Board of Education Meeting

001of Education to order we could all please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance ledge allegiance to the flag by the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all ok we are seeing five of our seven board members tonight Eve and joy aren't able to attend this evening first on our list is public comment and we have no one signed up is there anyone here from the public that would like to speak all right hearing none we're gonna go to written correspondence as I mentioned Joey's not here but she very helpfully provided sheets for me to read out here so permit and correspondence we have Ron Jaffe regarding an article civics education Kristina Zimmerman regarding the state's change with minimum wage

002and Chris D'Elia regarding a budget question concerning laptops next we have approval of board myths recommend emotion that the board approved the minutes listed below as recommended it's the regular meeting of the 17th of July second any questions comments on paper I proposed okay next we have a superintendents report go through and questions at the end of my report so as it is tradition getting close to the opening of school an update on total enrollment for the school district as of yesterday 2636 kids registered for class for the 2019 2020 a year during budget deliberations we had projected 2618 students so that is an increase of 18 students interesting Lee that's a net increase of course or the pre-k through 12 span but don't forget we had a catering section because of the injuries there

003and we're actually at a total of 178 kids in right now again need to thank mrs. diamond and her team for really being vigilant on registration so we are right there at the all of the sections about to are at 8:20 kids in class there's a 18 is that correct yes so we moved up from projection this year just to go back a little just one year of history for the 1819 school year we our actual number was two thousand six hundred forty eight that were registered at the beginning of 1819 year that was twelve more students up from our projection during the 1718 years so there's this slight trend Maloney broom you all might know remember the discussions there in the middle of doing their involve their deep enrollment study right now thinking in

004about three weeks will probably have the results that's all part being paid for it's part of the building project so that's going on so we'll keep you posted on that okay Lions Club golf out our Brookfield lion school as an annual golf outing and mr. Elden and mr. posts athletic director mr. Baldwin and football coach and baseball coach Muller participated as I understand it a took on the town team and one of my two strokes against that inter inter match there and it has some well they had a good time I'm just frustrated I think Bob you guys thought you could win the whole thing right we have the ability to win all play my kind of as it always does of us also the beginning of the year I communicate with the families by

005sending out a newsletter and this year in addition to the newsletter updating folks on all the things that we have to look forward to bless you we produce a video on school environment and ruler and we've found a lot of great feedback from it and really proud of when you watch it there's a pride there because you just see the kindness and the spirit of goodness that is just in the fabric of our school community and our principals also did a great job and there were a video debuts so good work over there in addition to that I wanted to mention to everybody the first day of school is next week for students on August 28th that's the Wednesday next week and it is a full day unless otherwise communicated in terms of the lower

006grades our VFW local veterans a forum were community we're doing a lot of great work with the VFW especially kind of thing with a high school in the middle school through the essay contest that we just started last year as well as the Teacher of the Year Program I had the fortune of being personally invited which was an incredible honor to the renaming ceremony of our VFW Post it was named renamed after Jason Teague Lewis who's a former field president who was a Navy SEAL and lost his life you know you know seven and some of his SEAL team buddies came and spoke and state dignitaries were down speak incredible former word number see Harding smoke and mr. done our first leopard spoke and really a movie ceremony and it was a honor to be

007there representing board and the school district today we had our new teachers in 23 strong new teachers for our first day of new teacher orientation a great kickoff day I have to thank dr. Ruby for her energy because she is still here with us she ran all the PD today for the new teachers straight through so congratulations on making this hard Oh David and Kenna - and in addition to that on August 26th next week is the kickoff complication where all our faculty are back and so we have that kickoff at faculty meetings that day some professional development in Tuesday the 27th loaded with professional development and then the first day of school as I said is the twenty actually I said I'd like to turn it over to Ed for a sec to Ken

008for a second on the educational financial system EFS works sure the EFS is the financial report that we have filed with the state at the end of the fiscal year it's due September 4th I developer they gave us template which we populated last year so I'll be doing the same thing and this you're probably uploading it by middle of next week because once you upload it the state analyzes and sends back the variance reports you have to explain variances to various things so I want to leave myself enough time to make sure I complete it before the deadline the EFS report those folks on Finance Committee will remember this but for the audience and for our board members who are necessarily on the Finance Committee this is the second year of this kind of reporting

009it used to be done as the IDI 0:01 report and that was the traditional four layers decades that's how it was not so this is the new system right and it's much more standardized correct yes throughout the entire state there so as you're comparing apples to apples the difference and then the final thing is we had our leadership advance meeting where all the administrators were back in district we were all together on Monday for a really a great day of learning the the key topics we covered that day were security we invited chief Bruce Ellen with both of our SROs and youth officer Gary growling and we continued on the work of the security task force and we rate deal threat assessment that saying of me so we've got some to dues coming out of

010that meeting we're excited to get started on those in terms of enhancing security at the schools we also talked briefly about teacher efficacy and some of the things principals and administrators can do to help with teacher efficacy in addition to that or attorney you folks know Dan Murphy spent the morning with us on legislative updates or up to date on all the new laws that took effect at 1:00 and in dr. Ruby through the Ashoka changemaker work that she's doing in alignment with ruler had put together a beautiful presentation came off the day our theme for the year which will be I'll be sharing with the teachers and the rest of the staff at convocation is the theme gratitude him so we're putting ourselves on my set of gratitude for the year I'm gonna continue

