001[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Wednesday July 17th 2019 and I called the regular meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order we could all please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag okay we are ceding our full board this evening and so the first thing on our agenda is public comment and we have two people signed up for public comment first we have Mary cereal oh so Mary if you can just please come to the stand and just state your name in your address for the record please my name is Mary cereal oh and I live at 13 red barn land Brookfield Connecticut sure you're all set hi my name is Mary Sue yellow and I am a member of Girl Scout Troop five zero seven seven seven along with
002Charlotte Goodsell Adrianna with Cisco grace Goodsell Rebecca Smith and Kaylee O'Connor we are here to talk about our Silver Award project as cadets in the Girl Scout community the highest award we can earn is the Silver Award and for our project we decided to focus on the state of our schools and decrease the amount of germs in our community this about this sparked a conversation about germs and clean hands here are some interesting facts we found 144 million kids miss school per year for being sick Hansen Houser products can reduce this by as much as 50% when hand sanitizer is used properly hence can eliminate 99.9% of germs on your hands in any classroom Republic space germs spread quickly even if you're not planning on doing things like eating talking the students or even sharing
003supplies other people's germs can affect you especially in environments with students especially during flu season minimizing your exposure to other people's germs is crucial for your health a few times a day when your sanitize your hands you reduce your chances of getting sick if soap and water were not available the best alternative is using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol to reduce the number of germs on your hands this is how this is how we've been preparing to help implement our silver award first we completed our required journey book which gave us skills we needed to help develop plan and start our silver award today we have contacted peer counselors schools facilities and the people from Brookfield business and operations some private companies we contacted our Pfizer hat city city paper
004and supply company in kimberly-clark our initial request is for dispensers in all classrooms cafeterias gymnasiums libraries and main offices of all for Brookfield Public Schools but and that would make a total of 236 dispensers but after looking at the financial needs and sustainability of the dispensers we decided to lower the amount of dispensers and place them only in popular areas that where they were needed leaving us with our new proposal we want to put two dispensers in the cafeterias - two in the gymnasiums one in the main offices one in the libraries and one in the main entrances of each school which would make seven dispensers per school and 28 dispensers total troop 507 7 and their families will take a day to install the dispensers in each school prior to the start of the
005school year it was recommended that the dispensers be installed with screws and fasteners there will be a contact card with our troops information on each device in case of any malfunctions or refills our plan is to store them with the janitorial supplies in each school then we'll meet the proper code for the American Disability Act so that'll be wheelchair accessible we've secured that hat City Paper Company is going to be donating the dispensers in Kimberly Clark is making a donation that we will use to buy the gel our troop will be supplementing additional cost for the next two years we're working on a letter for grant to help with purchases such as screws in additional gel if the letter is rejected our troop will supply what is necessary for the next two years the dispensers
006and installations are free of charge in addition to that we have the privilege of having one of the representatives from half City Paper Company come to help us with the installation of the dispensers in closing we are requesting the Board of Education approval to install hand sanitizers in each of the schools thank you for your time any questions question first you have grace good cell if needed was that you just ran over on time okay thanks normally during public comment it's not a back-and-forth it's just comment but I think this is unusual and since we have the troop here and available for questions I am okay opening up public comment this time for questions if anyone was so he said to in the cafeterias so I got the two in the cafeteria one in the
007main office one library one of the main lobby what were the other two locations the gym so two in the gym [Music] okay questions just about like ongoing maintenance and refilling like is somebody gonna be coming back to see if they're they need to be refilled and who's responsible for refilling them and maintaining them we were in contact with the student leadership representatives at the middle school and they agreed that they would be able to refill the ones in the middle school the representative from the high school never got back to us but our chief said that we would be able to go back and refill them one needed and then how often do you think they would need to be filled based on I'm I'm just trying to envision the dispensers like monthly bimonthly
008and it's only because they this is the microphone so no one can hear you on television unless you're at the UM we did reach out to all four schools that the high school said they couldn't they wouldn't be able to refill for us and we haven't heard back from huckleberry on the student leadership team there to refill them I'm kind of going back to Debbie's Brooks comment and center school we thought they might be too young but we are also going to have a card on there with our troop with a phone number and who to contact when they need to be refilled and or if they are malfunctioning or they need to be replaced and Colet how often they yeah we don't know yet because we don't know how much is going to be
