Board of Education Meeting 10-17-18

001Jesse [Music] okay we are back with our audio working at this point thank you for your patience everyone recommend motion that the board approve the minutes listed Lowe's recommended regular meeting on 10:30 18 stressfull also great time your life so has great opportunity for families its opportunity together thank you just to let everybody know we talked a little bit about this at the last meeting administration has begun the budget development process under new business tonight we'll talk a little bit about assumptions and priorities as superintendent to the board business we're also engaged we've talked about doing classroom walkthrough construction around visits and to thank mrs. Farris for organizing those and our principals for organizing the actual school visits to date the administrative team has this fall over the last two weeks conducted almost 350 visits

002to the different classrooms and walls a great opportunity to view the specific areas of the release and student engagement and the setting of purpose and expectations that were looking at to see how that's being implemented there's such a nice opportunity in there as well and speak certainly mr. Rendon today we've been on the same walkthrough team and the opportunity to connect with students and actually talk to them about what they're learning and frankly I know this is kind of silly to say but the happiness you see from the teachers and I really don't think it's an act to see the administrators in the classrooms where we all spend our time shooty spending our time in terms of the value of what's going on it's all about what happens imagine a classroom and so us spending

003time in there is really appreciated by the teachers as well and again not pretending to connect typically have conversations but there's there is it's been really nice almost 350 over the last couple of weeks and it will have a second round in probably February and then one in the spring as well and the other one I want to let everybody know about and I'll share a little bit later we had the new building project presentations both of Selectmen finance last night pretty good turnout a lot of communication and follow-up in terms of social media and so forth and school messages but I'll let Collette continue on that a little bit later in our meeting interestingly I want to remind the board that a couple of years ago the construction of the Shabak agricultural high school

004as part of region 12 was approved and all the neighboring districts will in next year be sending students going forward for agricultural education to chef Scheib operation 12 currently students go to not a locker for okay and so those students who are already enrolled in on walk will continue through their grandfather that's not a problem at all but new students so current eighth graders who want to go to agricultural education will go to debauch the I believe they broke ground either this week or next week and it's an addition to the existing high school so that should be completed and ready for the 1920s we're so the more conversation will come about that but I want to make sure you had a heads up and I did meet with Miss Bennett who's the new superintendent

005region 12 meeting last week about this interesting they invite mr. bowl and our high school principal up to the podium two items that I want to let everybody know about and Mark certainly talk a little bit more detail he says some conversations and it was alluded to by joy we received the BHS 50th reunion class letter they're playing at every union for next year and looking at homecoming days for next year and the like and then also it very excited about a lot of preparation that swung into the December this coming December Nia's turn over to mark for those who a it is to share a little bit more sure I have been in contact with a gentleman graduated from the class of 69 also graduated from MIT old several several patents to his name

006he's quite the interesting character we've been trying to connect to email me I believe last fall so fall wondering when the homecoming 2019 game was going to be October have to slow down a little bit give me some time we'll get to it but the excitement is there because he's so connected with that particular class and so he's done a ton of work along with some other of his classmates they're actually combined as I know the board received letters correspondence there - I believe the class of 68 69 70 and me 67 there's going to be four different classes they've gone so far to find faculty they've gone to the yearbook looking to see if they can find any faculty understanding a sadly a lot would be deceased at this time but they did find

007a few faculty members who are actually planning on coming to the reunion you know so that's their and excited to do so so I actually got a chance to meet with Jack last week weeks ago I think it was and so we talked a little bit about planning what that's going to look like and you know they're really excited to get started we're gonna recognize the football game that night they're looking to do a local some sort of reception whether it be I think probably that Saturday homecoming to do something there myself dr. perilla imagine swimming for the board they really like to speak do some tours we're gonna make that Friday if spirit week which is a kind of interesting day as Maggie talked about that Friday blue and gold week we're gonna bring

008them in anybody that's willing to come come in and get a bit of tours in the building and see classes it's kind of see modern day 50 years later looks like we're gonna make a big event of it that day including the pep rally we're gonna recognize them so we're really gonna celebrate you know 50 50 years his Jack's father was there's a plaque there's several plaque from the building but in 1967 there's a plaque his father was a superintendent or on the board some at some point in Thomas we've actually found the plaque the other day was his dad's name on it from 1967 he was to the board which one it was but we're really excited to help them out and so it's gonna be interesting process homecoming date I thought I'd have

009it by now we don't have it now with a principals meeting next week or decide our league affiliations for next fall we play against hopefully not North Haven again because they did beat us last week but HR to see if we can find any records of current addresses or contact information for any former employees to see if we can get them invited so that's a great an interesting process I'm looking forward to it for next year context right there second thing that dr. burrows doesn't talk about is Annie ask you'll see a lot of stress eating coming my way as I come up here for the next month and a half as we get ready for the descending of these sixteen people from all over the state and actually one for Massachusetts as well as

010they come here December 2nd through the 5th one of the requirements that we're looking to do is that first Sunday December 2nd there's going to be a kind of an afternoon reception so the the visiting team will come to the local hotel that we booked for them they'll meet there initially then they'll come to the high school a Sunday afternoon at that point in time they'll do various activities they'll talk to they'll be at a panel presentation done in the auditorium a combination of students and faculty will do a panel presentation then there's meeting with parents they'd like to talk with a part of Education members I don't have a firm date yet excuse me time yet so what that's going to look like I'm also very aware of some of the issues that could

011go along with that our visiting chair her name is linda van Wagner she was a local superintendent in I believe region 15 I believe she was for a while or I can't remember exactly where she was she was a superintendent in Connecticut she's gonna be the chair of our visiting committee and she's meeting with John and myself and the rest of steering committee next week so hopefully has some more details specifically as to what times we're looking for and then some of those things about you know the board meeting if you all get together and I remember this from our board retreats are we talking a quorum is a support meeting now so we have to be very aware of those sorts of procedures and rules to make sure we're in compliance with everything we

012need to do the role of the visiting committee when they come in these 16 different people is to really take a look at our self-study the work that we've done for the past year and a half evaluating seven different dimensions from core values and beliefs and learning expectations curriculum instruction assessment school culture leadership school resources and for learning and community resources seven standards we've written reports we've collected data we identify strengths and needs and weaknesses things you do get better they're gonna get that reported about a month before those sixteen visiting committee members they're gonna be assigned to a standard and they're gonna be reading it before they come and when they come on that Sunday they dive right in and the goal is for them to come to the school for those next four

013days and validate the self-study that we had they're gonna look to see is this actually happening you know what's going on what can be commended for what are some recommendations of things that we can do to make it better and that's an every ten year process so it's a pretty intensive four days you'll see a very stressed staff I think the part of our most stressed about that Sunday afternoon the visiting chair will pick I believe is 32 different teachers and ask them to come and have a one-on-one conversation with a committee member where they bring their student work and talk about their courses and what they do that starts right on Sunday the parents can animal talk is it's quite an experience be more confident to give you some more specific details as far

014as timing for the responsibilities for the board hopefully everything would lend to next week a better idea this is they're only doing business 2019 2018 and 2019 then after that they stop their 10-year cycle of doing this and they're coming to a more shorter every few years cycle because they find us more valuable this is constant revision and taking a look at what you do rather than every ten years and so the financial burden that goes along with that you know the board was able to approve a significant amount of money you think about single hotel rooms and what it's going to cost for three nights for 16 single hotel rooms that alone is a pretty expensive cost so they're looking to change some of those expectations moving forward but this will be my staff

