are in the process of changing their start times but a lot of the schools in our league have similar and I should say really it's about n times when you talk about athletics similar

052n times to our to us so it's a factor that we have to weigh when we think about it is what would would be the potential disruption one of the things is that you know if the committee was to make a recommendation to make a change we're not interested in implementing that change for two whole years so there's a lot of things that could change with our athletic league as well and this does seem to be a state white trend so as a result Steve's gonna follow up with his other athletic director colleagues and find out how many of those schools are also in the process of discussing start times so we're happy to have Steve's perspective on the issue and the other big thing we talked about is we really want to include students

053voice in the discussion and we want to hear we you know analyze the survey but we really want to hear a little bit more anecdotal information from the students so we're gonna follow up with some focus group interviews with high school students and then I'm gonna follow up with Mark Boal and to see if maybe we could include a discussion of healthy start times during a flex period so we get lots of kids talking about it and learning about it and we get their perspective and their experience to give us a fuller understanding of how it impacts particularly high school students and then lastly we're working on a communication plan to summarize all of our findings and our work and I'm going to draft that out for the group and we're going to work on

054revising that so we'll have something ready to present to the board soon great okay any questions for Jen's okay facilities okay we had a special meeting last Thursday we reviewed the school dude reports and discussed the procedures for repairing and monitoring the heating units and classrooms we also discussed the vandalism in the high school restrooms Susan Queen and Doug Sylvia and Bryan Muller all came and spoke in favor of the high school boys locker room project and their support for pushing the project forward the committee we took another tour of the locker room and we had a brief discussion about it unfortunately we ran out of time so we tabled our discussion so that we can get more clarifying information ask additional questions we did meet tonight at 5 o'clock so we'll update you next

055at our next meeting about what we discussed and we are requested that Eddie from Tecton come to our meeting because we have some additional questions for him and to go through certain scenarios and things like that stuff to be hearing more regarding me specifically the boys locker room project more details soon ok thank you any questions for joy ok thank you hmmm now we can move on to our consent agenda I'll make a motion that the board approve the items listed below on the consent agenda as recommended retirements new hires transfers new assignments second any discussion all in favor okay new business we have a bunch of policies so I'll let you read that motion it's a long I will make a motion that the board approved the deletion of policy for one one eight

056point five two rights responsibilities and duties acceptable computer networking and replace it with cave policy for one one eight point five one social networking and cave policy for one one eight point for electronic mail for a first reading as recommended by the policy communication subcommittee so for one one eight point five two is the one that has a big X through it and really the reason for this is that our original one with the X through it was sort of all-encompassing and almost too broad so what we are recommending is that we split it into two different policies which cave has recommended the first one is four one one eight point five one which covers just social networking and then the second one is four one one eight point four which is electronic mail we

057don't currently have a policy for email so that's that was another reason for you know recommending that we discard our old version and come up with two distinct policies that cover social networking and email I just second the motion quick that's right thank you [Laughter] anybody have any questions okay any other discussion on this all in favor aye the next policy acceptable computer network yes okay I'll make a motion that the board approve the revisions to policy for one 18.5 acceptable computer network used for a first reading as recommended by the policy communications committee second okay so this one we currently have this policy the original was drafted in 2003 so the only change to it is that the legal references on the second page have been updated because the state laws have changed with

058regard to electronic monitoring so all the language and the policy is the same but the legal references have been updated any questions right all in favor hike next policy cellphone use make a motion that the board approve the revisions to policy for one 18.6 cellphone district issued communication device for a first reading as recommended by the policy communications subcommittee second okay this is recommended by cave we don't currently have this policy so this is their version this applies to any as it says any district issued cell phones so these are phones that are provided for administrators technology personnel facilities director head custodians foodservice athletic trainers etc and it basically just outlines the requirements for use and and guidelines for using those cell phones for school related business and activities capabilities the beaming gaming capabilities right

059okay any other questions right all in favor aye okay and when does the policy committee meet next so that we can get any March 4th so do you want revisions before that in 18th is the next meeting oh yeah Oh how much fourth is the next force policy maybe can we do by Friday the 13th March 13th yeah well but we can't vote on this on the March 18th meeting can we actually Lisa and I double checked our updated 9000 series from the bylaws and actually says for we've been going by 30 days but it actually says four weeks so the 18th essentially if you count from tonight this is for a week so we could we could bring it for the eight comments pretty good okay okay whatever the board would like great okay