009used and we ask that from half city like could you give us an idea and he said it depends on the usage so we're not sure but we will have supplies so once they're installed we'll have supplies already ready to refill them in the schools and available sorry I think two offs what you said to maybe get that information be really crucial to maybe get something the girls can contact local schools that have them or any schools that do have dispensers to find out how often they need to be replaced because I know it's quite often at least in my school some of the kids I like to play with it just kind of push the button right so that would be good information to have sounds like you're storing them at the janitorial location
010the janitorial team's been consulted and they're okay with a place to store them the custodial team had mr. post has been aware of this and mr. Caldwell had been aware of the the requests to move forward on this but the custodians have themselves I don't think have been consulted on this yet so there's a little bit of legwork on that hope you still have something that school oh yeah okay school principal knowing about any locations of the specific dispensers a little more fine-tuned than two in the cafeteria and doing the gym have we actually walked this space with someone in the schools this age here and here and that's okay with them you guys do that yes you'll do but you'll do that before we go this okay that'd be great and I um I
011applaud the the timeline as well that's a lot of hard work I would suggest and I'm not sure about everyone else that this that the new proposal since it is a new proposal go to the Facilities Committee or the Facilities Committee to discuss yes our next meeting for the Facilities Committee is Tuesday August 13th at 9 o'clock in the morning and we're going to be meeting in the town school offices in Town Hall if you're able to come and sit down and meet with the Facilities Committee that would be terrific um I do have a question do you in in addition to having a notice saying when they need to be refilled with your troop number are there going to be any type of warning labels like do not put in your mouth do not
012put in your eyes that may be just a suggestion that may be something that yes yeah what you know like the skull and crossbones do not eat and the manufacturer may have that on the dispenser you could double-check that and then at the Facilities Committee you will receive could you actually have them in your hands from the dispensers no no I understand I just think it would be good to have a sample when you come to the Facilities Committee level right I've been out to be a great I you know let let the facilities director see it let the Fitz Facilities Committee see it I think it's it's a good thing to always have a visual like that they make the money on the job it's like Keurig machines I would suggest that maybe you
013rethink the locations for the high school a little bit just to just one because the high school has two gyms and also because a lot of people enter at the auditorium entrance in addition to the main office entrance like when there's special events or games or town meetings and in the auditorium so you know just maybe give some more thought to to where you might put them in the high school and just give some thought to the gyms - maybe consult with the PE teachers about where a good location because we don't want that spilling on the floor other than the gym floors because I could ruin it I know huckleberry hasn't finished I think it's great so it's a great well it's been a lot of hard work in a long time and this
014you've done a great job thank you and thank you very much for coming to see and I have to compliment you all a perfect example of argumentation which we work on all the time so thank you very much that was great what a display tremendous concise and administrative question do it does the board need to approve this or can we delegate this to the committee I think once it supports the facilities yeah I think it's just a simple my decision lies with the facilities we have all the questions answered and we know what we're what we're implementing we can just implement absolutely so for clarity you know we won't be voting on it tonight but with the committee will be authorized along with the administration to give you the go-ahead good thank you again very
015just coming home thank you and you're welcome to stay for the rest of this very interesting life it's cooler in here all right next we have written correspondence okay we had Monique Matthews regarding interviewing for the director of pupil personnel position Ron Jaffe regarding implementing a civics education program and the National Alliance on Mental Illness program and committing met communicating that to parents Michael caffee Ellie regarding enrolling in the Brookfield School District Praveen tokus regarding badminton programs and Linda Kalman regarding the News Times article and AP testing I also have a thank you note from Claire lund she was one of the top eleven that I'll be to you says dear Brookfield Board of Education thank you so much for the beautiful recognition dinner for the top eleven it was such a wonderful evening and
016I really enjoyed the dinner time spent on my teachers you all do so much for the town - thank you for the beautiful pen and letter opener they are gorgeous and will make such a nice memory I loved being able to share at the Board of Ed meeting and really want to thank you all the entire evening sincerely Carolyn you are very welcome Claire all right next we have approval of Board minutes recommend a motion that the board approve the minutes listed to blow as recommended the regular meeting on June 19th 2019 any discussion questions clarifications alright all in favor okay next we have the superintendent's report thank you mrs. Stern so I just have three items but I'll take a little bit of time I wanted to share a little bit about what's going
017on with the generator for Brookfield High School that's a big capital purchase for us that we ordered about eight months ago and while we talked about it at Facilities Committee prior to this meeting it wasn't talked about at the meeting that's gonna be discussed tonight and for subcommittee reports I just wanted to mention that the generator while in process is not going it was supposed to be delivered at the first week in July and then installation would take a couple of weeks the manufacturer sent us very last-minute the first week of July that it won't be ready due to a shortage of parts and all kinds of things going on nationwide with generators until October so it's three months behind where we anticipated it would be here and that's an issue because we're heading into
