Board of Education Meeting

001[Music] okay so first we have our student spotlight sick children so okay so I am so very thrilled to be here today as the proud principal of center school to share with you some of the developments in our preschool program we have this year we added a teacher we added a speech language therapist that the program is definitely growing and they're doing some really great things all in alignment with the Connecticut Early Learning and Development standards and in best practices for you'll see ruler involved here just this is where it starts this is the foundation so I hope that you can see where the things that are our teachers and our speech therapists are doing with our youngest learners I'm three years old coming in you know over the course of the year we believe

002students enrolling really are building the foundation that they'll need to move forward so that portion of a graduate really starts with the right here so I'm gonna the teachers put together a video and so I'll take some questions afterwards but they wanted to kind of give you a broad scope of what happens in their their program [Music] the program has changed to show you a little video sampling of our students we want to make sure that everybody knows that they're very the Board of Education let's welcome the administrators [Music] [Applause] [Music] if it's red alright let's start our pattern that we won save the tiger [Music] can you point to the number eight Tyler what number comes before eight can you point to the number ten can you tell me what number comes after ten

003okay so we have the most sunny days what type of weather do we have the least [Music] now could you tell me how many cloudy days and windy days we have all together Harry's doorbell rang again it was his friend the spoon looking old as can't be Harry said please come and join me what do we do with this boom me mix or sterner look back at this picture what do you think is going to disappear and right where was aired Oh mark Harry was go ahead Radley what you got you know that is great would rape yeah [Music] are you feeling how are you feeling [Music] it was his friend the straw looking oldest to be Harry's dead that's right get the shot now can you guys try to make some circles for me

004[Music] [Applause] that's know me leo [Music] Oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so as you can see there's a lot of purposeful work that's happening everything that happened there is tied to a standard that it will lead to a further you know kind of progress up through the grade levels in support of fine motor development language development sensory development self self-regulation and self-awareness as well as early literacy math skills so there's a lot of work going on in our pre-k we're very proud of all that they're doing does anyone have any questions or anything to ask about sure okay we can move on to public comment nobody's signed up is there anyone here from the public that would like to speak just when you get up to the podium just please state your name and address for

005the record and you'll have three minutes Thanks hello all right thank you my name is Victoria Guarino twelve rocky road in Brookfield so I haven't been to any Board of Ed meetings this year I apologize but I did hear from a student actually a high school student that there is possibly that the K through six Spanish program is possibly going to be taken away is that true it's something that we have discussed at previous meetings okay so um I just as a parent in the town and as a 14-year educator in a different town I just want to speak to how that would negatively impact our students and our town one of the main reasons that my husband and I bought a house in Brookfield was because of the excellent school system and one of

006the major programs that we did look into was the language program and how it starts at so young early of an age my sorry my students a curry he goes to center school he's in kindergarten and he is loving the Spanish program he comes home he's taught me the days of the week he can count to 20 already in Spanish he knows his colors in Spanish and we know developmentally that children once they hit puberty that language acquisition really starts to deteriorate so the time is when they're in their early education in elementary school that it's really important that they are acquiring these skills and so I just wanted to state my opinion on on this situation so thank you very much thank you thank you is there anyone else who would like to speak

007okay seeing none we'll move on to the student representative report okay hi everyone so in the high school right now we don't have a whole lot going on but we have midterms for one thing today was the first day so who have students who had like their first two classes on a day is they took those midterms they didn't have any classes they didn't have to come into school which is great but that was the first day and they're gonna go on until Monday so that's just something that's you know been going on other than that there's a lot of planning so for example we're having we're trying to revive the mr. BHS talent show that used to happen a couple years ago just like it was just a fun talent show that everyone enjoyed

008but recently it hasn't been occurring so student council is trying to revive that in the form of mx BHS which is supposed to be like a gender-neutral talent show that just you know it's just more inclusive incorporates everyone who wishes to participate so that's something that student council has been working on so it's probably gonna happen sometime in April after the play they're still trying to figure out all the details but I'm excited for that Leo club is also having a Valentine's Day fundraiser again that planning is going on it's for the harvest pack which is a nonprofit organization they're looking to sell like candy and mini bears just you know fun Valentine's Day things to raise money and also something else that's going on right now in a class that's new this year at

009the high school in scientific research which was just started this year we are actually in the middle of conducting experiments that we have designed for the past semester so first semester we you know did a lot of research on topics of interest second quarter was a lot of planning on procedures and talking with mentors some people contacted professors at colleges some people look to psychology teachers in our in the high school and now third quarter we're actually getting to conduct the experiments so they arranged from like psychology based experiments to biology and genetics so it's it's really interesting to see how it's gonna play out there's about ten kids in the class it's very you but it's it's nice to be doing something different something very hands-on so that's all that's really happening in the

010moment right now how did the master your midterms event go oh yeah so I personally was at the peer counseling one because I'm a peer counselor I didn't go to the master in Merton midterms one that was from students at Brookfield but we had about sixty freshmen show up to the freshmen midterm review night which is about what we get every year and it's great to see I mean we hope that it helped in some way at all if it relieved a little stress if it helped them plan out then we'd say our job was beneficial but yeah I thought it was good it's great thank you all right Thank You Monty we will move on to approval of Board minutes oh sorry I skipped written correspondence then we have a lot of britain correspondence

011yes Andy Korea wrote concerning the budget Eve Sturdivant shared an op-ed regarding the budget process Georgia stabile and Ron Jaffe wrote regarding public comment at meetings Aaron scelera regarding special ed Monique Matthews and Sherrie Styron offski regarding a news Times article Georgia stabile regarding the world language program and Ron Jaffe has shared an article about vaping Thank You recommend a motion that the board approve the minutes listed below as recommended the public forum on January 8th 2020 the regular meeting on January 8th 2020 and the special joint meeting of January 15th 2020 second any questions all in favor so now we can our superintendent's update Thank You Rosa due to the budget discussion in the new building project discussions tonight I thought and the fact that the boards heard from me enough in the last

012couple of weeks with all the meetings we've had I'll defer my time but I did want to take the opportunity on behalf of the policy committee from this evening to put forth that the policy committee would like to motion to move policy for one 17.4 dismissal dismissal / suspension of non-tenured teachers for a first reading for this evening perhaps that could be moved to new business okay so I will go ahead and make that motion to amend the agenda and include policy number for one 17.4 yes to the first item of new business thank you all in favor aye that's it Rosa thank you on two subcommittee reports first up we have facilities okay so we met on we met on Wednesday January 8th I was nominated Committee Chair thank you we reviewed the school

013dude reports and we were updated on several projects one is the high school generator unfortunately it's not online there was a discrepancy in the factory wiring of the 80s and has been discovered and his work is being done Courtney fixing of this the middle school generator went out to bid paving at the high school so the athletic entrance the curbing the sidewalks this project is comparable to the middle school paving I won't require a lot of engineering paving at the middle school this is phase two the it's budgeted for it was budgeted for two hundred forty thousand it's gonna cost about one hundred ninety two thousand so we'll be able to go now further out this will be summer work HVAC controls at the high school we need to set up specifications for this work

014we have four buildings and five to six operating system so mr. Coble had a meeting with automated logic and they're putting together proposal to perform the first phase of the work the cone elevator service is back on a new key access which has been ordered but we don't have an ETA yet on the install of this we received an update and discussed the bathrooms at the high school and mr. Blandon shared some very creative and outside thinking ideas impossible systems that will be put into place to rectify issues we're currently dealing with mr. Koval reported that a night custodian has started at the middle school the high school head custodian position remains open and unfortunately there hasn't been a lot of positive responses of qualified applicants we're given an update about the boys locker room

015at the high school Tecton tech tongs shared the design cost estimates and alternatives and as a committee we decide to table a decision on the project until our next meeting and due to a shortage of time we tabled our discussion of the fire inspections and electric usage for our next meeting if anybody has any questions is that as a from this meeting the generator was offline is it do you think it's so that was as of yesterday oh that was of yesterday okay okay any update so when that might any other questions for joy all right we can move on to finance so the Finance Committee the Finance Committee met on on the 13th of January I'm gonna give a very brief report because the entire Finance Committee meeting was spent looking through the budget

016performance the outlook for the year and the special education costs and reconciling all that out and it became the basis for the presentation we did with the Board of Ed and the Board of I'm sorry Board of Ed Board of Finance and Board of Selectmen on the 15th which was two days later so I think all of us have seen that that material which basically shows a very significant exposure to our current budget on the special education lines there were some underruns elsewhere and for some freezes put into place to try to partially contain that and the Board of Selectmen approved to move forward a an appropriation to cover the known additional expenses after all those savings were netted out and the Board of Finance will take that under consideration at their next meeting so

017that and that's not going to be the end of the discussion because there are additional children coming in with with needs that cost money outsourcing types of costs and and so we're gonna monitor that and probably have another discussion probably in February into March as we have more facts on that so so that was the board of fine I'm sorry the Finance Committee meeting any questions healthy school starts okay so the committee met last Tuesday and we started with a presentation from Eddie why Dolph ski from Tecton about the bus lane design because we for the new building project and it was interesting to see how the buses would line up and how many buses could be you know quarantined I guess at one point and so the big takeaway is that if we choose

018to we can have a start the schools start at the same time the new school there could be one start time for the new school that wouldn't necessarily have to be a split time in terms of busing so that was just good information to know as we plan ahead if we think about start time so that that was good information then we continued our analysis of the survey data if you remember we surveyed the parents teachers and students and so two of our committee members Laurie and Colette did a more detailed analysis of the survey data in particular we wanted to separate the students out the high school from the middle school and we wanted to separate parents out by the school in which their children attend so we could get a better closer look

019at what the data really told us and so some interesting takeaways I listed on the minutes one thing is ninety percent of students reported that sleep was very important was important to them fifty-five percent of high school students are currently have less than six hours of sleep a night at least once per week and over 1/2 of our high school teachers reported that students are struggling to stay awake during first period so that was some some of the analysis of the data that we were able to sort of drill down and see to what extent is the problem of a sleep deprivation reflective in how our community is is responding so those were just some some examples what the committee is going to do from now from here on out is that we've gathered a