015will cannot wait till Wednesday December 5th at 2:30 when the presentation is over from the visiting committee and a resounding sheer comes from the crowd as the visiting committee walks out everybody cheers and part of that I've been on both sides Belford when we were visited and we shared as soon as they left and then when I was on a visiting committee and half asleep walking out so good question so what they'll do is they'll they'll actually over the course of those four days believe it or not each of those committee members they usually paired up in a team of two they actually write you know when I was there I think are reported of being something like fifteen pages you write it over the course of four days you don't sleep much as a

016visiting team member and you write a full report that Wednesday afternoon the committee chair will give a kind of general overview not gonna give you specific details as to their actual report compared to our self-study things they found that well the things they think they're probably right after that the chair of the committee actually has takes time it goes through Anne Rice 3s most full report will send edits to me you know so I get a chance to preview it it takes a couple months for that to happen then it goes out to their editors it comes back and then once I have the final report from them then that's when I share with the board and the community so it does take a couple months for that to happen a review process for her

017to write it for me to make sure there's nothing that they missed and give feedback on that which is a nice it's a very collaborative process which is which I appreciate so in case there's some feedback on it and then I imagined by probably before the school years out will have that final report on from the Commission I'm just curious about how do you work with the faculty to get ready for something like what does the process look like when did you start how you engage everybody well this this process they're able to push back the ESP to actually be accredited last year December 2017 we're supposed to be they look for volunteer schools to push back because of all the transitions that it happened in the district I think they gladly didn't have enough

018people to these schools that are on cycle to get value anyway so we gladly said well we'll take that extension and so really since I've been here my first year we didn't do a much work second year we started the process of getting people ready and then really the bulk of last year our time spent doing the self-study we spend time with teachers and faculty meetings we talked about the process so it looks like we do our best to alleviate all kinds of fears that they may have what this looks like we've had enough committee enough staff who have been out on business to themselves that they can really share what it's like is the teacher to come in and be observed because not only will they have those interviews on Sunday they come back

019to school for three straight days so you know they will set them off the student shadows so they may shadow Maddie I might say Maddie you're gonna follow you through three of your classes you'll see the other classes that she's nervous and it's that part with students is really valuable because you know not that you know staff posts they're certainly their best foot forward right when we have these conversations but we know if you really want to talk to the kids and and you'll tell them exactly what's really happening on the building so you know we do our best we got enough experience to the staff that they've been to these visits and try to prepare the teachers as much as possible with possible questions that might be asked we're in the process right now

020collecting sample student work so they're gonna have a heaviness box represents different courses different levels and different rates and that's one of the things we're working on right now getting a thank you and then Thank You mr. Lana and the last thing I have is just to share with Ward in my position as the president in the Western Tennis Association here in this neck was we have a we called a meeting of the legislators that are up for election candidates and we're having a meeting on Tuesday morning over to Dan very high school up there black black box there we really want to share the the work the leading work we're doing in our area with the regional efficiencies group and the work we're doing on a show share with them the good of the

021work we're trying to save the special education transportation recently in technology the collaborate work we're doing with data privacy but also the data privacy some of the other unfunded mandates we want to share with them what unfunded mandates mean and what they actually do to us with specific examples because there is legislation out there and talk is legislation there's proposals out there that may be home legislations about forced regionalization and we want to explain to them in context that we already do this and it works well and to be very careful when legislation is crafted people do not always think of the they certainly don't think of the unintended consequences has today and the layers of bureaucracy and actual costs that was on some things aren't funded say we had that meeting for at nine

022o'clock on Tuesday morning over Danvers just wanted to let you know we're working on that and that is all I have does anybody have any questions gosh all right so can any reports we have facilities first that would like to mention Porter should be table that the next time so mr. Caldwell gave us an update on the HVAC unit the cost of the project most likely exceed $200,000 he'll be meeting with two contractors a structural engineer to determine if any additional work needs to be done to support this unit dr. storm damage update that was Kunia roof repairs are complete the contractor did have to return a couple of times to fix some leaks we review this cool-dude work order report we discussed energy conservation project options and decided to revisit the study done by

023Honeywell two years ago mr. Cole also updated us on the status of the search to fill the maintenance mechanic vacancy and some ongoing projects that are continuing are the high school parking lot wine painting the bleacher inspections gym equipment high school press box senator school playground equipment with senior portables and the bus company building roof if the kappa buzz project to cover the excess cost probably not okay do we have plan blank for it is - I think we need to see we need to see how much it is first and we're still working and we don't have the final report from the structural engineer yet okay because then you know what our options are okay yes thank you thank you many other questions okay yes hey so Finance Committee met on October 9th and

024it was actually a relatively brief meeting we went through the August financial report it's still early in the year but we are seeing some underruns in the salary line because some TANF it's there and we got an update on some of the special ed costs that actually transportation is start we had an overrun the last time we looked at it and that's actually diminishing we're still over but it's less than we thought because of the work of regional so that was a good discussion we asked mr. post if each month long.we did it he would give us a summary of the big pluses and the minuses so we're gonna start with situating that starting in this coming month so we'll be able as we get start going through the year we'll have at least the

025big changes and gonna be able to talk about that more explicitly here but overall the financial the we're actually I believe we will have an opportunity to talk about sending on you know because of the underruns some sending on some things but maybe not as so that's good there's no issues we got an update on sales tax and if you remember we had a member of the public bringing to our attention a lot of information on sales tax and applicability that was good because we actually found a couple of instances and we're working on how we're redoing the in particular the yearbooks and any other items that are above the club levels for tax so but yearbooks is the single biggest one that and that may be actually changing how we sell your books instead

026of having us do the sales tax and collect it and a lot of school districts do that we also reviewed a couple of small funds that are related to the schools that are old not very actively used and there are things that in our budget deliberations over the last couple years we've been wanting to get all of that into our one general fund well there's two that we made a decision to go ahead and cancel out the fund I think there's a plus and one and a minus and another and it'll actually help us so that's actually another chunk of positive news albeit small but can we'll need to bring as specifically a budget change because anything that did flow through that will now have revenues and expenses in our budget so we'll have to

027do a PLUS loan right applause on expenses to appropriately capture that and we agreed to review that in our December meeting and bring it to the board so that's coming we finally we we talked about a special education and particular around Medicaid reimbursement and if you all recall we have an initiative to start being able to get some Medicaid reimbursement for our special education costs and there's been some meetings with different parents groups and you can't insist that's against the against the rules to insist by communicating well what we're trying to do those meetings what we're trying to do here actually getting some people signed up to allow us to do those Medicaid reimbursements it's a good thing for the district so you know if your parents are out there listening we urge you to

028help because it helps you know us provide as much service as we can at the lowest possible cost good and but we're that's still perhaps our biggest budget risk at this point as our budget become much more clear in the next couple of months when we start getting the paints were services that are being mined in september/october because we can get a lot of consent for but they're not and the only other thing we talked about was the what was on the agenda as a budget assumptions document so we'll defer that while we get there so any questions Thank You recommend a motion that the board approve the items on the consent agenda as recommended resignations second okay all in favor I proposed okay old business owner we met as dr. dubrow had mentioned for