018heavy thunderstorm seasons and hurricane season here in New England and the key piece is that there are two key pieces one we use the school as a shelter so you know there is a difficult storm that we have to deal with and the other piece is when you install we have concerns about disruption when you install during school time the whole point of doing this in the summer is you're doing this in the summer that the school isn't being used so we drafted a letter that we shared with the facility committee tonight and Colet and Steve done and me signed off on the letter just expressing a little bit of our disappointment and the fact that we want to remain the verbally told us that we're a priority for them and we want to remain
019a priority in terms of first in line for delivery because that all their customers will be late in that if in fact we do have a storm prior to having the generator that on them they would provide a standby generator for us to help us through a particular storm or something like that so we're doing what we can to move this along of course we're disappointed but I just wanted to share that with everybody I don't know if anybody had any questions or anyone from facility committee or Ken had any further comment on that okay the next thing under up another piece under operations very some really interesting news would share trial balance I'd like to turn that over to Ken with the town sure report I believe it last month's mean that we had
020developed a way to change that we we post our entries so that the town finance office would not have to maintain in effect a shadow set of books for hours and now that we're into the new year we've tested actually gone live with it and are several postings and it's been successful the entries are posting properly it's setting up the offsetting due twos and do from Zahn both of the ledgers so it's a been a success and we're all quite happy about that that's great only one I'm aware of yeah it's pretty exciting there and we're also Marsh is hosting the first fun if it this can be fun for mr. Beldon I think it might be fun finance Friday where there'll be some collaboration around finances between the town and school offices in some
021of the the inroads that do to the bloom Shapiro report and our real hard work on the Board of Ed side some of the things we're a little bit ahead of the town on and working with the town folks and those individuals learning from us and us learning from them and sharing how the immune system can work in efficiencies and all kinds of things and so Marsha is gonna provide some refreshments and the teams are gonna be together for a couple hours on Friday and training opportunities for people who need it yeah and and try to provide an environment where people can ask questions and learn from each other rather interesting because it also promises accounting fun and games and so we're just say what kind and joke you know accounting jokes and games you
022know such a things and it's like an accounting jokes the word of the games come in yes said there might be a little Cara Lee being calculate erases things like that wild times and then if there's nothing nothing no other questions on that the the final piece I have it's kind of a it's a prelude to the consent agenda but I just wanted to share hiring update we're really very busy with hiring as we are every summer and really some exciting new folks are joining the team you'll see there's about ten teachers that have formally been hired that are on the consent agenda but we also since the consent agenda has been developed we've entered into contracts with a few other teachers so there are one two three four six more teachers that we are
023set and filling those positions and we have three four five six seven eight nine positions still open and the majority of those we have our interviews with those folks next week they're scheduled next week our principals with the exception of mrs. LaBrie Shah know all the principals that various and marine are all on in training this week in different places so we weren't able to get our interviews all done so we're looking forward to it and we have some even ran into without knowing it a former student that was hired I wasn't I was on vacation so I missed that hiring process and it was great to see her so from 20 years ago so yeah so she said I looked exactly the same and I told her he already signed your contract you don't
024need to say so that's all I have if there's no other shows those are names that are beyond what's on our current yes because we'll have an updated consent agenda in August with the remainder of you know filling the remainder of the facilities makes sense to amend our agenda tonight to have the name know because not all of them have contracts at a formally signed you know we've entered into verbal agreements or some and move things along I wouldn't yeah no I just wanted to let you folks know that we're you know on top of things and it's going quite well okay that's all I have great thank you thank you can I just ask a question before we move on if it's appropriate now or we could save it since there was that article
025in the news times about the AP would it be appropriate just to sort of inform the community the results of that in case any people had questions about I think the one the there's there's two things I can say is that my understanding is that College Board has has moved on they're not looking into anything any further and all the AP tests were scored if there was a problem with any of the AP tests we would have been informed of that and so clearly there was no problem anything further would kind of fall under student confidentiality and so forth so I think that's probably all I should say at this point I think maybe the community just probably wanted to hear that the tests are being scored and that the College Board sort of closed
026the case yes and informally that the case is not closed because we're waiting for a letter from College Board and so unfortunately that is still slow to come mr. Bolen des is you know checking email multiple times a day to see when if that letter has come in because once we have that letter I'd be happy to share it with the public Oh calm and I even had a conversation with Julia from The News Times and share it a little bit about what you just asked me about Jen so okay she's aware and she'd be happy to publish anything to the contrary of the story in the complaint okay thanks we can move on to subcommittee reports first we have Cape so the Cape committee met on Wednesday June 19th and we had two major
