001[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] why the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] thank you mister I'd like to bring Steve Clark oh are you gonna start mirrors okay I have principal diamond comes to the podium to talk about the student spotlight this evening thank you good evening everyone today we are going to share with you our efforts to build students understanding of an ability to use technology as a tool for learning so these are mindsets and skills that really the started center school in order for students to be ready for the rest of their academic career but also to the future as well and again as with so many more Skills the foundation is is having at
002center school or giving them what they need in order then build on that as they move forward so we have with us this evening first grade teacher Heidi now we know Steve Clark with our media tech at center school and Joyce Aldo who is our librarian in a band working collaboratively on this project experimenting with some of what our Chromebooks can do I want to again ask you to note that you're going to see some student work and in the student work you will see some invented spelling which is completely developmentally appropriate at this point in first grade but what's nice to see is that where students are applying the skills and whether they're learning in our open court program they'll see particularly and some of the student work they're diagraphs as well as their
003high frequency words and that kind of thing you'll see that are being implemented and that they're carrying over from their instruction to their writing and that's those are total so I'm just kind of in the morning okay so come on up see in the spirit of using technology has done it made a video of our students and kind of gone through the whole process to be able to develop [Music] this year I'm safe see the entire shooting for classroom teachers this demonstration uses time it brings us through our website here's a magician's hybridizing the home where we have select English and mine website a lot of teachers to customize the use of these devices while not having a crowd I don't make over frustrates students next I'll show you our students log on to the
004sheets in kindergarten is our student learning in letters in the layout the keyword we use the physical token called clever math students can get the dress a little giving them a mini lesson not read about a lot you see Adler's database to search for information about animals they might interested what I find interesting separately they have abilities for watching some students for mrs. pains class log into a promo in the first time first rater so DX pass the second grade [Music] Tigers also use more advanced search techniques and demonstrate very surface what'd you find I'm not sure so he do my time [Music] sumo yeah okay okay person man right hands [Music] you guys tell me [Music] hey Ranjit please watch it Wow listen uh suggesting that I use Network but that you can touch
005it unlike a computer beautiful shrink um that's great this is better than yeah because her help finding [Music] your highness finally let's visit mrs. Menil English class for students from Avery's write your exams only did he interval talk to [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right [Music] [Applause] [Music] Chromebooks are a cost-effective tool for students and research express their ideas going forward you're excited to see them anyways our talent this year and loop so as you can see with the skills that we taught the students who are really hoping to engage them with technology in a way that is really part of their learning so they can see technology as a tool and as mary-rose said like laying the groundwork for more advanced technology opportunities so they will have as they progress through the grades and through
006the schools and I'm very proud of my students and very thankful for this opportunity so I don't have any questions any questions thank you so much for the opportunities you thank you folks really appreciate it nice job thank you [Music] the report hi everyone since you asked topped the students at purple I have been pretty busy so here's a little update on what everyone has been up to midterm exams are completely approaching as I start this Friday and then continue again after the long weekend when she's into Thursday this has been the main thing on all of her students Minds to prepare for these tests and the National Honor Society impaired had an interview night as a way to help those to review to the process winter sports aren't close to - all of our
007teams are having a great success and are coming up on the middle of their seasons next harmony boys basketball is having a fundraiser for a little girl at seminary news recently diagnosed with cancer so that's where the big things that's coming out for our school and seniors are also still hearing back from colleges and having to make some tough decisions as we prepare for our last semester nice thank you you see the reason it's Friday and David is that seven here yes thank you and here the questions moving on to written correspondence okay we have our on Jaffe wrote one correspondence regarding the budget and one regarding check ology which is a virtual classroom and Genevieve Mulvaney regarding the news slow project thank you approval coordinates recommend a motion that the board approve the minutes
008listed below as recommended a special meeting on January 2nd 2019 and the regular meeting on January 2nd 2018 any questions discussion all right all in favor aye next we have the superintendent's update dr. Brooke yes um first for this update I would like to turn to a vine check from the Brookfield library she the library folks are doing some wonderful work with our high school students to help them prepare for their midterms and offering some services so abominably please share with us I will thank you good evening everyone my name is Yvonne Scheck as John said and I'm the director of the Brookfield library I want to thank Superintendent John Morrell for allowing me some time on tonight's agenda and it's a tough act to follow that video that was out there but I will
009tell you why I am here and part of it has to do with what our student representative was talking about so I'm here today to talk about some of the ways that we support education and to tell you about one new library program in particular that we're very excited about and we hope you will be too so as always we have ongoing early literacy programs which include our story times for preschoolers which of course help them be prepared for entering kindergarten and we have stem and steam based programs for elementary school-aged children and we are of course the go to place all summer long for summer reading programs which help students stay on track with their reading skills so that they're not coming back after summer break at a deficit we have programs for tweens
010and teens like our writing programs and our technology and makerspace programs and we recently visited every freshman class at the high school and issued every freshman student a public library card so having this public library card allows the students to access the Connecticut State library online databases half outside of school hours and it also of course gives them access to all of the online resources that we have at the Brookfield library like ancestry.com or if they should have some kind of a project that they need to do that would give them a different that they need that information and we have hoopla's streaming services which gives them automatic Eve's them free downloads for audiobooks and ebooks as well as music and these are just things that we do on a regular basis but today I
011want to tell you about a new program that we are running especially for Brookfield High School students during midterm exams so we recognize that midterm exams are stress and anxiety producing so especially for freshmen and we also know that common study areas where students can gather outside of school hours in are not really publicly available in Brookfield so for the upcoming midterms we are hosting a program called midterm study hours and typically schools schools for you are closed on Monday the 21st for Martin Luther King jr. Day and so is Town Hall and because the Brookfield library is a municipal library and a town department we would typically be closed but since midterm exams are going through next weekend Martin Luther King Day falls right in the middle of it we decided that we would