020lot of research and we've done the survey data and what we want to do is cull it into a format that's digestible and understandable for both the board but for the wider community and so we're going to develop really like an executive summary that would be something that everybody could sort of access and look at and that you know executive summary would highlight the key research it would highlight what we learned from the survey would highlight some of the steps that the committee had taken along in the process and who we had engaged with in terms of what other school districts we had visit had conversations with so that that's where we're moving towards next and you can see there's a tentative timeline for what we would like to work towards worth we'd love in

021March to have a presentation to the board in which we could go over that executive summary and sort of update the board on our findings we'd like to plan some public forums in March and April and continue public outreach and perhaps align our recommendations with some community and endorsements from different organizations and then our plan is to by April or May have a recommendation to the board for your consideration and a vote in June lastly the committee also is interested in conducting some focus groups to drill down on some of the data that came from the survey so collecting perhaps groups of high school students or groups of parents or teachers in which we can ask more pointed questions to follow up on what some some of some of the key data points so I'm

022gonna follow up with John and see if that's something that we can arrange in the coming month or so 9 percent of parents reported that sleep was important so how many parents she's like hundreds hundreds I can't remember them if I remember correctly I think you're looking it up right now right in the six hundred great at least we had a really good response yeah and every high school student did the survey close to it you're just gonna pull it up right now except for it kids might have been absent that day yeah okay 746 responses from Paris so that's on microphone so people can hear 1052 students respondents and how about the staff here 450 550 for Gen remind me about the timing if this you know is endorsed and and the recommendation is

023to move forward with changing the start times would it take place next school year or the following so here we're thinking not until the new school opens in two years okay so our hope is if we have a recommendation and the board approves it that would give community members and schools over you know really two years to plan and adjust I feel like that's a nice good at a time and then we you know as we said we don't want to make any changes before the new school opens because so much will change with that so if we are going to make a change in terms of start time that would make sense mm-hmm two years away so a little over two years by two and a half from now I guess right give people

024plenty of time if the Board considers it enjoy yeah all right and and the other thing I think we've stated before is and John's reported that other districts are making changes sort of as we speak and I remember I think you told us one district decided now and they're putting in place in September some districts have taken the slow slow research walk like we've done and working with their communities and they've been on it for two years now or so and and they're making a move likely for next year and others like Newtown a couple of years ago and I think New Fairfield making a pretty quick move yeah making a decision more quickly so well again it's community context and you know with our I think the wise decision is to take our time

025like we're doing but then also why have multiple changes when we know we have the school project right online I think that's smart even if we could do it sooner I think it's just easier if we align it with the new school yeah cuz like the buses will have to change for the new school so you know if we're gonna get really it has to do with the buses how many you know loops and different things will have to take so it's hopefully it'll make sense parent drop-offs people have to learn new routines so there'll be a lot of learning never everyone yeah you might have two years to practice yeah two years to practice with the orange cones out work on that okay any other questions for Jen recommend a motion that the board

026approved the items listed on the consent agenda as recommended retirements and new hires second just like to make a special note Eddie Barrett our longtime 28 year maintenance worker has decided to retire and we just can't thank him enough for almost three decades in the district not for those of you know Eddie he is a a character I think that's a great word we'll leave it there and he is he's a heck of a guy and he's given so much to us for so long and we just want to thank them for service hi so now we can so first up you actually have policy for one 17.4 yeah for first read I'd like to move that that we approve motion I'm sorry policy for one 17.4 for first read on do we have copies

027of it okay thank you so policy for one 17.4 is part of our 4,000 series dealing with personnel and it's really the it's it's an existing policy we already have it in place it's based on cabe's version it has to do with the date that non-tenured teachers are notified if they may not be renewed next year so currently the policy has a date of April 1st that a written notice would be due to the employee by April 1st however and that was based on prior state law the state law changed a couple years back in 2011 and the current teacher tenure law dictates that now May 1st is the date so we would simply be updating our current policy to reflect the change in the law to May 1st that's the only change that we

028are recommending and this is a policy while the copy is coming around now this is a policy that we brought forward and talked over with the former policy committee back in the fall and the idea was to wait until the new policy committee was formed after the election and so we we reviewed it tonight the main reason we brought it we reviewed it this afternoon before this meeting and we're bringing it forward tonight frankly there's some urgency in it because if if we waited until February 19th which is our next board meeting 30 days from February 19th is not March 19th when we have our next meeting our next board meeting after February our second board meeting after February 19th is March 18th so it wouldn't be 30 days now we're getting close to April

0291st we'd be waiting into April with the way our process has to go so we wanted to bring it tonight so then we could bring it forward by the first meeting in March and have a second read and it has those conversations and again it's just a simple date change it's one of those pieces of legislation that frankly is really a good thing it gives us more time and more opportunity depending on the budget situation in any given spring as well as having the opportunity to work with our newer teachers for another month before we have to make any difficult decisions any other discussion thank you everyone so John we just in terms of comments on the first read we have to give 30 days so it would not that would not be for our

030next policy meeting is that that's what you're saying for next board meeting is February 19th so today's the 22nd so it wouldn't actually have been 30 days so it would have to be the first meeting in March which okay don't know if the top of my head March 4th March 4th so that way second read where we could adopt in there next your next policy committee meeting is the Martin midmark our next policy meeting is February 9th everywhere the formality of the 30 days is when it's on the board agenda okay we could do that tomorrow to be Franks on this one I think you especially okay so well we say comments by our February 19th okay that's board meeting everybody any other questions about that February 19th to Debbie okay we can move on

031to Tecton approval of school design okay recommend a motion that the board approved the schematic design documents as the basis for the design development phase of the new school building project second okay so in front of you guys you have the packets that has all of the most final schematic design drawings or the pictures on it so aside from Mike and Jen the rest of us were received the presentation by Tecton so you know if there's any other questions or we do have the presentation from Tecton queued up if we if you want to see it sort of bigger but sort of now is the time to sort of ask any questions before we vote to finalize this and just so that you guys are aware and I asked this question last night schematic design

032is not sort of the most final design work of the project really that's that the but all of the detailed stuff is going to be during the design development phase what can't change in schematic design is sort of the square footage major components core components of the building and the envelope so you know in terms of shifting some things around on the inside that might still happen throughout design development could I comment a little bit on last night they did a great job oh my god I mean they they took all the stuff that came out of the public hearings they had what we've seen and I hope we put it up on the website because this is a really good person tomorrow tomorrow what I what I walked out of it is you remember

033we had those wings that we had talked about and a high-level design of where thus the where the shared spaces would be they they took us through specifically where the you know every major component was you know whether it be the health suite or the you know how the cafeterias would work and all the special ed spaces and all the teacher breakout spaces and and how the corridors would look and feel and you know it was very thoughtfully done and and I and they actually have built in some flexibility if they have budget money once they get the hard thing is they can do a budget and it's pretty close right now to what we had approved but when they actually get out to bidding they will have the construction companies they might have room

034to do certain things like building the bridges in the back was an optional one right they'll dealt in the base they have basic structure you know but they would enclose it as an optional ad so there's some really well-thought-out budget management wealth and they showed us some of the pictures of what they're thinking about and in the next phase which it was a look and feel like I was very impressed and I think one of the things I have to comment on is how receptive the architects have been to the user groups so when we talk about a user group those are you know anything from you know facility director and and his team all the way through our TR classroom teachers our specialist teachers our phys ed leadership music and performing arts leadership all

035kinds of folks special education department social workers all kinds of folks have been a part of this as well as principals and dr. ruby and mrs. Farias I mean everybody's had input to this and one of the our media specialists we had a big meeting with our media specialists yesterday and one of the things we really talked about which is something we really are doing and working on in developing our curriculum is the concept of a self navigating learner in so we want to have that vision out there so just because we do something a certain way today at in fifth grade at the whisk and year or at huckleberry or at center school doesn't mean that's the way we have to do it in in the new environment and so those are things we're

036talking about how could we build for the environment we envision so it's been an exciting process and I just think all the all the staff that's been a part of really going back and forth for a long time now a couple of months making sure that we get Eddie and Jeff all all the information in Antonio as well so speaking of those user groups which I know you were heavily involved with throughout this process so considering that you've probably heard all of their feedback along the way how do you feel about this plan in terms of how it meets I think right now it we meet all of our programmatic needs I'll use an architectural term I have learned which is called scope creep which means you continue to incorporate everybody's ideas and according to

037mr. Cecco he said from the NBC he says us architects like to be optimistic and we think we could just incorporate every single idea and we were going to find a way and so part of the process from schematic design is do we have everything that meets our programmatic requirements the things we talked about in our educational specifications that we voted on last spring that we submit it to the state once we have all of that and we can meet meet the knees and have the spaces we need you need to get into schematic design where really the rubber meets the road and you start really looking at do we need you know the does the stage have to look exactly this way can it be configured differently does pre-k need to be I know

038I'm using my hands but you know is it facing sideways or can the hallway be more incorporated into the kindergarten hallway a lot of different ideas and that's where design development the next phase the next four months essentially continues to occur and so the other part of this that I've learned through the process which I thought was fascinating is the fact that Brookville has had the wisdom to hire a construction manager which is a person hired to do a job which is to represent the town not represent the architects not represent the builder represent Brookfield the best interests of Brookfield to get this facility built correctly they are someone who comes in and does their own independent analysis of the schematic design and starts to really talk real nuts and bolts with the architects and

039say you know this is what you say in your ahead spec you have a little more space here I you know have you considered this and so there's that whole analysis really looking at square footage and those kind of things and the reimbursable Xand and all that from the state so it's a fascinating process and really an exciting process now going forward so programmatically oh yes yes thank you for asking and I'll also add that the municipal building committee unanimously approved this last night as well I think I think Tecton has done a great job of really sort of following a moving target I mean with with enrollment changes and and also just really being sensitive to the need for sort of quiet consultation spaces and therapy spaces and just you know there's little pockets

040and rooms and places available for a teacher to just have you know a few minutes with a student that just needs a break or a therapist to meet with a child not in a hallway or a closet or a cafeteria you know it's I think they've done a great job really listening to what we've asked for and you know accommodating off all of those you know make a great point there and you made me think about they really are paying attention to scale as well so for the older students there might be some grander areas and for the younger students they don't want it to be so overwhelming so you know they're looking at ceiling heights and the way the lighting comes in I mean they're really that whole organ amah case of the Wellness