027items of business the first one was a request to update the text for AP government in politics their current text text was over 10 years old and quite outdated and so they have selected a new text American government roots and reform AP Edition and we had an opportunity to review it and it really looks like something that's much more student-friendly much more aligned to the AP course which has now been revised and it seemed like a really good choice so that cape committee sub escape committee members it's you nationally supported that selection and then also mr. Oberlin to shared some information about the Connecticut State Department for Education guideline for graduation requirements and he attended a workshop about looking at this idea of a mastery based diploma assessment which we used to call capstone here
028and it sounds like we're a bit ahead of the state in terms of our thinking and planning for what this will look like the guidance from the state doesn't seem to be very specific at this point so mr. Burlando and others have sort of brainstorm some ideas of options of what that could look like and they're also visiting several high schools to observe what they do currently to align themselves with this idea of a mastery diploma assessment so I think that's work that's still in in progress but they're still sort of making some movement towards that do they have a year that that's required yet because I know at one point they kept pushing it off you know a future it might be twenty is it twenty twenty three now trying to think it's uh
029so this year's incoming freshmen I think it's for our incoming freshmen but they keep pushing it back so that's any indicator I don't know but that's why we're thinking about it okay now that was part of the the thinking in my budget presentation back in December talking about thinking about mr. Jaffee's communication to us with you know civic engagement and civics programming in addition to the things we already have in place but also we think about capstone in internships and real-life experiences and application for students in you know in a leadership position that could really take that over and manage all of that if we really get you know a high percentage of majority of our students you know deeply involved in those kind of independent projects so it's exciting times we're just not sure
030exactly where the state is going to be the other thing I did want to share on this Jenna I'm sorry to take the floor on this is there Fox 61 did Ann Fox 61 had a piece and then there was an article right up the I'm not even sure so I'm not gonna mention names there in the newspaper but we still don't have as far as I know a new Commissioner of Education for the state it was going to be one of my superintendent colleagues and then now apparently after six months of back and forth since governor Lamont's been in place now it's a different I believe it says someone who's a sitting Assistant Superintendent who will be named so there's a lot of consternation on going on right now this is a lot of
031sit and wait including for the State Board of Education so any decisions on these things are going to be in limbo right now until we have a commissioner in place any other questions for Jen or the Cape committee thank you next we have policy communications I'm going to go ahead and let Bob give this update since I was absent at this meeting the policies were bringing forward are on the agenda for tonight so we'll talk about them when that time comes in addition to the specific policies dr. Cipolla came and visited with us before she left and actually it was great that she came because she gave us a send ahead on her thoughts on a lot of policies that we weren't in a position to act on she wanted to give our new director
032of special education and an opportunity to engage and she joined us tonight to start that process but the but we did get dr. cipolla's input on a lot of the policies that are in her area so I just publicly thank her for taking the time to do that she didn't have to so and we got an update on the 4,000 series which is our next series which if you remember our prior discussions we're going to try and do that as a non mass update and and we're going through the administration's going through a process of comparing them to the cave policies to what we have today to see if anything jumps out of that before we go down that path because though that 4,000 series is very tight into law and you know and so
033it's very important to tie into the cave updates because they they're much they're much more automatically updated so so we just want to look at it one more time before we brought those forward as a group but that's it thank you moving on we have vs facilities meeting the special meeting on we have 27 all right we've been very very busy at our last or second not be at a meeting tonight the meeting before that is we were presented with three quotes by architects to look into renovating the boys locker room at the high school it was decided upon by the committee to hire Tecton associates we made that this decision for two reasons one their cost was considerably less than the other architects who gave both in the second Tecton has done so much
034work here at the high school who knows all of the players and we really felt that they would be the best fit for the locker room renovation as they had walked through they've walked through it several times and they've made recommendations to the strategic steering committee in the past so we have detect an associate hired to as our architect just so the public again understands this is costing zero dollars this is money that was already allocated to us in capital improvement plan second thing that we're doing that is actually very exciting is the whisk in your portables are being cleaned from top to bottom the classrooms all have a fresh coat of paint on it I walked through yesterday they look and they smell wonderful after the floors are done being cleaned the hallways in