012actually open for the day and so we are going to be open all day on Monday from 10:00 to 6:00 then we're going to extend our hours on Tuesday and Wednesday till 10:00 p.m. specifically so that students will have a place to come in addition we're having roving tutors in the library we've got nine signed up so far and we've got some some of them our peer tutors some are college students some are professional tutors or covering subjects in science math history English Spanish and French and we'll be providing of course free pizza and drinks and we also have therapy dogs stopping in each day we've coordinated with the all-star transportation to have a bus come from the high school on those two half days Tuesday and Wednesday and drop students off directly at the
013library and so Monday Tuesday and Wednesday of next week we're sort of going to be converting the public library into a common study area for for all students from her field high school about tables and chairs and refreshments and we're really hoping that this is going to be helpful in that it will provide again this common study space for them to gather and with the support of tutors and of course pizza and they don't have to spend any money doing it so also we'd like to thank from Brookfield High School Susan Griffin Laurie lizard check zhengzhou leo Ernesto Davila and Mike Smith for responding to our requests and for collaborating with us on this project everyone's been very helpful we of course continue to look for opportunities to support education because the Brookfield library supports
014education and lifelong learning for all the residents of town from the youngest to the oldest and I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have any thank you very much for your time I brought some Flyers with specific information so any questions thank you that sounds great okay thank you a dog I love I love the idea of the therapy dog yeah we're really excited about it I think it would be it would be a good thing to do and we find that it's successful we'll be happy to offer it again please let us know how it goes okay will do thanks LaVon thank you so much [Music] it really is incredible support that we have very proud of the relationship we've establish there and thank mr. Blandon his team's leadership in making that
015that connection possible I also wanted to just briefly share that with this Friday comes a planned professional learning day PLC day for our teachers and that means an early dismissal for the students we've had a fairly mild winter thus far but there is some forecast for some rough weather on possibly on Friday morning so I sent out a communication to the families yesterday and so the faculty letting them know that in the event that we have to delay school the students will dismiss that that a regular time will cancel the PLC day and for midterms it would just mean the students would take their midterms later in the day they would dismiss at two o'clock as they regularly do at the high school I heard it was some confusion on that so if anybody if
016anybody's on social media or hears from anybody it's a pretty straightforward easy thing to do we wouldn't keep an early dismissal and also delay school that would make no sense and we don't want to run into June 29th as our last day of school as we did last year with all the weather issues so we're doing our best and then the final thing I have for you this evening is mrs. sermon I'm working with the municipal building committee to get the word out and help organize the communication marketing efforts for the new school project have been working with Rosa from the Communications Committee and mr. Chaco and mr. flowers and Jeff was it was new ski from tech town architects to develop a nailer to go home I'm on a path we just went over
017at the Communications Committee meeting and I'd like to share it with the board right now can you actually pass these around for everybody we like to you know its initial not expecting anybody to be a feedback tonight but we like you to have it because in moving through probably about three weeks prior to the March 5th days we're looking at sometime in mid February and we don't meet again as a full board until February 20th we want to get this mailer out to the community this will be the only Hart mailing that goes out announcing you know from the the MDC in terms of announcing the referendum and talking about the building project we need the feedback from the board shortly if perhaps by Sunday feedback could come to collect Rosa and me we'd really
018appreciate that because we need to work with tact ons marketing department to make the appropriate adjustments in time to get to a printer to make sure it's mailed out by that date was called February 15 so any feedback you do have we'd love to hear from you we want to make this as clear concise and informative as possible and I don't know if anybody has any questions or people from the communications policy committee had any comments that they wanted to share there's also a couple of other steps after here it needs to go through the elections board and Town Council we have to make crystal clear that everything on here is purely fact-based there can be no call to vote there can be no opinion whatsoever because then it becomes it's not a factual mailer
019and we can't use it so there are several other steps that have to go just to make sure that both suspenders hello thanks for adding that is that's the time so your feedback really important so we can make sure we tighten it up incorporate feedback and then get it to the Elections Commission Town Council's as quickly as possible before it goes to the printer have a quick question you mentioned a town mailer so is the town of herb fields paying for it or the my understanding is this is going to come through the town from the superintendent with the approval of superintendent through the time yes yes not good not good it'll be full full Desiree allure you said at the top page that's what he addressed would go hold it and then we already
020had some great feedback from Debbie and Rosa and Rose was already giving interview back in Bob Debbie Bob saw for the first time tonight so we already got some great feedback that we're going to incorporate made a lot of sense and honestly whatever feedback you have please send it to us sometimes it's easier for people to handwrite on these and then scan them and send it to us or physically bring it in however it works for you or just write down section three we'd like to you know can you incorporate this or make this clearer I saw a typo there whatever you have we really want to make this as perfect as possible for instance state approval unfunded spring 2020 that's in red and you've utilized in different colors so they stand out to you
021it's I catch it right away and again I don't expect anybody have thank you if I don't expect anybody had lots of feedback you just got this but if we can have that and you know next four or five days would be really helpful to us to keep to our timeline but I think some that was really powerful last night was the message that the internal structure can change like it's not set in stone yes I don't know if that was in there okay so many people look at the plan and say well I don't like that plan so that's it not understanding that this is all purely conceptual I'm in the design phase right [Music] and that's all that's all I have thank you thank you okay moving on to something reports we have
022two facilities means the first facility is actually two weeks ago and I reported that concerning the entire capital improvement plans we wanted to have before we came forward to the board this evening with decided we had four different scenarios to look at knowing that this vote would be coming up for the new school aren't March 5th some examples were what does Pam look like if we do not have a new school what happens if we got the new school but we do mentally work to Center what happens if we get there new school we decide not to repurpose center and the other was no new school but repurposed center so we sat down we met we decided as a committee that we would take the worst-case scenario and present it tonight to the Board of
023Education we found that to be as as translucent as upfront is honest taking the worst-case scenario if the school isn't voted in the other requests that we're looking for for our actual budget or work that has to be done if the new school is not voted in we have six million seven hundred thirty eight thousand dollars of repairs that need to be done which we will go over later but there are very important things and I think Ken will go through them line item like by line item when we do it so basically that's where we're standing now my blood work any questions for a workman that was a good meeting thank you you drink more about it [Music] okay moving on the consent agenda [Music] recommend a motion that the board approve the items