060so by the 13th did you want in any edits right good policy revision yep all right out of curiosity are what you said earlier that where we've moved on to the 4000 series did we finish the 3000 series no no so there's still some left open to fit to finish in that yes okay yes how many are still Wow 3000 series is about any policies I know it was a lodge okay okay all right so we can move on to the proposed revisions to the program of studies and I make a motion that the board approve the proposed revisions to the program of studies as recommended by the keep subcommittee assistant superintendent dr. Maureen Ruby and BHS principal mark Belinda second you see this is basically what I described in Cape report does anybody have

061any questions for either Jen or mr. blender since we have them here they all seem pretty straightforward yeah and not always okay okay okay so all in favor aye okay next up we have old business and the first is a policy I'll make a motion that the board approve policy 3451 petty cash for a final reading as recommended by the policy subcommittee first reading was on January 8th 2020 second so again I didn't get any comments on this one this so short this is super short basically it's just saying that we don't allow any petty cash fund so good all right any other questions on this okay all in favor hi I'm food service policy make a motion that the board approved policy of 35:42 food service for a final reading as recommended by the

062policy subcommittee first reading was january 20 20 seconds any questions for Debbie on this did you get it nope okay all in favor high policy on free and reduced lunch okay I'll make a motion that the board approve policy thirty five forty two point thirty one free and reduced lunch for a final reading is recommended by the policy subcommittee first reading was on January 8th it's not each one second and again I didn't get any comments on this one any other discussion on this all in favor aye thank you to the policy oh we have one more non-tenured times recommend a motion that the board approved policy of 41 17.4 dismissal and said special suspension of non-tenured teachers for a final reading as recommended by the policy subcommittee the first reading was on January 22nd

06325 second I got no comments or changes to this one either okay so any other questions for Debbie your comments all in favor all right and thank you to the policy subcommittee for all of your work on all these policies next up we have our bidding procedure waiver okay I'll make a motion that the board leave the bidding requirements set forth in board policy 33 20 in regulation 33 20.1 and extend its contract with all star transportation for a period of two years as recommended by director of business and operations can post second um so you guys you might remember this motion was on a previous board agenda just the way the motion was worded we felt it was important to sort of include it here to actually direct ken or allow Ken to go

064ahead and and extend that contract as opposed to just enter into negotiations for it so was there anything else that you needed to add for this particular motion don't ask me to recount what the reasons why we're doing this okay so if there's no further discussion all in favor aye all right next up we have the Board of Education adopted 2020 2021 budget and this is just an action so there's there's not a whole lot that we're we're gonna be able to discuss tonight but in light of the First Selectman email that was sent out on Friday which was you know less than 24 hours after our joint meeting our adopted budget has been cut by about eight hundred and seventeen thousand dollars so we have some very big challenges ahead of us in terms

065of how we are going to fund the things that we know we need to fund and face these cuts from the first selectmen and the Board of Finance has not yet weighed in on this yet so we know that there's you know potentially more to come so it's really just sort of up to us now to sort of maybe reprioritize a little bit any ideas that you want to share with the board and with administration and we need to sort of if there's areas that you that you feel that we need to redress or refocus on we should have those discussions now historically we haven't really actually had those discussions until we had a firmer input from the Board of Finance right so that we know what we're shooting right so as the Board of

066Finance given us that having a date where they would like us to come and meet with them just board board or it was the one meeting we had with all three boards the only one that's scheduled that's the only one that's scheduled but yeah I mean I know that I will I know that they're gonna be meeting a lot in March yeah they meet three days a week all through the month of March so getting ready for the public here in the in April so but I'm hoping that they have some time with us so we can go a little deeper because quite frankly the meeting we had we told the story and but we really didn't dig down into the budget any great depth and I could tell the Board of Finance was raring

067to do it got a little argumentative there at times and I was part of that I'm sorry Board of Finance but the but I would hope that we would have a time and maybe we ought to offer our time to the Board of Finance to have a more in-depth discussion and we ought to ask them for quiet we ought to ask them for their questions yeah right well they usually schedule a time for Bordeaux and to come in and talk to them you know usually mid March you know mid and they get a third part of March maybe we got to reach out to that's like the full board I don't know sometimes it's been just some members of the board sometimes has been a full board but we have to follow the request of