035the portable are receiving a fresh coat of paint so our 5th graders that are going to be entering in in the fall will have a bright cheery nice smelling happy portable classrooms to learn it let's see Hilliard update as you know we have contracted with Hilliard they are a time management adviser also a they have cleaning supplies that we have contracted with them to use they have been phenomenal they have visited all four the schools they have met with the custodians they are in the process of training our custodians we actually I again yesterday I was flagged down by two custodians at whiskey near and they told me how wonderful Hilliard was that they were helping them come up with different and new and innovative ways of cleaning a classroom better more efficiently and thoroughly
036all of the products that we are going to be using are green so we will have no chemicals in the classrooms in the hallways etc damn Caldwell our Director of Facilities next month will be doing a presentation on Hilliard for us which I think the public will actually find and actually the board will find very very interesting one of the things that I like that I use in my own company is they have a sheet that takes the guesswork out of everything this is you go into a room this is what you're going to be doing this is the product that you're going to be using this is how long that it will take you to do it then it has an audit trigger where the head custodian will receive on their smartphone a classroom
037to go and inspect and he checks off so there's checks there's balances we've got green cleaning it's it's wonderful the custodians are very happy about it I'm very happy about it as the chairperson of the committee because I think that we're addressing all of the needs that that we've forever talked about that's great as a committee I think you took the generator the water project at the high school has been completed it's closed everything's done with that our new head custodian at the high school started he is on the ground working doing well any Debbie joy covers it yeah so with our next meeting is the 13th at nine o'clock in the morning and we look forward to the Girl Scouts coming and visiting us any questions so the proposal by for the design phase
038in the locker room is within being the allotted amount for the capital projects yes okay yes zero dollars we watch our money yeah okay any other questions for me for the Facilities Committee moving on we have the healthy school start time okay so we last met on Monday July 1st and the first thing that we did actually for the last couple of meetings was to engage in sort of a protocol discussion so actually now we have quite a Bank of empirical literature on adolescent sleep health and structure and we usually take about 20 minutes to half an hour at the beginning of each meeting to really reflect on a lot of those pieces anything that really sort of touched or that we connected with specifically so that has been going really well the next thing
039that we did was sort of to firm up the committee's objectives and we kind of formulated the following goals that I'd like to share with you so one is to study the available empirical research regarding adolescent sleep health and its relation to school start times to communicate such research to the public via subject matter experts and public forums and to deploy surveys so the surveys is something we'll talk about in a minute but just to kind of give you a really sort of future forecast we do plan to have a public forum on this matter specifically because it does touch everybody in this community to consider whether a change in the start times of our schools should be recommended to the Board of Ed and lastly to advise the Board of Ed on the use
040of consultants to help alter start times so as of right now we are aiming to have that recommendation to the board before the next budget is approved so that's also something to sort of look forward to over the next six to eight months the so on to the the surveys as I mentioned so we decided as a committee that it would be best to deploy three separate surveys one to students one to parents and one to teachers and staff so we delegated the responsibilities of committee members and we have three people working on the development of each of those surveys so at our next meeting we will go over our first draft then in September we will most likely finalize those surveys and be ready for deployment sometime in October when people have sort of
041acclimated back into the new school year and lastly we talked about our communication strategy so one thing that kept coming up was that we would love to model the communication strategy of this project like the new school project because everybody I think was very informed and there was 100% transparency and so we would like to do that as much as possible but I think having our own website and our own Facebook page might be a bit cumbersome for what the level of detail this project really has it's not like the school project in that way so we will continue to use the district website and the district Facebook page and we will just continue to heavily post on there and make all documents available things like that so that every we do maintain that transparency
042yeah so the next time we will meet is August 5th and we will actually start to invite some members of communities that have either implemented this change considered this change subject matter experts so we can sort of pick their brains on timeline and pros and cons and things like that so any questions yeah very cool I just think you're doing a great job on that I really do I love the transparency I love that you've set the goals and keeping everyone informed it will be extremely successful you've done a great job thank you welcome a long way to go moving on we have the consent agenda recommend a motion that the board approve the items on the consent agenda is recommended new hires transfers new assignments and resignations any question discussion I think dr. burrow
043covered most of it in the superintendent report welcome Gina so that was if khalad if I may I'd like to introduce to the board genome iconic missus genome iconic our new special education director and I know we're excited to have someone with all of Gina's experience we're just chatting today approximately 30 years but I shouldn't say that all the time you know sometimes we all have a lot of experience here in education now and really brings a lot of credibility and knowledge of our district having been here for almost a year and a half now as a supervisor with us in that for grade 6 through 12 and actually I would like to invite Gina up to the podium just to say a few words and introduce herself thank you first I want to thank
