Board of Education Meeting

001[Music] today is Wednesday November 6 2009 and I'd like to call a regular meeting of the debris-filled Board of Education to order okay we are seeing our full member of the board tonight and the first thing we have is a farewell to foreigners we do have to board this with is the last name for two more members even myself so on behalf of superintendent cannot be here tonight we really want to express our thanks to to both of you the accomplishments that the district has made over the past two years of your tenure on all of the committee's that you've shared the both of you and just participation and supporting both John Ken and myself and the principals and all teachers like it's just an immeasurable the the changes that we've been able to support

002to support not only the children in the district but the teachers and the families as well so a heartfelt thanks from John and myself and from Ken and Lisa I think oh the sentiments of all of the administrators and teachers as well words aren't gonna really cover the things that and the gratitude that we have for everything we've done so thank you and I'd like to break tradition if I may by reading a letter that I actually thought of four years ago yesterday I was voted on to the Board of Ed and I am so thankful I would like to thank the voters of our field for placing faith in me four years ago electing me to this position as your representative I took to heart your wishes and suggestions fulfilling every single one of

003my campaign promises at times it was not always easy but that's politics it is our position as elected officials to have you keep us in check for the public and it is our duty to be cognizant to the desires of our community so to keep the pressure on keep asking questions because that's our job as your elected officials my desire to become a Board of Education member was partially due to women of our high school teachers Felicia Leibler mrs. Leibler is the one teacher who changed my daughter's life for the future because of that one class she taught my daughter is pursuing her doctoral degree in school psychology it was mrs. Leivers enthusiasm love of the subject in teaching that had an impact today I still wish this for every student as I did four

004years ago to have astute teacher as mrs. Lee Lewis and his teachers are a vital component to the development of our children one of the conditions of our educational buildings became one of my focal points ultimately becoming the chairperson of the facilities committee responsible for utilizing existing monies put aside to make the necessary improvements which will be discussed later on in my facility's report over the past two years working have been made in our schools that I believe in the history of our Board of Education using zero additional taxpayer dollars my greatest accomplishment was being the chairperson of the strategic steering committee for the new huckleberry hills school I volunteered to take over a defunct 11 month olds committee I ran the committee like a business and brought to fruition in anonymous three board vote

005as you know the de Planum was ultimately adopted by the taxpayers which was a 20-year goal for the town of our fields I am excited to be continuing my work for Berfield through the Senators school repurposing committee and I will be staying on as a community member for the boys locker room renovations which is a subcommittee off of the deformative education so I'm not leaving my work in our town and shifting my focus as my work is done on this board on November 30th I leave this position with a full heart I remain committed to Garfield our community and our children we truly have a wonderful educational system from the cleaning staff to our educators to our top administrators Thank You Barfield it is truly been an honor to serve you and our bonus you

006all and I just wanted to say it has been a deep honor and privilege alongside all of you for the four years or two years as may be and to work with all of you as well I'm nervously proud of everything we have during that time I went and welcome our new board members Amy Foster and Michael Murphy I am confident they are going to be great additions to this team and I just want to let you all know that I am here to support you in this amazing and incredible work that you guys continue to do so thank you Thank You Collette for be my our site for the past four years in leading us for the past two years and what most of you don't realize that has always stuck out about Collette

007as our chairperson is after every single Board of Education meeting when we are leaving the room she always says great job guys and she to me that has meant the world to me after every single meeting so thank you for always acknowledging everyone okay so moving on then great [Music] good evening everyone so tonight I have with me miss Lee Morgan and in some of our fourth-grade friends so we're gonna come up and introduce themselves as well so historically every year on Halloween fourth grade does something whether it was I'm getting carving a pumpkin decorating and then this year the team collaborated you put it together every Fall Festival and unfortunately it down poured on the day so we had to kind of changed plans but I think our students here will tell you that

008it was so successful event and it was a lot of fun we're all here to share a little bit about what we did for the festival like we started out you know I really knew the pumpkins so this year we wanted to do sort of a set of activity as well as we had a t-shirt activity which tell a little bit about our cinema activity involved it was called the bone bridge and they you know how to work and collaborate together I'm using the set of the materials a little bit about it as we go through see we wanted to also thank all of the parents who were so very generous in signing up and donating all the materials that we needed some even offer to stuff the bags and everything together for us so

009that when the time came each group was given a bag of the materials that they then has to follow the product area of what to do and how to measure didn't have some fun with what happens so I guess there are some pictures dude what can do this so the sounds challenged so I don't know if you can see some of them and I don't know the girls if you wanted to tell a little bit about some of the materials you had and what was you know what did you have to do we had to use pipe cleaners straws q-tips and Paschal sticks and we had to form a sturdy bridge to hold a penny to be an inch above the ground and to be an inch long and we were trying to make the

010bridges as long as possible and we tried to make them wide and one edge above the ground and on a penny we had to put it on top of our bridge yeah make sure it wouldn't fall through or not and that's how we made our bridges successful in your groups yeah yes yes and I think I have your pictures here we try to twirl the pipe cleaners together to make it wide enough and we found some honey on a little circle thing and we use nice and craft sticks because they're strong and but close things because they're strong and because we you know they love to challenge being wrong the hard part most of the students found was keeping it wide enough an inch wide in the lane and you want to talk a little