041and well building that we've talked about it's it's it's gonna be a very healthy nice place to go to school it really is okay any other discussion on this okay all in favor all right big step it's a big step yep okay we can move on to setting the graduation date recommend a motion that I just want to make one last comment on that they did show us the timeline of what's coming up and between now and May roughly there's gonna be a lot of flushing out of the design they say what do they call it the development phase but coming out of that they will have for example the facade the materials thank spring things like that so one of the things we need to pay close attention to and and I actually think

042the public ought to have a you know come spend some time listening to what teknon saying at the municipal building committee meetings is that's where the look and feel comes right and and I think that and I asked last night that they make sure they have a public forum and or a chance like we did last night to actually sit and dwell on what does it look like and feel like because that I think in the end will be the first thing that people will see is the look and feel and so we talked actually about policy communications committee tonight that Rose and I were going to meet and put together an email that can go out to our community and that press release as well with the bin include the PowerPoint so we can

043get that communication out hopefully tomorrow okay recommend a motion that the board set the graduation date for the Brookfield High School class of 2020 for Saturday June 20th 2020 at the O'Neill Center at 6:00 p.m. as recommended by a principal mark Belinda second was this your first choice date probably some kind of hint to the theme of his speech or something like that you know wonder what he's up to over there a big lego project perhaps or something again mr. Blandon on this okay all in favor all right aye all right on to old business we have these superintendent's 20 20 20 20 21 budget discussions in a possible motion so this is not a motion at this particular moment in time but we may hopefully unless we have another special meeting planned we should

044aim to adopt the budget tonight so now is when we need to really dig in hopefully we've done that but tonight is when we need to have those hard conversations anything you know pressing we need to have it resolved tonight so at our last board meeting we asked dr. Brill and Ken to put together a list so that we can exercise the budget as fully as we possibly can looking at all areas whether we you know value these programs or not what are some ways that we can get this very large number reduced so dr. Borel if you wouldn't mind sharing sure those items sure so Ken actually has the list he'll pass that around and you know I would like to share that Ken and I didn't work on this in isolation I have

045to thank the the principal and other administrators that worked with us and really we we really tried to exercise the budget in consideration of the fact that the last several years we've had to freeze the budget and continue to move forward with a strategic plan and our goals and give you the the best information we can but at the same time this is you know similar to last week's meeting this is not the kind of discussion we want to have by any stretch of the imagination and there's nothing on I will preface this by saying there's nothing on this list that I like that I am frankly I'm going against my will in putting this down but you asked me to do it and so I am here bringing it forward so there's not an

046exhaustive list here because we really don't as I've stated many times we don't have slack in our budget and that's why it's important that we're transparent when we have needs or we might have a budget over just or something like that we we bring it forward to the Finance Committee in the board and the town if we so need to so as you can see here there's a list of several items that come to a total of 360 thousand two hundred seventy nine dollars or 0.82% of a possible reduction to consider that doesn't mean we're not going to entertain other questions from board members on other subject areas but if we're really looking to limit as best we can the impact on students this is the best I can do I'm all ears if there

047are other ideas but we are as you know we have a budget that is made up of 80% staff that is we're a service industry and we have many laws and mandates that we must meet in order to run the school district so I have an impact statement next to each of these so just to start off we have a delay in some of our social studies professional learning and that would be a reduction of ten thousand dollars that would impede the progress in the curriculum revisions we're working on the thing I want to remind everybody here is our freeze this year that we're on we're freezing $40,000 worth of extended duty which is going toward existing curriculum working continuing to move forward on that so we're already slowing down in the nineteen twenty year

048by forty thousand dollars worth of work and product we can get with our curriculum we have we're putting that kind of work forward in the budget so every time we freeze and don't spend the money we don't get that work done and frankly the curriculum for in the experience is that we're trying to get developed for our students and prepare them it doesn't get done and it puts us behind another year toward our goals by Mazzy in technology presentation stations we're looking to reduce by forty six thousand dollars of one of our big goals which to move to digital platforms and all of the high school and start on the middle school of what we would do here is by reducing by forty six thousand dollars we would finish up we would leave one department

049at the high school unfinished for next year we wouldn't put the new presentation stations into that department and we wouldn't at all go to the middle school we wouldn't even start there if we reduced by the $46,000 we are putting a we would reduce by twelve thousand four hundred dollars library books while while that delays in upgrading and expanding offerings in our libraries we do have a relatively robust account there and we know in two years when we get the new school in the budget for the new school is a brand is a lot of resources in a brand new library so we would take our existing materials and add that to the new materials and so we thought that could be a trade-off there so this twelve thousand 488 is across all four schools

050savings across schools three of those three of the schools elementary to a to our elementary I thought right it's so huckleberry had the largest increase that we reduced as part of that this was a combination of all the principals working together books periodicals and subscriptions in that area we will reduce by six thousand dollars and from my proposal and what we would do there is we would limit we would work on our online resources and the principals would look to find free online resources instead that they use depending on what they would make their determination on what they would reduce one of those we talked about from whiskey near just as an example was newsela used to be free now they charge for news at newsela so sue and Dean will go out and look

051for a free resource rather than paying for newsela so these are the kinds of things and the creativity that the teachers administration would engage in the other one is going down the list of reduce one of the proposed additional first grade teachers and that includes the health benefit saving almost $90,000 and so just as a reminder for everybody we're reducing just on depending on and dependent on enrollment we're reducing one section at huckleberry in third grade and we're moving that section to a linear but one section to kindergarten at center school we then are adding two brand-new sections to center school in my proposal of two first grade teachers what I'm proposing in this reduction is taking one of those first grade teacher proposals off the table and that would increase class size to 20

052point eight per class remind me the range for 17 to 20 is the range in first grade and then you can see the subsequent $10,600 under that which is the supplies for a new section curriculum supplies other instructional supplies is just another one what was the class that's on the edge in your prison here right on the right pay 7 18 points so with the two sections it was 18 7 and this would take it to 20 point eight okay we've worked in great deal we never like to touch textbooks we worked in great deal with some of the work that's going on at the high school that mark thought he could while still providing options to slow the rollout of some of the options in English language arts and in a French literature and

053cinema class that he's thinking about and so that would while still have a significant increase at the high school for a number of Cape approved materials that are going forward in textbooks reduced that line by six thousand two hundred fifty dollars and that really is the non people areas where we can find any dollar amount of significance after this folks we really start to get into and I know I was asked to find around three hundred four hundred thousand dollars if I could we start to get into people and it gets into difficult conversations and it goes right to public comment this evening we also have mandates and requirements that we have to fulfill all kinds of different classes that have to the students have to have for courses and one of the areas that

054was brought up in questions by the board members that we talked about two weeks ago was the k-6 world language program and so I bring that forward again as an area if you're looking to get chunks of dollars it is people and that's really the only other way to get it because other than that you have people and nothing to teach with no curriculum to be developed and we're left with nothing so we need to you know make hard decisions as I understand these are these are very difficult conversations so I put on here as a starter for the conversation tonight the k-6 world language which would be a net savings of one hundred and seventy eight thousand dollars because you wouldn't that's for teachers we're talking about but you wouldn't just at the middle

055school if you didn't have the fifth and sixth world language what would happen there is you would increase social studies time based on the current model that exists as well as some of the Unified Arts specialist time so you wouldn't need to backfill those positions for the students to have a different class or anything like that however at the elementary school the students have to have another class the way the specials rotate in the way things work so you would have to backfill that with a different program if you were to go in this direction and so we have some ideas that we've bandied about but you know that involve arts infused and stem infused curriculum and things like that but again we haven't put any energy into that because we don't know where we're

056gonna go based on this conversations this in that number is this the gross this would be net gross was how much for fork and for 30 something how much was it five seven yeah sorry thank you Mike and that's all I have that comes out to approximately three hundred and sixty thousand dollars which is not which is 0.82 percent it's not even one percent well I'll start the conversation I know I personally have gone back and forth about the kk6 World Language Program as it stands right now you know not being a language acquisition program not having a whole lot of exposure to another language itself is something that's concerning to me but on the other hand this is a program that has been heavily valued in the community and as I my opinion right

057now is that we need to enhance this program better it before we decide this is no longer a program that we value but again that's for a conversation starter guess what in what ways make it a language acquisition I think that's I would probably Kevin Holly's not here tonight but I would most like to see her recommendations on improving a world language program in the elementary levels I totally agree with you if this is about language acquisition that's a valuable skill can't agree but this isn't as it is right now it's true and enhancing it sounds like more investment of not only money but I think more importantly time 45 minutes a week that's what we're told final mag schools are getting 45 minutes a day and they're showing similar outcomes so when we say

058enhancements I I totally agree like I'm not saying that a second language or learning a second language wouldn't be would be detrimental the thing is the enhancements time and money I mean where they come from the whole idea at least how I view that is if if that is something that's a direction that the board wants to take then that's what we advocate for well like I got to point out because because time is I think I'm just gonna start what time because money is what it is it was Express us that argument of writing was important and and the fact that the 45 minutes is already being taken away from social studies in factors of that bleed into things that are tested by the state that there definitely should be serious consideration I in

059about you know whether it's you know even efficient I mean that's that's a big number there's a lot of little numbers on top that make that 360 not so scary it makes it just based off of more empirical evidence that we've been presented with I think the more efficient way to go is how we make it more efficient as far as just K through 8 in general as far as testing state testing going forward it's it's it's tough to put this put this pie in as far as that's concerned right and and all of your points are valid I just want to remind everybody that at this point in the budget cycle our job is to put forth a responsible budget but as we define a responsible budget what that is is a budget that

060represents what our students not a number that fits in a box not a number that we imagine it's some imaginary number that we think is going to be more palatable to people a responsible budget is a budget that meets the needs of our students so if we're coming at this world language program from a position of we no longer value or we question the value of the program fine but or if we want to say we value this program but it's not working right now we need to enhance it that again is still talking about value to our students I don't want to talk about it in terms of well it's a hundred and seventy eight thousand dollars that we can chip off of this block so that'll get us there so none of this