044all of you for giving me the opportunity to fill this role I think it's a great honor and I really look forward to working with the community and the families of the students within the program dr. Beryl dr. Ruby have given me an opportunity to work with dr. Cipolla for the past few weeks to transition I've had the opportunity to meet with Ken and discuss budget I've had the opportunity to meet with Christine on several occasions to discuss a variety of district policies budget committees all all the typical roles and responsibilities that the director needs to accomplish I've had the opportunity to meet with Brookfield cares already I have a meeting set up with the Sept Oh two of the president and the vice-president of the cept oh and I have already set up appointments
045to meet with some of the out-of-district where our students go to different facilities to look at those facilities in the programs that they are providing so and I've also met with Karen Olsen who has been an incredible help but she's very organized and has also showed me a little bit of the ropes so thank you there you've had a busy couple of weeks I have that's only two and a half weeks in thanks Gina thank you very much and when Gina mentioned Karen Olsen Karen Olsen is our secretary in the special education department for at TSL quite a transition for her as well all right all in favor aye aye opposed moving on to new business the policies of policy 3450 to recommend a motion that the board approve policy number 34 52 funds management
046for a first reading as recommended by the policies of policy communications subcommittee we are adopting the policy from the from Cape we felt our policy was good but this is better this is Miller there's this little replacement one where is the same in there this will replace my hair the as you can see in the edits in your coffee there really aren't that many edits other than titles and rap and certain references to classes so but at the core it requires the signature the proper signatures before disbursing funds require it defines who the custodian is and and it basically put some basic business controls around us so you all had a chance to look at this with these first three players this brings in for the first reading so any questions post now we have
047policy 30 170 recommend a motion that the board approved policy number 30 170 budget administration for a first reading is recommended by the policy communication subcommittee this one is a also a replacement you have in your packet the new one and also the one that's it's with this right guys right is is the one that we had before this also was an adoption of the Kay policy almost as is and it's it basically puts the pace of controls around our budget administration so and it's pretty straightforward I think we can include it when we and it's what we recommend emotion that the board approved policy number 61 60 3.32 service animals for first reading is recommended by the policy communications subcommittee service animals is an interesting topic that's you know having live animals in the
048school is to challenge broadly and so there's a this is the cave policy with some edits and and that's why we had doctors Apollo spend a lot of time with us because we want to make sure that those possibilities for handling the animals or agreeing to bring animals into the district and so forth we're well documented but this is at the core is the cave policy with some minor adjustments as recommended by doctors of office and I think as you read through it you will find and it is pretty straightforward and you'll get to the point where you have to have section on miniature horses and I had to turn to Google and I will just add just on this particular policy we've been sort of talking about this and going through this for the
049last few months so there were several different versions of this that keep suggested and we decided that this was probably the best policy for Brookfield and yes miniature horses are apparently the second most popular service at law which is very surprising to me but yeah so this probably conforms to law in Islam I'm much better and I guess is more clear than some of the other versions so it's really long but it's a good one and one other question on it when I read it this pertains just to service animals and not therapeutic yes yeah so yeah is will there be another policy developer that or is that just something that is not her policy something that's about within the school so we have nuts therapeutic dogs are therapeutic animals are not covered under law
050like they're not service animals we have to allow into the schools and so that's why we have this policy but not therapy and so generally we just don't have those they're not recognized at this point this is documented reasons for having a service animal is how this all works now law applies to a service animal not a therapy okay thank you thanks for the carpet there's an important distinction thank you yeah all right all in favor aye toast okay so those are all of our first nights when is your next policy meeting so when do you want any questions um really bye-bye the September meeting because and we are meeting very briefly in August but that's very briefly because our board retreat is that day so by the September meeting I have 18th 21st oh
051that's right I was only looking at when we were meeting for policy okay thank you okay moving to old business become an emotion that the board approve policy number 35 34 to replace policy number 35 33 an employee officer bonds for final reading as recommended by the policy communications subcommittee first reading was on June 5th 2019 it's just a quick question the 35 34 and 35 33 that almost seemed interchangeable when I was looking at him this Cape just I mean they some have this as a 33 and sevens of 34 does it just been an update so now they're all moving I believe that's correct okay and I'm sorry I didn't see I just noticed yeah all right any other questions the motion was definitely twice as long yes recommend a motion that the