011bit about very different different bills so me and my group tried to make it very sturdy so we took possible snow full popsicle sticks to make it water no I wrote longer and we took clothes pins to keep it above the ground and we use straws and pipe cleaners to keep it sturdy so all the penny thank you so after after we did the same activity with the bridges then every fourth grader was given a t-shirt and this was really wonderful because mrs. soprano arranged for us to have that through this student activity funds so every student was given one and also we had fabric markers and they were able to design it any way they wanted to do anything they wanted so they had a little artistic and also sort of community building and

012we're looking forward to it because they can have these for the rest of the school year obviously where the for spirit wear or any time we want to do something together is to class we can all wear our shirts teachers have them too and wear mine but fortunately the students were theirs and so first I think Todd is going to speak to a little bit about the process that he went through in designing the shirt his shirt okay I'm gonna put the pack on hi my name is Todd and I was one of those students who made this shirts and I thought it was a really cool experience to do it because she got to make any design you want it and you can do it with your family and your friends um what I

013really enjoyed about it is there's really no messing up and except for once you put something down you can't erase it or something like that but I really liked that I could make any kind of design I wanted and I decided to make put my last name in my soccer number because I play in a Premier League with my friends thank you for your time [Laughter] hi my name is Jared Lorenzo and I am also one of the students who made a shirt that's his fourth grade 2019 to 2020 and when I first got my shirt I was excited because you can make anything you want but it has to be school appropriate so I put my last name on my my dear Enzo on my back my shirt my soccer number which is five

014because I play in a Premier Soccer League with and you gotta do the shirts with anybody you want your friends they could sign it and I put referee stress on my shirt and then I quote my classmates name in distress [Music] thank you for your time that's it okay so and they they're all and you can see I mean everybody made one I was clever enough to do the whole process can lady invited next year when you were doing the bridge did you guys used a lot of q-tips yeah you use the q-tips everybody they were so different the other thing that I included for all of you is the survey that survey that was really very interesting to have how they did that they're so honest and very detailed [Music] thank you very much

015so at this time we have a cake and if you'd like to stay and join us we'd love to have you but we're having a thank you cake to celebrate the contributions of our exiting board members I think [Music] okay here we are back for a recess the next item on our agenda is public comment and there has no one signed up to speak is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak hearing none we move on to student representative hello everyone so to start off in high school we first hop powder puff coming up which is girl's flag football it's a senior class senior class and we had a t-shirt sold out we have boy signup help coach and we have girls as well speaking the sports in the past two weeks

016we had many seniors occur there was field hockey girls and boys soccer girls boys swim volleyball Giles is part of it was very exciting time but emotional as well for seniors especially if you played for four years on the team upcoming November 16th we have already made and clothes like Key Club NHS care counseling we're all participating in that just trying to help out our town and the people who can't you know take care of their houses themselves you want to support them we also have our NHS Blood Drive on November 19th we were just open to everyone to donate we have more information on our website but it's very exciting because so many people need blood every day so to be able to be a part of that our own students our faculty members

017donating this great thing along with that and he just is in the process of planning a winter workshop for century school so we did it last year too and it was a great hit made a lot of proceeds we just went to the Connecticut Children's Hospital and it was a great time for all the special kids we had about 60 and he wants to find an arts and crafts we read a little book and he goes to my mini gifts for their friends and family sounds great so we haven't decided on a date yet but you know it's probably gonna be your maybe second week in December something like that speaking of new clubs we have our fashion club which was just started a couple weeks ago my student very close friends of mine and

018it's great to just see that we have so many academic clothes in our school to see a more artistic and creative Club being started in order for children as soon as to just pursue what they want to do and it's not constrained something about academics something that you can explore and maybe produce in the future and we also have a green team which is I think a great source of pride to our school because they are focused on environmental conservation and Julia Roberto I'm gonna call her out because she's singing this beautiful song at cabaret called something and she basically expressed her concerns up how quickly you know our climate is changing and our earth is heating up and that she wishes that we could do something different and so she has taken the lead

019and created this green team and you know it's great to just see that our generation is going to be doing something to support that and finally our veterans are going to be visiting on during classes on Veterans Day which is November 11th and on that same day we'll be having a staff appreciation breakfast because our teachers are writing us so many recommendation letters they are working so hard to make sure that you know we feel safe when we were applying to colleges to make sure that they you know put their best word out for us and so in order to just appreciate that that's what we will also be doing upcoming one Monday yeah so that's a lot of things happening what a great report thank you and those into new clubs amazing that's great

020could you please I couldn't write it down could you please tell me the date of that upload or again I know every 19 November 19th do you know of the times I believe it's just all school day yeah okay thank you thank you very much moving on to written Christmas okay Ron Jaffe shared an article about positive phone calls home Lisa ethanol regarding a follow up from the news school project forum Christina sermon regarding the school start time survey and shame heaters regarding the arts recommend motion of the board approve the minutes listed below recommended the student expulsion hearing on October 10 to the 19 the regular meeting October 16 2009 teen the student expulsion hearing on October 17th of 19 the joint meeting with the Board of Ed and the enemy see impact on