061gets us there it does it's a chip and I agreed to Jen's point you said a few weeks ago once it's gone it's probably not coming back it's true and I'm not I'm really not comfortable with that I think it's a valuable program even like Bob said just as an exploratory just to give the kids that exposure at a young age is valuable so so I'd like to make two comments first is on the language program in the seconds on social social studies you know what we've heard on the language program we seem to be hung up on the words language acquisition versus explore it I forget the other term explore exploratory and I don't know about any but I don't think there is such a thing as a language acquisition program per se without

062significant investment at the elementary level the elementary level kids are getting used to hearing the words and getting familiar with it and learning a little bit about life we've got all very multilingual families and are in our schools as we've all learned it's it's a it's a unifying thing and as I said at my last meeting I have had children who had that type of exposure very early on in their life and it has stayed with them for their life and it was not a language acquisition program it was just immersion right it was go learn understand what the word for door is understand where the word from Hungary is you know it's just fun right but that Fontan translates to an ear an ability to hear language that you don't get you if you

063start too little too much later because as our speaker said tonight the older the kids get the left more more solidified they are so I've always valued this program I think this is very good for our kids and I will also add it's the one thing we've heard over and over again that lends some excitement to their school day right you know it's a it's different it's fun it's it lightens up what's going on so I am a huge advocate for this as part of our educational process and I wouldn't give it up lightly I just wouldn't I wouldn't just do it because we're sitting at a budget cycle we may be back here in two or three months but our jobs to advocate what's a good holistic educational program for our kids so that's

064my comment you said immersion we're talking 45 minutes a week when I say immersion they were it wasn't it wasn't structured immersion it was just it was exactly what we do here so it was get a chance to talk about it and by the way that teacher would actually speak in the language to them right and that's what our teachers do right they're not speaking in English and saying the word for this is they'll come in and say you know say good morning and in Spanish and that's it that's a good thing it's a good kids get used to it so on social studies two years or three years ago when we had the last discussion with but three three years only three years three years ago we spent an extraordinary amount of time in

065this in this forum talking through social studies versus world language I will give a huge at the time we were looking at eliminating the world language at the elementary mostly because we couldn't find an instructor right who would do the job who was sir both certified in the language and certified to teach at the elementary level that was that's a hard combination and it was eventually we found our way through it but it was you know it was very significant at the middle school we had an issue of too little social studies and because of that we put some other language into the specials actually some of the cultural stuff is into the specials and reduce significantly the amount of time for Spanish and increased significantly the amount of time in social studies we actually

066higher social studies teachers and and and rebalance some things I get that right Dean okay Dean's nodding his head and what at the last meeting I asked have we had any empirical evidence of its help of that decision that we made because we did make a decision to add a lot did is it helped or hurt and what I heard was there's no empirical evidence yet it's too soon right so I don't think we ought to overreact to the social studies thing until we see if the changes and investments we've made are paying off right or if they're not paying off I think we have some hard decisions to make but we don't have any evidence that's been presented to us as a board one way or the other other than the general feeling that

067more is better right to say change what we did so I actually think I I am a big believer in social studies but in the middle school level because I do think it adds a lot to children's ability to deal with complex subjects and that type of thinking is different than the basics of language arts if you will at the elementary level it's a transitional period but I'm not convinced that the decisions we already made aren't paying off and until we do I wouldn't go rip out the valuable language program just because of the generalities right so that's I'll send my piece and you all I think I've talked to many of you privately about this I have a sixth grader that's doing world language now I asked him a few weeks ago you know

068talk to me in Spanish tell me something he's like well we're really not doing a lot of that right now we're learning about Peru intentional or not no he's in Spanish when they come into social studies as a push in and I don't know if that's an intentional thing Dean if there are some social studies kind of work going on in the world language class oh is it not now yes I know that's one of the things that they're working with I think it's specific to but during that pushing time they are doing they are still learning Spanish they're still learning to speak Spanish obviously within context of Peru but within the specials remember the special time that they have which is just a rotation so he may they may not have an hour they

069may have it later or may have already had it that is all spanish-speaking countries so you learn about culture traditions so it's sort of ties in with social studies but in that in that short time that they are in there that they are speaking Spanish in the teacher you know is still teaching different parts of Spanish for the students to learn more about it it's not just the cultural part of it I guess so and by the way that was part of our struggle as a structure we agreed on which is you could get a little social studies anyhow right in that in that's been the special it wasn't strong right it was more in the nature of picking up Spanish but it was topically flexible across the two subjects so that just might I'm

070sorry I'm I felt like I just stood up on a soapbox as part of this discussion we do have to just it's for everybody to be reminded of them for for the public to understand that we have state required standards that we must teach in social studies and there there aren't state required standards in elementary Spanish that must be taught I'm not disagreeing with anything that was said I just want people need to understand that that we have many requirements and mandates and half twos that we must get to as a school system it is we're requiring is our responsibility so just putting that out there so we admit and are we meeting those we're doing everything we can to meet those are we meeting those or are you saying to us that we're not

071meeting those I'm saying we need to make sure we have enough time to meet those I'm not saying we're not meeting those okay okay because I don't really important state measures and I don't want to be passive-aggressive but now this topic like this time this topic this topic is feeling so are you are you recommending that we eliminate middle school Spanish no not recommending okay I'm voting a forward for a discussion point because I was asked to come up with but the words you just used made me feel like you were advocating that was not advocating the latter what what I was saying what I was saying is that we just have to keep in mind that there are require there are valued programs that we love and adore that to your point that you're

072making above you don't have to necessarily measure everything to have something be valuable I get that right and you have experience I understand exactly what you're saying and I appreciate that but when you come down to very difficult decisions I just want to make sure it's out in the forefront requirements that week there's have tools that we have to do and I'm not saying we're not meeting those and there are those want twos and those other things that are valued and we just have to look at the balance of those and I think it's just part and parcel of this conversation it's all I'm saying I think you know if I feel like if we take a step back to before we felt the pressure of this budget nobody came to us and said we

073have a problem with social studies or we have a problem with exploratory Spanish we have to figure out how to improve that program or improve this program so I feel like we're reacting to these numbers so I think as Rosa said before we have to think about what we value as a board and as a district we've made a commitment to Spanish we've made a commitment to social studies and I don't mean to be saying your side your side is physical just realized I was doing that you know if we need to make adjustments to either program that's what we have to do but I don't think I don't feel like we should be in a position to say you know we don't think it's working so get rid of it we we need to

074figure out if they're improvements that have to be made well how do we do it but I but I feel like like was said before we fought for a long time to get an elementary Spanish program and I think it's our obligation to figure out how to make it work so I'm with you I'm not ready to by any means let it go you know and just to connect what you said Debbie if we I would like to make a decision based on data so I think we have some anecdotal data maybe fill this experience with the world language program that's positive or neutral or negative we definitely have that but we don't I don't think I don't know if we have enough data to make a big decision like that so that worries me

075mm-hmm and I do think we're good we're doing it because we're trying to get the budget down so how do you which I understand that's a very practical thing because it's a huge number and we have to be responsible to the community I guess I just worry that it is something that does make Brookfield unique and special and a little different than other districts so when if we got rid of that or we do are we still unique and special and different other other things that make us unique and special and different or have we just kind of I mean the sad thing is is as you reduce things because of budget concerns do we sort of you know reduce what's especially unique about us so that's what I worry about and really it I

076don't know if it makes us special and unique because most other districts have it and I would hate to see this district go in a direction of we have nothing but the things that we absolutely have to have so joy what do you think you think Wyatt I think I kind of put out there last time how I felt but like dr. Birla said I think we really need to focus on our mandated requirements I'd like to hear from dr. Ruby about how you feel that we fair is meeting our mandated requirements such as social studies and do we need more valuable time for the for that content area in particular social studies is the last of the core for that we are addressing in terms of curriculum revision and alignment with standards and there

077are you know four important domains within the new standards that we have to address and we you know I I'm not going to tell you that we're doing that because we're not it's the the new c3 framework the Connecticut social studies framework hasn't been used as a document in a consistent manner to revise all of the curriculum for social studies because the curriculum for social studies hasn't been revised since before I came here because we have we've been focusing on ela math and science and it's it will be a challenge to to address all of the standards across all the grade levels particularly as we get up in the grade levels when we don't have a full complement of time but if if that's what we have if that's the amount of time that we

078have to deal with we'll do the very best that we can but we feel that social studies is an area particularly when you get into civic engagement and having children really take action that's a place where you can get into a lot of extension work and in Richmond work where you really do need the time and so will we as we get embark on the real revision of that work it will work within the time that that we're given but we have not revised that curriculum yet that's the work that we are gonna hopefully start devyn myself in the the end of this current year to be able to support the teachers to really launch next year we started working on it two years ago and it was just given the amount of time that

079teachers have to put into writing curriculum we just absolutely could not tackle ela math and science and social studies all the time the same time there's only so many hours in a day and we don't want to do you know a half way job on everything we're looking for quality and I think that's what we're getting and the social stage is pretty a pretty exciting area because there's just so much that kids need to learn how to do in terms of this not so much the content the content obviously is important but it's not a memorize and regurgitate on a test you know like you know the capitals of the states and all that the kind of stuff that probably many of us have it's really thinking out the about big ideas that happen in

080the past and how they relate to what's happening now in alignment with the work that mark Belinda and his folks are doing up at the high school it's the same type of framework and it's including his civics history geography and economics from kindergarten right straight through high school and so that's a very very different approach to teaching social studies than what we've been doing for you know decades and decades I think Jen can relate to what I'm talking about it's a totally different approach and focus its inquiry based it's it's a very rich curriculum that we're looking to develop and if we don't have the full complement of time we'll have we'll have what we haven't will we'll make it work the best we can how do other districts fit it all in is there

081a model that you know a district that you know of that has K through six World Language and manages two districts do different things some districts have more a longer day by you know not hours and hours but they have a longer day some districts have their instrumental sections before school many many districts I was just at something at cap scape and they had a band from from that I can't remember what school it was but it was amazing and I went up to Thaksin because I'm always interested because I think the music programs are very important but time with time is you need time you can't do all the things that you want to do you can't have enrichment and remediation and robust curriculum and exciting integrated programs for kids and mentorships with people

