Board of Education Meeting

001[Music] good evening today is Wednesday May 15 2019 and I'd like to call the regular meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order if we could all please rise with Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States we had six of our board members present tonight II wasn't unable to make it and first on the agenda is the student spotlight from whisk in her middle school mr. n de did you make on deep yeah what can you get that on to him and be another projection it small my projector that's on here that's very important that's not a picture of me all right welcome we're very excited tonight for whisk Ania we wanted to I wanted to spotlight our I know we've talked a little bit the board weeds before

002about the district about our om teams as to the mine teams we have a couple teams that will be going to the Nationals in Michigan Michigan coming up next week and I had asked the students to put a little presentation together you're gonna tell you a little bit about their job the OM is and they have a little slide show afterwards just to kind of show you some of the things that they've been working on so without further ado I would like to introduce first what we're gonna do yeah of course this is all volunteer time and I gotta tell you it is amazing for the amount of time and effort that is put into so much of their time to give in to you to make it so special for the kids and right

003now here two of our coaches here Mary Parish canola and enjoy divorce let's give a nice round of applause we were actually so our kids competed in the OM competition in March and one of them is actually gonna tell you what Odyssey the mind is but the special thing is that they came in first place in the entire state and earned a spot to go to World Finals in Michigan coming up next week we did not expect to come in first place they are really tough season teams we were aiming for second place and us we are the listener middle schools Odyssey of a Mayan world two finalists team I'm Emily Smith and my main job for the Odyssey of the my team would have been to make the costumes and I feel like that

004it was a pretty big job to make all of them pretty on stage did you like the biggest challenge for making the costumes was finding out what fabric would have worked best for what we were doing and how hard and it was really hard to sew the different layers of fabric together and it was also hard to make them stand still while I was fixing the costumes it was tough but we my name is Matthew in the six months we had to create our performance I was the main builder I had to use tools like a saw a drill and a screwdriver to construct our backdrop that had to look exactly like Leonardo da Vinci's workshop for example I created a shelf that had to hold some of his items I had to measure out

005the like the exact measurements of the inside of one of the things we used to create the backdrop after that I cut out a square piece of cardboard that was exactly that size and I wired it in and and then after that we had to hang pieces of art onto our backdrop that were made by Dane hi I'm Dani Carozza and I was the artist of the group thank you um one of the things I made was this it was one of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings the Portugal musician and my job well with this we weren't allowed to use traditional materials like markers paint or crayons so I decided to use like foods such as raisins lentils rice and sawdust and so I also created a picture of a half done Last Supper and those

006are some of the things they did as the artist of the group and I also wanted to address something about om one third of the competition at Olin is the spontaneous questions the spontaneous are short eight-minute challenges where we solve a problem that is like a brain teaser it could be hands-on where we build something or verbal where you get a question and we give a creative answer to the question and we're lastly you could get a verbal hands-on which is like a mixture of both where you build something and try to give a creative answer to what it is I would like to dress dia hi my name is da Girish Kumar and the main role I played in this project was to put mechanical things together and overall make things fit together in

007perspective I helped made I helped make the working model of the helicopter which was what something which was something that Leonardo da Vinci made and it actually spins I also helped put together the work on life-size model of the night made out of tinfoil let's give it up for Joe I'm Joe spares canola and I've been doing a 1/4 third grade and I played the Mona Lisa in the skit and my friend and my friend on Hayden divorce that's who couldn't be here tonight he played Leo and we basically did the like the improv comedy of the skit we and we also performed these songs which we used which were parodies of classic songs by Queen and we use them to debunk the the invention which and then we use and then we use them

008to perform the we use them to debunk the invention and we use them to debunk the invention and wait sorry and we use them to debunk the invention and then paid and wrote the rap battle that we did at the end which also debunked the invention and no it's hi I'm Ava hua Smith and as you might guess all of these kids working in the same room it there was a lot of chaos and yelling and just crazy things so that was where I came in and my job was to keep everybody on task and to get them to do what they were supposed to do and also I wrote the script for our skit and I also wrote the songs and we also have a slide show to show you guys what is Odyssey

009of the mind honesty of the mind is a creative problem-solving program involving students from kindergarten through college team members work together at length to solve a predefined long-term problem and present their solution to the problem at a competition we thought we'd explain what our problem was this year we chose a problem that related to classical history we had to study da Vinci and his works of art and how he react on how he lived in back in his day our team had to create three of his pieces of art one painting one 3d model and one team determined invention we also had to build an invention that didn't work back in his time but is commonly used now in modern times but that's not it we also had to have a pessimistic character who debunks

010Leonardo's invention causing him to throw it away then we had to create a small eight-minute skit that tied all of these things together and explained how explain the story but there was one more twist we couldn't get any assistance from any of our coaches or anyone outside the group we also have some pictures to show you guys from the whole year we did this this was the two with skinnier middle school teens after we found out that we won and we're going to world and this guy mascot this is Danny Hayden and Joe learning how to use tools and they're building our backdrop for the skit this is me giving Joe his makeup and that's him after he's all dressed up this is Emily when she was making the costume for us and these are

011us practicing our spontaneous problems this is also all the girls working on a spontaneous problem and this is the night that we all helps to build and these are I guess both of our teams the whisking your middle school teams before we were about to go on this is when we were waiting at the award ceremony and we're all very very nervous but this is after we found out that we won and next week we're gonna go to Michigan State University and compete [Applause] don't worry you guys aren't paying for the plane but again I think but I think it's really exciting and great about this is this is real authentic learning all the smarts intelligence and content knowledge and all the things that we learn you know in our regular days they're put on