029the presentation yesterday at seven o'clock a school project to the Board of Selectmen and Finance I want to thank everybody that worked so hard to bring it to that point and worked with a presentation last night there was a lot of long hours put into that it's appreciated I also wanted to shout out to the BHS Honor Society and Key Club for providing the city services last night that was appreciated and I know a lot of people wouldn't have been able to make it without that following the presentation the the email address went live as far as the address that people can mail in and ask questions that is new school project at Brookfield PS dot org we also posted the presentation online starting our email Q&A because all of the questions that people ask

030will the answer and then post it to the website we are going through all of the questions asked last night by both board members and by the public there were some really great questions that we're asking I think some very valuable answers given so I've just finished compiling all those or fact checking to make sure it's all there now we're gonna start the Q&A by posting all of the questions that were asked last corresponding answers as well next step forward on this will be the Board of Selectmen meeting on November 5th where they will be deliberating the Smith School proposal should they approve it it moves to the Board of Finance they will start their deliberation the November 14th meeting although it made it clear that it's extremely unlikely that they will call about that

031right they want a lot of time it's a it's a big project it is a big commitment a lot of material we're going to be providing them with a lot of material prior to that decision once that is hopefully approved by the Board of Finance then we would set a referendum date preferably early spring we're looking towards March do you think that the confident that we will meet March yes do you mean will they approve it it would have to be a position yeah yes we have to be approved 45 days I believe yes their their goal would be five years well so are they planning on calling special meetings or regular meeting signs I think we've depended upon where they're at their deliberations discussions as to why they would call social media or not

032and one of the other things that was that there wasn't the full financial plan that was I think some of the word ever is exerted when do you anticipate that that's going to be in a folder given to every Board of Finance member within the next few days they are going to have it there's a lot of detail there that we just thought giving it at the special public there just wasn't germane to the conversation they'll have it in their hands probably the next couple of days I believe and the last thing I wanted to say was a huge thank you because I think you did an amazing job sort of taking all of our sort of beliefs and passions for this project and sort of compiling it into a really really easy to understand

033and it's easy to do when you believe in it so passionately I have taken that presentation and we distilled it down into some bullets a narrative points that I think we might distribute to everyone here even just to have some type points to it so hopefully if you should all be sending that out within the next day you're sorry the real detail Colette that or finance numbers in or a selectman knee is the compilation of the town and schools 10 year capital improvement plans and how that all fits and where the gives and takes are you know so if center school is closed and if focal Barre is demolished what does that look like versus you know renovate is new and what does it look over the next four years while we're waiting that projects

034a lot of those kind of questions so the detect item project part of it was the building condition study for the school buildings and so that all those those figures and numbers and projecting out bonding and so forth is really important to the decision making process and a lot of us I'm going to be having theirs to let everybody know that decided thought this is maybe a little premature but since I agree with Rosa the way you described it was so succinct but yet it really hit on all the main points maybe we could think about in addition to handouts and fliers maybe creating like a short little video sort of like reminding maybe with you and John sort of talking about it or maybe with some of the visuals of the potential school in

035the background to second a couple of minutes long but it's something that we could use to sort of put on the website or put on face book page but it just does another way for people to hear the talking points but also maybe see visually I think people got excited when they saw the pictures of what a new school looks like weakened so that in the background with your description I think sort of sends a nice motivating tangible message that we could use that'd be great the feedback I got three moments remember one collapse when you soak right you talk about why should we do this and other were the visuals schools the first many people seen the picture of it but then they shows them what that learning environment was 80 years and 60

036years and and that's the fundamental reason you know that and so this is an opportunity for our town but those are the three things that people heard the most I think that they registered on that number but it's an investment and sort of going back to a little bit about what we're I think again might be a stopping point for some people just building we still have stuff so I don't know at one point in this process or what committee is responsible for doing it but somebody should at some point start pulling in people and saying like listen let's let's say this passes that referendum what we're going to do with this space and kind of getting at least some rough numbers in terms of what is it going to cost to just maintain just

037bare-bones is good central office potentially put some office space in there if it's needed you know so we have to come up with some kind of plant no but yes we do have the figure as to what it would cost it will cost to maintain center school just keeping a title that number we've set as $30,000 which we actually deducted from our energy efficiency number we conservatively added twenty thousand five to make up for any contingencies that may happen maybe any unexpected repairs or something like that so we made $50,000 that will be deducted from our energy savings which is why we only reported two hundred thousand dollars energy sings but yes and that question was asked last night what do we do with it it's harder to include a budget if you don't know

038what it's gonna be it's sometime we do get a little bit more in right maybe producing a video I think that what we need to get us through to the referendum is sort of a comprehensive communication strategy that shows how we're going to deliver information to residents whether it's through town meetings our website our Facebook page mailings videos and I feel like you know saying yes we're putting the presentation on the website is sort of a little passive like people have to go and find it and I don't think I mean we see people don't come out to meetings they so I think to put the onus on them to go digging to find a presentation or to go through our past presentations is making a big assumption that people will take the time to

039do that so I'm thinking of something like maybe once a week or every other week we put something on our Facebook page like an interesting fact or a tidbit about the new school project did you know that you know we're making a fifth grade Academy did you know that we're designing an Early Learning Center did you know that the school will be set up with distinct neighborhoods so that kids don't have to cross through another neighborhood things like that I mean sort of like high-level important facts that will get people excited and will keep them excited from now till the referendum so that yeah unpack all the details so that they don't have to go digging and sifting through past presentations and lots of data and meeting minutes and things that we're very close to

040but the community might not be I think that's a good idea that's really digestible yes share the information in a way that's accessible digestible people could share that with others they can understand it and they can share it I mean that's the beauty of social media they read something and they say look at this they're gonna have a 5th grade academy and they're gonna have you know an enclosed courtyard with whatever I also think you can't just rely on social media either there's a lot of people who don't do that so I'm thinking you know as part of a comprehensive its how do you get something in the delis and then the Panera's and in a shop right you know you work with places where people go so that they know some basic information on

041a poster right or so that size that they can then say where do you go for more information and build excitement right this you know I just and are we gonna go out as one two three of us at a time and offer to go meet with community groups either neighborhood groups or organizations or like I don't since we're organized we're so focused on this meeting that was going on we got and it's got to be in parallel to the Board of Finance and Board of Selectmen not after agreed now should that development of the communication plan be the responsibility of one of our one of our subcommittees or should we do that together I think we should sort of determine where that might happen and then then we can all figure out how we

042can participate sitting on a board of that job or is it interesting question technically it's the NBC ad-hoc committee and we haven't work on the communication plan but we certainly have the direction that we can go forward with that and so I think things like this are valuable yeah I'd love to take over I would love to have a role and I think we need as many people out talking as we can so so yeah let we'll pull something together pull everyone in I'm not sure if the communications subcommittee has discussed at all but you love to have those ideas as well and we'll go forward from there and maybe we can present it to the board and see if the board has any other ideas or suggestions that can go forward with it and