021October 22nd 2018 and the board retreat 23rd to the 19 do you want a second second any questions it's all right all in favor aye opposed all right that moves us to subcommittee reports first we have Jen okay so we had a great meeting this is a couple of item that we need discussed one is that preschool teachers have chosen to the pilot and implement the world of the wonders Rahil Oh preschool critical program programs very structured allows for a lot of flexibility all the content areas are embedded within it it comes with manipulatives books trade books cards everything that teachers will need it has a kindergarten readiness component to it and most important it aligns with ruler it's free for a year and we decide to continue with it it will be $30 for

022six years good at bargain the are the other really critical piece of importance which was pleasant surprise is each lesson has sign language and embedded in it okay dr. Berube met with Chamber of Commerce in there instead of word of our partnership with the word aleady program that is only to launch on November 11th so a letter went out today to the school community and I ain't get any more information about that program server say about that Jenna Perry is in the process of finalizing the piece of the puzzle of our new standards-based report card that's our new recording tool for kata for ela and math teachers a senator huckleberry working on initial skill levels and examples of possible then sort of tacit airlines that Common Core State Standards there will be a traffic little

023brochure and a parent handbook with a frequently asked questions section and a narrated PowerPoint available to parents and planning is underway for parent information sessions so I'm going to send Amir a second it will be available on the portal and safely email to parents Minister Burlando also was our shining star the meeting you provided us with an update and revise graduation requirements that State Department of Ed is moving toward disciplinary thinking thinking the focus on steam Sam and humanities I promote creativity and innovation these new graduation requirements all our district to give students an opportunity thinking outside the box and in forward they came for the jobs of tomorrow we also discuss the mastery-based the diploma requirement for graduation and the potential impact on scheduling at the high school all right moving on me happy

024a policy communications okay so we last met on Wednesday October 16th and the majority of the policies we discussed you will see later in the agenda so with the exception to want to go to policy which we are still kind of working through and getting some more feedback from the administration the rest of those policies you'll see later in the agenda in terms of communication dr. dubrow to discuss the second video that is being done in collaboration with ed advance but it will be focus more on student activities and all the really thing that made her feel unique this will be the second video of the shorter series of the first one which came out not too long ago and it was really well done so that's right that's right yeah that work waiting good

025yeah yeah so yeah that's it thank you any questions throws juliana me have these security task force may wish met on the 18th of october and the majority of the time was spent discussing recommendations from the homeland security candidates are recommendations right now presently we have people that use the fields at the high school during school time and usually it's not that much an issue but it has this recommendation from home security that we actually keep that just for student use and and curtail community used to outside school hours and in discussing at the security tasks we're talking a great deal of sense especially since you think about it to enter into this school you need to stay at a purpose you need to show an ID you have to go through through the security

026check we have classrooms that are literally outside during the day with PE and everything else so essentially our school is to that area and so we really can't have community members out there that that we really have no control what we do when when community members send to the school so the security task force did recommend that starting effective january first of the new year 2020 we're going to start informing to the public that the use of the fields facilities of high school can be loaded two times outside class times so other students other than that we didn't follow up on some other detail items Eric öcalan gave a more detailed session as far as cybersecurity we hear about that all the time and we had actually a couple of attempts to get into the

027system as well so he gave us some tables to do what they are doing and the continuing ed that the entire district is going through to that extent as well there's also some follow us on some equipment that these petite customers are still looking at implementing it's not on the agenda of innocents they have this meant we're going to tackle facilities as well okay thank you well we have some exciting news the levy profitable testing results have been done at whisky Mears wall this is something that this state requires us to do and I am happy to report we passed with flying colors mr. Rana will be sending out appearance the test results will be posted it is important when you read it because it is confusing that we passed our water is yummy and

028delicious so that is our big news for today we have in our schools from time to time we're required to go through firing sections we are in the process of Jame nose and everything is going quite well just to reiterate the Facilities Committee I began during a tattoo years ago and I have to send a special thing to thanks to joy and to Daddy they have been a continual support help and hard-working members of the day for the past two years things that we have done we've enhanced conditions just to to reiterate using money student to us and in previous capital improvement projects work that we have done with the money that the taxpayers gave us costing zero dollars the huckleberry has scored school portables for taking down discarded area was regraded all under budget

029whiskey near portables have been resealed repainted and refinished to enhance the conditions for students and staff until the new school is felt whiskey near his head hating on it new sidewalks and arrows have been added to ease the flow of traffic at whiskey near repairs of the roof have also been done there Berfield High School has had installed a brand new generator we're currently waiting for inspections to be done by the building committee and we're coordinating with eversource to come in with our electrician to do safety checks and to sign off on it we also have a brand new water system at Berfield high school again this was all money that you the taxpayer escape as years ago that we've used wisely what's coming up is there is going to be continually continual paving for

030whiskey near and Furber field high school and that is about it I encourage everyone toppika debt but capital improvement projects plan it's coming up we're gonna be it's imperative that we have this to keep our schools that's my Wasilla tea daddy anything at project that I thought coming yes I'm sorry and the boys locker room project we received preliminary the plans from Tecna and associates who is designing it that a committee will be having a meeting in the future for we will have a representative from the new Facilities Committee on it as well as I am going to be saying on just as a community member so thank you very much any questions for the facilities me okay move on to the consent agenda recommend any motion of the board approve the items on the

031consent agenda is recommended new tires socket wedges comments you're not all in favor all right I post hey loses to new business and the class size report so in your packet you have exhibit with the class size documentation that we provide to you every year this is the October first data and you can see that it is as always listed organized by school with and the reports are different for the different schools because as you go up the grade levels there are different data points that are important for us to look at so these data are the data that we use when we're in the budgeting process in addition to the data that we shared over the past couple weeks from the outside masticator I'll call them but if you have any questions we have