012the spot for these problems and being able to be creative work as a team and I love that Ava said chaos because we all know when we work as a team sometimes there's chaos and there's nothing wrong with that but then being able to put it all together and perform and become in first place I think is really really awesome congratulations guys [Applause] oh yeah we need the background me to raisins but the amount of shadowing on it is amazing coaches cannot get up come on coaches I don't know if you had any questions for the kids absolutely guys so can you just one of the kids explain for me so I understand so how much do you know before the competition about what you're supposed to do like how long do you have to

013do it and then can you give us like an example of what you had to do like on the spot so we get a sense of it well we got basically just a paragraph of what our problem was about eight months before the competition so we had a little bit of time to figure it out and brainstorm and research Leonardo da Vinci but the things we have to come up on the spot is when we did the are spontaneous problems which is we don't know what it is so we have like about eight or so minutes to solve and like think about creative answers for it some hands-on things are well we there's many things you can do in a hands-on problem but we basically have to build things like I don't know like a

014bridge that holds in Agra something but hands-on is where you have to communicate with your team and really just build of like a structure in a certain amount of time great question for the coaches I know the cost for sending seven teams to Nationals is rather substantial and I know there have been some fundraisers are there any remaining from now to the time that you go and if anyone would like to donate we have a carwash Saturday so earlier senator school I believe it's 9:00 to 3:00 I'm nice I'm 9:00 to 3:00 there's a thing called um clucking and where we like would put like we would put like chickens like yeah plastic chickens on on like your lawn and then you'd have to give us money to to do it to someone else yeah

015that's great thank you everyone I'm gonna sneak in a second spotlight because it just happened somebody might might have seen it for all of you that follow me on Twitter whisker near one of our students of Mathcounts aditya shankar was number one in the state of connecticut at the Mathcounts he went to the Nationals and he ended up I think was 55th he was in the top 25% in the nation and the Connecticut team I think ended up being 19th but Aditya was in the top 25 percent in the nation thanks mister brother good luck to all the teams at Worlds afterwards okay next on the agenda is public comment and we have no one signed up is there anyone here that would like to speak all right hearing none we'll move on to the

016student representative report it looks like Maddie is not here this evening so we will go to written correspondence okay we have two correspondents one from Ron Jaffe regarding immunizations and one from Andrea Farris and regarding transportation thank you next disapproval Board minutes recommend a motion that the board approved the minutes listed below as recommended the regular meeting on May 1st 2019 and special meeting on May 1st 2019 second discussion Corrections edits I think there was one that Debbie had brought forth just a name spelling this any others all right all in favor aye opposed okay moving on to the superintendent's update all right Thank You mrs. Durham so I had Odyssey of the mind on for my first item on the superintendent's update and it was just to ensure that the board knew about the

017trip on May 21st through the 26th so the kids will be on their world championship tour so we're excited for that and also to mention that one of our local companies Praxair set up a grant for the students to offset the cost of the trip as was just asked about $5,000 so we're really thankful to pratice air for that and want to make sure we gave them a real nice thank you here publicly in addition moving forward on my report just an update we're keeping a close eye over at center school on this is Diamond and her team are keeping a close eye on kindergarten enrollment if I as of earlier this week that could have been updated in the last few days but 161 packets are out and formerly 148 students are registered right

018now just so you know we have eight sections of kindergarten budgeted and ready to go for next year which is the same as the current year if we had 160 students we're looking at 20 per section so we're watching that very closely it looks like we'll be right right in the sweet spot but over the summer we know a lot of kids move in we know some kids don't attend so it's something we need to keep a very close eye on now in going forward I'll keep updating the board each each particular meeting we just sent out a press release I have to thank mrs. Holly mr. Burlando for putting a press release together up to the news times on our national French and Spanish contest 18 of our high school students either receive silver

019bronze or honorable mention in our second year real field high school competing in the national world language competition so incredible work going on there we'll really appreciate it and just like mr. Renda was sharing about our math counts winner this time of year the celebration of excellence really kicks in and there's just so many and we never we don't want it we'll never forget any of the kids but it's hard to get to all of the recognitions there's so many the next thing going on is brown bag lunches scheduled next week to meet with the seniors here at Brookfield High School with mr. bilenda and talk about kind of keep change stop or the good the bad and the ugly and learn from them as to what's worked really well for them what they think

020is great what we should keep and what we should encourage to continue and also what are some things we could do to improve and so we're gonna meet with the seniors about that and I'm working with mr. Renda and in the next couple of weeks on me with the 8th graders over at whiskey near so really exciting opportunities to connect with the students and get that ground-level feedback right from the kids of how we can continue to improve things here just like to turn it over I know I sent it in my Friday update if mr. post could just share a little bit about all-star transportation and what's going on with the DES for family instead of the ownership pieces if you just do a quick chair sure sure it's been a family-owned company for

021a long time and I got a call from John before a couple of weeks ago letting me know that his family has sold their interest in the company to student transportation of America which is a very large transportation company they do danbury and Wilton and a lot of other districts in Connecticut he also assured me and gave me correspondence from SDA that his family will stay in their roles running all-star as a subsidiary of sta so all the local people will stay and the management will stay running the company and we have after this year we have one year remaining on our contractor long start thanks again well before I get to immunizations I have two other updates I added just today and didn't have them typed in time for use I just want to