024listed on the consent agenda is recommended new hires resignations and retirements if I might I just wanted to share I'm sorry I just wanted to comment and really give a shout out to Dale Rena who is given the district over 30 years of service and she's announced her retirement at the end of this month and I know mr. Koh Lanta would echo the same so we're just so appreciative of everything she's done everything she's given and the care in energy and interest she's put into the students over the years always going above them yeah so we're really appreciative of our service and wish her all the all the best and all the rest that she's got on her in addition to that was it this week was it Monday yes okay Monday joe de Grandy
025our new maintenance mechanic it was a specialty in HVAC started and can I don't know if anything to share about his physician seemed to be well received so far we're very very happy to have him here he's replacing Dan Caldwell who took over as our facilities director and as we've discussed that our facility meetings many times the vast majority of our work orders are HACC related so we're very very happy to have somebody with his expertise on board and as I understand the high school office is very excited to have him it was already some kind of thermostat adjustment that Martin was bragging about in the office today things were actually working and I know the teachers already know him by name and are calling him and they see him in hallways and he was
026spend a lot of time with mr. Enda at it with the end Caldwell at was seen here with some issues that were going on today so so Joe is in full swing so I'm glad to have him there and it just does it note we do still have one open maintenance position that we haven't hired yet so now that Joe's on board we will be looking forward to moving forward that that position as well yes I like the second my thanks birthday over Anna I mean she was the face of Brookfield for generations of high school students so I know she'll be missed any other questions discussions all in favor aye brings us to new business in the custodial contract recommend a motion that the board approve the successor contact between the Brookfield Board of
027Education and the Brookfield custodial Union CSEA okay I can just you all have a copy of the contract that was sent today but I can just give a review this this uh negotiations took a little bit of time I believe was the original member of the team and who was there as well and so when Paul left Rosa and I jumped in as well so the team was eve rosa myself terry cavanagh HR director dr. ruben can host i can briefly review the contract changes before we do it it's a three year contract but it's already in progress because it goes from 2017 to 2022 the first years nearly complete the contract calls for a 2.25 wage increase every year with retro pray of course for sixteen seventeen seventeen eighteen years that we were negotiating
028there is a sunset of longevity payments which are payments that are paid out to those that have worked for X amount of time members hired after July 1st of 2020 will no longer be eligible for the longevity payments there's an insurance cost share increase 2017-18 is is negated because that years already passed so 2018-19 the increase goes from thirteen to fifteen percent in nineteen twenty eight goes from 15 to 16 percent and there's an understanding that there were no real they're on ago she ations if the district does move to another insurance plan for the connecticut those are the main differences some if there's anything else okay any questions so I had a question for Ken for a retroactive pay increases did we accrue those years are there audio pod or is it a hit
029on the kerreri group terrorism okay thank you okay no other discussion all in favor aye opposed thank you everyone next we have the setting of graduation date class of 2019 recommend motion that the board set the graduation date for the Brookfield High School class of 2019 for Saturday June 22nd 2019 at the O'Neill Center at 6 p.m. as recommended by BHS principal mark Belinda we are wrong getting this much earlier thanks to the change in our calendar year and I'm sure there are going to be a host of parents that are very thankful for that come on officer Linda yeah I'll make a quick to say we're talking about graduation we'd be hard-pressed even though Dale Brown is retiring and at this month when it comes time for graduation to have her not on that
030stage it's just a figurehead there so thanks to the Morris Morris sight and blue navy general statute it allows us to the board actually set my graduation date well before April 1st what we've done in the past because we have honored 85 school day setting the calendar with those three bill ten days this is going to be a huge step forward I'm already getting questions about one graduation will be as parents are making plans it just makes the most sense as far as the 19th being that last day with those those five those three extra days built in we may have some weather coming up I think the 22nd we have a couple days reserved as a possibility through the 22nd and then again the 29th I think that's planets pretty late but with the
031ability of the statute that says set it when we want and regardless of what happens we do not have 180 school days right but for whatever number of closings that that does happen we can still keep the graduation on the 22nd and not worry about moving in anywhere the station's last hour time is about a half hour later than usual Westcott has changed kind of their expectations this year they're very specific about the three time slots that we have that there's a morning graduation which is clearly going to be New Fairfield so I'm seemingly always be in Fairfield New Milford is seems always in graduate in that afternoon session and we're gonna have the night session and 6 o'clock is the earliest start time you want to make sure they can clean up you have
032any set ready to go but it's I appreciate the foresight or not because it's gonna save a lot of calls on my end I'll be able to put that out the bottle pretty quickly if we can put on the seat Thank You Marc thank you any other discussion questions all in favor hi Rick thank you everyone next we have policy 31 60 transfer of funds recommend a motion that the board approved policy number three one six zero transfer funds for first reading as recommended by the policy subcommittee [Music] so I didn't get any additional feedback so [Music] is this a first one this is our first read right oh yes sorry someone get reports on yeah it is a it's a nice short policy [Music] [Applause] yeah I did I did a review of this
033for the policy committee and when you actually you'll read what we delete versus what we had the old policy is filled with a bunch of kind of cryptic wording and that we concluded that a policy was short and sweet and actually made it easier to operate with you know you don't have to worry about object I'll try to remember some of the super odd benefit super object codes and it was so specific that you that you you it made it hard whereas the one would recommend that it requires the Board of Education will approve any transfer of funds and only in an emergency under ten thousand dollars consumer and an act and NES come to the board right so it's a very straightforward policy and I think you'll find out when you read get a
034chance to read for me is illogical ad for us and as part of the 3000 series that we've been revealed we do everything absolutely the Oakland almost has a glossary doesn't it okay so any questions or input should be to you all by what I'm we will next meet [Music] a 20th so maybe 13 oh dear 13th any other questions okay I'm on favor hi host alright that brings us to the approval of one traditional paraeducator position recommend a motion that the board approve one traditional paraeducator position to be funded by the federal ide a grant as requested by superintendent dr. jo'bril and recommended by the personnel and negotiation subcommittee [Music] I'd like to invite actually to the podium to help explain the rationale for this particular position as we did a couple of weeks
035ago at one of our meetings we talked about a traditional para and we talked about EDA Paras are seen to differentiate that for the board again I want to be careful when we talk about para educators and hiring one pear educator at a time sometimes para educators are hired as one-on-ones for students other times more as resource room and servicing more students in this particular case I want to be very careful about the school meaning that we mentioned as we talk about this publicly because it may personally identify the childhood question so I want to be very careful about that and very transparent about that so dr. Saul so we had a new student need not a new student but an emerging me that required us to have student have a one-on-one this happened about