043then the obvious question that goes along with that is who pays for those communications how do you know how do we how do we create a video and do mailings and create posters and the mailings will come from the town we've discussed that it'll be you know it can be set up from mainly the the ad hoc committee approved by all of the boards it would go out after obviously after the Board of Finance has approved it so we have a definite referendum date that we can do it we have to be very very careful with that mailing because it can not suggest how someone should vote during the referendum at all we have to just lay out the facts it has to be cleared by council and everything else because if you do any

044suggestions or both then you then you really run into issues but you're referring to that one piece of mail writes out and informs people right in the forum about the project you can have you can have two pages of facts we can say what does the building gonna look like well how does it affect the taxpayers what is the date what are we could even just put everything that we had in a presentation the advantages of the new school proposal we just can't say this is why you should vote for it we can just put out the facts and that's it so it's a fine line you know we'll run it through council but but it's it's done because it's not all the time but before that right then you then you start getting into

045a cost implication so we'll have to examine everything yes there might be but it would but there is a huge time commitment I don't have anybody who have ever been in any kind of video production but a two-minute video can take days to make you just need to understand that isn't what you see is not what goes on behind the scenes and for every minute we spend on this project which is critically important we're not smart I as administration and not spending running the district and the other things we need to do so this is a huge undertaking and to to alleviate people from feeling they had to dig for information a very simple message was sent out to everyone on our open community list today for school message which had the actual video that

046was live streamed last night of the presentation the presentation itself the Facebook and the website and everything on there and on the website and the Facebook page for this project everything from two years ago when we first started this project it's archived there's anybody's really interested could could dig around but in terms of the surface things that were just recently out there right there for everybody to just click on it happen there I just want everybody to know that but Clint and I are more than happy to pursue this for sure there's no doubt about that in that regard and bring along anybody who's interested in putting fliers together and having meetings getting the word out in meetings sitting in the library as a matter of fact Thursday I'm scheduled we haven't advertised this yet

047because you people can't take that many emails and things that come out on them either we have to be cognizant of that I'll be at Panera with dr. Cipolla next Thursday morning not only to talk about learning and general things that are going on here talk part of public office hours but we'll invite people if they want to talk about the building project and what's going on so we'll be there I'll try not to eat too much and I'll watch my calories yeah so said subscribe to the town wide email also get the presentation sent to them today as well which it's I think it's helpful for those that maybe are not within the school district and in for those not within the school district we get it out to Helen del Valle the social

048services mr. Don and they they posted on the town website and everywhere else as best we can so we do get it out there so just to be clear because I'm still a little confused is so the NBC is going to handle a larger communication strategy or should we have a parallel one for the Board of Ed in terms of our communication my assumption is that it will be handled with the NBC ad-hoc committee but I certainly think we need to take suggestions here and perhaps even duck some of it into this it's a good one to flesh out it's a good one to determine thank you I think we would have a better path forward to the next week or two because I think we can do a lot on this point as a

049board I will say when we did the high school edition that were at least three to five minutes so don't don't under under estimate the amount of communication we needed so we did this two referendums on that project so that book part of why there were a lot of mailings but the it is a lesson learned right this is the biggest investment the town will make in forever we've never made an investment that's large in our history and probably won't make something that's large in our foreseeable future so this is a big deal for a town like this it's a great deal for a count like this you know and the big scheme of things but there's got to be a lot of people who are going to look at it and say that's a

050lot of money and I just got to make sure I'm really comfortable with it and and so it's it's important to communicate in every way we can everywhere we can I agree so I don't know if the policy communications is kind of tacked on a policy committee because we thought communication start would be somewhat small now the policy parts pervading and it looks like communication part is getting kind of big but if if you guys want to send stuff my way and we can talk about it at our commune excommunications meeting next month and then I can bring compile those and kind of bring them here so that at this point meeting next time we can kind of go through them a little bit I don't know if that's what you guys want to do

051not just like ideas but like a little legwork behind it but yeah I don't know that's select send ideas suggestions yes eventually I think the idea would be to come up with our our communication strategy for this board so and how that can sort of dovetail into the bzees yeah yeah yeah I think that's important yeah I think that's great thank you yeah okay any other discussion these are all great points thank you everyone okay moving on to new business then we have a recommended action for a district enrollment report so dr. Ruth okay so you have a memo that was sent in the Friday packet and then we say thank you pass on a hard copy of the second page which is a chart there was a couple of errors that I posed that

052we wanted to correct so what this is is the annual october 1 element report on october 1 we report our student enrollment information to this Department of Education and so therefore on following meeting we report that to the Board of Education well and our enrollment is on this chart and memo is for four years so 15 16 16 17 17 18 and this current year exactly how we're doing on the the enrollment update if you could turn to the actual chart I think it's really important for everybody to take a take a look down the chart and it goes left to right starting with center school at the top and then finishing with the number of students who are currently out placed after the high school and as you can see just year-to-year looking at

05317 to 18 there are some classes where we're down 7 or 20 students and others where we're up similar 39 students were off in seventh grade for example compared to the year before again those are Bubble classes that are traveling through the big takeaway here is that there's been a lot of talk over the years that that enrollment was on a steep decline and really we're not seeing that as the case we're actually up 12 total students across the district if you look at our students who are out placed that is that number is up by 8 which matches where we work for the middle and end of last year and all the conversation we had about our special education budget you'll also notice the very bottom of the page there are three particular subgroups

054that we pay attention to special education English language learners and free and reduced lunch and I will in a minute be inviting both Ken and Christine to talk a little bit more in detail about two of the categories but in special education the students who we in total were up as of October 1 compared to last act over 120 students identified as needing special services in English our English language learner enrollment is up by 15 that is 15 more students who have moved in who are identified with English language learning and then free and reduced lunch you'll see a significant increase and there's an explanation very straightforward explanation to that that can could speak to around free and reduced lunch which is the qualification that's been changed by the state we were at 278 students

055last year and that number for free and reduced is 496 students this year which is up 218 students wishes whoa that's a doubling of where we work ken can you explain how students qualify and families all of our that sure we there's three different ways one is direct certification from the state where they have they tell us that a family qualifies another way is that if family an application that we get from the US Department of Agriculture that has set income limits for families and another number of folks in the household and what their income is and they can qualify that way and then in the spring of last year the State Department of Education declared every every child who had somebody in the household Medicaid eligible was now eligible for free or reduced lunch

056regardless of income requirements and that caused this a huge increase in those children eligible well can't has the floor was any questions on that just are you aware we're seeing a bigger increase than other districts on this or is everybody seen a big district similar to ours are seeing similar rise and it has led to increased participation in the lunch program also tails right that's a good thing but then speech just just as an example I can't explain what happens so we have this increase which is based on state change and requirements and so we have more therefore more participation in our food program so then can share what happened when we talk about red tape and bureaucracy and what we have to deal with we potentially get into a position where we have a

057separate lunch fund bank account for this and all the revenues come in there and expenses to pay out of it and we have a healthy balance in that account right now and due in large part to this increased participation we may end up with the state and declare too much money in the bank account we're supposed to have up to three months costs in a bank account so we actually have to report to the state what our strategy will be to turn on that and I think that was that was done we had healthy balance before but in large part from from this move increased our participation so increased our revenue so it's really the situation it's just important for the board and the public to know that the state makes us follow a new