068the Board of Finance now right so I would suggest we maybe under your signature send a note to them saying we're available right if you have questions please send them to us by such and such a date and we'll get you something we'll get you all the answers you would ever want right on specific questions and and you know make ourselves as available as we can because if they try to make decisions and avoid they're only making decisions on affordability not on education right so I think I think we need to make ourselves as available as we can so I think we definitely should ask for a list of questions rather than them making assumptions about no items in our budget the sense I got was that I I felt like they thought that some

069numbers could they kept using that word vetted they felt that some numbers could have been vetted better for example the sewer question that came up I thought that was unfortunate so I I would just say that I think we should be a little proactive on the numbers that we can verify anything from suppliers or vendors that we could go back and double check or triple check to make sure we're getting the best possible rate or the lowest rate or the increase that we've planned for next year is is accurate I think we should I think that's fair and I think you know that's that's something that we should do and I just I want it since this is our meeting and only har meeting this is a good opportunity to sort of you know be

070our own advocates and at least be able to say to the public now that while we do need to do those things and there are certain numbers that you know perhaps could be slightly more accurate but it's important for the public to understand that these are still very small slivers of the pie and we all saw what that pie looked like and you can collectively add up all of those things a thousand dollars here two thousand dollars there and it does that up but it's never going to get us at eight hundred thousand dollars so yes we know that there's going to be more to come most likely but I think we do need to sort of we need to give dr. Burrell and Ken some direction tonight in terms of areas that other than

071you know these smaller numbers that we might be able to tighten up we need to give them a little more direction in terms of where they can go tonight what I don't think we have to get in that direction tonight district well we know we have 800,000 at least not over I mean I think there's a long discussion left to happen and I don't want to go spin our wheels on 800,000 and then discover later at 600 or a million right I just for sure the superintendent should be thinking about his recommendations that would get a state hundred thousand yeah my name is that last part but can you say that again you should be you should be having an opinion of how we would approach 800,000 yes and we'd like to hear that but

072the I think it's premature to be giving specific direction how does everyone else feel I agree I'd like to hear from the administration on how might they might handle that and I think that would better for us to weigh in on once we have a recommendation otherwise I feel like we're kind of doing what we did remember a month ago or so said you know we were sort of saying should we cut this should we cut that should we do this but I mean you know we didn't you hurry but yeah and I think how you know John has to consider in Ken and Maureen how do you run the district with that much less and and I I think I'd be better able to weigh in on it once I have a recommendation to

073consider for me they're the last last bit you proposed it was about $300,000 reduction Ravin those are theoretical what with the things no yes yes I was asked to come between three and four hundred thousand dollars and we had that conversation yes that's so we have we have kind of in the board house for before if we're to increase class size by reducing one section I think it was maybe k3 or K through 12 and so to look at that number so Ken brought that number forward so we've exercised some of this but I think to Debbie and Rosa and Bob's kind of points really digging in on some of those smaller numbers for accuracy such as the source things like that Ken's already started a process of taking a look at the what we

074project or estimate is based on history what a grant might look like that comes in or certain revenues so you know double-checking have this has the state updated some of those at this point in the year many times they haven't but we can check and then that gets us a little bit closer you know things like that hopefully in mid-march we have an estimate that comes a an accurate representation of what the figure would be on health insurance you know we've estimated seven point five percent increase plus the two percent fee if there is a any reduction in that seven point five that that could you know means significant dollars to help us and obviously that's a positive help because it doesn't impact students at all that's just operational so we're looking at all those

075things so I think we can you know over the next couple of weeks we'll be looking at that and then kind of thinking through what our process might be to help the board have a conversation when the time comes and we know the final number of what we need to do kind of how might we prioritize that and then we have a very structured framework of how we exercise the reductions so we'll be working on that that's if that's what the board was thinking us thinking timewise depending when the Board of Finance would like to spend time with us we would want to guide that discussion to the board meeting that we would have just prior to that so we walk into a discussion with the Board of Finance with some knowledge now I'm guessing

076the Board of Finance they received their budget usually the beginning of March somewhere between the 1st and the 5th of March depending on when the Board of Selectmen meeting is they then have three day a week meetings Tuesday Wednesday Thursday starting the second week of March usually all the way through so depending where that is it might be our first meeting it might be our second meeting in March and that would also give us sufficient information going to a public hearing right in April I would have another shot at it before the public hearing which is I don't sure exactly when the public hearing is on the budget yeah I don't know if it's actually safe it is oh it is that song I know I know they voted on the date but it's probably