011to talk about that so it really has been a great kickoff week obviously every month as we've readied ourselves for this meeting and prepare for the beginning thank you any questions for dr. brew moving on we have subcommittee reports and first we have the sillies okay the Facilities Committee met in July and also in August and the main topics were pretty much the same at both meetings we heard from Dan Caldwell that stone eel staff and all the schools have been very busy obviously getting ready for the first day of school doing lots of cleaning painting floor waxing and making everything nice and spiffy for the beginning of school and everything is going very smoothly with that we're continuing to work with Hillier to analyze our custodial needs and our cleaning methods and that's going

012very well we've gotten good feedback from the custodial staff we have been closely monitoring the cafeteria floor situation at center school they're there this has been an ongoing issue with poor workmanship on the flooring at center school and we've been trying to figure out really how to move forward with that and we made the decision at our last meeting last week that we're just going to continue to monitor the floor situation and make sure that there is our no safety concerns right now it's really a cosmetic issue and a workmanship issue but it's not not a safety concern so we the committee felt that pursuing any kind of legal action at this point would be expensive lengthy process that resolved before so the other big part of both of those meetings were presentations by a

013local Girl Scout troop who came here to last month's board meeting with a proposal to put in hand sanitizers in all of the schools in common areas to promote healthy habits and you know prohibit the spread of germs so we had given them some questions and asked them to do a little bit more research and they came back to us at our meeting last week and did a very thorough presentation answered all of our questions and we approved the project so doctor Burrell told me that today many of the hand sanitizers were installed and they really did a great job really very thorough very well thought out and the project is being paid for by the true fund fundraising money that they raised from selling cookies as well as a contribution from Kimberly Clark and

014hat city paper it's donating the alcohol so that was good to kick that project off and that was pretty much it those were the big topics any questions for me thank you very much and next we have policy communications okay so the policy and communications committee met last on July 17th and we continued our very long discussion on the 3000 series most of these are transportation the insurance and the residency policy you will see later on in the agenda tonight so I'll save the discussion for then the other policy that we discussed was the was number three five one one a 504 policy we tabled that discussion because we wanted to just double-check with an attorney regarding some of the language but we are we do know that we're all most likely sticking with Brookfield's

015policy and just updating some of the language included there so oh and the communications portion of the meeting hopefully you guys all got a chance to see the sel video that's where we first were able to see it and it came out really great so I think oh no we're not gonna we watching it tonight or no no no I was curious that's good but oh yeah so that is that did go out on the school messenger so I got a chance to see it there so yeah really good any questions yeah Rosa thank you next we have the healthy school start time okay yep so last time we met was on August 5th and for a for a good portion of the meeting we spoke with some some people from Ridgefield who had gone

016through their school start time while they started doing the change and then they decided actually earlier this year to table that so dr. Robert Miller who was acting superintendent at the time and the project manager for that committee came and spoke along with Colleen Broderick who was a parent that was on the that particular committee as well as Karina Drake the Board of Ed member on that committee as well and we really had a chance to sort of pick their brains ask their questions ask questions and have them answer sort of the lessons learned the community concerns that were involved and some issues that eventually went along with their time the timeline of the project so that I think was that was really helpful and hopefully in the future we can get some representatives from

017other districts that have had better experiences so we can learn from them as well really here publicly why don't we manage the folks Ridgefield for coming out absolutely you know we drive time two and a half three hours so their time to be here with us totally yeah those are readily insightful maybe it was and then actually the largest bulk of the meeting was spent on the first draft of the public surveys so we will have three on one target students one at parents and another at staff and we really we made an effort to sort of make sure that if we were giving options that they were in the same units of time across surveys that we could compare results that way and we really dissected each one of the surveys and made sure

018that we were asking the appropriate questions not duplicating too much but we're also asking questions that sort of implemented somewhat of a validity check within each survey so we did really put a lot of thought into these so far and we'll be going through another draft and that's probably where we'll be spending most of the time during our next meeting is to sort of finalize those and that's it any questions Thank You Rosa oh and actually I do want to the webpage for this committee is now full of resources and stuff so if anybody wants to see some of the literature that we've used the surveys are not there yet because they're not finalized but meeting agendas and minutes are also there as well so you'll find that on the district website thank you next

019we have finance so the Finance Committee met on August 12 and the highlight of the meeting is we have pretty much final year-end report on how we did for the 1819 school year and as a whole we ran under an our budget hundred and sixty thousand dollars which was good news I guess I heard that the town under ran on their budget so that that will help the town I think as both sides of the all under run budgets so in the reason we under ramp was we have some good news for once on special education today is usually the surprises go against you and in this case we actually had some other runs that we hadn't anticipated which was good so so the in a related matter of course anytime we had one lapsing

020relationship we have with the Board of Finance and we had a discussion about policy the Board of Finance wrote the policy that we approved and we're going to try and merge them so that it's a single coherent approach and more finances named mr. Pettis they're represented and we decided I would be our representatives I'm on both the policy and the Finance Committee and and we'll sit down and look at the words in both to make sure that they are similar that nuances are one says capital projects wants us capital or non recurring projects you know that's into the words more than so that's good news all around we did talk about the online payment option for parents which was I mentioned in my last report that's actually gone live we had our first transaction on

021the day of our meeting and parents are getting some training on how to do how to use it and that's that's a go which is great we also talked about the transportation contractors I believe it's on the agenda I mean yes transition policies on the offense rotation policies on the agenda we have an interesting situation with our transportation contract because we're coming up on the moment to rebid it for a three year window I like a five year window but the problem was we we don't have with this entity changes with a new school right and this might be changes with the Healthy Start times so we did have a good healthy discussion about should we just extend our existing contract we're happy with it for two years until we're ready to have and we