058requirement we follow it which has a unintended consequence that then they asked us for corrective action on later that was caused by the state's original decision so this is this is the constant process that we're going through all the time frankly gets tiring but having said that I'd like to invite dr. swallow up if there's no other questions regarding the free and reduced lunch increase to the special education enrollment increase dr. Cipolla could explain a little bit about that well dr. Paul's coming off it sure having a general question about these are they pretty much in line with what we built our budget on or were there any grades that's significant great question about and I should have said that we're a little above malong in the brooms forecastle were pretty much right with our

059forecast because we're rolling grades up and we really landed um pretty pretty square on kindergarten as well and as a follow up dr. Ruby with the principals are doing their class size analysis and they'll be reporting on that November 17 I think this is about where we projected it during our budget presentation question could we get a copy of the corrected enrollment report sent to us or is it because you gave that no one in our board pie or lecture course yes because our board packet has the one that is directed since then right so that could be sent that'd be great dr. Saul I want to share a little more info and then answer any questions you have regarding our special education population so our current population is just over 14% at a 14

060point - precisely that's a little bit of an increase from last year we have 20 additional students in our total count over last year it is really in line with a statewide trends a average percentage of students in special education statewide has also increased we are still below the state average of 14.5 percent but that is a trend statewide that more students are being identified with disabilities and in need of specialized services we also have a larger preschool program than last year so last year on October 1st we had six fewer preschoolers than we had this year on October 1st so we do we have an ever growing preschool program we also have a number of students are about 20 students in Brookfield who currently receive birth to three services we've received seven referrals so

061far that brings us to about June so we do anticipate our preschool to continue to grow throughout the year as children turn 3 we're already starting this year with a much larger preschool program than we did last year so that is part of the reason I also want to share that our staff has been working really hard to identify student learning needs and social emotional needs and that has been demonstrated in a couple ways one we're actually working on our SR VI which is our scientifically researched based intervention programs that's not special ed but it is very much connected to this we are trying to identify academic concerns and social emotional behavioral concerns and address those to give you some insight into what that looks like for special education last year between October 2nd of

0622017 and June 30th of 2018 so basically after this account that we shared with you for the October 1st numbers we actually had a 105 referrals for special education and about in evaluations for initial vows first time students have been identified been referred 50 of those students qualified so we are doing a lot of evaluations to determine and to make sure we understand student needs and then we're really working hard to address those needs so that's part of the story for why there are more special education students I think it does reflect and I really want to stress I think it reflects what's happening in other communities as well are there any questions about whether district numbers well I think it is listed there I don't have those numbers changed sometimes daily so someone comes

063in and someone comes back at the same time but but we are in the range where you know we sort of anticipated an important thing about that number is these are students who attend school outside of Brookfield so some of them and that 31 it doesn't mean they're all attending private special education programs some of them are attending magnet programs or other regional programs but they have eight he's worse we're responsible for them and that's why they're captured in that number so it is right now in line with what we expected and did you see the growth in any particular building or was it more in special ed or is it more spread across the district so you don't have a breakdown of buildings where we see the this bubble is really our preschool age

064students our preschools is really at maximum capacity now we're gonna make we are we're we have a lot of plans for how we're going to make sure that all of those services are provided but to have six additional preschoolers from last year is a big deal we have one preschool classroom so we have a special education teacher we also have a regular education teacher who co teaches and and provides a lot of literacy instruction preschool students do not all attend you know they attend the year in the morning or the afternoon they don't all attend five days it's really individualized based on the students needs so our overall capacity and pre-k if you look here we have forty four current students in preschool that doesn't mean there are 44 students in that room at once

065we have one room and students do have schedules we do not have more than 20 students there at a time and that 44 represents the typical as well as the special ed students are just as special that students typical suits thank you well and in terms of different peers yes so typical peers actually we really need to balance that so generally if I said that if I say that there are 20 students in a classroom we we need that to be 10 typical peers and 10 students with disabilities typically so that number is a little bit more we know who we're typical peers are those students have entered there's a waiting list maybe students might leave in the middle of the year and we may have openings it's the students with disabilities that will be

066adding throughout the year because we are required to provide them with a free and appropriate education one-day turn 3 so student majoring 3 next week they may turn 3 the first week in June and they're both entitled to start preschool and receive those services when they turn right so that is we expect the increase in students with high ep's throughout the year thank you so for looking at almost to capacity now we probably dr. Roe might be seeing a new pre-k teacher in the prelude it is coming okay just pray that anymore to provide all the services that our preschoolers you we're going to be seneschal need this year one of the things that we did with the help of mrs. diamond is knowing that our numbers have been increasing from year to year and

067annexed and knowing that we expected to have a large preschool program we actually moved one of the kindergarten classrooms from right next in preschool to another to just adjacent to other kindergarten classrooms but in a different space so we freed that space that's right next to the preschool and we were utilizing that space now to provide some individual and small-group instruction to preschool students our staff is our staff is working in that space right now so we were already sort of thinking that through because we do want to make sure that our two preschools are if we have to be school food we ever need that are going to be in the same area and we're utilizing that space now for preschool instruction thank you thanks - fall so it depends so we do generally

068have our three-year-olds attending in the morning in our furrows attending in the afternoon but it's more a general guideline and not a rule we do individualize and we have to make sure if we put all of our three-year-olds in the morning sometimes you wouldn't have enough service providers in the morning so we actually do have some three-year-olds coming in the afternoon and vice versa but the general rule of thumb is is three-year-olds in the morning furrows in the afternoon and then we individualize based on student need and also be Cerner our capacity or service provider schedules it's interesting I was looking not only from class to class comparison from one year to the next but also as the class matriculate so last year's first graders to this year second graders and it seems like that's

069it it seems like last year's first second and fifth grade is where we're getting the largest jumps in that and obviously if it's you know that it may be those moving into the community for looking at ones from this year prior are there any um grades that because of the increase student I know a lot of this increase we captured in spring time when we did an enrollment report in spring time but uh there are there any grades that are borderline as far as in grade capacity classroom capacity we're gonna really cover that in depth next meeting can has some preliminary numbers just in terms of enrollment was there anything particularly you wanted to share no fourth in second next month next month but we we don't anticipate right now based on these numbers looking

070at increases in the regular education classroom teachers okay thank you thank you any other questions for dr. Breeland regards to the report okay moving along we have the preliminary budget discussion and goals okay so you have a Lisa did you pass out this yes there was a change to under operations in facilities Bob so those of you on the Finance Committee sure get rid of the old one what we talked about yes so there was a change from Friday there's six schools now under operations and facilities rather than five so I added a piece there for us to have a conversation about this evening so in preparing annually what we've done is at this at this particular meeting in October our second meeting October to prepare and really provide some guidance for for myself and

071the the team going into the budget development so we have a proposal for the first meeting in December is to transparently talk about assumptions going forward in the budget things that we believe in there's not much change on this first page from last year but I'd like to just walk through some of the budget assumptions under underneath the first old bullet there is to support the strategic coherence plan the board recognizes its responsibility to develop the 2019 2020 operating budget and that budget would provide sufficient appropriate resources promote continuous improvement afford us sufficient flexibility to respond to changing needs and contingencies for excuse me provide for necessary maintenance and improvement of our school facilities and it represents value in the eyes of the community and it's important that the board's operating budget do the following