077just before school vacation that's my guess that's where they'd been the last couple of years so I'd like the Tuesday before so it's usually like the 10th of the budget but this o a went from the board it went from the First Selectman to the Board of Selectmen so the Board of Selectmen is deliberating right now and I'll be frank the Board of Selectmen usually doesn't change it much right because the First Selectman has been working with them all along they've been talking and in workshops but it's there was there's an event mid-february which the First Selectman has to make his recommendations similar than what we're asking John to do for us that board selectmen needs the recommendations of the operating officer of the unit right twitch and then they deliberate for literally just two

078weeks and then somewhere but I think it's targeted the first March to be delivered to the Board of Finance sometimes it's a second third or fourth depending on where it is in the week so and then when does the Board of Finance finalize their budget so the way the process of the Board of finances they then have the month of March and the beginning of April to do their review they have to have a public hearing in mid April April 7th April 7th okay good thank you for looking that up and then and then off the back of the public hearing and the public's had a chance to give them input they have to finalize their recommended budget Dakota to carry forward to referendum two weeks before the Town Meeting and the town meetings the

079first Tuesday in May so that usually means mid April so usually they have to finalize finalized like April 20th there abouts and usually school break is like right there so that's why they do the public hearing as early as the 7th so a lot can change between now and mid April you know yeah I kind of see this like we want to have all the information we can if things like health insurance and have changed and are in the most complete picture before we have to make really difficult decisions yep yeah and Ken do we have a written estimate from the WPC a on that one line item not just a percentage year-to-year change just a here's the number thank you not but I police asked them to do that right because that I think

080we got a little blindsided by that [Music] and we probably ought to have everything where we can have a written estimate write work not just uh that going rate or something like that so but I'm thinking we need to have dr. Brill come back at our first meeting in March so that we could tie it into a board a finance meeting we might get lucky and be able to do the second meeting in March but depending on what we can find out from the Board of Finance are we having fun yet really does anybody have any other questions comments or discussions on our budget I'll just make a comment you always have to approach these things from a hierarchy of needs and we have some basic needs that we have to maintain and we have

081some things we put into the budget that we like to have right and we have to separate like two halves from basic needs and I think this is gonna be a budget that's gonna take us to basic needs so this a lot of that is how much was the remind me again what the program enhancement money was in dollars it was only like a half a percent 270,000 it was like 207 I think that's gonna be all on assessment and that's my input to you right because those were things that would improve our program when you're facing facing class sizes and special and all the things that are must-haves those are those are those are hard to say I would invest in those over and above the basic needs but that's just my two cents

082worth I mean may you may say there's one or two that are too important but I want to hear that that's good that's where my head starts and I think we've talked about some of the other areas that are gonna be at risk right black kind of cut rose I think it did a great job of telling the whole story of the budget so if anybody in the community you know didn't get to see that that's worth watching because you really get to understand what do we really spend our money on and you know your graphs and different things really represented that you know we spend our money on people we spend our money on teachers to support our kids and well these other things are are small so if anybody didn't get a chance

083to see that that would be worth their time to see that presentation again to back your point I think it was also very important I was gonna take you know three things away from that presentation I think the number one thing is that we don't spend a lot per pupil when we perform very well that's right I loved your graph I liked the star on the screen but yeah yeah it was um you know I we we have an amazing we really do have an amazing school district and we really it's very clear that we put our money exactly you know we put our money where our mouth is and and it shows and you know I hope that our that you know despite the fact that there weren't any questions about the presentation at

084all you know I hope that the public can see that you know our tech they are integrity and you know what we do for our students is is really not something that should be questioned so I know you also mentioned this last week but I wanted to mention again kudos to Ken for pulling together all Kali Anya back up and support that mr. Dunn and the Board of Finance asked for on very short notice before the meeting I know that that was really an amazing task to pull off so we really appreciate it I'll be honest most of that was already provided to me in different formats by the principals as part of the regular budget process so there was there was a lot of cutting and pasting and changing formats and asking clarifying questions