036a month ago but we really needed to collect some more data to see if this was something that we needed to add a position for rather than something that we could we can cut her and we do at this point so it's directly related to student need and it's something that we absolutely need at this time in the beauty of the situation we're in with dr. Saleh working so closely with mr. post are with Finance is that there's plenty of room in the IDE a federal education grant budget so we can utilize that money to pay for this pair of now and also in the the monies will have from the IDE a grant next year to pay for this para so it's not an impact on the budget and so that's really important for
037the board and the public to know about we discuss this at the Finance Committee meeting on Monday night as well and you know one of the things we said is this is exactly what the IDE a grant is really for is for supplementing and making sure that those those extra costs our students was significant either able to be met and there's any further questions thank you very much thank you thank you all right then all in favor aye aye [Music] thank you right that moves us to old business and the superintendence budgets 2019-20 and i just wanted to give an update first i know i had sent an email all to you after the Board of Finance me last week but the Board of Finance did approve the request for our lab some funds they
038they were not enamored with the resolution as it was written by Tom town and school council last year so they did ask the Finance Committee to sit down and work with Mercia controller to set forth a more permanent not absent bond agreement in the years going so we agreed that as a Finance Committee you to sit down and do that after the budget sees the non-id seed fund will have $65,000 in it which is what we consider to be our overage for last year last fiscal year the one request that the Board of Finance made was that we clearly define where that money is going to go and that's shown in our budget I think that's a very fair request to make one thing that the board of or that I'm sorry the Finance Committee
039talked about last night was last night Monday night was that the non Lansing funds money should probably go to one-time expenses because if we take this money and put it in as a general operating and using a fraternal operating then we're responsible for that that for those funds for next year as well it becomes part of it and we lose that one-time payment really kind of like we we are looking at this year with a seventy nine thousand from last year so that's just something to keep in mind as we go forward and look at our bunch of the sessions it probably would be wisest to do that as is applying to month I'm hearing my budget other than that when the Finance Committee sat down on Monday Ken had looked at again and reviewed
040and scoured our budget specifically the the status quo budget as well Bob had helped with that as far as putting a great deal of questions and thanks to his work with that and especially since our budget season starts so early it just makes sense to continually go and take a look at and see if there are any further trends that can adjust things one way or the other from there he did have some [Music] did have some some changes and it's what she's sending out here I'm sorry sure so budget one thing obviously settled the custodians contract so I put an aesthetician through the salaries I've been able to adjust it to the actual salaries that were approved tonight we took out the school time study as directed by the board from the last meeting
041we looked again at the St math and we've cut it back to just K through two we're just going to save us $24,000 we're reducing our office supply requests by three thousand dollars we had an outside contractor cost for ACA reporting in the budget that I'm able to take out because we are now able to do it in house with munis and we just had a training session yesterday with our HR folks and Eric to do that I also discovered that we could reduce our health benefit cost by fifty six thousand three hundred fifty eight dollars and then adding in the non lapsing fund that was discussed earlier as another sixty five thousand dollars we were able to reduce to the budget by one hundred ninety eight thousand six hundred fifty dollars which brings it
042down to a three point nine percent increase in the status quo down to two point nine two percent increase [Music] any questions I do did me talk about reducing the St math k22 I missed that conversation or was that a question that came via email I thought dr. Ruby had mentioned that it might be too much to start with at the beginning we talked about a little bit last meeting what we certainly didn't glad I understand was you ready to go back and examine yeah that was what I was charged to do I was going back to taking a look at it talking to the principal was talking with Erica that involves technology and schedules and really when I looked at all the items that I'm responsible for well I think that the program is
043very well suited for our needs that was the only thing that I could really see that we could cut back on and still maintain the level of quality and advancement that we're trying to do with our curriculum so the rationale for that is that it is new and if we you know those of you who are educators rolling up is oftentimes a better way of introducing curriculum if you have to make decisions like this and so I'm starting at k2 and I was really reinforced if that's the right word by watching that video having the the young children have something that they are using technology for that doesn't have language that seems game-like that's engaging will prepare them and we plan for in an increase in this st line for a next year because we
044would introduce it those first grade second graders since we're going for second we'll roll up to third grade and we do it year by year to get up through the middle school okay that was closer yes any other questions did you try it yeah my son's been doing it I think it's a great program and the language portion is fantastic finally had a chance the other day to go through the material that is in our last budget packet it seems impressive today it's smart to roll it out that way a little bit at a time yeah so they don't be able to be disappointed that they're not getting it but you know we do need to make rational decisions and the roll-up seems to make the most sense any other questions on that and I
045had a question on an on lapsing fun use of 55,000 so what are we using that to cover the lab the language lab in the middle school how much of the 65 was that the world language lab was fifty one thousand four hundred okay so that's most of it and if we use this these are just things for consideration we ought to make sense to use it for the some of the things that we were asking do and that is not a capital item that's a home books a public art and software so let's stop we would have a normal budget okay an open court was what sorts of things are in the open court that we're covering with that yeah I'll let dr. Ruby take that one just just a just a second the
046over the course approximately fifteen thousand dollars of the new ask and so if that groovy to talk to that program so when a couple years ago when we look to provide our k3 teachers with curricular tool to teach the foundational skills of reading which we weren't doing we adopted open court grades k-3 I think Iran at that time at that time they were working on because to align with the Common Core State Standards for creating foundational skills which cover K through 5 they were working on the development of the grades four and five component of the program and so that came out at the end of last year and so we're well positioned because our children aren't rolling up and just as I was just landing with ast math and Melissa isn't here but she
047could speak to the fact that the second-grade teachers are actually seeing differences in the children this year so we know that there's impact of the use of this tool so I presented the program to Cape and they recommended it a couple meetings ago and so it's very cost effective $15,000 is all we need for all the journals for the teachers for grades four and five and I it's you know teachers don't always ask to do more but I have to say that after we talked to some of the teachers we had to fourth grade teachers who contacted Debbie myself to ask if they could use the kit that we got as a sample which is a complete kit as a pilot and so we we definite yes turday with over the school and they're gonna