022wouldn't even know what assumptions to bitters right at this point so we as a as a as a committee agree that we ought to waive our policy for rebidding except a two-year extension mr. post has to go to some negotiations on that using a very good report on that it's not since the night's meeting right we're going to be meeting with them tomorrow actually normally the waiver will come after that correct yes okay so they'll be a waiver request coming of course you know the we need to make sure we have a favorable contract in order to go down that yes and that's it I just want to give a shout out also to the time controller Marcia Marion who's also doing a lot of heavy lifting with the non labs of funk and she's

023like I kind of noticed the differences between them where to finance and our policy and is really working hard to try to mesh it and so Bob and John will be working with her on that and also to mention another reason I believe for the under run was the lack of in addition to lack of surprises special education was a lack of surprises once the weather was warm right that we didn't have a/c units yeah yeah we came under budget more to be expected in the building repair account no Mac reverse this year you know have you replaced immediately things like that that's great clothes good news any other questions for fun thank you and last we have personnel in negotiations which met on the 14th of August and winning the executive to discuss strategy

024negotiations with collective bargaining minimum wage adjustments pay rate guidelines unaffiliated salaries and you will be seeing the main two items of that later on you business I won't be long enough so I will wait until then for that any other questions all right consent agenda we have recommend a motion of the board approve the items on the consent agenda as recommended second a one question there are no resignations listed here and I believe Ryan Mr Fitzsimmons was a new resignation from last month right does that matter in July so you should be on there correct that mr. Fitz Jeff is seven so the math teacher from the high school yes so I'd like to recommend a lament emotions under the consent agenda to include the inclusion of a server like missiles thank you music any

025other questions comments all in favor aye host so moving on to new business we have policies and since Joey's in here to someone from the policy committee wanna make those motions oh I'll make a motion system if you're okay okay so the recommended motion is that the board approve policy number three five four one transportation for a first reading as recommended by the policy and communications subcommittee our system okay so the transportation policy that you have in front of you is going to be replacing Brookfield's current policy with the key policy this just corrects a lot of the language that was in here and spells out the duties of the superintendent and the business director a little more clearly believe it just for the most part it's it's kind of long but it adds for

026a little more flexibility within the files and you can see some of the changes that would be and you're just to make it a little more Brookfield specific but for the most part it's replacing a lot of our language so it's the decay policy but personalized yes so you'll see the edits are highlighted when we added a worker or struck out but are the changes from the Kade policy so now you see that when you see the one end and the brookdale one it's included with a pulse right now right they were both long yeah any discussion on that all in favor aye host okay before you go through the rest of them win do you need any questions in regards to use new the first new policies September 11th the week before our next

027call senior alright thank you okay next we have policy 3532 recommended motion is that the board approve policy number three five three two insurance or a first reading is recommended by the policy and communications because of this policy we are not adopting caves we were just keeping Brookfield's we thought we had a really good policy we're just updating some language so this is really just an update and the updates reflect what we're doing today yes there's no real changes and actually we're exceeding the policy right any discussion all in favor aye post okay next we have policy 51:18 recommended motion is that the board approve policies five one one eight residency for a first read is recommended by the policy and communications subcommittee however I'm going to amend that that before team all this policy

028until next week and until our next meeting after the next policy committee the reason for the recommended motion to table yeah I know we um so in our policy being just prior to this meeting there were a lot of subset of changes to it and we just want to make sure that's all though it was just a few things we could probably bring it forward to you guys but we want to do a little more major tweaking with making the language more clear in some of these paragraphs so too many and then too many minutes yep okay so the motion here is to table this for the next meeting it's the 18th of September is I do we have a the board meeting would be directly after that so but we do have a board

029meeting the first week so this would be a for the 19th of September that we would be tailing this until 1818 I'm sorry okay so all in favor of that hi hi host [Music] alright moving on to pay rate guidelines which was one of the things that was discussed in personnel I recommend motion that the board approve pay rate guidelines is recommended by the personnel negotiation subcommittee and the administration okay we talk me walk you through the changes yes please sure on the top of the front page with a certain summarizes it the change we're making are either in most cases to reflect the current practices that are there were some things that were not encompassed in this guideline we want to make sure everything is and several wage rates are going to be changed

030due to the minimum wage increase that takes effect October 1st so the very beginning we have any certified teachers working summer at the esy summer program are going to be $40 an hour whether they're Brookfield teachers are none of our field teachers any non Brookfield para educators or ABA para educators are going to be paid the minimum rate and our power professional contract we struck out the evening school and continuing education staff in the next line because we don't have that any longer we struck out step tutors and part-time aides because we do not have any of them we made a change to the long-term substitutes that the when they go to the higher rate on a forty first date would be retroactive and then after three consecutive absences or at the end of the

031assignment they return to 90 there's no expectation that once there are long-term sub they continue at that rate for any other length of time we are striking out the two references under certified staff the per instructional period of thirty eight thirty dollars superior sixty dollars per block and paraeducator something for a teacher at five thousand dollars an hour rate differential because other those are both contractual items there's no need to have them on here they would automatically change if a contract is renegotiated the change is reflected by the minimum wage will be the paraprofessional substitutes and the ABA power professional substitutes with each go up five dollars a day which will keep them just minimally above the minimum wage and then this back side we struck out your driver education teacher because we don't run

032that program any longer and yes lennick area we've added site supervisor which is a hundred dollars per session and the site supervisor is somebody who would be the go-to person when we have events going on when the athletic director is not here to coordinate things himself so this person acts and as we have in the next category we've added video camera operator with the crowd controlling gate receipts and then with basketball we've acted soccer in the cross the next category down we have added volleyball line judge and we've increased all of the we haven't done yet we're requesting to increase the timer score keeper and volleyball lines at the on screen to make us comparable to other districts around the area and frankly it's difficult to get people to come and and duper three hours