072maintain our commitment to ensuring appropriate district and school organizational structures that support intentional implementation of our strategic plan maintains and continues to enhance established program improvements while remaining responsive to changing needs that goes right hand-in-hand with enrollment and other needs that we see that come up continues to attract and retain highly competent faculty and staff within a culture that fosters professional learning seeks to maintain board approved practices concerning class size while adjusting staffing patterns to reflect any changes in enrollment we just talked about that with pre-k provides the necessary resources to address social and emotional needs that is a big push this year is an actual professional goal of mine but also the goal of the district and especially K through 8 but along with the work at the high school that's going through provides

073for rigorous relevant curriculum using best practices in instruction assessment and digital learning all the curriculum design work you hear about that quite often all the work with cape and our teachers it's just amazing what's going on providing technology infrastructure and professional learning that effectively supports student success in our digital learning environment we have Eric here often and our big budget investment and all the things we're doing with technology I just complained a little bit about bureaucracy meeting all federal and state mandates including individual disability Education Act meets all funding requirements for contractual obligations including transportation contracts leases with technology and of course our union agreements our collective bargaining agreements provides funding to meet all requirements of board of education policies and practices and reflects continued and cost containment efforts including participation in the regional efficiencies

074group there's a lot there lots of digests but it also is reflective of what we've done over the last years in terms of assumptions similarly we've had some adjustments in what I'm putting forward as a proposal to the board in terms of our priorities as we start to think and hone our budget development for 19 and 20 you'll see in here the reoccurrence of things that we try to get through in the budget last year and we bring those back and then other areas where we need to move forward we start with curriculum assessment and instruction that's our core work as we talked about with walkthroughs and so forth and what goes on in the classroom is most important we talked about we talked about leadership and then we have another section on our operations

075and facilities so in terms of curriculum instruction and assessment we want to make sure we've talked about this over the years this has been an area of trying to get some real strong resources behind is establishing classroom libraries k3 that are aligned to the standards and the integration of the curriculum we are designing number two we from last year wanted to implement a world language lab at the middle school that would be a mobile lab and we weren't able to do that so we push that forward number three continue to support our faculty capacity development aligning to student assessments and teacher evaluation dia and there's a lot of professional development that goes into that we want to invest in that number four offer this is something dr. Ruby and I have been waiting to start

076the planning for over the last couple of years and we want to make sure we offer a regular education summer school program to improve outcomes for our struggling learners K through 3 and we would propose and will develop a plan share with you down the road that we want to really focus on reading in the first summer that we do that we currently have extended school year for our students with special that qualify with special needs but we don't have a regular ed opportunity for our struggling learner we do have a pay-as-you-go summer school for high school students with credit recovery and so forth and that's something we do through the rescue and advance but we don't have an actual regular ed summer school for our struggling learners also number five continue to develop assessment

077literary of literacy of our professional staff as you know we put the assessment system in place our staff is really becoming more and more versed in that and utilizing that data more and more to plan their instruction we still need work in that area there's a lot to learn there ok never stop learning in that area continues to support a curriculum development to the the standards aligned work many of you were present to actually meet dr. Alcock when she did a presentation makino at the beginning of the year we have formally trained teachers and our principals are also involved in that work and our other administrators number eight analyze outcomes of standards-based grading to develop standards based reporting with support of intensive professional learning so as dr. ruby has reiterated many times people like to

078jump to standards-based report cards but you can't have any of that unless you have standards aligned curriculum standards aligned instruction standards aligned assessment standards aligned grading and then standard standards aligned reporting you have to do that in sequence and we're developing that so we want to continue toward that number nine research and identify inclusive process for curricular tools to support our curriculum at the high school specifically in science and in k-12 social studies I know there was some science work at Kate just last night that will bring me forward at the next meeting offer an additional language to propel high school develop in-house analytics for our data warehouse fully implement Rubicon Atlas which houses our curriculum work implement integrated enrichment model what we have the consultant that's given us some help here at the beginning

079of the year and we want to implement I talked about this is the last meeting integrated enrichment model and also update our tag identification process and we'd like to start that we're gonna develop a plan I will be asking for resources to support this going forward in the budget and develop a plan starting small likely in the third fourth grade area next year and then of course building the program year after year and of course bringing in a consultant help us examine school start times so under all of the instructional areas the 14 big areas and I will certainly align I will propose a budget for you in early December under leadership we want to continue to invest in developing our administrative leadership capacity through the training we're doing to analyze instruction and provide targeted

080feedback for our teachers again we've worked on that for three years we're continuing that this year and it's an area we still need to work on and again one of those areas you never can be perfect at and how do we supervise how do we evaluate as a matter of fact we're spending the day many of us are spending the day on Friday and some training on working on that and then finally under operations and facilities we want to support the municipal building committee as we talked about a great deal tonight to evaluate analyze and plan for a facility reorganization and that obviously has to do with the building project we want to collaborate with the Cape subcommittee and our educational leaders to identify space configurations to support creativity and innovation again this goes with

081the evolution of the development of the new school project again conceptual design was the final conceptual design was presented last night we're a long way away from Ed specs but there's a lot we can do to build excitement and real solid program going forward number three implement safety and security plan of the school district and this would be inclusive of the recommendations of our security task force that we started last spring a number of you are on that task force and we also have some community members from manufactory meeting tomorrow morning we've really identified some trends and themes and that the committee will have some recommendations moving forward that may include a resource investment we want to continue with our technology in terms of increasing our while wireless capacity for the district continue to upgrade

082the presentation and digital and a great presentation stations and our digital integration for technology and then finally advocate plan for the upgrade of athletic facilities athletic fields and our facilities there's a lot there I talk a lot any questions thoughts other things this is apropos this is a proposal for me and we certainly can make adjustments this evening and as we go there's a lot of there it's a lot to do and so just a smooth continuation of what we've been working on exciting times in brookfield always exciting Thanks so as we get going on this big project the facilities are weak should we have gated project leader on our team who's focusing in on all of these requirements and all the needs that kind of keeps us well coordinated or is that part of

083a project plan and the soft boss or how do we stop at all I'm not I'm not sure how to specifically answer that but maybe you can ask that differently well of me that long yeah let me give it as an example when the town embarked on the streetscape for four corners which is beautiful by the way and there's a lot of new building and they have to have a project plan that had submissions for grants it had a lot of requirement documents so stuff they hired a person full-time in Gretna bow ski who ran that project managed it is a project with all the requirements dealt with all the possible interfaces and kept it moving do we need someone on our staff that is going to coordinate all the forms you're going to need

084to do all the submissions to the state and the Department of Education people all the things that happen does the absolutely do that so we've got you bet there's I think there's two layers to that question that I think I should actually I don't know if the the two layers will answer you're one of them will definitely answer your questions so the first part of that is the architect that actually is hi-c the tectum architects is helping us develop this initial concept but there will be a bid process for you know once this is moved forward from referendum if that all goes well and we passed referendum a bid process will have to happen where we hire an architect to actually design the building with all the add sites they will do all of the

085shepherding of the project through the state grant process and the like in the design then one of the things we talked about it was a learning from the high school project ten years ago is that we need to as a town and as I imagine have to come from the NBC Bob to hire and I'm it's my term I don't know if this is the exact term we use but a a general contractor that has the interest of the town in mind but I kept hearing terms like the educational standards and me that you know you know teaching needs that go into the project it feels to me like it would be a lot of work for either our school principal I'm looking at her or or looking at them I should say there's two