048they're going to start with the one kid that we have with their their kids this year so that they can be able leads next year and that's what really speaks highly to how hungry the teachers are to have the materials in their hands and how people are you know if we if we provide teachers with materials that will help them get the job done they're more than willing to do it so we're excited about that we'll sit so this is a one-time expense that we would have to populate the kids yes and then beyond that there's like student workbooks that are ongoing okay so the Ken this is a recommendation that these would be the two items that we would use that lots of fun to cover so we are though we have to kind
049of accept that as a board I guess now with a non I've seen pod desire to be able to actually think the word finance work and we're cherishing this and moving it forward and being forward-thinking to think about this every year I think it speaks to Menace Lee about the work with us I'm grateful for that collaboration I had a couple of questions about advisor stipends and positions and and these actually just came up with with the information you had sent dr. burrow on the weekend update' Hardy's question there's some that are unfilled yes on the site positions now I know that's for this year do we anticipate those going forward to be filled or some of them just problematic to the point that we're not able to fill those statements and should they still
050even be there and be part of the budget is there any particular one I can pull enough hhe huckleberry had a few with Sierra they just had one the high school seemed to have the most both an advisory and two in curriculum for a ninth grade transition coordinator and the school work transition coordinator you know so the first thing is that the snipers are particularly in the future contract okay that's important for everybody to understand so these aren't just haphazard numbers that we take in we were inventing clubs and activities that we have advisors for so that's that's first and foremost we do occasionally have these conversations I know at one of the schools there's a particular high profile Club of that is just it's becoming very difficult to fill and we're halfway through the
051year I haven't had a full conversation with principal yet to determine exactly where that particular Club is going and how they're going to be able to recruit an advisor for for it so and marks out there because there's some specifics at the high school so any other thing we need to remember on the sheet that I shared of siphons and so forth is that last year with the this all this uncertainty at the state and the freeze and the budget cuts and then the macro burst and the failing of the first referendum it was master we had me some very difficult decisions as important as an administration so we took a chunk out after school activities and had to cut that and then principals had to make those difficult decisions mr. blanton I'll turn it
052over to you yeah particularly for those two staff positions Department school work transition coordinator and then the ninth grade transition Courtney of those two statements to dr. burrows point last spring we had to start looking about the 1920 but 1890 budget would be I looked pretty close to say okay where can we is there any overlap is there some things that people could absorb as opposed to having just an original site but that one person works on the school to work coordinator position that site was going to our college and career counselor that was kind of a natural fit so it made sense has worked so far this year it made sense to make that same recommendation said not necessarily need to fill that moving forward even though it's contractually in is the teacher contract
053as a possible site of a position the work being done is being done as part of that role of the college and career counselor ninth grade transition coordinator that's another one that was in there that I did not fail what we're finding is that the peer counseling those two advisers they have really served as the ones who really spend the most time doing transition coordinating as far as activities and planning I do a lot of that stuff myself but as far as actually implementation of activities when we talk about whether it's the one step closer about that comes up for incoming eighth graders or the summer orientation program that is facilitated by the peer counselors so I work directly with them and there was overlap there so it made sense I'm looking to tighten the
054belt a little bit I continue to do some of that work for the nitration addition coordination and then the peer counsellors I continue to work with those two advisers to make sure that we have that stuff cover so those are the two specific ones we brought up and that's how we decided before we can still get the work done so those are not in the budget so the contract is option like as part of their entire agreement in the appendix but we're choosing not within the budget is something that it's not gonna fill okay so the unfilled advisor positions are still in the budget but those two unfilled curriculum positions are not in the budget is that is that a fair assessment so for which advisor is there in it um there's five advisors that
055it says in contract but not filled and they are less advisor grade 9s EDD and students so those are those are not in the budget okay and my only other one and I'm sorry I was just um we do have in here the percussion instructor assignment yeah would that still be there since we're going to be adding that as a class well that percussion instructor is assisting that's part of the instrumental program the after-school program that's what that's part of as far as the what was the marching band program you transitioned that person is associated with that particular program of a cushion class that we're going to have is it actually exists or in school there's several things okay there's no immediate questions I really I think it's important for the board you know the
056public to know that on the sheet a document that I shared with you on Friday afternoon their recollection serves me correct was 15 or 16 activities or clubs that are voluntary that teachers and staff volunteers to do they don't ask for a Siteman and kids come up with an idea for a club and they're allowed to have that club with marks permission as long as they have an adult advisor and so we have a lot of dedicated people that put a lot of time in for this is really really important to understand the other piece say I mentioned earlier I think was during the superintendent's report is honestly there's a citement ferrata see the line that I didn't include on here and that's one of those positions that we've over the years it's been difficult
057to fill because it involves a lot of after so lot of late-night work as well as a lot of coordination among parent coaches on the weekends and travel and so forth and sara helmy is our coordinator she's in her second year now the difficulty a staff member to advise that particular in coordinating a particular group and it's not thank Sarah for all the work she does and that she was way above and beyond the amount of time to coordinate that for all the different teams we have Paco very whisking air in high school thank you thank you for asking us a lot of information are there any other questions in regards to the budget it probably makes most sense is just to kind of review status quo if we're all in agreement with that especially
058with the Pens adjustments here then we can just go through every single new investment ask discussed amongst ourselves and see how we feel about it so good I could comment but the package is coming out around the I asked Ken if he would take these reductions that he talked shared with us and make it into the basic package so we all know how to update a package for working for so cuz I thought that would be useful for all of us to have it can and I spent I mean I said to my bunch of questions and we spent some time dr. Ruby joins us paula jory but we talked through a lot of those questions individually and I just wanted to share with the board how I went through it because they were really
059focused on the status quo what I did was I had a couple of basic theories one was that there there's a couple of big drivers on our status for budget and were they right right and so and there's and if you look at the top sheet here the south the status quo budget is growing one point two four eight million dollars year on yes that's two point nine percent of that 1.2 million dollars 1.1 million of it is just salaries and benefits so I was going through to make sure that we weren't you know that they were naturally our contracts that they that I could prove out the salary increases and for example a teacher line match the teacher I think that drove ten crazy with a teacher contract and then we went from each