022let you know the first one is I have to thank Martin Fitzgerald I was had the pleasure and all the music teachers deserve a thank you at this time of year and in the middle of the year for their concerts that they put on but Martin Fitzgerald put a beautiful band concert on on Monday night with a hundred and twenty of a hundred and forty fourth graders it was incredible and mrs. LaRoche on oh and dr. peps auskey and I got to participate in a little skit and have a little fun with the kids and it was just a great experience and I just wanted to let the board know that it was a great opportunity and really appreciated and we try to get to as many of those conferences of camera so great job

023fourth grade band they were they were incredible and then also we announced the teachers of the year from each of the schools and then those four teachers will be before a committee and then will decide upon the district teacher there who will go on to the state competition so I just wanted to announce those formally that was just announced this morning from center school Samantha Hannon one of our resource teachers from huckleberry Molly prizeo a great two teacher from whiskey near Marcy Boone one of our special education teachers and from Brookfield high school or nesto Davila one of our Spanish teachers so we're really excited for the four of them and it's just an honor to be recognized by your peers that you work with day in and day out to say that you're there

024to represent them so we're really proud of them and appreciative of all their work and then finally I wanted to just update the board I know I sent a some information in the weekend update this past Friday just regarding immunizations and vaccinations around measles mumps rubella and that's in the news lately media's covering that there's some real concerns in New York and in some other areas nationwide we're fortunate at this point dr. Cipolla if you would come to the podium because I'm sure we have some some information you could share with us as well we worked with dr. Ferrara from western Connecticut he's a pediatrician it helps consult with our western Connecticut area also with dr. Sullivan who's our public health doctor and in Brookfield were actually in very good shape with our public schools

025and our immunizations we're in alignment with our policy and we really have extremely high percentage of the students in terms of those who need to be immune his eyes immunized and are immunized with the exception of any medical exemptions and those kinds of things so we also have a policy if anybody's interested in taking a look pass that around our policy and that was updated in 2014 so anyway we're in really good shape the board may have some questions but I want to turn it over to dr. Cipolla she talked a little bit about some stats and some other details that really help us out yeah so I think some of you may have seen the state of Connecticut recently published the exemption rate both medical and religious exemption for all of the schools public

026and non-public in Connecticut I wanted to talk a little bit about that data just to explain in a little bit more detail what it is first of all the data that was published is actually from October of 2017 so it reflects last year's data our Center school nurse wants you to know that she wants to make sure you understand that when we're talking about the data it's from last year because this year we actually have a hundred percent of our students who are not exempt have had their full series and that's a big deal the second thing is that you know the exemption rate those are protected by I you know state law and so students with exemptions are not required to be to have immunizations they are required to provide documentation of the fact

027that they are claiming an exemption and it has to be notarized there's some really specific things that they need to do with that however this the rates that you see published reflect the percentage of students who have had their series right and who are not exempt there was a little bit of a misleading piece when the data was first published and I think that it was confusing when I first looked at it I want you to know that the state's actually revised and put out the data with a different cover page it was misleading in the sense that it said here's the percentage of students who have had their immunizations sort of I don't remember the precise wording but it said you know not including the students who were exempt so it looked like we

028weren't at a hundred percent here in brookfield the actual situation is that last year the 2017 data at center school in kindergarten we had three point four exemption rate that means that three point four percent of our kindergarteners last year either had a medical or religious exemption a hundred percent of the remaining students had their full MMR series when they entered school last year okay we did not have a hundred percent having a full series in some of the other areas because of the amount of time that you have to wait between a first dose and a second dose by the end of the year if they collected that data we would have been a hundred percent in every area okay so what it actually looks like is that something like the polio vaccine you

029can have a first dose a month before school and then you have to wait several months for the second dose so on October 1st all of the students who were not exempt had one dose it took a couple months to get everybody to have that second and that's really what you see when you look at the discrepancy a whisking year in seventh-grade were a hundred percent for full series for students who are not exempt um any questions about that before I go on because that was a little bit tricky when I first published that data right the way they wrote it was really misleading but I just wanted to share that like I said this year we started the year in our October data and you'll see it if they ever choose to publish it

030again would be we would be a hundred percent non-exempt students have their full series before they started kindergarten this data also includes our non-public schools so one of the things that I did recently was check in with st. Joseph's School and Christian Life Academy as to the validity of the data sets Christian life Academy did want me to share some information they are very small school so a couple of students can skew the data very significantly and when you look at these percentages even though they tell you they're school-wide they are just looking at kindergarten and seventh grade so at Christian Life Academy just by chance a majority of their students who claim religious exemptions happen to be in kindergarten or seventh grade so if you actually were to calculate their religious exemption rate it's

031it's a 8.75% and they wanted you to know that because it is actually quite important next year their data is not gonna look precisely like that is really the bottom the bottom line but you know that religious exemption is important as a right that parents have and the other students are you know are complying for public law okay if we were to ever have and again for all of our students who don't have an exemption we are fully they have all had their full series of MMR if we ever had a case of measles reported we would I just want to share with you what we would do we would speak with our medical advisor dr. Ferraro we'd share the information with dr. Sullivan the Department of Public Health would be contacted with that information

032and then we would work closely with the Department of Public Health to follow their recommendations for what to do there is a provision that if there was an actual measles case they may make a recommendation you know any students who do not have immunizations would be excluded from school and that could possibly happen they would also provide guidance on how to notify parents and things like that so it really is there have not been any children in the state of Connecticut to this point who have had a measles diagnosis this year in 2019 there have been three adults who have had measles but if there was a case of measles that's really how we would proceed we would it would be reported and we would be working very closely with medical advisors and the Department