032our principals here who can put this data together for us and can answer any particular questions but as you know the format is the same as for the past several years it's the only thing that stood out to me and I know it the three classes it's been a big size some people one percenter than are above the recommended class size guidelines is that still kind of certain like we need a high school or now so mr. Flegg can describe how things really changed with scheduling some of my plan yes so we don't worry so much about that but what a great going great so pairs so the area tonight great you know what ends up happening is we can shuffle and reallocate resources think about it from that perspective you know so you know

033something that might have thought you know maybe they taught three different classes they and two sophomore classes they may teach freshmen everyone so remember the numbers adjust assault of a graduating class those kids that are juniors to become seniors so our numbers you shift in terms of what we need to have people teach so it's really it's so hard to predict and really pin it down at this point but I think it's something that we can make managed we'll get them in the staff that we have scheduled to be here for after spend so much time on schedule in high school reenter the question about the persuaders there's three classes set of guideline but there are also others that are seem to be well below it is that just due to composition where the smaller

034classes are thank you all right the classes are all in and then over the course of the first couple weeks of school little students that I enrolled other students that come in anything I wouldn't change right so after there's five so as new students enroll go be placed in those but many other classes and just to know this was October first day but always goes over the top so she actually prepared October her SIA and just lastly data so it's always happen but thank you any other question is actually looking at this data set you may have other questions and just send them to us and we'll get you the answers so then we go to the yellow by grade reports so I'm gonna call Kevin off to the podium this is another area that

035changes frequently Oh perfect oh look at the quality of the data are showing us is an overall increase in population so specifically I have some numbers prepared here that are not on there but from 2017 from when I came to this district we've experienced an overall of sixteen point eight percentage points increase in our ell population and we do have a decrease actually in language variety of languages so from 2017 we actually have a 30% percentage point decrease and if you'd like to hear the percentage increase by school I have that prepared as well if not what would you like to hear it okay so from senator from 2017 so now we have a fourteen point two eight percentage increase at huckleberry from 2017 we have a 7.2 percentage increase with skin here we have

036a seventeen point four percentage increase and at the high school we have a forty eight point 27 percentage increase in our ell population and I believe you you have the October first data so just to see also I printed out over the November fourth okay perfect so from the October 1st I know there was already changes and actually we just had a new Yale student today so this is also a fluctuating population so 2017 we have 23 languages yes and now we have 17 yeah and then it seems like a huge increase in the high school is the least amount of students there's exactly probably an eighth student increase even in terms like how long sort of these students have been because so I do have that down freshies were actually track each an individual

037student based on the number of years they've been here and overall what we're seeing a trend of is students taking about 7 to 10 years to develop their language and exit per our proficiency standards but relatively overall we don't have a student that has been with us for longer than four years we've been pretty successful in supporting students since the board afforded us the opportunity to have this Canada in this position and then hire a full-time teacher and what we're talking about you know that the needs while we're doing the job we certainly can do better and the more we support the English language learners to be reached at level proficiency that's to our benefit because there's less I'll call the drain and I don't mean that in a negative way but on other resources

038because when we get students to language proficiency then they're really able to engage with all of our certain one opportunities in the regular curriculum and so that's what we want for all students and I give credit to to Kevin how she's really managed the limited resources that we have to try and meet a nice kiss and I think that when we're able to provide support through the TESOL teacher or Cameron herself goes and does that in addition to overseeing world language and else and then the tutors that we have we start somewhere title three grant money to provide tutoring hours I think that I can speak and the principals can chime in if they wish for the teachers that have students working with language learners in their classrooms they really appreciate having the help because

039they didn't have that before so you know that was you know only through the support of the board and allowing us to have somebody like I came in really kind of shepherding the soul program so that's important to know thank you very much so is it 25 students speaking the same language to one school which then triggers the need for full-time teacher with its 20 students 20 yes 20 which would then trigger the valuable program for the following year but October 1st we did not reach 20 students we were watching it very closely yes once once the news school goes on we're combining okay Carolee can I just ask you know such a diverse group of languages and experiences what are you noticing about the needs of these families that you're encountering and how prepared

040we as a district to support that so what comes up through my individual family meetings with the families is really a need to understand our school district and understand the opportunities available to families and students both inside of each of our schools and outside and I worked with Eric Auckland to make the translation of our website it is more user-friendly for the parents I have communicated with the parents in their home languages this year actually along with the parent notification letters I sent them a little bookmarks on how to build literacy in their own language in order to help build upon that literacy in English I know in an ideal world would we be able to have a registration Center where families could come in and have translators readily available there and of course is

041a human resource you know thing but that is really what you know a registration process we're constantly trying to finesse and make it more practical for the pair's but you know we find ways for example we have many staff members that speak other languages too so we have ways to make our school cultures even more welcoming for these families I know if you walk inside huckleberry they put signs in Spanish just the other day I was in a classroom and was skinnier and there was a teacher who took it upon himself to use words in Portuguese and in science you know class so we're trying in different ways but there are many ways that we develop that Bishop I know I'm working right now with to world language teachers and mr. Ronda to try and