060of the areas to make sure their work changes and staffing in there I'll tell you my findings is there were some minor gives and takes and things like the added extra service lines but they were so small that they didn't change that equation much at all we also went through employee benefits and really looked at what input we'll be getting on the employee benefit from our broker because I was concerned quite frankly that unless we're getting outside inputs on the employee benefits cost that you know some from some reputable advice it right we would just be think we're just sitting in the wind right so and in fact can't talk to our broker and even though the the Connecticut plan has not formally declared that rates that getting signals to our broker on what to
061really expect us all right you feel pretty comfortable comfortable with that yes interestingly enough on the benefits one of the dynamics is we have many more employees moving into the family coverage instead of individual coverage and that actually increases the distance costs when that happens so Kent's on a really nice job of working through all of the mechanics of of the benefits costs and the gives and takes so when I looked at it and said look we have a million one of the million to actually really well plumbed and in fact he's taken he's assumed one hundred and twenty thousand dollars of savings next year on retirements right which is betting on the couple that we have some amount of retirements and we'll replace them and get a little savings that's more than we've assumed
062in Prior budgets so it's actually leaned into it because our experience last couple years is we've actually done better than we budge so it's it's a pretty well crafted plan once they got through that I went through every other line I was looking for increases what's increasing is there anything increasing in anything else a can you explain it you read through the questions that I asked they were all about those lines there were only one or two instances where I found that there were eye items in there that were increasing you know on a line item one of which I'll just point out because it'll come up with our favorite reviewers as we go down with the Travel line which went up a reasonable percentage but that was a specific request to have some world
063language teachers go to what will languish conference which we had never done before so I thought that was a fair request and it was kind of sad foolish so I other than that it was going down when you went through those other line items the assumptions on heating oil relatively flat we've locked in the rates assumptions on a bus contract well locked in the assumptions on all special education costs are all very well exercised so I'll be frank in my review I did not find any other places I could go bang around and find reductions if I did find reductions it was a couple to one or two thousand dollars here and there it wasn't enough so I just wanted to share that with you because I spent a good day on my own and
064then many hours with with mr. Poston variety of staff members walking through those questions one of the things that you'll see in the package you sent out I did paying around a little bit on our special education costs it's the first time I think we as a board have received that I it wasn't for me to really understand for budgeting purposes but for more for understanding for muscles and you'll see in that spreadsheet but what I asked him to do was take every line item in our budget that is tied to special education whether that special education teachers Parra's transportation out of district a professional center professional services spending and lay it all out it is 20% of our budget and and it's a very important investment I actually felt as a board even though
065we don't have to do anything with it tonight it was important that we all have visibility to that right and under we're spending on that once 20% of our budget that's a very important component of our budget the the other part of that is if you look at it over time it is by its 60% of the increase we've seen over the last couple of years you know we actually can and I went through it if you look at the budget increases since the over the last four or five years in aggregate and you compare it to what the spending of special ed has been it is 60 percent of the total and part of that's the state grants going down proportionally because we're getting less from the state than we got but some of
066it has been the changing mix of our population of our students and you know I we will lift through the out of district cost issues last year but the business across the board so I would urge you all to take a chance to just leave through that at your leisure as we go through this budget process I found out some of the items in there and lightening positively in fighting but enlightening so so I just wanted to share that's kind of a path I been down over the last couple of months and I'll share that with the Board of Finance one as well as being an ex Laura finance number I felt that I had to do that for our board a little bit yes appreciate it thank you and we find when you go
067through the handout that we just passed out that your replacement pages based on our discussions and some of the questions that mr. de belem had there is more information in those detail sheets some of the categories are broken out a little farther in a little more detail so you'll find it more informative certainly as looking at the page six [Music] so the magnet school transportation grant does that cover all the costs for the transportation yes [Music] and you haven't known anything for the AG program [Music] is right night now I think salary and I just heard from region 12 super tena Bennett who's opening up ship hog for next year we talked about that a couple of months ago she's had eight applicants from Brookfield that doesn't mean they're all going to be accepted but
068she's had a which is higher than our historical data would tell us yeah that that number does it seems to creep up a little bit one of the things and actually touched on it briefly if they finance committee meeting Rose it was he was about a year or two ago we put out the APA this might be something we need to start thinking about the policy committee is do we put a limit as to how many students we can uh we can allow that we can support and going there because that that could rise in tuition expenses could really impact us we need to be able to really predict what our budgets going to be for that so something I think we as work should be talking about and perhaps we tackle at in policy
069yeah it was my question was kind of going there in relation to that the AG program in magnet school so no we send a lot of kids the magnets we have 43 seats reserved at the magnet school yeah and that is something we can change up organically truth tip I'm wondering if those 43 kids are back in our essentially elementary school with that correspond to a 12% increase that we would you need like we need another $86,000 if those kids were to come back in a district and you'll probably end up look great and we're in the open more sections yeah if we had it we have to open more sections that yes we have to break that down and I think Dean for the most part a student from the magnet school they if
070they come back to pro field after their time is in sixth grade usually yeah yeah they finished fifth grade there yeah pre you're entering sixth grade Oh fight a historically we have to do a little digging on that [Music] any other questions regarding status quo was layout I had a couple questions on page two on the extended duty budget just a couple numbers jumped out probably have simple explanations I was looking at the PPT team meetings went from $2,000 to $5,000 [Music] does that just you know anticipated that there'll be more meetings actually I can't doctors Paulo come up and talk about in the anticipation of that exactly that day and then other rationale for that [Music] so this is actually connected to something that we're really trying to do in special education which is