033for $25 or $35 and then with the football announcer we've asked added spotter also a $75 game and then knowing that things not every situation is is cut and dry or fits the the model we've added a note at the bottom that reads the superintendent is authorized to deviate from this schedule based on the needs of the district and the availability of personnel at that time the superintendent will report any such deviations to the personnel in negotiations me I'm just curious what's a team reflection paper so the team program is the teacher induction program that's required for new teachers by the state and they had a requirement that we participate in a regional team paper reflection reviewing committee right now they are allowing us at Brookfield we've developed our own plan which we believe is

034better and so we're not participating in that but they may require us to do that at some other point in time what we do is actually discuss it today it's actually way better than having our teachers do all this work they send a paper in to people that they don't know who we provide them with the lovely feedback of pass or we do that really doesn't align with what we're having our administrators do with our teachers and the feedback that we want to give to our students so we developed a plan in district last year at been our and myself develop this plan and the state approved it we have a day in May where all the teachers that are in the team program come and present before the entire cadre of new teachers you

035know what they did for each for their module what resources they used what they learned how it changed their practice and then there's a after they do their presentation there's a Q&A from the teachers and so you know feedback is given we have a committee that votes you know on whether they met the requirements that the state has set forth in the team legislation and we found that giving them feedback and having you know they do the new teachers do a lot of work for these modules and having them share what they did really just builds the capacity of the other new teachers in the district and so it was approved by the state and we've done it two years in a row now and it's been very positive I think we just take it

036off but the state you know they change from moment to moment on what they allow and if they say everybody has to do it the same way we're going to have to put it back on so it's really it's all aboard not just AIT's just needed there nor question can I know it was one question we had at finance and a Finance Committee meeting and maybe Jean can help answer if we did get answer is the eighth grade dinner dance coordinator the 1850 per hours role did we get an answer to that because I know we still have questions at the end of that meeting yeah do you might be able to elaborate on the more I know that they have two teachers who coordinate the dance they do the picking out the linens and

037lining up to the catering and all together so how many hours that was roughly it just seems ten hours it does seem very open-ended to us so our question was well yeah I'm just gonna say did position itself is that mature first question was both the decision itself yes we have yeah they're making phone calls it's all the preparations set up the decorating part of it making the phone calls for food that we have it's probably bout ten hours of peace I'm not exactly sure it's an event planning event yeah there's a lot to put in and we have some volunteers help when we do set up but we have there's a lot of people because we as you know oh you've never seen it we change the kind of like the the grad party

038that is nice but the whole cafeteria looks really great they don't notice the cafeteria when they walk in so there's a lot I guess my points there's a lot of time hours I have to go into that for them so roughly how much do we spend a year on again well 585 so $370 the rest of the hours are all volunteers okay I'm just askin put announcement out on the day the Friday before the dance and anyone after school that day was willing to help set up something up so are there controls as to how many hours this would be maximum or just by having it as an hourly thing is that are we open to and I'm not saying that the teachers right now are doing it but not having any sort of maximum

039amount of hours are we gonna get someone submitting no no no definitely there would be no reason that there would be anything more than I would say again ten hours probably a piece or not let me know everything I don't know do you wanna i'm i guess i'm pieces you want to make it a map no I'm just I'm just tossing no they do a great job it's really well done thank you and the only other question I have with this be effective when we vote on it as far as the minimum wage increase or as effective that when when it takes place statewide well the minimum wage the employees that are in minimum wage right now are the lunch monitors so that would take effect first this on October 1st because it says on

040here they get paid the minimum wage the yeah substitutes would be effective whatever you love it yeah okay [Music] any other questions our committee reviewed it and felt it was well thought out that ever get a visa that was the only question we had was for Dean all right all in favor aye opposed thank you okay thank you very much for choosing next we have the request for 88 paraprofessionals oh that's nice oh I'm sorry I model or recommend a motion that the board approves throw the requests to hire three ABA paraprofessionals is recommended by the personnel and negotiation subcommittee and the administration as and as funded through the IEA grant like invite our special education director mrs. white up to the podium to share the rationale for the reason for the need for these

041we have five students who are going to share three ABA Paris and these are new to their IEP s to provide the services so the request was for the three ABA parents to support the student services and speaking with Ken the funds are there through the ID a grant what grade level pre-k is all from nucleases new to their IPs so it's funded this year through ITA but this is something we're gonna have to look for it as a budget implication and years going forward correct yes yes okay okay any other questions bridging any of the questions about all right all in favor aye post thank you for your work on that thank you and next we have a presentation regarding American Sign Language dr. Brooke we're very excited about sign language and additional language

042to our Italian and French and Spanish offerings here oh my gosh right all right thank you so we have a quick presentation for you tonight talk about kind of where we've been on the program and what we've decided on as our options for this school year moving forward so I wanted to give you a little rationale first about our programming decision making process so this is where we started before last school year that we wanted to bring American sign language to Brookfield high school it was a overwhelming requests basically even compared to other languages we put surveys out that students and the community and parents modern American Sign Language over any other language our original program proposal talked about having a full time teacher classroom teacher in the room as you are aware and past

043years I've had this issue with long term subs and even finding some qualified world language teachers there's a shortage since taken up yet there has been for years and continues to be ASL snow is not excluded from that particular list but no matter what we have we wanted to make sure that in any interview process whether it was for ASL or for any other candidates we hired this summer across the district you know the instructional experience for our kids was the most important decision so we weren't going to settle and make a decision that was going to be - models work hits so we received five online applications through our apple crafts online employment system we interviewed each of the five candidates we ended up picking two different finalists they were considered recommended but they

