001[Music] we have five of our board members present tonight Joyce on vacation Jen is at a work obligation so first on our agenda is public comment we do have one individual signed up of Kayleigh Frank keely frame for can really drive Board of Education I was a 2016 graduate of Brookfield high and I will be entering my junior year at UConn this fall as part of my curriculum at UConn as a Spanish in speech language and hearing science major I was fortunate enough to travel to Granada Spain for my study abroad program where I was immersed in Spanish language in all of my classes were in Spanish I was also fortunate to recently recently share my experience with the fifth grade class at West senior middle school my presentation covered language culture history and geography
002and was mostly presented in Spanish I provide this public comment to the poor tonight because I was in very impressed with the knowledge of these fifth graders when I attended with Kinnear middle school when your language was offered starting in seventh grade I am using adhesive girls have been sewing Spanish since first grade in the future deliberations regarding the level foreign language instruction at Center Huckabay and whiskey near I would encourage more instruction than less because it is working and we can tell about our level of proficiency in these students they were able to answer any questions that mr. Beal asked them and I was very impressed by them and I would like to thank mr. Emma and mr. Beal for letting me share my Spears with the students I hope that I am so
003I gave them sort of what they could be like in the future if they continued Spanish and what else they could learn thank you thank you very much appreciate the feedback is there anyone else that has not signed up care to speak okay we'll move on to written correspondence enjoys not here but she did provide the written correspondence to me we have from Ron Jaffe regarding an article and Kristina Zimmerman regarding an FOI request next we have approval of Board minutes I'll make a motion that the board approve the minutes listed below as recommended regular meeting of six 2018 second any discussion in regards to the minutes okay all in favor aye opposed okay moving on to superintendent report thank you mister so just a few items to share with you this evening one to
004let everyone know that the Brookville high school ball field lights the peo has been rendered from the town Town finance office and we are moving forward on that project I'd like to thank the Board of Finance for supporting some of the balance to take care of this as part of an insurance claim for lights and we're very optimistic that we can have the lights ready to go by mid-september in terms of it's typically about an eight week project I have new late polls and full lights installed and ready to go so we're really excited about that and really appreciative of all of the community coming together because this is not only used by the high school but certainly used by the entire community in terms of administrative transitions at each of the schools as you
005know we've gone through several phases of our reorganization with some assistant principals moving mrs. Lukash I know our new principal beginning or huckleberry our longtime principal diamond moving to Center school and and some other administrators moving and everybody's having a very smooth transition and very you know you could feel how invigorated they are in their new positions and people are working to go out together quite well new colleagues so that's really wonderful to hear we also recently put out a world language survey as many of you know it's been a long time goal of the board to try to get an additional language at the high school and so recently this is Holly put a brief survey together asking for feedback on what people would like in an additional language if they had a choice
006and we just wanted to kind of take the temperature of the community so far about close to 700 full surveys completed with Chinese Mandarin at about 193 I'm showing through the top three there's 20-something languages to choose from but Mandarin at 193 American Sign Language at 103 which is very interesting and Italian at 81 at this point so that surveys out there some are facility projects I want to just briefly are two really big ones in addition to the ball field lights just turn over to Ken for a brief update how they're going sure yes largest projects are here at the high school the water project right now in front of the school unity for all whether the 100 thank yous today and the plan is for the old be filled with a new tank
007tomorrow and then there's still a lot more work to be done obviously after that with plumbing and wiring and but it is on schedule and on budget at the moment the other prop big project is the paving it was skinnier the sidewalks in front of the school have been removed and the asphalt for the loop in front of the school has all been removed and I think about 2/3 of the sidewalk new sidewalk has been poured so they're going to continue on with that once they complete the sidewalk then they'll start putting the asphalt down and then line in and that will be completed and that again also was running on schedule and on budget great and just the final note from me this month is that Central Connecticut State University Superintendent program asked me
008to take on another intern you may recall it took out an intern on last year this this is a neighboring principal from Reed middle school Reed Intermediate School excuse me in Newtown Lauren Uberti who is the principal there will be working so you'll folks get to meet Herschel tents and board meetings and attend our administrative meetings and kind of learn the ways of the superintendency as part of her program at Central Connecticut so I want to let you know that you may meet her next month people will say how long is that program it's typically a twelve month to 14 month program kind of summer summer one summer through the academic year through another summer as typically how it works about 300 internship hours need to be complete yes it's quite a bit and that's