071to have more services be provided in district and by in district staff rather than out of district so the extended UDP PTT meetings is sometimes used in the summer it is sometimes used when we need to have have something that extends beyond the school day and that's really important because things were happening in district but often we're using outside evaluators outside service writers are contracted staff and one of our major efforts is to bring services back to district staff and so we did have an increase this year and how much we spent for extended duty and for example some of that is rather than contract with someone to do an evaluation or to make recommendations or to have a PBT over the summer we are asking our own staff members to do that okay thank
072you and there is a significant reduction in the budget for the outside services yeah so it's it's that's a large number and it's not any one thing but it is very much a function of us trying to provide really excellent reading services and really excellent speech and language services and all of that here in district rather than using a contracted person great thank you under that one I just was looking at the school kleiner coordinator went down 30% or so oh that's you and then the only other one I was curious about was farther down almost to the bottom of the list summer and after-school clerical and security went from 8,000 583 to 15,000 yeah that that's primarily being driven by huckleberry where we have staff members staying until the six o'clock now to monitor
073the front entrance so we have we funnel everybody was going there for after-school programs in through the front door instead of leaving other doors open and that was actually started last year by a personal I mean she was there and thought it made great sense yeah this work well in support of partisan records well for a part of that time and we've actually discussed that the whole concept of the dev at these your task force meetings as well great okay thanks thank you very much [Music] other questions so pre-agreement for the status quo how about if we take a look and just kind of review and dig into each of the new proposed investments under the budget and I actually just made a list and just based on the presentation lesson that's that's purely the
074the order of going in so the first was the curriculum and first on that list were these science modules great one through five for a hundred and twelve thousand four hundred and this is the Smithsonian kits correct it's just gradually adding more kits based on what we had learned because of the expense of it because this is k-8 that would be very costly to do all in one hit hmm and it would be a real burden on teachers so we decided when we made the proposal to move to a tool that supported the NGSS standards which are our state standards that we would do a Bazin that started last year we had done a pilot earlier in the year that we had brought through cave into the board and then we implemented it started to
075implement the program this year we purchased what we had piloted and the pilot table such that if we didn't like it we're not spending anything we're just getting back the materials and then we added some other modules this year this 112 or is to implement new modules next year we will have completed the roll in for grades 6 7 & 8 and while it's important to have standards aligned science instruction that's hand on an inquiry base for children in all of our grade levels I'm not minimizing grade levels it's critically important since the children are facing the next generation science state assessment in the middle school grades that they have there that we prepare our children and our teachers for that so we also will have all the kits for kindergarten at this point at
076this year so that's important because if we want to have a a strong roll up we have to be providing you know kids with a foundation so Oh next year we're going to be filling in and the middle elementary grades and then in the upcoming school year we'll finish it out we'll have all the teaching materials unless we add teachers but then that'll be a more reasonable cost to us and we'll be left with the bassoon because it's not like the way we're teaching science prior to NGSS there's a lot more hands-on inquiry based instruction and the children actually doing science not being told about science or some science so that cost and I don't think that it's it's going to be exorbitantly high in comparison to all of the the costs that the principals
077had for science materials in the previous budgets that you seen this is just a gonna be we're purchasing refurbishment kits as opposed to going and buying things you know as we need them so that's the explanation for that [Music] any questions or comments on that I think it might behoove us just as I just go through down the list of each of these gave discussion maybe to just do a show of hands how we feel like I'm keeping it in the budget that we can go to the next one okay okay notice no questions everybody these would she be in alright next we have the open court reading grades four and five and I think you had described that earlier dr. Ruby yes mmm-hmm that was a suggestion - it was a suggestion because it
078is a one-time one-time expense it would fit with other money that we have to spend yes questions discussion with that all right all in favor all right and then then we have the US team math it was K through five but now it's K through 2 yes 20:27 night oh yes because it reduces just to be for frogs worried so the new one is twenty seven nine eighty so one question I had was hunter who's twelve that is mentioned on the chart for the grade one through five science program in the backup it only says 55 so what's the difference it's reduced by the amount we had in this last year this little gremlin that's the growth amount Oh 112 for - the 57 161 that we thought was a question rather the last right
079yes what is the is he talking about okay good alright so st met all right moves us to the mobile world language lab 451 400 which is covered in the proposal by the non laps and fund right so the the open court and mobile world goes a little bit over 75 Eric is actually doing some refining of his estimates and he thinks he can bring it below $50,000 black would want to talk about that a little bit and we achieving those savings Eric I just have to say before Eric talks his office is next to mine and the walls are paper-thin I've never heard anybody talk on the phone as much as him about telling people how he's not gonna pay that price just dear Eric the profil forever he's happy you know you know
080when we brought this proposal back to the table we had already refined a results again so just on the software solution implementation working with the same company that brought us high school language lab there was already a reduction in the cost they're doing those refinements overall when it comes down to is the technology prices are great right now the hardware costs you know the teacher computer will come down in price I in preliminary prototype quotes I'm getting a fantastic pricing on Chromebooks you know to $219 a Chromebook for example for the ones you saw in that video tonight which is um you know which is excellent and cheaper than they were the technology's just getting less expensive fabulous price on the carton that would go with it so really your your your savings are in
081the hardware costs the Chromebooks on the car are really coming down in price so we could count that as is fifty thousand verses 51 four hundred I would be extremely humble Zane okay and please remind me again if the referendum is passed and if we couple years down the road find ourselves with a lot of nice classroom space that we want to have you know dedicated world language lab in the middle school most of this is software that can translate to it it with the addition of the Chromebooks in the cart exactly and this could probably be repurposed I assume for other there's always a purpose there's always there's always a way to repurpose and reuse the compost they would never not have another home somewhere in addition tab salutely yeah it's simply it doesn't
082mean we this is one of those softwares there's software's out there where you get a license and it's tied to that device that's it this is simply concurrent so you say that these 30 computers have it next year we want to move them to these 30 peers no problem discussion thoughts it's a great use of the non laps and fun that sort of thing that when we under run and the Board of Finance is willing to give us support for a one-time project this is an enhancement to the district and that's what I'd love to use our under ones right when we do have them Oh [Music] in my view this is exactly what you'd want to use an online phone for big jerk okay all in favor it moves us from curriculum to staff