044ultimately decided not to commit to pro fields after you offered up employment so we were left with what next right so we have so common to her credit work with several schools she worked with American schools for the Deaf in Connecticut in New York she was working with Columbia University Gallaudet University which you may know is a premier school in the country for students who are deaf and hard of hearing Hunter College deaf NYC the American Sign Language Teachers Association and nationwide ASL job words to expand our search parameters these are things that kind of did to try to get people in to get them to apply after doing all that and multiple phone calls I could say that kevin has had there was no viable options for a traditional classroom instructor right so we're

045faced with this dilemma because from our perspective given the feedback that we got from the community and the students and the board we felt that cans in the program wasn't an option we shouldn't just get rid of the program we invested time energy and we have the requests we have over 100 students that have requested to be in an ASL program so we made a commitment and we monitor fulfill the expectations of what we set out to do so we came up with some options we've been in contact with virtual high school me personally and comment as well not just in Brookfield but in other districts that I've worked in over the past several years we looked different options because sometimes you may offer some high level courses or other courses that students are interested

046in that we just couldn't offer in a traditional setting I've talked to them that I've had presentations of them look at their online platform so we know that they were out there as a resource as a possibility so kevin was reaching out to them that was a start second piece is to think about online and what this looks like through a virtual community we've had hats we have had had some experience excuse me some positive experience with online courses here at the high school not through virtual high school but through other platforms and independent study for example mit has an open course we had some students taking some very advanced math multivariable calculus and differential equations we had kids work through an online platform that it actually worked pretty well as well as some personal

047finance courses which aren't necessarily is the high level as multi variable calculus and differential equations but personal finance course we had several students take that several years with at least a year before I started it was intended for an academic level which is a general level course and we had some success there with students taking that online and then as we looked at this online option because it is a very unique opportunity and wondering what sign language could be like and what does that look like in an online environment you know we also realized that Gallaudet University as and you can look it up it's published they have a wide selection of asynchronous we'll talk about what that means and a little bit online courses for graduate undergraduate professional sites so to premier universities in

048the country for students who are hard of hearing or deaf uses an online platform to help instruct students so we knew that this point is a pretty viable option and something we should explore so we came to the decision at this point in time that utilizing virtual high schools American sign language course in conjunction with a class facilitator which is something we're going to talk about in a little bit we talked about the classroom experience will provide in-person support is our best option and so we're excited to kind of explore that next step so I'll turn it over to come in to talk about more specifics so as a curriculum specialist for world languages we really had to vet this program so as we lay out the instructional plan for this year for the ASL

049online course we wanted to make sure that we're providing a quality program for our students that is going to lead to proficiency in the language so we're partnering with the virtual high school to provide our 100 enrolled students with as dr. Birol said a cutting-edge online experience it's asynchronous as mr. Blandon mentioned which means that students can access it anytime anywhere but I'm going to describe what the student experiences like in a little bit the online platform that the students are utilizing is called d2l desire2learn brightspace platform and I was designed with cognitive scientists as well as high school students because the company has really done providing an online experience that's practical where students can learn so they didn't want anything that was confusing and that didn't promote self navigation digital literacy so this platform

050really facilitates that most importantly it's taught by highly qualified and certified ASL instruction instructor actually 81% of the teachers that work with virtual high school have a master's degree or higher and the students are going to be paired with high school certified class facilitator to provide social emotional and academic facilitation for each of our students so our students are not just going to be alone in front of a computer our rationale is really to provide an individualized one-to-one language learning experience so this is optimal in acquiring language a student needs one-to-one with the instructor to understand if he or she is meeting their language acquisition goals so within this digital platform this is another really exciting component our students are going to work with other students from across the country so their classmates could literally

051be in any state in the United States thus providing a diverse multicultural classroom environment which really helps support our goal to provide a global perspective to our students to develop self-advocacy and those essential collaboration and communicative skills I vetted the program to make sure that it adheres to the national standards for learning American Sign Language and also world readiness standards for language learning as you all know as I mentioned in the past we really want our graduates to have the opportunity to be bi literate and through this program our students could achieve that in ASL it promotes as I said digital citizenship and self-discipline it is accredited by the NCAA which is extremely difficult to achieve and Middle States Commission of secondary school so this is a vetted program I mentioned the asynchronous learning environment

052anytime anywhere to adhere to our students flexible schedules there's in-depth student-teacher interaction so not only are there digital office hours with the instructor but there's also the class facilitator as well to facilitate the experience as I mentioned there's peer to peer learning not only with their physical peers in their classroom but also those in the online on the online platform culturally it develops intercultural competence to communicate with a deaf community so it's an authentic learning experience with an inclusive learning environment there's a focus on cultural understanding there are multiple means of assessment performance-based assessments through videos blogging discussion boards and most importantly as well it can count as a two-year college entrance requirement so I really wanted to talk about the student experience for those that may be nervous about this type of course so

053our students are scheduled to attend a traditional eighty-three minute class in room 109 here at Brookfield high school they're going to utilize their one-to-one devices which is awesome with the webcam to engage with the platform that I described before they're gonna view uploaded videos and post their own videos using the platform video note they're gonna complete their assigned exercises in sync with a class with both the in-person instructor and the online instructor really fostering those self-pacing skills those organizational skills that they're going to need when they go to college they're gonna post on discussion boards blogs blogs and virtual chats they're gonna engage with students they're going to review teacher feedback that they get and through completed assignments through the rubrics tool they're going to self assess and peer the five parameters of ASL handshape