052board approved policy number 35 42 point 33 food sales other than national school lunch programs which will replace policy number 3540 2.45 vending machines for final reading as recommended by the policy subcommittee first reading was on June 5th 2019 any questions okay all in favor post and lastly we have policy 3152 recommend emotion that the board approves policy number 31 52 spending public funds for advocacy for a final reading as recommended by the policy communications subcommittee first reading was on June 5th 2019 any questions on paper I posed there was business moving on we have the new school building project updates I just want to and we need to use the high school as a place for Rockville residents to come it is working and we will be open for that service I just I
053was sitting here thinking about it and dr. birrell when you would mention that we do have the delay with the new generator yeah and what we can do yeah is they can eversource always an emergency can provide my generators for us in this particular vendor you know we can provide a standby generator for us just like we did during the Mack reverse because our existing generators so weak and unreliable that's what we would have to do so it's still the high school could still be used as a shelter I'm sorry I just wanted me shiny thanks see if it's a good reassurance okay so onto the new school building project there was a kickoff meeting with Tecton and her selectmen dr. Brill myself members of the NBC dan called no is there there yes so
054just main interests are just to kind of go through clarifications the lines of communication and protocol and they're just touching on all of the different items one of the things of note is that there are several different phases or milestones that Tecton will go through there's the schematic design which is where they kind of develop design options and the design development that's where they refine an option the construction documents then did and permitting and then construction and so it was determined F at the end of each of those milestones and phases Tecton will have sign-off from the Board of Selectmen Board of Education and the NBC so you'll be getting probably a fairly detailed update at least at all of those the milestones for those different things so we felt it was important that all
055of the you know just if we have to if we have to air versus communicating and over communicating we're gonna air on over communication with all of this so we're going to definitely have sign up in all of these parties at the end of each of those milestones we also did talk about establishing three public forums and meetings and there was a lot of really interesting collaboration in the development or what the proposal of what these would look like we thought they would they would be joint meetings with the Board of Education and NBC definitely then with perhaps four selectmen and others as well and make them more of a collaborative collaborative interactive meeting with Tecton and ourselves and also the community where they can ask questions and get feedback on a more kind of
056relaxed make suggestions and make suggestions as well and then the other suggestion about this is that they are held at huckleberry versus the auditorium that's where it's gonna happen that's that's where we're going to have everything you know we can we people can look at the parking lot back sure thanks klutz so thanks for bringing up the joint meeting so we're really excited about the joint meetings these would be you know public input engagement opportunities I want to keep the dates out publicly and for the board to get these dates on the calendar because to have an actual meeting a special meeting we call to order we would need a quorum so the first one will be September 26th all our October at 6 p.m. September 26th and then Tuesday October 22nd and Tuesday November
05719th again all at 6 p.m. at huckleberry imagine in the upper gym is where we would have is where we can do presentations and things like that we're working to get these live streams as well so people who are unable to make it then be able if not my stream to definitely be able to watch it so there will be access for people to see these if they're unable to make those meetings one other update with the NBC they are reviewing right now the RFQ is for the OPM the owners project manager they should be developing a shortlist and interviewing during their August meeting so we want to get that piece on sooner versus later and just keep moving forward on the three on the three meetings will they each have a theme of what
058we're gonna cover that or they're all open-ended meanders they're going to be at different parts of the milestone development so the first one will probably still be in the schematic design moving on to the design development and then the other one will probably be after the design development I would assume and then going into the construction documentation or just updates so yes though globally at different points along the way it's important to remember that the the entire time frame that we're talking about now which it was the kickoff meeting essentially through December is really into almost March but you need to have the design done we're in the design phase of the time block and out through December so this is where the input is critical from the community to get that input whether through
059emails that have come in or you know directly to to Jeff and his team from Tecton you know live at these meetings to really share what would people think there has been input already which is which is great and certainly answering questions was there any thought given to having any of these meetings during the daytime having you know other opportunities for people to attend if they can't do the evening sessions I don't think daytime meetings were discussed just because a lot of the parties have jobs that they did beforehand but I think it's it's good and important to solicit input any way we can so anyone who does have any ideas can always I mean we still have our email address open mm-hmm people can do that but we should definitely that's a good thought
060we should definitely emphasize that again maybe we can would work with the PTO to have somebody either from the board or the NBC attend the PTO meetings that are around that time and get any input from people that way I just hate for people to say oh you had one meeting and it was on a day I was out of town or all right but if there's different topics if there are different topics yeah I think one of the things that really worked well on the all the stuff leading up to the referendum you know the committee and then communications that was done one of the best things was a visual thing that people could look at right in advance of meetings we did that a number of different times in different ways I'll tell