042bring diversity day to diversity night to win skinnier so not just to the families of our ELL students but all our families says showcase their heritage so hopefully that'll happen this year one of the thing that come in really spearheaded and brought to a new level for us was the translation services so when parents have meetings of the schools or PBC's or yeah we have a phone translation of service with you name the language they have it available and it's really helping the teachers just it's a suitable 800-number literally four steps and they just put up the translator on speakerphone and it helps facilitate that conversation yeah it opens up a whole new world for the parents as well in their own language it's great yeah and just a reminder I know you have know

043this but I just have to pass on to the parents as well that the Burpo's social services yes that's it yup in adult tll tutoring per room free of charge next we have a report so okay which is the homeschool report and as we discuss every year parents are not required under state law to fill out the documents that we we send to them so we try to keep track as best we can given the the limits of the law and we follow the legislation and the data that are represented on exhibit k represent what we are able to get from parents in response to the information that we send out to them in in July that goes out of our office and Esquires does a really great job of trying not to get a

044people to feel that we're harassing them but to try to make contact with the families two to three times depending on if they tell us to leave them alone we we don't we don't continue it's just trying to get the data and then this is what it is we do not think that this is an accurate account but we're limited by the response of the parents that we know have children in town or not attend a school to today we are we feel confident that there are certainly families that have moved into town that homeschool their children they have never registered we don't know who they are but there are probably families out there so I wouldn't want anybody to think that this is like a highly accurate report it's so that's that we can

045reduce any questions okay moving on we have the preschool pilot so we have been looking at curriculum k12 for the past several years and in now looking at the numbers that are going in a preschool we really felt that you know it was time or past time to really look at how we can boost what we're doing in preschool with the curriculum so we had a meeting with Mary Rose and her our preschool staff and we took a look at a couple different programs we got sample kits we went through them and then left it in that hand the teachers who have to be able to work with left in their hands to make decision on what was best for their population they know those children they've been two of them have been working at

046the school we have a new preschool teacher and they selected world wonders and as joy prevented in the Cape Court this isn't just a literacy program or a math program it has literacy math science and social studies and it has support for English language learners it has support for special education it has the sign language it's hands-on developmentally appropriate alliance with the Connecticut ELLs which are the early learning standards for preschool it meets the needs of three-year-olds for your roles and transitioning five girls this is very comprehensive and the key thing is the fact that it's comprehensive in terms of the materials that are provided and so it doesn't require like one quick Aloma if you were familiar with preschool curriculum is a pretty highly regarded critical is called creative curriculum but part of the

047creative what are they creativity is though the teachers have to create a lot of things you know you just don't have the time to do that and we're trying to provide all of our teachers with a perk of the work that we're doing with the materials that they need so that home being arts and perhaps people or going to teachers pay teacher's or Pinterest we wanted them to be using that in high quality materials so this was selected we presented it to Kate we watched a couple videos that showed displays of the materials being used and then last yeah this past Monday the company rep came in with the National Director of professional development a professional developer who did a more formal dpi presentation to answer questions and the pilot agreement that we would like

048to initiate tomorrow weekend is good economy is going to give us all materials for the preschool teachers online access for the one teacher that goes between the two rooms and then online subscriptions for the students for the full year free of charge and at the end of the year when we do our evaluation if we don't like it they just put it in the box and they take it away if we do like it then it was a 60 year subscription for $8,300 that is very reasonable is very reasonable so that's we had you know a support from Cape but um I don't think that we vote on pilots but we always bring the pilots to your attention because you need to know what we're trying to do so that's I would like to sign

049a contract with mcgraw-hill on skin and send it over to them tomorrow so that they can get at the stuff shipped to us so that the teachers are you know mary-rose they were very eager and it was it was really cute that's a probably return but that they were using unit 4 as the example and one of the teachers like so do we only get unit 4 and they're like no you get everything it was like oh my you know it's just like overwhelming to think that you're gonna have all these materials and that you know it's it's not gonna cost us anything and we don't like it which I'm sure will like it that it just goes away and we can you know we have knowledge we can look well further I think it

050will be I think it will really support the teachers and improving the opportunities for students well thank you [Music] didn't anything I think you have it in front of you these special education caseloads for the 2018 point in school year on the first page that provides you with the caseloads and special education teachers by school the target caseloads our target is one to the 15 for students with mild to moderate disabilities such as s LD and ADHD we have three ELC programs one which is at center elementary when we're at Hill Elementary and when it was skinnier our target caseload there is one to eight for this program and other specialized programs do you have any questions okay if you look at the related services caseload which is on page two with a new preschool

051we do have two speech and language pathologist so revision needs to be where Center elementary school is they we also have an SLP who supports the other students in that building so that would be revised to three we do have a larger caseload at Muirfield High School after speaking with the case manager there we are looking to give her a little more support possibly from another SLP because of evaluations that have to be completed in addition to the large caseload which she has several small groups individualized supports 500 fours and consults so there is an increase there that she will need some support if you look at the school psychologist we have at the high school again we have a smaller caseload for the school psychologists however their duties for evaluations for initials and for

052triangles are quite high and we have a school psychologist that supports the social enrichment program is housed at whisk in here she is she also consults with the school psychologist and the teachers that are supporting those social enrichment programs and she will be supporting some of those initial and training evaluations at the high school social workers we do not have social workers that are after school however there are roles a little bit different they do not have the initial evaluation testing they tend to support families with outside community resources and their role is a little bit different so that's why their caseloads are a little bit higher are we all ready so when in the school psychologists or any of the social workers in the schools they're not it falls within there this supports yeah