054palm orientation location movement and non-manual signals and that's something that even with a classroom facilitator being there they can't cheat on it's going to be what they learn what they acquired they're gonna receive technical academic and social/emotional support from our class facilitator and if you still don't believe me we found this video from actually online high school this is why I got it as a connection there her husband is the principal so we're gonna take a look at it real quick and don't worry there is no sound on purpose so this is the students names is this Kathryn Atkinson hi Mike this is Kathryn Atkinson she this actually is a video she uploaded from last year 2019 so she goes to she wants a live online high school in Connecticut and she talks about her

055experience with virtual high schools specifically in the ASL class you get to see what it's like so there is no there's no sounds to just be prepared but we'll show [Music] so and I just want to highlight in common open today to talk about the next steps here but this was an ASL one student this is a conclusion of one full year of ASL so there's really powerful potential here and we want to be able to show that to you unfortunately as much as we would love to be able to have some sort of clip of what it's like an interaction and what's in a one-to-one environment certainly we can talk about demonstrations we can do online but because it's they say it's different for every kid but having a facilitator there which is one

056of the things we look we is one of our proposals for a part of this program allows us to really differentiate for each kid and see what they need and be able to monitor that so we want to just see a final product as to what somebody learned purely from an online course direct instruction with it without direct instruction this is pretty amazing so I just wanna put that out there we also of course wanted to be very transparent as to the financial impact of the program and we're pleased to say that we're gonna remain budget neutral we budgeted originally eighty five thousand dollars from the traditional ASL teacher position and the VHS program itself is sixty thousand dollars and here there is a breakdown of where those sixty thousand dollars come into play there's

057sixty-five percent of that is curriculum instruction twenty percent of it is helpdesk and personalized support and fifteen percent is infrastructure myself and the class facilitator we're both going to be going through the online training as well to make sure that everything is clear at us before the program is rolled out on Wednesday as well so every base will be covered so this is very exciting also those that might doubt the online experience as well in terms of student data privacy the program adheres to Connecticut student data privacy laws there is a contract that the student and the students Guardian has to agree to we're working with our director of Technology mr. Eric Conklin to ensure that this program is exactly and adheres to all Connecticut school digital law so that's our ASL program that's our

058solution any questions I have a comment and a question so I will say that I was disappointed to hear that it wouldn't be sort of a traditional classroom experience but I'm not surprised that you've has convinced me to be very excited about this to be honest but my question is will the search for an actual instructor continue or does this seem to be superior because of the individualized programming at this way we're open to anything we want to see what this experience is going to bring to our students but that doesn't mean that we're going to exhaust the search of a traditional classroom teacher the future of this program could bring multiple possibilities perhaps it's a blended experience where we do search for a traditional classroom teacher and also have this so maybe it impacts

059other programs across other content areas so we can't give you a definitive answer right now but you know I guess the future is endless and besides just the ASL online course you know the interesting piece for me looking at building while you know kind of focused on language is the opportunities for other courses that we can run virtual high school has a pricing structure that you know right now we don't have a teacher teaching an online course through virtual high school therefore bisl it is more expensive to buy a curriculum to work through them that are by this program to work through that way if we were ever to commit to a teacher actually teaching a virtual high school course they kind of become an adjunct I see the stone buildings there's a section that

060somebody teaches of microbiology for lack of a better term of course that I can think of and then that also gives our students summer students access to other personal high school courses at a much reduced rate because we have so many participating and teaching in the program there's a lot of different flexibility options I think one of the other parts is that there's constant feedback there is there's an expectation that every two weeks we're going to get crazy we're gonna get updated we're going to know where students are so we'll know how well we're progressing and be able to to jump on any issues or concerns pretty quickly as opposed to and nothing against classroom teachers but there's a pretty clear expectation for the online instructors because it's so vast and so why did they

061let it get too far out with grading and reporting and giving progress it can be very unwieldy so we're gonna know pretty quickly and we're completely open you know see what this what happens with this and you know if it looks like it's going well we can have discussions and say is this something to continue do we need you look for an ASL instructor but we're completely wide open to what would the FTE for the monitor be he's a 23 hour a week okay and this would be wonderful Hollanders is how really unaffiliated position that kind of a we have existing positions as tutors under new toriel the the valuable piece individual value that the add value should say of the individual who will be the classroom facilitator is by state statute with virtual high

062school and online learning the individual in the in the room for that peace liaison piece has to hold and a grade appropriate certification so they're not necessarily a world language certified person right even an ASL certify person but they have to be a high school level certified at some high school subject that is a requirement yeah the expectation is that you know the reason they do that as well is because you want somebody who's developmentally appropriate to meet with high school and that sort of sight so be able to manage that but that is their over you virtual high schools been around for quite some time over the years they've learned that with their about develop program and they're a Falls program they can handle a lot of those interactions teacher to teacher to student

063interaction interactions online without the need of having a certified instructor in that particular you know ap biology or ASL or they don't necessarily need that for these students to be successful it's that person they're facilitate and make sure that they can stay on track and really help them with some of those soft skills that we talked about that you can move it forward so would you notify all of the students and families prior to and give them since this is a non-traditional thank you them the option of opting out should they need to one of the things living is exciting about it is the opportunity to actually communicate with people that are deaf so I think it's so much more authentic learning perhaps than hiring a traditional teachers I think that's really exciting what are