033of Public Health to determine what the best course of action is thank you doctor small that's very clearly helpful could I ask a question just so I think you said this about three percent that have an exemption last year's data yeah three point four percent of our kindergarten students had an exemption and the way that that broke the way that that handout or actually I might I might it might be misquoting me here I three point nine I did rid the wrong number I apologize for that so three point six percent of that last year was religious and and zero point three percent is the medical so the majority of it is religiously I read somewhere that if you were over 95 percent even with those in there that there was a kind it completely

034eliminated the risk of any major outbreaks for exactly the reasons you said it's easy to manage in fact the advice you get as well as the magic number yeah and and dr. Borel reached out to dr. Sullivan I've talked to dr. Furr about that yeah because we are above 95 percent of kids having had their immunizations we're very strong cave we're in very strong shape that it would not be any kind of significant problem here cuz 95 is sort of the magic number and we are we're above that excellent thank you thanks dr. DePaul and just another piece for the public and for the board in talking with dr. Sullivan one of the pieces is if there ever was an outbreak or a real concern with measles which there is not want to make sure

035that's crystal clear there is not any issue there's no cases of children with measles in Connecticut so we're okay that the Attorney General could actually work with the legislature and eliminate the religious carve out and so they could eliminate that in exclude children from school until things were under control so there are there are mechanisms to support the general population and making sure the schools are safe and healthy and that is all I have I don't have anybody have any questions for me or anything else all right thank you so much thank you doctor next we have subcommittee reports first on the list is personnel negotiations I can report on that we met on April 30th and went into executive to discuss unaffiliated salaries and negotiations as it relates to contract and bargaining units we

036did discuss one item regarding a school news nurse which you're going to see later a new business and we will be discussing unaffiliated salaries and executive session next we have facilities okay so we met on Wednesday May 1st I know Eve touched upon many of these items at our last Board of Ed meeting but I'll just reiterate these as well so a contract has been signed with Hilliard we're in the bidding process for the boys locker room the last of the storm damage repair has been completed and I was done over April break we're still at a standstill with the center school cafeteria floor the generator pad is complete and on July 2nd we expect the new ship date for the new generator and the kitchen at the high school has installed a new cooling

037unit over April break as well and there are a lot of masonry repairs going on at whisking here that's it Joey could you just please review for sure I can everyone what exactly the contractor tell yours is ready so we hired Hilliard to come in to do a full assessment on our cleaning practices and to kind of bring them on to be our new company to support our supplies and our practices - and they're gonna be having that soon that report for fish's odious agencies good for efficiencies and how we procedures that are in place and standards and guidelines to make sure all the schools are being maintained in the same way and that we're working as efficiently as possible balancing workloads that should be done soon it sounds great any other questions all right

038moving on to the Health Eastertime committee I'm so very excited to give this very first ever report for this committee so Jen and Colette and I are the board members that comprise this board along with dr. Burrell and we met for the first time on May 6th and the purpose of this first meeting was really to kind of take all of the the letters of interest that we got from the public of you know people that were interested that also wanted to be on the committee and we kind of went through and we had a lot of really great I mean it was a very tough decision all of the applicants were extremely experienced in education and they were all parents and the ones that we selected we think we have five members that we

039selected out of the nine letters of intent that we got we just want to make sure that they still want to be on this committee and that they can make you know the meeting times and everything so as soon as we hear back from all them affirmative lis then we will announce those names publicly but our next meeting will be on June 3rd at 4 p.m. if anybody wanted to take note of that and we will go from there to sort of determine what our next steps will be what our firm up what the goals of this committee will be like and to start planning the very first steps of moving this initiative forward and of course that starts with research and developing our rationale so that's pretty much it thank you really excited yeah

040I second Rosa's comment about all of the letters of interest it was very difficult because each one came with their own level of either expertise or background or and it was hard because you wanted to try to find as much variety as possible to bring as many different points of view as possible yeah it was a tough decision yeah for sure and next we have the consent agenda recommend a motion that the board approved the items on the consent agenda is recommended new hires retirements and transfers second any discussion all right all in favor aye post moves us to new business and the first item of new business is the school nurse recommend a motion that the Board discussed approved the hiring of its own nurse to staff the private schools second second second so

041if I may just provide a brief introduction and then I'm going to turn this particular discussion item over to both doctors appalled at mr. post for facilitation of the discussion with the board and entertain any questions one of the things that I think a lot of folks in the public are not aware of is that the look the public schools have to support nursing services at local private schools the state law and so we do that for Christian life and for st. Joe's and the the cost of doing that and the responsibilities continue to grow as we see with many state mandates public education in Boards of Ed and school districts continue to take on more and more responsibility and and there's no additional funding with those responsibilities one of the things were interested in

042thinking about is right now we use an agency to staff nursing agency to staff the the to private schools and we'd like to move in in our effort to always be versatile and agile as an organization we think it's time for ourselves to provide more direct oversight because we have such responsibility for the programming at both the health programming at both of the schools and also we want to make sure we're ramping up quality control again if we have to have the responsibility for growing responsibilities for the schools we want to make sure that we also have the more authority and more control over what's going on so that's the reason we want to have the discussion with the board tonight to actually have our own nurse employee as part of our nursing group be

043take care of the private schools in addition to that we're looking at capacity and we're looking at how we staff all of our schools as a district and this can give us some flexibility as well in terms of how we manage the two private schools with both with the four public schools so with that I'd like to turn it over to dr. Cipolla for any more rationale that you can add on about yeah so just so that you are aware one of the things that I did last year and then have done again this year is an annual sort of audit of the nursing services at our pre-k through 8 in order to determine how much support that we're supposed to be providing at st. Joseph's and Christian Life Academy because we are supposed to