053and it's based really okay so sometimes your caseload stars ours even individual hours you may have higher numbers and lower services or lower numbers higher services so it really depends on a caseload and if you look at the third page we have our ot and I know last year the board approved the 0.5 Cota to support the numbers for occupational therapy and that was extremely helpful and we have one pt that supports district-wide and she is 0.8 and the OT case was still on the market it is it is mm-hmm cuz and the OT is still in charge of you know getting out the scripts and yes logging she oversees Dakota logging she does have to oversee and sign-off you know again when we go to number it depends on service hours so if you

054you know I would say more towards maybe thirty two penny on service hours it is pretty high that in the speech and language pathologist advice or a little bit I I said a question on the second page so when it for example the school psychologist say yeah so eleven students so where are you getting the 68 so that those are initial you're doing those those are our initial evaluations in addition to training if I start hacking yeah yeah so that's quite high [Music] yeah okay I'm happy to see that caseload Hasan Minhaj was for the special education teachers so addition of yes if that was very helpful in case those are pretty manageable thank you thank you alright next we have you a new backup [Music] so as promised you know we discuss every beginning

055of the year that you know everyone wanted to see a progress report of how the ASL one class was doing at the high school and you know once again it's a big thanks to all of you for facilitating this opportunity of our students and particularly within the creation of the site facilitator mrs. J ideas she has been an integral part of this ASL program she is really the fabric of the program if she provides vital lines of communication between our school and the virtual high school she supports school counselors in addition of students school counselors special education teachers she's just a such an invaluable resource and actually this video was created by her and her students she jumped right on it to say you know Kevin and I really want to show everyone what we're

056doing here so I really really would like to thank mrs. joy yes for putting this together and showing such a great commitment to this program so without further ado here is video [Music] so they classes and the teachers are online so what I do in the classroom is I introduce some weekly assignments that I mean you know the meet everybody has social emotional and technicals worse the student I Reseda they are on task and you think he's helped I shared how the method him and money goes to providing supporting her students to reach out their online teacher in addition to facilitating the class they also facilitate communication between the original high school teachers and administrators and the repeals administrators and case workers and counselors parent also I started a peer support group to support students

057where shortly in the class any plans to start an ASL Club where students can meet once a week and have fun with their peers while learning as well well great um so I hope you all enjoy what we've been working on and bye she hi my name is Gigi hi my name is nice to me I also thing I've got the classes that can communicate with others who think actually we're and I do there's a lock is a very soft piece and it allows everyone to work it up at their own speed what have you I have learned about the community which is children death adults and I also learned that death households are no different than hearing households and that families actress - here head right here with every time we run or not

058doesn't leave without homeland just in inducing in general it's how we take your great thing about trying through thing that they have to be honest about it where does our exile scale over yet where that new like chemistry I have learned that place it matters if I go here it is mother but if I talk talk through the same and it meets off so like I our wish office or still operate essentially about in the near future so I decided to learn without a few plans and weekends and then also we'll be fighting front so we go to do well yeah only I will be able to maybe for [Music] it's awesome [Music] thank you yes thank you once again mrs. he has some hair students they were really excited to show you this tonight

059so that's less than two months yeah yeah that's great and I don't know if you notice that we have mrs silvestry visiting with a class that have you know real life native signer of ASL she used to be she's actually a retired ASL teachers used to work for the Danbury all the school district so we're really excited about her coming to the students wound up staying work like who originally signed up versus actually enrolled in a state in the middle class um I don't have the exact numbers but we had out of elementary deceits we had about 80 sign up and now we have about sixty ish in a minute class overall because there were jitters you know online platform completely different experience and what was previously thought but as you can see the students

060are really flourishing in class it's a lot more interactive than yeah and that's also we try to facilitate that as much as possible to say yeah it's an online classroom but we really want you using the target language in a real-life situation so there and I was pleased to hear that many of them are already starting to think about careers and occupational therapy and to you say it's also 67 Wow you had a sense that they were building a community - yeah yeah really and we actually you know we have the National Honor Society peer tutors we also have ASL peer tutors as well and they're really excited and this came from the students and the school counselors building that so we're pretty excited do you know if many students have been taking advantage of

061the online help from a t-shirt oh yes that is vital so they have a direct communication and direct line to the ASL teacher and as do the parents as well and pretty missus yes it's pretty important in that communication as well because at first students were like we've never taken an online course before how do we chat with the teacher who's not here so she facilitates that communication and it also builds good digital citizenship skills for the students they had it sent a direct message to a teacher you know talking about executive functioning so sue had to schedule office hours with an online teacher and I was seeing that in universities and colleges around kind of do so many colleges so many courses are hybrid you know with platforms such as blackboard if they're they're

062getting these digital literacy skills down and they're going to be really useful for them in the future and they're not easy it's not easy to take an online course so the fact that the challenge was presented and 67 stayed in it because I teach online it's not for everybody I think that's a pretty high retention rate for high school students who have zero experience and the one facilitator that they have yes and we also have BL students in the class who a lot of yeah thank you very much thank you okay that moves us to policies the first one is 30 to 20 fragmented motion of the board approve a policy number 30 to 20 state and federal funds for a first reading and recommended by the policy sub communications out of me so this