082coming all the things that really our kids should be having when you can't fit it into the day so with this particular band was amazing it was a middle school band it was like being at like some concert hall they were just fabulous they don't have class these kids all come in the mornings and and a lot of districts do that parents bring their kids in the morning the teachers are there there's different formats within the different unions and what kind of mo use or mo ways they have for how the teachers are taking care of in terms of you know the work that they're doing before school Berry has it before yeah and so it's and so you know it's it for as many schools as there are there are that many ways that

083people make it work out but we have a short day and I just hate to have the mindset that we're gonna just try to make it work like I don't that it's not confident Oh it'll work we'll make it work but is that the best that what we're achieving is that the best thing we can do doesn't sound to me doesn't sound like it well I I can't predict what you know tell you what it's gonna like but I can tell you that when we the curriculum that we revise will be quality curriculum but we're you know we're if we don't have that if we don't have the full content time every single day they're gonna be things that that would be enhancements and enrichments and where kids get get their engagement and their ability

084to take what they're learning and then apply it to a problem maybe we won't be able to do as much of that as we would like because we know the time but we certainly will we'll cover all the essentials I'm just telling you honestly that right now we're not we're not aligned with the standards 100% because we haven't done that curriculum work yet and I would love to like you said see the data I mean absolutely but there is no data to see so but why is that okay you know why is that okay that we keep pushing it forward with no data to move forward I just I'm not comfortable with not fully going forth with a mandated requirement such as social studies pushing that forward which I think but I think that first

085item on John's list would say that we need to support the curriculum writing effort here you know it's a board I think this is this is if we don't get going on that this will be as you said the fourth area right this is the one that needs our support to continue to progress and the curriculum which has been so beneficial to our studies so that this is an area that out of that we could get some data on you know how are we aligning with those things so and I think to your point what you were mentioning before Bob was that until that curriculum writing is is further along we don't know how well we'll perform so we could say oh yeah social studies is gonna suffer but we don't yet know that so

086to remove a program I would say I'm also talking about data as far as world language yeah well we know it's not a language acquisition program and I don't think anybody here is saying that we need to somehow perform on a language acquisition test I think there are again qualities that we value that might not necessarily be measured and we want those included in our education but you know in in just sort of any interest of can continuing to move this conversation along I don't want to spend all night considering this one thing because we have other things that we have to talk about and in all honesty we are probably going to have to revisit this again so maybe we can just sort of take like a small poll and sort of say like

087you know is this something that we based on our values which I think you know seems that Mike and joy have you know questioned the value of this program which is absolutely fair so let's just take it I clarify I don't I don't that's fair to say okay language this program well I mean the other issue I have could we halt world language it's Spanish it's not world language okay Spanish why we call the language the value learning a second language or having a grasp on other cultures totally value that what I don't want to see happen is I don't want to see things like social studies get neglected or suffer as a result of an exploratory program neither do i and if we do see that then I think I will be in a

088position to say okay we need to take a harder look at what is the value added so let's just you know sort of take a poll because I think we need to I'd like to get to the point where we can adopt the budget tonight so if we if there are things that we need to eliminate from that budget I think we need to sort of have that that information from us so this is not an official vote but who would be in favor of eliminating the k-6 world language or Spanish program from this from this budget from the proposed budget would be in favor okay so as of right now it will stay in the proposed budget okay if you want we can just sort of go work yeah we could work through it

089but through line by line in general I I feel like as you said earlier our job is to put forward a responsible budget so I feel like really we need all the things that are on this list but you know I feel conscious of the fact that we have to be thrifty responsible of course so I I can be persuaded to maybe hold off on things that maybe affect huckleberry being that in two years huckleberry is like you said we'll be we'll have a new school the new library will be in we'll be getting new equipment so if we look at it just from sort of a common sense perspective if maybe holding off on things like and I hate to say this the library books at huckleberry I would be okay with something like

090that knowing that in two years there will be a new school if we can any in any way figure out which whiteboards and smart boards are in fifth grade classrooms I don't even know if we can get it down to that level okay so that's not an that's not a factor but I sort of feel like the rest of it is are things we need I mean except maybe the line for books periodicals and subscriptions I don't maybe we need more detail on that but the $6,000 but I feel like as you said we're going to we're probably going to be back in this situation in a few weeks so I I just feel like this is why actually I actually agree with you on the library books and the subscriptions you know I think

091those maybe aren't things that we while we need them are not super high maybe on the right on the priority list it's funny when I was looking at the line items that are in here some of them were rate and pace items you know so the the words were delays upgrading and expanding on well maybe we slow down a little bit on those and it's not great it's not perfect but it's not hurtful right it's a great pace question there's other items on this and so I would put that into the forty six thousand for the whiteboards that's a rate and pace question the library books is a rate and pace question the online resources struck me more as let's find a creative way to get free stuff so that's okay and then and then

092the rate and pace question was on the VHS textbooks that was a question of expanding offerings to me that's a decision of how fast are we moving to continue to improve our schools right and that's a decision we can take it's not a lot of money I mean in the big scheme of things those four items which were rate and pace items add up to fifty eight like seventy thousand dollars then you got it down to would we advocate for increasing the class size above our above our recommended amount and we can debate that point that's a discussion I know where I stand on that one and then we've just talked about the both the social studies investment on curriculum and and the world language so I think we've got three discrete items and then

093a rate and pace question about when a Trump that's how I think about the principle that's how we looked at it as well so we appreciate that yeah and financing priorities does anyone there's anyone okay with the first grade teacher I think we're gonna be in the same position we were in at the beginning of this school year with that it means the same class so and who knows what's gonna happen in September or October and no I don't think I'd want to it's not somewhere I want to go right now comment what's that coming coming oh yeah so I've asked a lot of kindergarten teachers and first grade teachers about because I think I said something about what roughly to hire more aid instead of a teacher that obviously doesn't will reflect the the

094numbers as far as a student per classroom but least we know we have a certain amount of bodies to a student and every single one of them across many districts that told me an aide is not the same thing as a teacher so I just want to make that comment towards obviously keeping the teacher but I think that's important I mean this was about 15 teachers I talked to so not a huge sample size but I have a hard time thinking that it would change if I talk too hard yeah we brought that was brought up at the last meeting I'd love to have both yeah but we can't afford it all right so it sounds like no one is in favor of reducing that additional proposed first grade switcher right so that along with

095the supplies line are going to remain in the budget so what about sort of the delays so that's the textbooks the subscriptions the library books in the presentation stations is that what you had marked where everybody's thoughts on those items I think it would be reasonable to say that we could delay things like that it would be optimal but I think by delaying it I think who we just maybe get an idea Erik of sort of what was you know has the paceman going along normally and this is like really something or have we already been going really slow and this kind of leg really grinds it to a halt sure so the pace I've been trying to keep is when I first got here we kind of had an all over the pace place

096kind of pace also at the time frankly the the cost per board was more expensive and if they've come way down so we were kind of fulfilling parts of departments or we were doing stopgaps where we had damaged equipment or older equipment and we were filling up and then we started to kind of see inconsistencies right certain teachers had the newer equipment other teachers didn't so my approach I started with last year was that at the very minimum if we're going to upgrade boards we're going to do a full department in one shot you know not you know eight of the nine teachers or you know half of half of social studies and half of English that it would be one full department so the remote my original proposal was an aggressive amount it was

097for 30 30 boards to complete two departments here and then really kind of start to to move down to whisking here and kind of show the lower schools that you know their equipments coming so what this cut does is it actually reduces me down to ten based on what we have right now so I'll still be able to do one whole department my hope is that we don't come to a screeching halt there's other initiatives and and other things that will need to be brought and addressed in future budget years sort of bring this down to a screeching halt within have it but against some other things I'll be posing proposing next year the following year so the idea was to slow the pace down a little bit but not stop completely okay thank you

098thank you well I agree with Jen and Debbie I think I think those are reasonable reasonable delays that we're we're just gonna have to to deal with so presentation stations library both possibly just we just don't maybe just bring that number down instead of just all together I think that number so he so Eric that is actually the number four to bring it down to ten boards so it's not stopping it's not stopping his original proposal the sixth Erika right right facility so he still we're still making progress so how does everybody feel okay everybody feel okay with those reductions actually listening to Eric I'd like to not trim the 46 as much right I think it's a good trim good area to trim in this environment but I think Mike you're you're right on

099which is I've loved it how much would it cost to finish the high school the full amount finish the high school the rest of it was just a dent in the at lower schools so the 69 thousand it's in the budget yeah the original proposal of the full 69 for a full 30 boards would fulfill the entire high school and depending on certain needs when it came time for the installation we would consider over the summer of maybe if we had you know a location that changed here at the high school you know we might end up dropping down to twenty eight boards needed at the high school and we can start to two to five boards at whiskey so the the whiskey near is just a happenstance roll on yeah yeah and we've had

100this happen every year some you know things change to club classrooms change locations what was a classroom becomes you know or a language lab as it did a couple years ago and you don't need the same equipment there anymore so certain changes that that come into effect could change where the final resting place of these boards end up here can quick question can is there any state mandates or state recommendations that I want to make sure we're not falling underneath standards well standards is actually another thing we're working with our Technology Committee short answers no there is not state support if you will comes in to 21st century skills 21st century learning recently I think 2002 say 2016 for students and then each subsequent year the state adopted what they call the ISTE standards which

101is a symbolic adoption something we were going to get in with our Technology Committee and dr. Ruby and keep in the future and they set standards for technology integration and education and they will drive a lot of this the state is not mandating the district's follow VST standards they're just simply saying that the state of Connecticut is looking at that for their districts in the state and that the state will support districts who follow the ISTE standards but there is no you know it's a symbolic like I said it's a symbolic adoption it's it's it's a big move to pick a standard but there's no there's no legal drive to say what we have to do it we are talking in the group about making recommendations that we would bring to Cape which you're on

102four capes consideration to recommend adopting standards to the board because we really feel that having a commitment to a set of standards st is one of them and since the state is kinda that's giving me their imprimatur to that it would be ridiculous for us to go and adopt other ones because the state will probably adopt them as a mandated requirement down the road but we're going to talk about that so happy to have you please you have input yeah next week yeah and and the reason and the reason why I bring that up is because in our work that's the most discussion that has happened on the state level in regards to technology and education is those histy standards you know other than that that's the state's input on it for school districts so