044provide same services so that means sort of equivalent and also high quality services and it's interesting because we've talked about immunizations collecting that data making sure that students have health forms making sure that all paperwork and order is really one of the primary roles of the school nurse and as you can see it is our responsibility to make sure that that happens at the non public's so you know we have kind of conducted that and determined that at the present moment the appropriate staffing level at both of those places is about equivalent to 0.5 so we are using an agency to provide 17 or 17 point 5 hours at both st. Joseph's school and Christian Life Academy our motivation for bringing this forward is really that agency services are quite expensive so it would be

045a cost savings if we had our own employee additionally you know over the course of the year we've really realized that we think the quality control could be higher if it was our own employee and and there are of course you know pros and cons to everything but you know my recommendation is to consider this because they do think it would help us to make sure that we are really providing same services in our public and non-public schools in Brookfield can you talk a little bit about the costs sure the cost of providing an agency nurse is approximately eighty three thousand dollars per year a cost of hiring our own nurse including benefits and payroll taxes would be roughly 69 to 70 thousand per year so if the pros are better control and more cost

046efficiency what would the cons be it's your employee so I mean right now and this happened this year we had a situation where there was a gap in services at st. Joseph's school and I did have to find a nurse to fill that you know if it's our employee they may need to take leave they have sick days they have things like that and we would need to cover those and so it would this this new position would really be part of our district nursing team and there and we do we do have to cover nurses and sometimes nurses leave their buildings to go to other buildings to make sure that the services are provided at the current moment and this is kind of indicative in the analysis at all of our public schools we

047have one or more students with a very significant health concern which means that there has to be a nurse at all four of our schools at all times there are currently no significant health concerns what I mean by that is diabetes where somebody may need to be getting blood checked or an active seizure disorder where they may require an intramuscular injection that can only be provided by a nurse but we don't have those situations at our non public's at the moment that's why we're able to provide half-time nursing services there but there really is a lot of demand you know to make sure that the clinic and the paperwork and all of those things are set for those schools and we'd have to figure out and make sure that every week that they got there

048they're entitled hours that's the con is really making sure that it's our responsibility we got to do it my argument is it's our responsibility anyway and there have been times when I know our centre school nurse has recently gone over to st. Joseph's to help do some organisation there in the past our nurses have all gone even though we didn't have a nurse position they've already stepped up and done that at times what's been the satisfaction of the of the contracted nursing by those two schools have they been happy with it if they've got an unhappy with it yeah I mean III think it's mixed and it really depends on who the the person is currently they are happy but that's not been the case the entire year any other discussion question as a result

049of the contract does that mean that they can expect the same nurse all the time or um is that really yeah that's that's right the contract doesn't actually have staff member names so it's really we have a contract with an agency and they provide the nurse and they supervise that person as well in this scenario you know essentially I supervise supervise nurses and building principals supervise nurses so it would be supervision by our administrators you do know that you this is like the fourth thing in a row that you brought us that you're getting us better quality for lower cost and we our expectations are about never run out of things doctors always in by the way timing wise if the board is comfortable with this we'd like to we can move on this you

050know soon we don't have to wait for the summer or anything like that we can get moving on this soon and start posting for a nurse and that kind of thing but we wanted to bring it to the full board for discussion for one think it's a great idea mm-hmm okay well then all in favor aye opposed thank you very much thank you thank you thank you Christine thank you Karen thank you board next a new business we have policies it's like we have six of them for a first read so the first would be policy 3,100 recommend a motion that the board approved policy number three one zero zero budget budgeting system for a first reading as recommended by the policy subcommittee okay so this policy is pretty straightforward it just needs a some

051serious updating so um we I don't think we added or really edited too much and again this is something that we're already doing it doesn't change it does it's in line with you know our practice and everything so yeah that's it's pretty straightforward this one is actually a reaction of one we are these last but alas poor cat in 1992 if so what will happen is it will be reflected to show that we agree bank reviewed at this one is pretty straightforward we actually this is kind of broke field policy it's a little different than the cave policy but the cave policy wasn't as good as well yeah any other discussions questions are in favor I post all right next recommend a motion that the board approved policy number 3-5 24.1 hazardous materials in schools

052pesticide application for a first reading as recommended by the policies of committee so this one actually replace we're replacing the brookfield policy with caves so you'll see the crossed out the version that is crossed out that's the old brookfield version so the one that cave has is a little more clear and it included some things that Brookfield's policy did not so I'm just was a little more conclusive to the things that that we are doing questions discussions I'm a favor next recommend a motion that the board approved policy number three one one one fiscal year for first reading as recommended by the policy subcommittee this one is one sentence long so pretty easy where you'll see that the brookfield version is just crossed out this is just that we can get on to capes you

053know track of updating policies and things like that so this is again really easy not like I had ever expected well they do spell out first and 30th on favor hi they recommend a motion that the board approved policy number three zero one zero goals and objectives in business and non-instructional operations for re re approval as recommended by the policy subcommittee well second thank you so this one is a Brookfield policy we are pretty much keeping it exactly well we are keeping it exactly the same we're just updating our review date so it's another one that you're fairly happy with yes discussion questions all in favor high post I did want it since we're going through these all so quickly I did want to just comment for the public that these are all for a

054first reading which means we're not automatically doing this as policies these these are set forth as a first reading and it gives the board time to review them and time for the public to see them and review them and comment on them as they need to so they will not come up again for another month for a second reading at which time if they're passed then they do begin policy I'm sorry just needed to know check that that's good okay so we're at 32 18.1 recommend a motion at the board approved policy number 30 to 80 point 1 grants for a first reading as recommended by the policy so for me second this one we are adopting caves CLC Brookfield's version crossed out and none of these are really all of these are actually in