064your thoughts on a student with some executive functioning issues maybe somebody who chose ASL because the more traditional world languages maybe were struggle for them how do you see that type of student functioning in this that's a great question actually in doing the demo myself with the representative also reading all everything that I've read on the virtual high school program accessibility is key to the ASL program when I read through the case study for this particular course development and I looked at the curriculum to make sure that we could say it was about it was aligned to standards accessibility was one of the cornerstones to the development of that curriculum the virtual teacher if the student for example say has an IEP needs to have access to that IEP in order for that ie PA

065be followed and for the work to be modified for the student to be accommodated as needed so for students with the executive functioning concerns right students you know we're gonna work through that multiple different ways not just necessarily in the ASL class they're going to be getting support in through their IEP whether it be you know through academic support or a couple of different vehicles in the building one-on-one and then certainly if there's questions or concerns there's communication Kevin and I will be a big part of that to help facilitators we don't really know exactly what this is going to look like until we get into it but to stay on top of it be able to communicate with case managers or school counselors about students that may be struggling with executive functioning won't know

066it relatively quickly they do some some great online organizational tools as well we saw online planners that help students actually the virtual planner where they plan out their day that's that's a component of personal high school so it helps them organize this is when I need to do this you know we used to get about planners years ago and I still we don't often give them out anymore because kids tend to use their phones or some other version but this actually has a virtual planner that they can go through and help you know the facilitator we've got something the silicate would help them with because they are a certified great appropriate person who understands the developmentally that students have may have challenges individually and it can help them with that piece as well another advantage

067that will help our students is that so many of college courses now are at least partially online and the fact that maybe they'll graduate from Broomfield having some experience with that would give them a leg up perhaps on some of their classmates when they get to college so so can you just walk us through how will students actually get feedback from the teacher or get support while they're viewing the lesson while they're in class it depends there are many different avenues for that so I mentioned before through discussion boards blogs blogs there are many different platforms within the main d2l platform for that student to receive feedback in addition the classroom facilitator will be there providing the in-class feedback as well there's also let's not forget peer feedback the peers in the classroom where the

068students will be receiving that feedback as well as well as their peers across the nation within the digital platform itself so there's a myriad of ways that students can receive feedback for their progress on acquiring ASL but but is the instructor available in real jazz well and also the student can request specific private office hours with that instructor in order to receive that specialized one-to-one support because sometimes those discussions could be in a small group online for example of the same amount of a small number of students are experiencing the same issue with a particular concept or something but as part of this platform the student can request the that one-to-one with the instructor but the instructor won't be live during the eighty three minutes so if students could be could be it depends how

069the student schedules it okay and it depends on the situation how the you know how the particular lesson is laid out for that day as well it depends and do have any information about other districts in our state or in the area that are using VHS for any even other classes well as we stated online high school with video we also have RAM high school and even we have Lyman Memorial well we have chip hog right Thompson yep there's all yes they they work with the virtual high school for many other verses oftentimes some of the smaller schools that have researchers in terms of staffing really need to explore some other options and so that's one of the reasons why those schools well they're they're not huge schools but they're a little bit smaller this

070is a really viable option for them they doing it for a while so you're envisioning this being for classes if we retain the 100 students eyes 585 classes five centers of ASL 125 and then let's say next year they want to go on for ASL too and you know in a hypothetical situation if we can't find an instructor they also offer the ASL to components of us so they would have their two-year language requirement we thought that sections of 20 in a classroom is easier to facilitate as well as if we make up to 25 let's say that makes me feel better sections of 20 is much easier to manage for somebody as well I agree this is an exciting new program the community has a lot of interest would you be willing to come

071back in a month or two or three and just share with us how's it going to look like for kids so we can continue to hear about it of course and we're also excited you know I was thinking as I watched that student from online high school I can't wait till our students produce those products and share those with the board my student spotlight dates and I'm looking at February the student maybe not a month to you but by February significantly progressed in the program to see where we are and that's really exciting I'd love to do that like in a month or two you can give us like a short snippet just to say there's not video that that's working you know just you guys I think I would make us go back the

072video of what the typical 83 minute class looks like you know and thanks for all your hard work on that yeah thank you for your support this lemonade out of lemons um so if we were to go forward with this we would probably need a motion to create the position of the classes out there other class facilitator and also the change we did we needed for a change in curriculum I would suggest that that word also on the second motion that would be to adopt the high school right program the reason is the word tonight because of time is actually acting as committee of the whole this program has to be discussing compasses a number of our subcommittees write personnel okay so we would need we would need a motion to oh you got another

073all right go for about all right I'd like to make a motion and it's a three-part motion to a adopting their of a virtual high school American Sign Language Program for the upcoming school year be that we approve a class class facilitator 23 hours use a three-hour position and in our group job listening and see the budget changes too to accommodate both posture monitor and the third party assignment from the current basis of $85,000 and motion covering curriculum the position right all right gents second to them do we have any further discussion it's because I don't think we really just took a whole I mean it seemed to be everyone seemed to be positive with it but is there any other discussions on this before we take a vote thank you for your hard work

074I mean in especially I would hate for all of the work that we did to get this additional word language or wording that I pay to see all of the hardware just peel it away for the lack of funding the teacher for it I've just been trying to picture the look on their face when they got the phone call from the last candidate saying I'm not coming it was like oh my god now what will I do and react that fast is amazing so thank you all right all in favor aye opposed okay thank you very much very excited about this all right moving to old business policies we have policy 3452 recommended motion of the board approve policy number 3452 activity funds management for a final reading as recommended by the policy communications subcommittee