061you what it Tecton can feed these with stuff that can be posted or put on on our website saying here's something to look at if you have any questions to come right it's a great great great advertisement to do that thank you I don't know what they would have leading into the meetings but I think that's what they actually came during the interview process with some ideas and schematics to cool and literally something that was built up yeah 3d oh yes it was a little different it was another kind of an updated conceptual design really interesting so something like that would be really any other brushes was a great great ideas if I can just mention that there was an article about the kindergarten enrollment that obviously talked about the new school project as well
062because both are certainly married in the new kindergarten teacher in the increased enrollment for this current leader in in kindergarten there is mention in there that I said that the board is looking at utilizing center school because of this increase in kindergarten enrollment that is not the case the quote at the end actually is accurate where it says that I said the word is not considering looking at center school you know we have a lot of data to look at that is not something that's being considered however I did have a conversation with the reporter and we talked about I people in the community I'm out in the community and I talked to people when people talk to me and people give me plenty of input on how the board and I can do our
063job much better of course that's how it goes and I always listen and suggestions have come oh well if you needed more room you could put pre-k at the center school or maybe kindergarten can go there if we had a massive trend and enrollment increase but it was not a the board or superintendent is considering utilizing center schools I wanna make that clear and I would hope that folks that saw that in paper would realize after being into my fifth year now and I don't make Cavalier comments like that and I respect the process and clearly to the point we made about strategic Facilities Committee and the project as a whole going forward to be approved at referendum we take communication and transparency and the process and public input quite seriously so I just want
064to make that statement very clear for everyone so if anybody's concerned out there in the community but always pick up the phone give me a call we're not considering center school and at this time or any time that I know of we have opportunity and I know Colette talked to Julia about it as well and we purposely built options in the design design at least of the school add up to 12 classrooms so there is there's plenty of room as far as we know it and that's why we want to dive deep on the enrollment study again with Moloney mcbroom it's been about four or five years since we've done a really deep dive and see if this is a trend or this is just the one off year so I just want to make
065that clear for the board and for the community jumping on to that seem to be kind of segue into the kindergarten enrollment and I know I've communicated to all of the board but just or to the public since this has been an update since our last meeting that at the last board of Finance meeting for to finance did approve funding in additional kindergarten teachers so we're very grateful for the collaborative effort with the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance to approve this really really needed position I would like to add one thing please we do our best guess at guessing how many students are going to be enrolling in kindergarten we do have studies we are out there we are talking to the community we are trying to gather as much information as
066we can in advance to kindergarten enrollment starting it's not always accurate we cannot always predict when people are going to move into Brookfield we have had a huge increase this year in students that are emerging in kindergarten a couple of the comments that I have read I feel have been unfair we do our job we do it well and we do it to the best of our abilities with the information that we're given if everyone had a crystal ball we would have known that we would have had an increase enrollment for this coming year I just want to make that clear that we were not hiding anything we are transparent and it is because of this we have added the class we are always here for the students and the community okay so now we
067have our three main points so say the new school project mutates with and with them suggestion that people send in designed comments yes please email them to repeat the email all right I think that's a good either how's the moment to start sending your costume no wait yeah this is the time I wouldn't think I'm the communications kind of a status update on the healthy school start times yeah yes people are interested in that do an additional cannon our teacher we know because we need okay that's a great so we're not putting the metric poison I was thing in the boys locker room Arvid protect them to begin work but yeah what we chose tech done and they're gonna be in hold off maybe hold off on healthy school start times and do something more
068torture facilities it was something like three eight do we want to do the healthy start times next time when we have our surveys formulated great anything further all right so we have an executive session you know about Sonny Evans actually there's an honest center of a huckleberry the second grade playdate on the playground is from one to two o'clock on Friday July 19th and July 26th and August 2nd in August 9th it's a PTO meeting on Friday August 2nd and Monday August 5th from 9:30 to 10:30 at a new Student Orientation that students who are new to Brookfield is on August 21st from 8:30 9:30 at whisk in air the new Student Orientation that students who are new to Brookfield is on August 21st from 10:00 to 11:00 at the high school the new Student
069Orientation that students who are new to Brookfield is on August 20th at 6 o'clock in the Orion and the 7th annual sunset sizzler is on Friday August 2nd at 7 p.m. is a fun community event hosted by the BHS all sports Booster Club recommend a motion that the board and turn to executive session for the purpose of discussing strategy and negotiations as it relates to collective bargaining and a confidential student matter [Music]