055line with what we are doing so and this is a pretty short one one page initial questions comments post and asked of the purse treats recommend a motion that the board approved policy number thirty five twenty four hazardous materials in schools for re-approve was recommended by the policy subcommittee second and this is another one of the ones that we like the brookfield version better so we are just reviewing this again it hasn't been reviewed since 2001 so we're just reviewing discussions all in favor hi first reads or so okay so I was these will you need any comments or questions or clarifications by which date so our next meeting is June 19th so and that is after a month so will we be talking about will be will it be on the agenda on our

056board meeting on the 19th then all right these won't be on you they won't be on the June 5th meeting because it's not 30 days they'll be on the 19th okay so yeah so if yeah if you could get your questions or comments maybe by the 12th then this way we can we can put them on the agenda for the 19th but we can talk about address them right before yeah okay so by June 12th if anyone has any questions comments or clarifications all right thank you policy committee we're doing all the hard work on that we talked about it at our today's meeting we're about halfway through the 3000 series it's the biggest series so I think what is about 65 slices policies when were and we're close to 30 a lot of work

057okay next we have the 2019 2020 Board of Ed meeting dates recommend a motion that the board approved the 2019 2020 Board of Education meeting dates ah okay I have um one question or one comment on those actually and we only have one date scheduled for January and I know that's because the first Wednesday in January is the first but really I think we do need two meetings because that's the budget you're ramping up and we really are going to need those two meetings to discuss and move forward a budget to the First Selectman by the 30th mm-hmm so I'm not sure if we tack it on to the I mean there are five Wednesdays in January whether we want to do the second and fourth Wednesday or whether we want to go for the

058third and fifth Wednesday then because we are only having one meeting in February so if we go two weeks after that to the to January 29th that's too tight or why don't we go they eat in the 22nd or or do we want to go when we get back from the break instead of on right away on Thursday January 2nd do we want to do that I don't I'm just putting it out there it's not Thursday it's different than a Wednesday and you know it's a short week that week because uh with the holiday in the first off yeah yeah and just because we do need to it'll have been well have had two meetings in December to talk about the budget round but then we want to really get we have to really get

059rolling and start to get to a point of focus and decision-making so it's just an idea open to we're gonna be out a lot of nights anyway so I'm open to either so the choice is doing it on a Thursday that first Thursday in a second the Thursday the second or just move them both the move move and do it the second and fourth right so do they be the eighth and 15th or innocence oh yeah I kind of like that exciting is just cleaner yeah keep it on Wednesday so yeah more logical yeah okay so we're crossing out the 15th and doing the 8th okay and the 22nd that way you don't get both my wife's and my birthday 2nd of January were there any other comments in regards to those meeting dates but

060none of them none of them would check that none of them follow all holidays I just double check the chicken good okay so um while we're voting on then is the adjusted schedule for January so with that modification all in favor aye host thank you Lisa for that work next we have the subcommittee meeting recommend a motion that the board approve the subcommittee meeting scheduled from September to December 2019 second yes yes let's add for the for the Board of Ed reps let's add youth commissioned at the bottom of that and put joy and we are still looking for a ed advance representative if anyone is interested in that as well the only thing I saw on this is that October 15th for Cape is a professional development day so there's no school because it's

061following the Columbus Day holiday which wouldn't be an issue for any of the staff because they would be here but I didn't know that'd be an issue for the Cape committee say that again when they said um the October 15 Cape meeting which is on the third Tuesday there is the Tuesday it's a professional development day so there's no school which again is not an issue for staff but if you all that would be a four-day weekend but if it's fine and then that's okay I just wanted to bring up that the one I noticed is October finance committee meeting we moved in a week later I see because of Columbus Day weekend is there a reason we wouldn't move it a week or earlier instead of we said I'd like to have it before

062we're having our meetings as this puts it after we have both of our meetings in the month of October I don't know it's not that's not a holiday or anything is it I'm thinking not you just I just didn't want to I mean it's kind of put it out it became a non useful meeting almost because it's so late also do we still need to include strategic facilities up at the top no we do not thank you surely include healthy school circuit I was wondering and then again if we do that we would have to the security task force so if you didn't want to put those two on there just thought their ad hoc committees you know why don't we um we can just or for the cohesiveness sake and just kind of clarify

063them as ethics okay so what's your passport and how's the school start time and can we also add something on here that says unless otherwise noted because occasionally we do move those things if yeah they all say that they all say unless otherwise noted oh that's true down below yeah yeah every one of them [Music] where these substances eight changes the Finance Committee in October we have the seventh and said as the senator 21st oh and also keep cape on the fifteenth yes mm-hmm facilities has been meeting here is not TSO I think mostly right before yesterday means you just just for the head advance representative of anybody what you've asked about that I believe dr. kitchen who came here a couple of meetings ago he I think their lunchtime type meetings are you know

064a little mid-afternoon you guys have food and things like that make it very nice to entice people to come sit up I was actually gonna volunteer but if it's at lunch that would be hard for me too yeah check that for you get back on board on exactly what time that is again and I know he he ditched that but I'm forgetting what what exact time that was yeah I volunteer but I cannot lead to nighttime meetings I get the the address and everything in the exact time okay so we would be voting to approve the amended schedule and Composition as we discussed all in favor thank you that was a collaborative effort moving into old business we have a few policies that are up for a second rate recommend a motion that the board