103if I just kind of go into the mechanics of the budget here what you would put in was for two departments on the high school and this cut it's one department and yes and your preference is to do pull Department roll out that is correct thank you one question the 46 uses for ten boards sighs yeah the 46 that 2020 board so each 14 board yeah today today's pricing with installation each sports coming in at approximately 2,300 dollars a board okay in the 69 to get I heard ten boards in the language no I feel here was losing ten keep tying the poachers County keep ten numbers okay and the two departments of that big difference in size so there's one department that has only needs ten and another department is needs 20 no actually

104so you're at I miss I miss answered your question before because you said two departments for 30 boards no it's three departments three depart yes so you do one out of three right correct so it's ten to ten effective yes yep cities are looking ya know in some cases Bob I use that um you know term loosely for example you know the art program is in a 10-person Department so I kind of do it you know you know art you know business learning so it's kind of like it's two departments and then to block you know the other is called to block the other needs you know in in the in the building that you know the whole mecca and and the other places that aren't part of a big team department but other needs

105in the district okay thank you I actually have a question about the VHS textbooks so so actually mister Glenda that's going to be for you so I see world language textbooks part of that so I know that our Spanish textbooks are incredibly outdated so I did that that's some of these okay we presented last spring to Cape a textbook roll out for Senderos really for our our Spanish textbooks in Spanish three I believe in four and it's we're running out we're getting to the close to the end of these licenses agreements that we have the books that we have are old and it's this is one of those things and speaking to dr. Berlin talking about where we can make some cuts it's one of those things we really from my perspective we can't do

106anything about we're coming to the end of life some of these online things and we need to really update what we have so that's what that's where there's such a big ask and world language so the reduction yes well the reduction that's there is you know one of the things that we've been talking about was how do we develop as you know our French program is relatively small here at the high school we have one teacher at this point you know it's something what's the ASL program we certainly don't want to see French go away we want to continue to offer the first program what we find is what is what is gonna motivate kids to continue on with the language beyond the two years that we require what's gonna keep them motivated interested and

107one of the things we talked about was a French cinema program right which we haven't presented to Cape yet it's one of those things that we would look to replace our current Spanish four program with but something that's more like french cinema which would get people to be more interested but we haven't resented the Cape we still have the existing French for curriculum that we've been using so that's like that was an ass that we'd get down the road you know we plan to bring that in the spring and talk about how we do those sorts of things so that's why we decided to make that decision to cut that 1250 that's for a course that we would eventually propose so it's something we'd come back to Cape and talk about later on I think

108that's it thank you I would just say it seems like a small amount of money to cut out for something that could really peak student engagement but that's just my two cents and what were the other parts of the I'm sorry mark what were the other parts of the 60 to 50 make the board aware that even with these cuts these those departments are still increasing over this year's budget no right and so some of the things we were looking at in terms of the you're talking about the cuts you can just be clear the last item for ela social studies okay um ela so ela and that word you know what we're looking to do is expand offerings right now again it's an engagement strategy right to try to get students more engaged in

109reading instead of doing the whole class read what else can we do centered around a theme that kids could read and have student choice so the best way to describe it really is and giving kids more options so we will still give them options not as many as we would like to so that's where we're just cutting back some opportunities so like right now they're reading they read the whole there was a whole class read of born a crime which was Trevor Noah's book you know we would look to say okay what other things could we also what another title we could add we might add a one title as opposed to adding two titles you know for options for kids to pick from so that's it's just it's more diverse it gives kids more

110of an opportunity and and what we find at the high school level it generalizes contextualizes conversation we're not having you know kids get to apply it to multiple different themes in different books instead of always talking about catching the Rye and not always having that discussion or talking about Fahrenheit 451 there's a lot of themes in those books that overlap in other and if we only limit our literary analysis to one particular text you know we're trying to broaden those horizons for kids we still can broaden them just not as far as we'd like them to go so and if I could add you know when we look at the standards it's really am it is really important to have choice for students to see different perspectives to engage in dialogue where they're presenting making

111a claim about something in their book and a comparison to somebody while they're working around the theme and following the standards and you know I was very pleased that that's where the way that they were going and I think that it's your word of limiting it's really limiting and holding back our students from opportunities that could really open up other opportunities for kids reading the same book in the clout we all did it you all talk about the same thing but if you're teaching if you're teaching a theme and different students are reading a different book that they chose the the rigor is increased and the richness of the engagement in the conversations and the writing is going to be increased and I know I'll probably be on Facebook too but I think this is

112a small amount of money for what what you get so the return on investment for this amount of money that we're looking to cut is very high so I don't know just my two cents I'd have to agree I'd like to see the textbooks stay in the budget you know like you said the return on invest in this yeah they're huge I mean the LA is you know the backbone of everything we do I want to increase rigor and give our students more opportunities like we're trying to do with the world language where I'm then we have to stand true with that same mindset I agree with them I don't think we're gonna get any blowback on Facebook over that that's pretty I agree that that seems incredibly valuable it's not a lot of money

113exactly some is exactly okay so the only other item that we have not talked about is the social studies professional development I think we are which are so bad so I discussed that we need to keep that in you to move forward so does does the team feel comfortable with the three items the presentation stations the library books and the subscriptions is something that we could reduce I do reluctantly against the presentation stations but I'm I'm gonna go with it it's agree can I just ask one question of Eric is that appropriate yeah Eric could you explain you know I don't know the answer to this but could you explain what it is that you know teachers who aren't who aren't going to be able to avail themselves of the new presentation station what teaching

114tools they will then not have if they're continuing to work with with what they currently have is there any you know I mean that's that's your whole but that's like your chalk you know except we're not using chalk anymore so I just want to know what the status of what they have currently what what limitations they face by not having the upgrade in technology so in some of those cases in most of those cases the staff that would be getting these boards or the departments that would be getting these boards mostly currently have exactly what you see actually right behind me projector screen so for those of you know smart technology inside of them so you know for those of you who on the board who are teachers who might have one of these you

115know that the boards you know big LED screens bright clear visible for students to be able to see the teacher as Maureen put it actually perfectly it's the chalkboard so the idea to stand up here have your instruction have your entire computer right here you know versus standing sitting over at your desk or sitting at a desk or sitting behind a computer and explaining you know while you're sitting and using your mouse pointer and typing there's lost time switching between the two and there is a more interactive teaching platform teachers come up with it with new ideas you know right right from the board's they can display presentations do polls and survey with their students there's a lot of interactive abilities some that I don't even think about anymore of you know with our one-to-one

116program you know staff is able to manipulate data put up polls work with students write up in front of the classroom and then through that interact with the students that are holding their one-to-one devices right in front of them whether it be y ou D yep I just think it's important to know what the difference is as we're considering if I could just respond to it I'm all for putting smart boards in every classroom but we have a 6.8% budget increase driven by other things right and this may not be the year to do it right that's so I just the decision where I think we're making as a board is not whether we're supporting it it's a good thing it's a what can we afford to do in light of the special ed cost

117increases the population increases and all the other things we did so these this is these are choices right I've written that so to me this is a rate paced question of is this the sort of thing you'd slow down in light of this and accelerate when we might be on the other side of the curve so so I just I don't want to I see the value in it I don't think we're making a decision on value we're making a decision on affordability this kind of goes against point on what makes us special how many how many districts are you say they can happily have immense access to this type of technology we just say it's more than half Oh a zhilie it's more than ya so we're behind it yes yep the only other

118thing I would add is that back to the library books my original point on this was to just hold off on upgrading and expanding Huckleberry I would still like to be able to refresh the collection at whiskey air and the high school because I think that's important to you know replace the books get new books get more current books so I would agree with you for sure I mean favor of improving that I would I would like to see more data as far as how many students are taking out books and really utilizing the library as a resource before I mean you know I think we didn't we trim the library book budget last year I think that Dean do you recall the data we had looked at library book borrowing at whisk and ear

119right last year and and I don't have the numbers on the top my head they can tell you in terms of a trend when we introduced this kind of goes back to the choice thing that mr. Blanda was talking about when we kind of moved away from having every student in the middle school be reading the same book and we gave them choice it was and it was a difficult change the we looked at what the circulation was in the library and there was do you remember this Dean there there was an increase in circulation because the kids were like really kind of enjoying the fact that like they were like we got to pick the book and I know that one day when Deb and I were walking through English class it was like

120really amazing because there were kids that had you know books in their hand there were kids at hat we're reading on tablets there were kids that were reading on their phones I don't know how they did it I would have a headache but they were and I was we asked them what they were reading and they actually were you know telling us about their book and then kids saying things like oh and she's reading you know XYZ and I'm gonna read that next which is kind of the environment that you want to have in the class so I don't know the hard numbers but I do know that when we we changed the way the books were being what the kids were reading and giving them choice that there was an increase in circulation but

121those numbers are fairly easy to get because it's just in the database is this number saying we're not buying any new library books or buying less library books and the budget actually for library books has gone up substantially in 1718 the district-wide was a little less than 20 mm and then 1819 was a little over 38,000 and the current year is about 47,000 and then our proposal was about 41,000 further sakata for next year what's the huckleberry portion of this 12a cut six thousand nine hundred thirty eight whiskey near was twenty nine eighty in high school was twenty five seventy so I would advocate for taking out the 6,000 at huckleberry but leaving the rest again not that huckleberry is not important obviously but priority although you expect that the motivation is higher that that

122level the love of reading going into a level I can't understand you're just mm-hmm I understand you're thinking I would just want to see if we could try to find out maybe very soon if the books that the they're planning to buy our books that are aligned with the unit to study and the science curriculum that you know those just if any of those decisions have been made because then there would be a negative impact over the next two years on the students that were in the building we're gonna make decisions on I guess out the Arctic good email we asked for so this question what the question was if the only concern I would have with really cutting the library books for huckleberry is if the intent was to purchase books that were aligned

123with the units of study in reading and writing and with the science curriculum because I know that the library media specialist there as the other ones do as well collaborates with the classroom teachers and I don't know what the plan was and so if the books were intended to be aligned with the student instruction that would have a negative impact on on students so I don't know if you know that or Queen well in the so a lot of the social studies text and science texts that you're speaking of is coming out of more of like the classroom library budgets that I propose for science social science and social studies I would say though even though we are getting a new school a new library those books are coming with us and you know the