085of certain things I think he that I will observe I'll observe one thing that was so fresh in at least the first select man's hands that that's all he had looked at yeah and there's a lot of more information in the book the thing that that detail had it had an amazing amount of detail on what do we spend money on but it didn't explain the year two years right because that's in the main book right it was just more detail so if my friends on the board of Finance are listening make sure you look at the whole book right because some of the explanations of why things are growing and where they are growing are in the detail line item detail in the book and then the Gore P amount of information that was

086additionally provided which I don't say what I've been involved in these budgets for 20 years now we've never provide about my own information and so was fabulous that we share that level of information but the in the middle of a budget see okay but but it was it was in a format that was not explaining why things change year to year was more in a format of here's the details and if that's all you look at you're gonna you're gonna be faced with the questions that like mr. Dunn asked why is center school up a hundred percent year-on-year and when I looked at the detail under mr. posts thing it was the furniture to fit up three new classrooms I mean the curriculum supplies curriculum supplies for that and it was very clear what was

087driving it but that what that didn't show up in that set of formats and if that's all you were looking at of course you didn't get that so so I think that's why I I'm an advocate for spending time with the Board of Finance because I think some calm time around a table would help them with here's what's really going on so I just do some sports Thank You Kim I echo Debbie's input thanks for the acknowledgments appreciated the principles and Special Education Department of Finance Department everybody's worked very hard on that then at the end of the day we're glad we did it it'll be helpful for everybody next year there's always very difficult ones a budget season has started to switch formats and pay attention to every little bit of detail while you're

088trying to create something brand new okay any other questions or comments on our budget okay so we can move on to the new school building project dr. Braille and I just had a call this morning with the office of school construction grants and some officials in Hartford they have still some lingering concerns about the site and in particular like where it's going on the huckleberries site will be you know sort of ironing out those details and I'm confident that that will that will move along smoothly eventually was there yes yeah I actually had a call from mr. Cecco who is the chair of the municipal building committee the municipal building committee hired our construction manager last night and they are appointing Ong industries they actually are as I understand at least region-wide but I believe

089they might be nationwide but they do have an office in Danbury so it was very helpful for for us it's a for mr. Chekov it's a quick phone call away and for obviously our architects etc and what a construction manager does especially pre bond right now is to estimate the cost of construction documents before we go out to bid that ensures that we stay within the scope of the project and within the budget and that's the most important thing nothing erroneous comes out of those the bid documents it's really done properly estimated etc and that's one of the things we promise from the beginning that we're going to stay within the scope of the project and we're going to stay within budget and stay on time so we're it's just another another accomplishment in the

090long line of things we need to do to get through on the project how long was that the call this morning at least an hour and a half yeah I was at least we didn't have to drive to Hartford though yeah yeah that's all I have on that is there a nothing yeah question any questions or anything else on the project at this point yeah we're moving along so it's good stuff okay so we're onto three main points sort of a and I think we ought to talk about the discussion on the budget yeah and would the board and actually I was thinking the same thing we can show the video of roses presentation to those do that for the joint meeting yeah as part like as a link is a link yeah you know

091and we have the presentation as well up there so I mean presentations already posted but screw this this way people could actually see viewing the presentation I think that's really important because there's a story to the president yeah and that you tell yep I think it's a great day okay any upcoming events I was gonna suggest that we do a petty cash policy but the answer is no no petty cash February 24th at 7 p.m. in the Brookfield High School Auditorium Erica Haines will present school finance 101 how Connecticut school funding system impacts the community at center we have ongoing registration for kindergarten for 2020 2021 Wednesday February 19 through Friday February 28th is the American Heart Association healthy heart healthy fundraiser and Friday February 28th is a community meeting and kickoff to the One

092Book One read school-wide event and also the HR are a recycling billboard contest and trees are due at whiskey near on Friday February 28th and Saturday February 29th is the WMS unified theater performance doors open at 6:00 and the performance is at 6:30 and at Brookfield hi Tuesday March 3rd is the freshman forum a mandatory program for 9th grade students and their parents that's in the auditorium at 6:30 p.m. that's it okay so we have an anticipated executive session would you like to read that yeah I'll make a motion that the board enter into executive session to discuss the superintendent's mid-year goals and strategy and negotiations as it relates to collective bargaining second okay so that concludes our public portion first oh all in favor aye that concludes the public portion of our meeting tonight

093thank you everyone and have a good night [Music]