065approve policy number thirty one seventy one point one nine lasting education fund her final reading as recommended by the policy subcommittee first reading was on April 13 2018 second I didn't get any comments from anyone unless I miss something or if you have any questions or Corrections edits here the only thing I'll just comment on and police it's just a very administrative thing is a funky cross out mark and expenses right in the middle of the page it's just probably a strike so with the exception of that uh all in favor hi 35:16 recommend a motion of the board of crew kala see number 35 16 safety / final reading as recommended by the policy subcommittee first reading was on April 3rd 2019 second same with this one I didn't get any comments for any

066of you guys unless you have any other Corrections here than this mine will be good yeah this is a replacement of ours yes but it's in line with what we're already doing exactly yeah there's no major changes so what the policy really says any discussions comments on favor in their last 3130 recommend motion that the board approve policy number 31 30 budget publication adoption for a final reading as recommended by the policy subcommittee first reading was on April 3rd 2019 second also I didn't get any comments on this one again this is not really a new policy it's just sort of an update so unless there's any other comments here then this one we get to go to you know questions all in favor aye aye opposed once again thank you very much and that

067moves us to the musical building project I can start with with an update that we have the MB slope the NBC had put forth an RFQ for an architect for the new project with that they had denied I believe it was nine responses from there the MBC went through all of the replies narrowed it down to three firms last night those firms came in and gave presentations to the MBC and dr. Berlin and myself were also there they were there to review them there was a lot and as well as personally mr. Dunn there's a lot of very good visitations about four questions honesty was a learning process just sitting through all three of those presentations and by the end of it there was a unanimous decision by the NBC to recommend detective architects to

068the First Selectman and the Board of Selectmen at their next meeting so we're very excited to continue the relationship with the tech town they they had an amazing presence all of them did but tech times was amazing and showed a little bit of flexibility as far as taking the conceptual process and even fitting it even further to the unique needs of our community and tech then also talked about which is very interesting some of the other architects touched on this with Tecton talked about the way the water flows on the site and using that as a learning opportunity for students in kind of an outdoor classroom I mean really some very interesting things they also talked about community engagement they already had the age with community we're looking for words for the input piece toward

069design I spoke with Jeff today from Tecton and just asked him about you know what timeline is he think he do is it early halt when people are excited to get back to school do we start having some you know stakeholder public input meetings on how to structure those and that traditionally architects and that are hired for design do that kind of work as well they leave those public meetings and help with ascertaining information from the public so it's really exciting and also I want to share I know Colette you've heard this from me a number of times we with being part of the NBC so the NBC put out the RFQ the interviews last night and presentations were also partly a proposal as well for the design services and with the NBC approving and

070moving it to the Board of Selectmen recommending a MDC recommending it to the Board of Selectmen the Board of Selectmen has the final vote and they have a special meeting scheduled for I believe it's two next week Tuesday night once that's formalized its in terms of the grant that I need to submit to the state everybody I believe recalls that that's to do on June 30th we are in great shape with a grant there are three components left for me to submit to the grand popo to upload to the grant electronically to then ultimately submit and those three pieces are one the design firm who are we going to go with as an architect what we likely unless something drastic they're very different happens next week it will be Tecton architects and we'll be ready

071to go with a contract soon after that so I can get that ready to go and upload it to the site the state needs to know who's going to design the project the next piece is what's called phase one in some surveys that were done on the property on the building and tech town has already done that as part of their services earlier services with us so that's all you know in the thousands of pages of documents so those are electronically sent from technology offices to me I work with Erik because of the volume it is just voluminous the the materials in the reports so we can upload upload that to the state website and then the final pieces on May 3rd and on May 10th I met with our key key administrators SROs youth

072officer chief of police and Doug Pesce from the Homeland Security to not only have a tour of all four current buildings in terms of what we do for safety and security and all of our procedures and what our facilities look like and our grounds also then sat on may tenth and went through the new school project they looked at eat grass ingress what the building consent was going to look like all the new safety design principles that we've talked about concept and so Doug will be giving us from Homeland Security a report so that's the third piece those are the last three pieces I need to upload to the state my goal is by Friday next week which is before Memorial Day weekend is to click that submit button have everything uploaded that gives us

073five weeks before the deadline that were in early with our grant and what that does is it affords a lot of flexibility so if the folks up at the office of grants management and construction have any questions or clarifications or need more information from us they can give us a call we can call a meeting whatever we need to do and there's no rush there's no panic and we can be very thorough so we're really excited about the point where I said right at the beginning when March 5th came and the referendum passed at 8:00 10:00 in the evening whatever it was we put the pedal to the metal with with all the team here and we tacked on to say we need to get this grant ready to roll and we've been on it

074for the last two months and I'm just proud of everybody who's really helped make that work so it's an exciting time a very exciting time in Brookdale create your tomorrow we're doing it I wanted to thank you and the entire team that's worked so hard even all of us I think as we reviewed this grant application and what it consisted of I I wasn't even wrapping my mind a month the amount of work and time and effort and involvement that it takes to submit that any other questions in regards to the school alright that was us to three main points how to see the mine it's a pretty technical meeting thank the update from dr. Cipolla about the vaccinations is important just I think we can just link dr. cipolla's video yeah I mean I

075think that was very clear do we want an update on the new school say that we should have chosen a designer well contingent upon contingent upon course letter we're just like mint approval if we wait to get the three main points out till Wednesday it's good to sort of keep reminding people that there will be continued community engagement coming up and we're in the process like that would be a good opportunity to stress that I agree I think we can fast-forward through that part of the meaning of coming events you have a lot of upcoming event is a year mm-hmm so brace yourself at center elementary school kindergarten screenings are on Friday May 17th from 9 to 12 and 1 to 3 o'clock and on May 20th through the 23rd all by appointment only there's