124there are still we have such a high circulation of books at huckleberry because the children go once a week could they circulate books Dee Pearson our media specialist is really good at figuring out you know which books are being circulated often which books what new titles do we need to kind of keep us up-to-date so you know even though the you know the library budget may be cut there are still books that need to be replaced just because they're worn torn so I would hate to see it all go because at the end of the day even in two years those books are coming with us and students are taking out books a ton you know in the elementary level so with the reduction of that $6,000 berry there's still $15,000 in that account to

125purchase the lively I'm sorry there would be 9,000 excuse me just so it wouldn't be zero it out I just want you to know that and it's important enough yep there's there's about five thousand in the request for updating the center school library just for comparison there interesting I think it's reasonable to say we're just gonna get fewer books as long as we're still getting some new books unfortunately this year I think that's worth yeah I don't want to cut it at all but I think it should it should include all three schools if we are going to cut it so we are it looks like just talking about those three items is there any other areas of the budget wants to explore or ask questions about again after this number in order to get

126the budget down significantly it starts personnel unless you know there's another area of the budget that anyone wants to take a look at or ask questions about I had a couple that I came prepared to talk about so Ken and they're not by the way they're not personnel interesting way out and in the budget there's always been a savings in the last couple of years that I've seen where you pre paid the buff I think it's the bus contract yes I don't know if there's other things that you could pay upfront have you assumed that we could pay it all up front or have you assumed we pay it over time over time I built into the budget that we would take the discounter thing upfront okay so we have that all right yes we'd

127okay so that's was the first question I have the second question I had was actually about monitors in the in the enrollment you had two additional monitors that was tied to the three additional classrooms correct right do we really need two additional monitors we live with one I think I think that's a question we can actually ask mrs. diamond to come up and talk to the need for that request did you hear the question Mary Rose about the two additional monitoring so the model that we have right now and we can obviously revisit anything is that each class has a monitor that takes them back and forth to lunch just for supervision purposes and for next year with the if we do wind up with all 20 classes we're gonna have to figure out how

128we're gonna fit everyone in the cafeteria right now we have three lunch waves there's no way we could fit everyone all 20 classes in in three lunch maybe get the most we could that would be 18 so that means we're going to have to have somebody else outside of that wave coming through so there's definitely because of the extra classes we're looking so you'll stress them out stress it because you have a deal with the balancing goes even if even if it's not more people it will be longer amount of time that will need them there during the school day because of the expanding over longer they everybody we kept area okay great thank you kids are gonna have lunch at 9:30 next was it was an increase in the legal budget yes is there

129any way we could live with that flat year-to-year and manage to it I know I know it was more of a feel of increasing things going on it wasn't driven by it was not driven by special ad correct right and it was not driven by you know negotiations right it was driven by known of history and experiences the question I would ask is could we find a way to manage with a relatively flat budget talk like 25 thousand a year to year came can you go over the history of the illegal the last couple of years last couple of years we've been around $200,000 per year yep and what are we budgeting and 175 right yeah so we're historically over so that's that's that's we've been doing yeah we've been going over and investing and

130then we manage that that's not something we would look for a special appropriation on it's in my comments last week these are the the ebb and flow of a budget and you find savings elsewhere where you're on where you understood so just spurred on board I mean I hadn't looked at the history it was 255 263 199 this year's budgets 145 because it was one of the items would cut if I remember after we got the the cut from the Board of Finance at the referendum and it's up budgeted at 175 and again those are those are issues that we deal with and again it's it's based on our experience and it has to do with running our organization as a high quality organization and and running it where all of us as staff folks

131and as students are held accountable for our behavior and at the end of the day that's where you need legal advice when there's challenges to that whether that's personnel which I won't get into it all or those are student matters sometimes they're family matters there's custody issues there's residency issues and that's a big topic in town I mean we pursue these things and the principals will call me with a situation and we will obviously try to solve it ourselves but there's times where you don't want to make a legal misstep and you have to check with counsel and this adds up over time but I thought the only questions I have thank you and unfortunately we had a table facilities committee usage so I don't know we have that number I think and reported on

132it in the last meeting didn't before to bed good you I mean our regular meeting so how much can we save if we cut out you know personal appliances and things like that throughout the district I think yeah I think what what you reported on was just the usage yeah why there were so many situations we would have to do like a like a honeywell type audit or something like that to get that measurement we couldn't do that ourselves i'm sorry i did have one other question this has to do it's a structural question so when you gave us the list of the items that you said would be the first items on the list to consider right i noted that you didn't put any of investment items of 270 k right so so their

133investments their investments that have improve our program if we were to not invest in those what are the impacts of those well cuz then if I just a recap for circle on the t-shirt it was a math and interventionist at the high school yes the high school and I ll teacher correct some math tutors and a cross-country coach were the personnel positions so then the rest of it was insurance for those people there was some security related stuff which I'm not asking about because I've been through that and I know what that is sure and then there was some small handwriting texts so I guess the question is as if we look at those positions right the interventionist the tutors cross-country coach and the e ll teacher you obviously chose not to put those on

134the list as high and Alyssa just like you here you're thinking of sure so so their investments for a reason and I can call each person up to you know talk a little if we want to go a little bit deeper on those are we we have been focused on improving language arts and specifically reading at the high school there are a lot of students that have significant needs and we've been working on that and I think we're making very good strides there mark put a proposal together for a math interventionist because we need it there are a number of kids who are struggling struggling with mathematics our scores are flat in mathematics when we talk about standardized scores and and we have a lot of work to do we make an assumption we have

135a math interventionist at the middle school and we make an assumption by not having one at the high school that magically they don't we don't need a math interventionist to help those those students are having difficulty once they leave the middle school and we're finding that more and more we have students that are coming to us that need intervention so it's a yeah and I have I have spoken to teachers about that and it's definitely something that is needed at the high school level and it's the tutors from the same ilk tutors is in the same ilk and it really when it comes down to with the tutors at the elementary school is for a very small investment when we properly provide professional development and orient those tutors to our elementary schools what's going to

136happen there is you really expand the reach of the teachers because you now have another body to take small groups and individual students that you just didn't otherwise have and that really helps break down we talked the significance of class size and the things we want to try to do for individual attention with kids so again that's another big area we do have a lot lots and lots of supports in the reading language arts area but we haven't had those additional supports in mathematics I'm not going to ask about the ll teacher because we spent time already on that thank and the cross-country coach cross-country coach that really has to do with interest in cross-country I think we said Dean I keep going back to this was it was it's close to 70 students interested

137participating I thought those photos from 1 to 2 this goes from one existing coach to to the other piece to that is the the existing coach is called the boys cross-country coach although we have girls participating we don't technically have a girls cross-country coach so one of the concepts is this becomes a title 9 issue and we want to make sure we don't want to get ourselves in any kind of trap like that so number one you don't want to have one coach for 70 students I don't think that's appropriate so we need another for just the sheer numbers and then we want to be able to make sure we're addressing boys and girls equally ok thank you thanks Rd ok giving you your extra stretch looking at we're getting a dead size cross-country going

138from that table over the podium for you thank you thanks sure it's actually really exciting to hear about this so when I first came to Brookfield I got lots of emails from grandparents saying please you know the kids in need they need to be able to sign their Christmas checks and their birthday checks and things like that so you know I looked into what we were doing and it we didn't have a what I would call a consistent equitable approach to teaching handwriting it was being taught but it was you know it depended upon what class you were in etcetera etcetera so we worked collaboratively the the centers school's principal Mary Rose was at huckleberry myself the some of the reading teachers and we we had a play catch up so we couldn't do cursive

139until we had everybody on board with printing so we did we looked at the materials that we had it that had been used in the past when there was a more consistent program we looked at what the language in the open court phonics program was how we were dealing with the letter names etc and we put everything together and developed a multi-sensory approach to teaching penmanship and we decided that we would implement that exact same program in K 1 & 2 we needed to close the gap and then we had a rule out plan where when the students when we got students on board with you know good printing then we would roll cursive in so I believe the cursive started last year right this year okay and we got books and it's happening and

140this is something that we need to continue and they you know rather if we wanted to make our own worksheets and have teacher standing at copy machines you know running off papers it'll end up being more expensive and more teacher work than buying the appropriate workbooks for the students and so that's um and I would call you know you got got us and want us that's a got it we've got to have that have that and I would add that there's plenty of research on the value of having students really learn how to write and actually write to take notes as opposed to only working on on a tablet on a on a keyboard and I've been I've shared that with the you know the previous board and I'm happy to share that with you

141but the research is very strong on the kinesthetic component of cursive printing and cursive writing and what that does in terms of brain development and reading and spelling acquisition college students that I am so and we're talking on this one $4,000 $4,500 for and it's just for the texts right no workbooks and things like that teachers have worked hard to like fit this in and make sure that we're teaching it and the principals are monitoring that so it's it's working what community values it because they want those Czech scientists my tenth grader print his name he attends a 12th grader who'd do that day they didn't have dr. Ruby assistant superintendent um I would like to get to another part of the budget that's probably I know it's highly valued but that's athletics it's a

142very it's a not very big but it's a it's a big part of the budget and it's not mandatory and I think if we you know are looking at things that you know are at least questioning certain things in the budget then I think we need to look at all of the non mandatory things before we perhaps entertain in the near future future other reductions to this budget so if we were to eliminate middle school or freshmen sports do we have any kind of figures as to what that would be a couple pieces to that there's there's a transportation piece and then there's coaches and then supplies that go with that do you have that yeah for which skinnier there would be a little less than $17,000 does that include transportation that does not transportation

143I think might be included it's in the high schools in the high school so the 17,000 that's for just whisking here and that's with transportation not with transport not with transportation that number excludes Unified sports we did that was because the all the other sports and whisking your kids have other opportunities to play it field hockey feel like you do the list and transportation from I'm sorry that's money that's in the budget correct okay how much of a transportation pieces the total transportation budget for athletics it all is about under $25,000 so but that's with the high school too right yeah yeah so minimal okay and freshman sports where would we go with that coaches for freshmen sports would be seventeen thousand five hundred and fifty-two dollars yes what are our freshman sports aside from