063this policy regarding state and federally eligibility determination this is a KT policy to leave replacing broken those policy the one you have right behind it that's crossed out that's the old profitable policy yes you can see that the the table is much more comprehensive it spells out the responsibilities of the superintendent our role as the board so it really just is an overall better policy okay oh there next we are policy because recommended motion of the board approve policy number 32 b-but I'm sorry policy number 3000 concept and roles in business and on instructional operations for first reading as recommended by the policy communications seventy okay so this one is also another cave policy that will replace Brookfield's old policy it doesn't really change much of what we do but the cave policy is a

064little more clear the language is wearing lion bull rational doing so questions post policy recommend a motion of the board approved policy number 32 AE gifts grants and requests for our first reading as recommended by the policy communications subcommittee this one as well is also a que policy at Lord place for a fuel line again the holbrook Philemon it was really short this that anyone is much more all-encompassing and clear how well that also addresses crowdfunding which and and a role that was at this session we have I think is really important which didn't happen brings us to our last first three policy 3313 recommend motion of the border to prove a policy number 3313 relations with vendors for a first reading of the recommended by the policy communications subcommittee this is just an update

065to a broad field policy so really were just taking out the first paragraph of there which really isn't relevant to this particular policy the rest of it that will remain routines to border relations with vendors as opposed to the other way around the vendors relationship with us so [Music] that was the only update to it my favor high post okay so one month yes welcome into summer yes and the first one in December it is yes total off to the side 70 in the summer which will the 18 you know teeth so you wouldn't like it if I day loaded okay December 11th yeah just this review to anyone in listening with policies either new or changed and our policy manual they come for our first three which is a recommendation by the policy committee

066and needs to sit for at least a month that's twofold it gives the board time to new and read digest ask questions new policy committee if they haven't and it also it's time for the community to read the policy and react to it and give it included to the board if so desired as well after a month it comes back for a secretary and that is Lanna policy is accepted by the board which is the great segue to me business and policies for second ad pointing to work could we come there's one two three four policies that are second rate and we just kind of stronghold or does anybody have changes about that recognize I recommend that we just my motion so recommend a motion of the board approve a policy number 51 18 policy

067number 34 10 policy number 34 30 and policy number 34 32 for final reading as recommended by the policy communications subcommittee first reading was on October 2nd in 2019 second any discussion all in favor aye [Music] then it moves us along to the school calendar right a man in motion at the border to prove that a 2020 2021 school calendars every minute of a superintendent dr. john barrow second okay this is first introduced during the last meeting and we decided to let it sit for a couple of weeks just to give it to the board look at to my knowledge there were no recommendations or suggestions yeah yes we do we need a last days on key for the red block or just make first day of a school a little bit obvious really awesome

068again I want to express my appreciation to try to keep as many open weeks as school as possible and not have a staccato of previous years where we were missing days and remember me it seemed this is much more streamlined than its preserve [Music] maybe yes you know I didn't have any content issues with it but formatting was can because they're gonna be office the same size well I'm not stupid but I had the final inconsistent on the calendars I think we just look better okay the monster different well and also that's like Fri for Friday versus fr and you know we just sort of do it differently in each month run by each month but there's just a difference and the boxes are different heights and with sort of thing that just I can

069hope you like Li says it's using those tools June 14th and a red box and those last day of school but that's only if there are no snow days then under that it says the 17 last day of school hmm yeah that was with our built-in snow days right that should probably be removed yeah something's because I do need a paragraph for the new paragraph that explains it we could add days from the 14th right right yeah so why did we have up at the 17th down there is slower that 17th do you see that last day of school the early dismissal probably shouldn't either yes and now is it early dismissal for the 14th he usually is yeah it usually is special Monday are you all okay approving it with that a minor modification

070knowing that I would die what he's changed so the 17th lining would be struck and ordained three and if we're literally dismissal so but can we just talk it through if we have smoothies we add a day after the 14th for every every day no unless it happens before know every the president's oddly right so if we have five days before the February break then they get two doctors from Presidents Day holiday so they're after the February break then they had an on after 14 correct correct but there's five built-in correct before it'll you do up to five without changing the days yes yeah there's less than five they are just going to need to be added on to 40 which is different from last year because they remember the last year in order to

071schedule the graduation day early we set kind of a a last day that was on there were some last year where a change in state law we do know we no longer have to do that so to every day there's a Soviet an awesome exactness think is important for I'm gonna potluck to here and in order to be clear in writing people are used to call 10 days right yes and that would assist some okay all right so with this with the modification striking that 17th and first last and with a minor edits yes all in favor aye first thank you for your working on that and then that brings us to the prioritize 2021 an updated to your federal projects discussion this is an action of the suite again we discussed this last time

072there were a couple of questions people had four numbers wanted to review it in greater depth and so it's brought forward again it has been [Music] discussed one more time in the Facilities Committee [Music] okay [Music] all right yeah I think that's a foreign one and that's the one that won't you tell people that's what is question is for I didn't write far right-hand column is the district-wide prioritization oh good so it isn't just already that that it's really thank you for putting it on I think it's helpful not only for the board but also for the fourth select are so many finance as well you know the six hundred and five thousand is that so a placeholder yes okay and need to wait until after the design to get a national enough yes okay