083next we have the pre-k teacher 485 490 I think I'd actually like to ask dr. zapala to come up and talk about what's riding the need to tell you the truth because I think we need to talk about that and hear about it we had a little bit of preview of that finance committee meeting but I asked her to prepare for tonight because I think this is something that our finance needs to hear and I think we all need to hear I'm very happy to talk about it because it is it is a big driver our our our request for another preschool teacher and that speech-language pathologists are connected because the speech and language pathologists is for center school for preschool so the reasons why we need a preschool or very much tied to the
084number of students that we have in preschool at the moment the cleanest way to look at it is to look at our October 1 to October 1 numbers so if you recall the enrollment report at that time we had seven additional preschoolers this year on October 1st then we had the year before that was our preschool before was not small we were just about at our limit previously and so that's really important because it's really put us over the ratios that we would like to have in the classroom so in some of our morning sections we actually have as much 8:24 students which is much larger than we would like in any of our other classes much larger than our kindergarten first grade even you know second and third grade classes it also impacts our
085our programming we want to have a model where we have 50% typical peers and 50% students with disabilities and that is impacted because we have so many students who are coming in from birth to three who need services we need to accept those students and so our numbers are growing in terms of the number of students with disabilities so that is one of the major reasons why we need another preschool class we do anticipate based on our birth to three projections that every school is going to continue to grow the students that were receiving also have very significant needs so it's not just more students it is especially with related services students need to access a lot of speech and language services and occupational therapy services specifically to the speech and language pathologist this is
086actually a perfect example of what I was referencing before about shifting from contracted services to grow field employees we have been accessing speech and language contracted services for a preschool for several years this year we are actually contracting for 20 hours of direct service in Asian language per week per week and so this need has been there even before we had a larger preschool so we do need another region language pathologist but there is an offset in terms of that's one of the reasons why our other professional services request is less than it was previously because we won't need to access those contracted services if we had our own speech and language pathologist is there any questions about preschool what is the ratio right now of special needs versus regular in some protections it ranges
087between in preschool ranges between about 55 to 60 at the moment in those morning sessions and we would like that to be a 50/50 slip and with a new preschool teacher typical peers who would like to join our class because we generally do maintain a waiting lesson and have to tell students for them as well tuition paying do we have the physical space to house the extra session yes and the classrooms would be right next door okay I thought that was her like we heard this on Monday and I just thought that was really important for us all day all of us stay here and we'll probably ask you to do it again with the final we're done it's not as sudden as it may seem to people who have not sort of kept up
088our understand what every school looks like so I think it's important just to take away that we're adding a speech pathologist but we're really reducing contracts expenses and we're getting more services we're getting more time for speech for our kids because we have full-time employer acts and more consistency mm-hmm right and someone is part of our program yeah Jen I'm glad you brought that up I think for those people who like to quantify the school weeks give or take 36 hours long so we get an employee so you knew speech pathologists who will be with us providing services you know give or take 30 30 to 36 hours a week we're contracted services only 20 hours a week and the expense of external services it's really costly even sometimes more so than actually a teacher
089so I think when we package up the presentations we have to show exactly right adding a teacher we're adding a pause but those savings in that program right and that's a subset of that hundred thousand six so hey business not increasing the opportunity thank you very much thank you there's two more that come off that involves special education I don't know if we're gonna want to keep Christine up there or not so after eight in a row we're giving her exercise yeah yeah oh yeah that's cool yes perfect since these are kind of a package together as you said okay so first the pre-k teacher everyone all right and the speech language alright so next we have the special education teacher this would be for the high school does anyone have questions dr. Cipolla I
090know we you mentioned it before would you mind we'll probably keep you up here for the next one as well this is very much related to our special education caseload way back in November our special education caseloads are large particularly at the high school and based on our projection for the case on the size of the high school next year we really need a special education teacher just to bring our caseload down to something that would be reasonable so our projection with another teacher we would still have caseloads of 19 on October 1st our caseloads were averaging about 23 so that's that that would be very important the question came up last time there was some talk about ratios in classes so I just shared about the preschool ratios in our other classes throughout the
091schools we really are trying to have a much more balanced ratio where sometimes we do cluster students with with special education ease with IPS but we try to keep that ratio below 30 percent in any given classroom so it actually did do an analysis of all of our classrooms across the school those general education settings and in every building they ranged between about zero and 30% so you have a classroom here and they are one kindergarten classroom for example that's at a 30% we have one third grade classroom that's at 33 pretty much everyone else at the elementary level is far below that and via paraprofessional support and actually push in support from special education teachers in those places where we have the higher ratios where we do actually have some larger ratios or in
092our middle school in high school classrooms where we actually have a co-taught model so to be frank there are some English and some math classes at the high school where the ratio is of a 40% those are code talk classes one of the reasons why we need a special education teacher at that time it discussed last last time we had a meeting that we need to make those those services more manageable for special education teachers say a very large academic support classes that exceed 20 students and there are a lot of students in these co-taught classes that it would be much more beneficial to be able to split up and so that is why we need a special education teacher did you find anything and outside of math and English in the high school where
093there were clustering issues well one of the things I was looking at is does it ever come up in specials or anything like that I was actually on Science in particular no no not at a ratio that would be concerning to us [Music] thank you any questions okay so the special education teacher of the high school all right and next thank you you know you might just wanna stay there and we've already spoken about these but it's the to ABAP educators we've approved them in the budget for this year it's paid for they grant this year these are the ones that won't be paid for next year so I'm not sure if there's anything to say or but it kept her up here in case I had questions those four money's for one-on-one these are
094and these are actually for regional students so the - maybe a paraprofessionals are at that our school they are directly related to our increase in every school but I just like they're there well they're not classrooms supplement that are individual one or one case right there ad a paraprofessionals and so those paraprofessionals have received very specific training in particular from our be CDA to provide discrete trial instruction and and apply behavioral principles to student programs [Music] thank you thank you thanks resilience