075first reading was on July 17th 2008 second all right we discuss this before about it it is just kind of tweaking it you can receive any questions comments on it so all right all in favor aye post thanks for your policy 30 170 recommend a motion that the board approve policy number 31 set of the budget administration for our final region as recommended by the policy and communications subcommittee first reading was on July 17th 2019 second any questions in regards to this all in favor aye opposed and last we have policy 61 60 3.32 recommended motion that the board approve policy number six one six 3.32 and our policy for a final reading that's recommended by the policy communications subcommittee first reading was on July 17 2013 second any questions in regards to this all

076in favor aye opposed screw that thank you very much looking forward to that guide the assistance all right next we have the a new school building project just a little bit of update on that we did have the monthly project workshop progress meeting on the 9th of August and it was quite productive several things that are saying right now since we're in the schematic design phase moving towards the design development phase there are several different items that have to be gone through right now mainly studies and surveys there's going to be like the traffic survey of the road to see what it's like to make sure that the road can handle all the additional traffic that would the new school would bring a joint sidewalk with wetlands enforcement office the entire area to determine the

077exact wetlands boundaries site surveys this is going to be one to one and a half weeks in the field hopefully it's being done right now we're trying to get that done before school started just so people didn't see people skulking around the outside of the area that obviously didn't belong there doing things that may or may not seem apparent to people but it would be one in 1/2 weeks in the field and then another three to four weeks to complete the study and to do it in addition there's going to be a more detailed at spec detail by all of the school administration which dr. burrow can speak of to greater detail than that and then also the school facilities operations discussion as well again it's covered by inspect but going more into the granularity

078detail what the construction and composition of all the materials and everything would look like that is all information that has to get done before they can move to design development to provide the actual physical plans that we would see in addition to that we are having the public for meeting so I'm going to say those dates again because I don't think okay no I have I can't say them enough though because we really encourage to the community to attend them this is on Thursday September 26th Tuesday October 22nd and Tuesday November 19th these are all at 6:00 p.m. and they will all be at Hoka Berry Hill elementary school that way there's going to be a better visualization of the site there will be live-streaming for those that are unable to attend but we really

079encourage people to attend these are going to be joint meetings between the Board of Education the Municipal Building Committee and Tecton architects so all of the you know the key people are going to be there the we will present what is happening at the time the results of the surveys the thinking going forward and we would highly encourage and welcome all public input at that time questions and input and thoughts as far as what they envision and see in the school going forward really we really want it to be a community effort yes Thursday September 26th Tuesday October 22nd and Tuesday November 19th these are all at 6:00 p.m. and all at huckleberry health during that time kind of a little teaser and and we need to discuss this as a board too as to

080how we want to do it is we are talking about putting forth some sort of naming contest for the school site now we do have a policy in our in our board policy that's that's quite specific as far as what naming a new school entails it has to be via a landmark physical landmark or site or of the area it can't be a person and there is a committee of people that will recommend names to the Board of Education who make the ultimate determination but the committee of people that's chosen can also take into account names that the community puts forth as well so we really want to involve and engage the community in assisting in the naming of this into school too because again it has a complete community effort to get this new

081school project a community you sound that's September 14 we've invited these rappers and works with us as part of that that Nets back alignment review and I do want to remind everyone that three almost three years ago now when we initiated the building try to be invited these are representatives custodial maintenance representative of the nursing representers every party is represented from the internal focus groups that we cannot do so we have all of that data already and it is still viable it's all posted posted as part of the useful project website and so anybody can access that to see what that input was that already has influence the inspect the design that I have put forward as part of the application process so the it's really important for the board to know as well as

082our instructional staff that they've already been involved and I also encouraged email out of both mr. paws mrs. Larson present encourage them encourage all faculty instead if they'd like to come to these forums it's open for that as well as coming in participate so truly any other questions coming up it's an exciting time the NBC did meet yesterday to review a short list as well of the OPM's the owner Owner project managers so this would be an individual that works directly for us for the town as herself there's no profit margin for them they're just strictly based and representing us as a town to make sure that we get the best building these people who do that professional yes these are all companies that the NBC besides what are corporations yes they are yes exactly

083right and the questions all right there moves us to three main points I think the most the more times we get that out there the better it's going to be for all of us what about an update no service ponies [Music] alright next we have upcoming events and joy thank you joy very kindly provided a list for us so at center elementary school we have the new to first grade orientation Tuesday August 27th two to two thirty first grade meet-and-greet Tuesday August 27th 2:30 to 3:00 PTO play date Tuesday August 27th three to five kindergarten visitation day Wednesday August 28th kena darn short days which is a 12:20 dismissal from Thursday August 29th through Tuesday September 10th Wednesday September 11th is the first full day of school for kindergarten preschool orientation Thursday August 29th morning

084preschool from 9:30 to 10:00 afternoon preschool 1:30 to 2:00 first day of afternoon preschool is Friday August 30th first day of morning preschool Tuesday September 3rd kindergarten open house Tuesday September 3rd from 6:30 to 7:30 at huckleberry Hill back-to-school picnic Monday August 26 from 3 is 6 and from 3 to 4 families may enter the school to look to see where the classroom is with the near middle school open for building tours Thursday August 22nd from 2 to 4 and Friday August 23rd from 9 to 11 Brookfield high school freshman orientation was yesterday 6 to 8 athletic parent night Thursday August 29th 6 to 8:30 in the auditorium and in 7 classrooms and for all schools the first day of school is on Wednesday August and again this is a full day of school except

085for the exceptions there and there is no school on Monday September 2nd which is Labor Day right moving from that we have an executive session anticipated I recommended motion that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing strategy and negotiations as it relates to collective bargaining the superintendent's goals and pending litigation regarding a former employee session all in favor aye opposed ok this concludes the public portion and televised portion of this board meeting thank you all for joining us and have a good evening [Music]