073[Music] I'll cost $100,000 to replace seven labels that's outrageous [Music] longer to [Music] well it's a lot goes into replacing the levels I'm sure you understand you have to have a certified electrician has to be wiring taking down putting backup it's quite a mess I'm sorry yes why are we entertaining yes yes [Music] and where are those that sort of replacing the light pulse is that $100 so what's the 300,000 a year this is only your facing seven out of the 44 yeah the summit imagine is it that's why every active Syrian coalition bombing the cast during class about what was put into the plan yeah and I I went back and pulled over the word finance spreadsheet for that and I couldn't find the exact amount your marched towards poured about a few minutes

074not that after they they had five million dollars a year they did not have the broken up or then they start this coming year with a five million dollars combined combine it down is cool Thomas wool nna put the cost-of-living increase to it every single year that's from there and just as a as a comparison last year there was two million in board capital and as compared to five million at the town [Music] I'm sorry five million combined so it was two million two million school three million in town so for five million combined which is what they have kind of it as a budget going forward so I had a it's a related question it's not all the specific list but how much unexpended money do we have at this point in time for

075fire abital rules of just because you know we've had I know we focused on cleaning up a facility and you're teaming on a fabulous job you know it's you know dealing with a soffit it was released about 15 16 17 this was left so the ending funhouse about 1.8 million dollars on expended which I'm guessing motivated just this last year we have our money proof for painting we've already yeah motion for this timely summer and then also part of HTC controllers at the high school and we're at we can get information from tackling because we want to be consistent with whatever they're going to do in a useful [Music] another thing that the committee is looking at is replacing the old dated generator at was skinnier yes oh it's already the 1.8 million is the

076total time and school buying the school's okay Oh a 600 K is the business schools that's to it okay Bobby so make sure we know the over house thank you any other questions this is frank dipascali yeah it was so I'm going to approve thank you for your support it is my hope that the Facilities Committee the new members consider to change to continue the good work that we've done alright moving on we have a new school project update the main thing is the third and final Public Engagement a forum for a nice little project we get over the series over the last couple months when they done state the conceptual plan redefine it gather community input with public input where you find out a little more with the new test results they found that

077the school doesn't have to be pushed as far back onto V D Hill bringing it forward a little bit to swing to be an attack of a cross today we actually that we can add those extra two classrooms on grade level to accommodate the change in an enrollment that we have found over the resistance to learning room report so please everybody November 19th we gave me value your input in the community input or hoping to have finished up to the schematic design by the end of November and so then they would go into design development that is when they actually have the final design they start the action blueprints from determining where to the sockets go in the wall to how the line goes Helena calendar there's a committee to collect a last public forum

078the big discussion point was the baseball fields that were being proposed as an adjunct part of this project will they be addressing that meaning I just want to make sure that they're dealing with openly okay all right so we all probably also need to start highly publicized in it as well a small email yeah as well as put it on a Facebook page yes so one that one that I marked out I started when we were talking about it was the field use that changes to the fuel use like people can't use the water announcement for listing here those just seem like things that no I agree those are good fit under the four main points the ASL yeah of course - yeah yeah so does that have it no water [Music] yeah that a

079plan on the field uses that would be a for a series of communications that would be happening closer to the NLL oh and I thought about it is just saying we approve next the school calendar and here's to being in the end of the air dates alright that's okay other things but I thought gonna be a little better yeah alright okay at center the PTO meeting is on Tuesday November 12th from 9:30 to 10:30 facial retakes are on Thursday November 21st and there's an early dismissal on Wednesday November 27 at 12:20 all veterans the Veterans Day celebration is this this Friday huckleberry a PTO meeting is Friday November 8th from 9:30 9:30 the PTO sponsored bingo night is on Friday November 8th from 6:30 to 8:00 it's free to all students and families and prize

080a little bit about there's an early dismissal on Wednesday November 27th at 12:20 it was a senior there's a PCO meeting on Tuesday in November 12 from 9 to 10 picture retakes are on Tuesday November 12th date/time conferences are on Wednesday 13 from 12:30 to 45 with an early dismissal 11:40 evening conferences are on Thursday November 14 from 6:30 to 8:30 with an early dismissal 11:40 and there's an early dismissal on Wednesday November 27 at 11:40 yeah sure I had one more so and then it created a great 6pd field trip to the Connecticut Science Center on Wednesday December 4th from 8:15 not existent I apologize the we have the power of social media with Tom pinpin since I think his name from Central Connecticut today came a couple years ago he's going to our

081students and then also a parent presentation 6:30 in the cafeteria tomorrow at 6:30 power social media Peres presentation all the schools the first trimester ends on Tuesday November 19th the meeting with the board of an NBC or a new school project is on Tuesday November 19th at 7 o'clock barrier gym the Brookfield Education Gala is on Friday November 22nd and said I'm an p.m. and there's no school for students on Thursday March 27th and Friday November 28th for Thanksgiving recess and in November 9 G this is a blood drive high school thank you okay we have an executive session but before we break just I just wanted to take a quick note to thank you again for her service and really your dedication to the facilities of our building so it's really the hallmark of

082your work and Seneca let really or more leadership and really helping us become aboard so quickly that we really were collaborative and it was really your leadership that really led to that so for to the both of you thank you so much for your your four years and to our town I really appreciate it [Music]