086of them here or are our educational staff who were thinking about what is it I want to do with that open space I mean as I was thinking about this when we were talking about the fishbowl you know they remember that conversation last night you know it's great to have an insight open space but what do we really want it to feel like and look like do it you know they you know so that the educators are feeling like it's a very useful and productive space so I'm not sure I'm what an architect making that decision who's on our staff who makes those decisions yeah so so thanks morning so that that is that is us as well as working with the architect in terms of the physical design but it's us looking at what

087are we trying to accomplish with our strategic plan um I've had a number of teachers have already volunteered themselves to be a part of that I don't want people to forget that two years ago when we initiated the project and I know there was a bit of a hiatus we had teachers in talking about these kinds of spaces these more contemporary spaces and how we could best utilize them and what they saw um one of the things that's interesting just as an aside teachers talked about was natural lighting and acoustics they talked about it and Dean and I can speak to this I know we're getting a little older Dean but there were times when the heater was on the ventilation unit wasn't on and a student was talking a teacher was talking depending on

088the corner of the room you're in you can't hear what's going on and so acoustic design is very important but the other piece is dr. Alcott Murray Alcott who's doing our curriculum design work with us not only are we building in the integrated enrichment into that but we're also looking at she's all over the world and she's actually the recommended some literature for me is as well and dr. Ruby and I are looking at educational spaces contemporary spaces the administrative team is reading a book called bolt moves that I will be sharing the Board of Education as well and there is a whole chapter on the physical space an environment japanesey actually does work in concert with architects school architects folks that just build schools all over the world and in some of the presentations

089that we've all been to she slips these really enticing slides of some of these amazing schools that have been built that she's consulted on and we did have a brief conversation with her in the spring about you know engaging her in thinking through some of these spaces with us so that the design of educational space alliance with the curriculum that we're developing okay so my my question was actually I think that's right there's a lot of a lot of input becau into designing the space with one my question was much more into this point on that is there the detailed sets of things that need to go on in our space that needs staff and that's really my question I'm not gathering we have an answer to that right now but I would ask the

090architect how many forms you're gonna be asking me to fill out and sign off on how many you know how what's my our role in going to the state versus your role in the state I mean I don't trust I mean anybody use the word trust I don't trust that that architects gonna carry everything on their own back without getting stuff from us and I don't think I don't love to sink our teachers or administrators simply because we in that's that's my question then so I'm just worried about that level of detail Kokomo building project it can be extraordinary and I can just say that that's a I think that's great thinking because having worked and you know I'm sure we've all done this in our personal lives when you are having something done in

091your own property and add that to the scale of you know a million dollar in a million two million dollars for a school building but when you talk to contractors you ask them those questions like you know who's known the Town Hall and getting all these things who's filling out all the state papers what do you need when you're going into wetlands and things like that and some what I found in my experience is and I I won't the guy that was gonna do everything for me and had a punch list and had references to do that so it's very anything it varies with the contractor the general contractor that you're working with so we have to ask those questions well there's an architectural phase on the data track my T's and they're both going

092to be important I remember that this is a story there was a point in time on the high school edition where there was a extraordinary amount of coordination that needed to go between guy working on the wells pumps control station and it was interesting because it was a coordination issue but what was also interesting to me is well what we want was a common question you know so Dan would be the sort of person who would really understand how to get in there and understand that but there's going to be a hundred and fifty of those questions you know do you want this kind of weight or do you want that kind of weight or whatever where do you want the plugs for the for the presentation station do you need the switches work in

093an Islamic way you know as a zillion things that go like your example doing it in your own house is perfect and say they come to you with your punch list of all the questions they want to ask us digging and they hit ledge you don't want them asking you all the questions that's correct okay well your I had just building off of kind of what you said Bob there's one thing we have to keep in mind for the budget maybe not next year or the year after but we're going to spend all of this money on a fabulous new school with fabulous new spaces we got to make sure we're continuing investing in professional learning that helps teachers and supports them on how do you teach within that I think it would be a

094huge waste of resources if we don't that is not hand in hand with building so dr. al-qaeda critical design the tiny that's all I think I've had that conversation no matter how wonderful and new the building is it's not gonna magically make students higher achievers and it's not going to magically make teachers the the greatest show on earth and it's constant professional learning absolutely it's that the new building is not a panacea for that I don't wanna make sure that's quick and thanks for saying that Jen because you know when the budget comes out and people look at professional development again yeah it's always gonna be there if you want to continue to have a robust learning experience for children it's not something like how many more years of this PDR we're gonna have that's

095that's forever sorry No thank you having a disagreement here by the way it's same in other disciplines to fascinate that Police Department we used to always have the training program that we needed to have or do you have a well then it didn't have to be there every year same kind of concept about to your point just onto your mark but not exactly address your point we are fortunate that on the NBC we do have school architects and one of them so we do have someone that straddling some of those and live through the high school yes and and so they they are straddling those many different skills that are required okay I'm just looking through the curriculum assessment and instruction list and you know many of these things are are initiatives that we wanted

096to get in this budget season didn't get and the one thing I see that I'm thinking maybe we might want to add is you know specific objective to support our ll learners if you look at the enrollment report you know those numbers are steadily climbing and I think instead of bide your time saying well do we hire another teacher do we hire two Parros do we hire two teachers we how do we how do we manage and support this population I think it would be helpful to see that as a specific objective I thank you for that Deb and you know in the assumptions on the other page we do reference changing dynamics based on enrollment and that kind of thing so that gets at that but specifically we could put a piece there on

097that I really welcome that and as well while it wasn't here as a specific objective based on the assumptions based on factors Apollo's report tonight we already told you you know one of the things we'll be asking for is a degree a teacher so I mean that's something we could specifically put there so while these are kind of general goals the budget proposal would have a specific and resources so I'm open to however the board might like me to finalize this so it can be accepted as is in you know with modification or Roth after about four seven to have a final you know another dress this final green light we have time to have another draft it'd be great okay doesn't editions doesn't change anything on what you're doing knows exactly no you're already

098under way under budget and we can honestly um you know I always think our forefathers whoever came up with the subcommittee system because the reality is we as teams from each subcommittee it's Kate or policy or finance or facilities we're all talking to each other all the time so really none of this is a surprise and so obviously welcome the feedback but these are the things we're thinking about pre-k enrichment summer school there is a health requirement coming down the pike made me require some resources mr. Blandon mr. Bolton our P health coordinator and athletic director are working on that well language I mean there's some areas where we might have to invest and certainly resources to train teachers and and materials for ll students and perhaps a ditional tutor or something like that maybe

099thinking about yeah I agree that I think there should be something at least just so that it's in writing that we have something I know we're going to continue to support our special education population and we may need to add things to that but I think if it's actually listed as one of our already is along with that it's sort of you can you just I know figure out in one bullet point something about special populations or something like that I think that would be helpful okay thank you very much great feedback so was a one of the speakers light at last night's meeting talked about universal pre-k is there anything going on in terms of assessing whether or field should start down that path or not I think I'm going to say I asked