144football we hold basketballs volleyball basketball and baseball okay so football baseball volleyball and both basketball soccer and volleyball used those moment s effort I just would like to make a comment about the freshman football team their popularity news it's always kind of split as far as some kids go to freshmen some kids stay behind played Pop Warner so that's kind of a that's kind of easy when they still have an option to play so I don't I'm not really sure about basketball as far as what the town offers or travel themes and sure there's there's that there it might depend on the age I think it depends on your age I think some freshmen would be aged out so I think some fresh we don't know more oh not anymore oh that's what the Patriot

145League where they do that with the 8th grader I understand oh yeah I sleep uh four I guess I'm updating my so no Patriots into the patriot division as part of I'm one right is this anywhere anybody wants to go tonight okay look sports I have the same feeling about sports as I do our world language is it's it's one of the things that make a school vibrant right you know I'll take art music drama sports language right there everything about it you know it all comes together holistically and I'll be frank I don't think our job here tonight is to take our programs backwards on these areas so I mean we may be back if it's not affordable by the town but it's but that's it would be would channel Eve she says a

146cry what you told us last year at the budget it's there's there's things that you would hate to ever lose out in your area in programs so because if it was just all we did was language arts and math and social studies in science and that's all they ever did we would meet the requirements but it wouldn't be a vibrant school exactly so that's what that's what these things are about oh my point is that there is opportunity for these kids to play these sports somebody my point is it's not the time to do that well I just want not disagreeing with you I'm not I don't want to cut I mean I played I played all these sports I wasn't there wasn't a semester I wasn't in a sport but so I'm just he

147you know it really came to it I think this is about efficiency whether we're talking about for a language or we're talking about sports or music why we wouldn't want to cut we don't want to cut any of these things but how can we make learning more efficient for our kids and how we enhance some things and we could we would much rather have it talk a conversation about enhancement sounds more enjoyable to me I don't like sitting here talking about coming you know freshman football or the world language but I think it's important that we talk about how we can enhance some of these other things that will benefit our kids along yeah we have let's don't underestimate we have enhancements in this budget they just happened to be in areas like that we

148just talked about the math you know the math work that we have it both tutors and up that's an enhancement you know it's an investment but it's a needed investment the handwriting's have needed investment small but useful and needed even the special ed investments are enhancements very pertinent for those kids right but but it's not as broad right perhaps so so it's it's a you know this is a tough budget I'm not wouldn't you brought it up that because we should look at everything yes yeah yeah so you know and to sort of connect to what you were saying I know we do have to have to be you know very responsible and very efficient with everything that we're doing you know one thing that I just want to keep reminding everybody is that you

149know unlike some other boards of education not in this state that I'm aware of but I think Jen may have alluded to this at another point but some Boards of Education are the type of entity that adopt a budget that's what gets sent to referendum we're not like that we have other entities that control our bottom line so the fact of the matter is that whatever we adopt it needs to be what we value without that sort of additional quite frankly arbitrary cuts to our budget chasing some imaginary number that we don't even know what it what that number is yet so I think you know ultimately if with these reductions I don't know what our ultimate number is but if it's a 6 point something increase sorry is that mine you might be mine

150that better yeah okay so ultimately I think if our if if what we adopt is six points something then we need to stand behind that but you know at the very in all likelihood we are going to be back here and we're going to be talking about some much more serious cuts but those will be from the perspective of the boards that were elected to do that job quite frankly too it is their job to sort of say this is what the town can afford and we can work collaborative at the point to to make those to have those discussions and and do what's necessary but so I think what we'll do now is just sort of we'll just go down the line make sure everybody has said everything that they need to in terms

151of this budget or ask any final questions so Debbie do you want to start with anything any other questions comments [Music] no I mean just just to quickly touch back on the issue of athletics I I'm not looking to cut athletics either or reduce athletics ultimately what I would like to see when I look at the number that we spend on athletics eight hundred and fifty nine thousand dollars and what we spend on clubs and activities is a hundred and seventeen thousand dollars I would like to close that gap a little bit eventually I'd like to see more programs more clubs and activities for kids who are not sports kids this year is not the year to do that but I think it's important to put it out there I don't want to say we

152shouldn't have freshman Baseball or anything else because those programs are important but I would like to see more on the other end for the kids like I said who aren't doing that but that's a different discussion I think I I'm still where I was initially I think we should maybe go with Bob's recommendation to sort of break these items into sort of the rate and pace categories and I think where we ended up was saying that the forty six thousand for presentation stations the twelve thousand 488 for library books and the 6065 for books periodicals and subscriptions are the things that we're willing to put off delay limit for another year but that's all I'm comfortable with at this point let's say you have to hand me the hat how are you hello Bob the

153I came here tonight prepared to support the budget as it was presented and and I say prepared because I've spent a lot of time staring at the numbers I've talked to Ken I watched how we go through the process and we do not have a lot of manoeuvre rooms without cutting things out of our educational process I take very seriously the charge we were given as a board which is our job is to advocate for education and a whole education for our students so I actually came here tonight prepared to support the budget as it was this has been a good discussion I think we've had we framed some things we've Laura I've learned some things tonight this was and I want to thank the administrators and principals that are here and I'm kind of

154where you are Debbie I think there's three small items that we could adjust here and it's just about rate and pace I'm not seeing anything that's a major sea change without affecting what we're offering as a educational program for the town and and you know what we've got three three months of discussion ahead of us then and the Board of Finance and the Board of Selectmen are gonna have to get very comfortable that what we're asking for here is not unreasonable and you go through what we have all of the growth is driven by inflationary factors enrollment and special ed with a little modicum of very needed investments 270k investments is about as small I think as we've ever done so like I said I would go with the three adjustments that Debbie just said

155and move on and see where we're going I mean and engage in those discussions we have some real engagement at whose 6-point will make it six point seven which is 0.15 percent okay so might get to six six different rounds right but it's still gonna be a very very challenging next three months thank you um I will agree with everything bob says your help oh thank you um and I think I've you know sort of said my piece so we can move along to join migrate now support the three reductions of those three items okay yeah reluctantly because I actually I do really believe in technology investment but I mean this as far as the presentation tation and also I I think Debbie made really good point Club investment should be a nice enhancement prefer

156just you know where the day I guess in future discussions okay alright so I think if we're all in agreement on those three reductions Bob can I ask you to make the motion you're good at that confirm the number can the number is 47 million Oh 24 164 when you make that adjustment I did the math I just want to make sure I did it right and you got the spreadsheet yes sir that's what I got you got it - yes right all right I'd like to make a motion that the Board of Education adopt a budget in the amount of 47 million Oh 24 160 for a second okay forty-seven million twenty four thousand one hundred and sixty dollars okay Ami's seconded is there any further discussion okay we will proceed to vote so

157all in favor aye the motion is unanimous okay thank you all for a very good discussion on that so just a next steps discussion has there been a discussion on a date one we would meet with the Board of Finance and the Board of Selectmen no no this time no but I will reach out to them now yeah I think it would if we autostart if we're gonna do that we should establish a date then you know just for the public we need to approve our budget adopt a budget by the end of January and submit it to the First Selectman the First Selectman gets a couple of weeks to gnaw on it and the board of the Board of Selectmen gets a couple of weeks to gnaw on it and they have to basically

158approve what they're carrying forward at the end of February right rough numbers I think it's in March there's a timeline but it's either end of February beginning of March and they hand it over to the Board of Finance and then the Board of Finance with public hearings and their process actually deliberates on on it until the middle part of April so that's actually a month and a half with the Board of Finance and then it goes to referendum and the first Tuesday of May so that's the general cycle so this is a long process that with a lot of engagement and interaction and historically we've had a joint meeting of the board of Finance and the Board of Selectmen where we can present and explain our budget and dr. bill you've got a good starting

159package here I think we will spend the next couple of weeks probably tuning that up and telling the story as thoroughly as we can and be able to explain that to our to our fellow boards and and share information with them as best we can but it's a they I'm gonna say this for everybody especially the listeners six point something percent increase is hard in a town that doesn't usually pass increases of that magnitude and so it's gonna take a lot of to get support here it's gonna we're gonna need a lot of help from the Board of Selectmen on the Board of Finance so that we can achieve this budget so that's part of what the challenge if the board is a part of the charge of the board is to garner support for

160you know doing the right thing for our students so I sorry I went on for a minute there but I thought everybody should know what the process here is this home there's a couple months left of work here okay so if we're ready to move on then we can move on to the new school building project but I think so three main points the new school project and the budget basically our whole agenda right oh no I think we ought to include four one one seven point okay um so now we have upcoming events upcoming events for January 23rd through February 19th all schools will be closed for professional development on Friday February 14th and for the president's holiday on Monday February 17th and Tuesday February 18th at Center elementary school kindergarten registration for the

1612020 2021 school year is now underway Friday January 31st is a community meeting and Tuesday February 11th is a PTO meeting at 6:30 p.m. huckleberry Hill Friday January 31st progress reports go home Friday February 7th is a ETO meeting at 9:30 a.m. Monday February 10th through Wednesday February 12th Jump Rope for Heart during gym class and Thursday February 13th is a student council spirit day it's crazy hair day whiskey near on Friday January 24th and Saturday January 25th the WMS drama club presents WMS shorts an evening of original short plays written and directed by 7th and 8th grade students Wednesday January 29th is the end of the second marking period and there's also a PTO meeting that evening at 6 p.m. and Thursday February 6 is the principal's coffee at 9 a.m. in the seminar

162room which will include a presentation on vaping and Brookfield High School Thursday February 6 is one step closer which is an orientation for incoming freshmen and their parents that's in the auditorium from six to eight forty five pm yep it's this Friday January 24th or next Friday January 24th no this Friday this Friday yeah Saturday I wonder and Saturday yeah it's at 7:00 is it doors open at 6:30 30 shows at 7:00 okay thank you yeah okay is there anything else all right so this concludes the public portion of tonight's meeting and we will the there is an executive session yeah I have to read that I recommend a motion for an executive the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing pending litigation involving a former employee second okay all in favor

163thank you everyone all for listening him [Music] you