076a PLC early dismissal of 12:15 on Friday May 24th and the incoming 2nd grade orientation is on Wednesday May 27th from 6 to 8 at Halle Berry grade 3 testing and great for makeup testing is this week grade 3 and for makeup testing is next week great for field trip to the Clearwater is on Friday May 17th this is Rachel ax and this Holly will go from 7:45 to 2 and this tell us and this cook bear will go from 11 to 5:30 the grade 4 field trip to clear order is also on Friday May 17th mrs. Morgan and mrs. Walsh go from 7:45 to 2 and miss Lansbury and a single from 11:00 to 5:30 there's a PLC early dismissal at 12:15 on Friday May 24th the Memorial Day ceremony is on Friday May

07724th from 9:30 to 10:15 there's a volunteer appreciation after tea on Tuesday May 28th from 2:00 to 2:45 in the upper gym and like I said before the incoming 2nd grade orientation there's tours and a presentation is on Wednesday May 27th from 60 there's a PTO variety show on Friday May 31st from 6:30 and 9:00 the grade for Wind Ensemble and course concert is on Monday June 3rd from 7 to 8 with a grade 3 field trip to the Connecticut Science Center is on Tuesday June and 4th grade for a visit Swiss skinnier middle school from 9 to 11 the date for that great and the 4b report visited a top hat welcome back to that sort of that at the middle school the seventh and eighth grade band field trip the sick June 6th

078of the 5th and 6th so on June 5th the great for a visit Swiss skier from 9 to 11 and on June 6th 4d visit us again here from 9 to 11 so back to the middle school I think I might've liked that for the incoming fifth graders you said orientation okay so the 7th and 8th grade and field trip to trills and thrills music festival at Lake compounds is on Friday May 17th from 8:30 to 5:30 the spring chorus concert is on Monday May 20th from 7 to 8:30 at high school there's a PLC early dismissal at 11:30 and Friday May 24th the book fair is this is the week of May 28th and on Tuesday May 28th the book fair and opening of the art show will be in the evening from 6

079to 7:30 the PTO sponsored author visit Susan hood will be coming on Wednesday June 5th and Thursday June 6 from 8 to 10 a.m. at the high school AP exams are this week coffee with Bowl andas tomorrow May 16th from 7:30 to 8:30 in the staff lounge the senior trip to Six Flags is on Friday May 17th the chaperones gladly filling an Panther is on Tuesday May 21st from 7 to 10 in the auditorium spring choral concerts on Thursday May 23rd from 7 to 10 the auditorium there's a PLC early dismissal at 11 o'clock on Friday May 24th the undergraduate Awards on Thursday May 30th from 7:30 to 9 in the auditorium the senior prom is on Friday May 31st at the waterview there's a senior awards night on Monday June 3rd from 6:30 to

0808:30 in the auditorium and there's a etic Awards on Tuesday June 4th from 6:30 to 8:30 in auditorium and like the Owens students said earlier there's a fundraiser that they're having the car wash this Saturday from 9 to 3 I just wanted to add one more thing without a see the mind they have also a GoFundMe page that's been circulated on social media so if anybody wanted to contribute to their fundraising efforts and you haven't been clocked or you can't make it to the carwash that's another way that people can donate and there was no school on Monday May 27th for Memorial Day Billings that is a very comprehensive yesterday a lot going on not going on thank you hmm I wanted to just kind of put forth something but this is an upcoming event

081but it's rather in the future as well and that's just looking forward and looking at potential times for a board retreat which we usually do in the summertime we had before a little bit more formalized didn't know if at this time we wanted to just kind of meet and discuss future goals what's happening especially how it relates to the new school project and curriculum going forward and just how the how the board is defined in doing that we could figure out different days for it but I know usually our summer meetings especially like you August ones very very brief so we can almost meet business we can dispense with that fairly quickly just bringing it out there didn't know 2020 first it would be is our August meeting any Cola would we want to start

082maybe a little early with dinner or something like that then at the regular 7 o'clock time is that anything who's gonna turn that down right we could formalize earlier times yes yeah yes that's good yeah all right okay well put that on the sketch win thank you all I know you talked about the huckleberry Band concert one thing I think we haven't met since the fourth grade play but I've been hearing I wasn't able to go get oh yeah I wasn't able to go but I've heard such positive feedback and I think we should acknowledge and give a shout out to all the parents who stepped up to make sure that could happen for our students it sounded like the play was in danger of not possibly not happening this year and we got some

083pretty talented and dedicated parents to step up and make sure it happened and I it's just such an amazing opportunity for the students and like I said I wasn't able to go joy maybe you were there but I just okay thank you contractually there has to be a teacher in charge of it but but no huckleberry teacher was able to vote the amount of time taken so actually Megan from the high school then went and was there every practice and everything else as well in order to ensure that it was there as well as a really amazing and dedicated group of teen parents who who made this amazing play go for it it was incredible in the kids I mean their acting and performing and singing and their energy it was unbelievable it really you

084you felt like he knew the kids afterwards and they really put themselves out there whose it was greater so many it was just great the costumes were unbelievable and I know there was one of the parents has a connection with another district and was able to supplement some of the work that the developing costumes and get some passes for another day I mean it was incredible I think thank you bringing that up really didn't need to be spoken of okay so now we have an executive session recommend emotion that the board interns to executive session for the purpose of discussing the superintendent's goals and on affiliate sellers so this concludes the the public portion of our meeting that will be aired so thank you everyone have a good evening [Music]