100after Ruby to step in a little bit on this one but what's so happy about that well but no but before that I'd like that I'd like to start by saying it's really important to understand just like a new building is not a panacea for higher student achievement kind of people inside the building and that comes from from training and love and dedication a preschool program Universal for four-year-olds for example there there are many things to think about it has to be a true long-term investment it has to be a vision that has years in the making in years and the planning it isn't something you just quickly do just frankly it's more complicated but like school start times your cake will just change the times it's not that simple number one there's the pragmatics

101and and all of the things that go into our community and where we're at the other piece is it takes resources preschool teachers are not non-certified people that maybe work in a daycare and we can just have that with the students for the day that's not the truth pre-k program a pre-k program has certified teachers in the state of care that are part of our regular teaching faculty and the resources have to be there for them and also there's a lot aren't talked a great deal about me ask accreditation it's a great deal accreditation and a long bureaucratic process that goes into developing a pre-k program so those are some things people need to understand the complications and the complexities in long term vision we're going to need if we think that's where this district

102can go the other caveat I put in there speaking realistically and learn experience we don't get everything we asked for in the budget it's hard to fund some of the have twos that we have going on here and we're always asked to take away to get other things in the budget so we could want and want and wanting even if it's a real need many times it's not funded and we have to think about the context in which we live as well and what do we have to do with what's already in line and then what do we think we really would like to do it'd be really good for us and move forward on that so those are things we would you know takes a lot of planning a preschool program you'll you'll see

103jumps and achievement right off the bat many times when you bring in your four-year-olds but you have to have continues professional development you have to have tremendously high qualified people to have like that I think I probably said a lot of what after ruby was going to say that they fought about it because we got it this morning I mean it's on everybody's mind so I'll let you Adam thank you so having experience with with preschools I did a had a four million dollar federal grant when I was in higher ed where I spent three years doing preschool work and it's very complicated some of the things that John I talked about was you know the certified teachers the a lot of the preschools in our area are Nayak certified which we would want to

104be that's something that takes you years it's like the process that the high schools going through and the curriculum for preschool is quite involved so I am a proponent of of you know universal preschool but I also know from working in preschool that it's it's something that takes as John said years of planning and then there's the impact that it has on that community and so you have to like play nice in the sandbox with the people in the community who have businesses that are running preschools and talk to the community about you know what's the tolerance for and the need for a preschool because preschool is typically half a day and a lot of preschools that have a daycare attached with it people can bring their children at 6:00 in the morning and pick

105them up at 6:00 at night if that's what they need that's not the same in a problem school preschool program hi there for half a day and then those kids have to go someplace else so you have to do a lot of coordination not only about the educational piece but with fitting into the community and the other community services so I think that it's a lot - you know it's a lot to bite off at once it's something that really if there's an appetite for that we need to start talking about it we need to plan for it long range in a building but - but it's going to take really years it's not like we just open up a preschool thank you very good that's if this if the state had said like New

106York City said you know they're gonna have universal pre-k so if Connecticut said we're gonna have universal pre-k and then there would be state funding associated with it I'd hope but amazingly New York City they they said it and they did it a year later and I can I know that results are very uneven Tennessee did the same yeah so and it seemed like it was very chaotic yeah and they may be relaxed and regulations it's an article that I sent to John last night because I happen to have it on my phone because I've been reading at a couple weeks ago was about the effects of preschool on later academic outcomes and just like anything mean this is not you don't have to be you know a rocket scientist to figure this out it

107all has to do with quality and so the article I'll be happy to send it to whoever wants to read it it was looking at when Tennessee went wholesale on pre-k and really didn't work very well because of the quality of the programming that they did and I think the other state that they were comparing was Maryland when they did it they did in a much different way and so you'll see that children who go to what you'd call a high quality preschool that's you know I have accredited and the curriculum is in line with the state standards those children do have increased academic success but after about second or third grade usually second grade it all evens out the kids that went to preschool these really good preschools and the kids that did not

108there's a flattening and they're a lot of hypotheses about why that happens if children come if you have to differentiate for all these children that in your class and I think the people who teach younger grades can attest to this it's not malicious or intentional but if I got this child who didn't have a good preschool experience and is really needy and this child over here who went to you know Yale preschool and she's like a head I have to spend more time with him and giving her things you know other things to do and then after a while I catch him up and everybody it's an even playing field so you have to provide a lot of professional development to those early learning teachers so that they are they can differentiate for this child

109who's ahead and this child who needs more help so that they continue to grow at their own pace and that were we're not coming to that leveling out because a lot of the studies show that that's what happen so not only doing the PV and the planning for the preschool but there's a lot of professional learning that has to be provided to the kindergarten first and second grade teachers when you're bringing when everybody has that preschool experience that's in your town and then there's those couple of kids that we know roughly what percentage of our kindergarteners have been to preschool oh yeah like a high percentage over to sue but it's much higher than like eighty percent the percentage for students who have had preschool experience there Kenny orders now yeah we have that information

110be interesting to see then we start to identify the need to terms of who's not going to preschool and then why to have preschool available to everybody live in Brookville and have them all in our really excellent program so there's a lot of work that together and don't forget we do need to be sensitive to the to do that to the community impact on other people its businesses and one last thing Oh because I'm working out with the preschools in town a lot of them are religious they're affiliated with churches and so parents might that might be a choice that parents are making for their children in that particular you know stage of development that they want them at this Luther school or the school because they have an affiliation with that school or they

111just have a belief and we have to read you know if to be knowledgeable about that and respect that okay thank you great any other questions discussions regards so if we can make those changes alright thank you thank you alright three main points and seeing as it exactly have three different items on our old earning business oh yeah let's eat presentation would be one the yeah yeah the new school and then just maybe that would give us an opportunity to to direct to the Facebook page and then email address everybody agree with there that's good all right upcoming events so we have two items that we have to worry about so there will be no school for students on Tuesday November 6 professional development for teachers at Center elementary school the PTO fall social is

112tomorrow October 18th from 5:30 to 7:30 evening conferences are on Monday October 29th and Thursday November 1st from 5 to 8 afternoon conferences are on Friday November 2nd from 1 to 3 at huckleberry fall conferences are on Monday October 29th Thursday November 1st and Friday November 2nd all three days students are dismissed at 12:15 there's a PTO meeting on Friday November 2nd from 9:30 to 10:30 at the Middle School the annual walkathon is tomorrow Thursday October 18th from 1:00 to 2:30 the PSAT for 8th graders is on Tuesday October 23rd from 8 to ten teen lengths 6th grade field trip so they can get science centers on Wednesday October 24th and the teen Bearcats sixth grade field trip to the Connecticut Science Center is on Thursday October 25th the parent assessment meeting is on Thursday

113October 25th from 9 to 10 the book fair is the week of October 29th redwood Red Ribbon Week is also the week of October 29th and there's a 5th grade field trip to the Richfield Playhouse on Thursday November 1st from 9:00 to 11:30 at the high school there's a freshman forum on Tuesday October 23rd from 6:30 to 9 in the auditorium the instrumental band shows on Friday October 26th Saturday October 27th and Sunday October 28th from 5 to 10 with a 7 o'clock start in the auditorium in auditions for the spring musical are on Monday October 29th and Tuesday October 30th from 2 to that's how about that's happening thank you yes all right we have executive session recommend a motion that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing a lawsuit

114filed by former superintendent Anthony Bivona and confidential student matter second favor opposed okay this concludes the public session of our meeting thank you all very much for attending have a great evening [Music]