009only happened questions thank you thank you thank you dr. Brown you're very welcome okay next we have subcommittee reports first is Cape I can say something to that so the last time you met it was it was kind of a quick meetings that was the same night as the warming up ceremony will be observed suppose so but we had several presentations from aggie burns at WMS she's she presented on the impact of the teacher's college reading program that we piloted we started a pilot last year and so we had we watched some videos of some samples of student work and those sounded really positive so that looks like it's going very well we also got a presentation from principal Belinda on vocabulary instruction and how the professional learning that that's being done on research-based vocabulary
010instruction has been enhanced the classroom instruction we also took a look and approved the new text for ap physics and the last thing we talked about was the marching band program which in recent years has sort of really declined in enrollment there's only about 20 participants now so rather than a marching band program we explored something similar it's called a blast type format I think blast is actually like sort of trademark name so but it's a it's a type of it's like marching band but it's it's coordinated movements but it's indoors on stage so and a lot of schools have sort of started transitioning into that so and they've gotten more enrollment and a better participation it's like it's choreography but it's also new more new music things like that so the committee unanimously supported
011the implementation of of a program more similar to that and see if that you know increases participation pretty much just all other than the Sorrell language study so far though sorry that was it well question with the AP physics texts since it is just one text for a class that doesn't need to go through the full board am I correct in that or do we need to approve that book through the full board questions for dr. Gruber well I would have to I would have to check our our process on that right no I think about that I mean was approved by Cape would keep after recommends the forum board have to approve that our textbook approval yeah so we'd have to take a look at that yeah so we can look at that frame
012come back to you for next month great thanks you got on the fan thing did the chief committee agreed to both the implementation of last and the elimination of the marching band or was it just adding and why it was sort of more of a transition into that as opposed to the marching band okay and will that come to the board I believe so I mean we voted on the support of a blast of blast yeah so I believe the students that are currently involved in marching band will will move over into more of that type of format and couldn't they can they can do that activity with the amount of people that they currently do I get a chance to vote on elimination of marching band I don't know yeah I would like to
013understand more and just like marching band plays at games and parades and outdoor activities does that mean they're not going to be doing that anymore or is this more like where the understanding is the marching for marching band actually isn't involved at games and things like that that was part of the discussion and part of them I mean I wasn't at that meeting so yeah you can speak to that but that that's part of that discussion I think it's I think it's generated from the from the advisor you know the teacher as well as the students they're trying to yeah sustain what they have because there's 20 kids that are in marching bands and they really can't do a whole lot another rewrite enough is just sort of like pointless it is because we don't
014have enough enough sections we don't have my kids to actually do very many this year I think they tried to pull from whisk in here to get some seventh eighth graders that's proven difficult the last couple of years well why don't we why don't we see if we can arrange a presentation from high school folks and some of the students to come in and talk about the differences and you know what they're trying to accomplish yeah yeah and we want you to do that watched an awesome video of some other schools that have transitioned to this type of format it looks really fun it looks like kids would be much more engaged in this type of program it includes like the same type of instruments but you can also bring in you know like the
015dance team and like color guard and so it actually gets that's pretty cool so that was really I want to see it yeah I would be very interested in seeing it so yeah I'll be frank I've had this full disclosure I had two children who went through the marching band program so I had nine years of being a marching band parent I was treasurer of the marching band parents Association and it is the single-most market individual influence unlike the children who participated in it and it was it brought discipline and brought the ability to look outside the schools and area setting and it takes commitment by the educators that they would like to do it and since mr. friend left we have not seen that commitment so I can't it's hard for me to tell
016whether this is an issue of the students not having interest of the educators not having it and so I am NOT a fan of eliminating that program I'd be a big fan of adding something that is interesting but I'm not a fan of eliminating a program like that and I'd like to be able to see it and I'd like to have be able have a chance to discuss sure why we should continue a marching band program and find a way to have our middle school educators and our high school educators committed to such a program it's marching band currently done during the school day or is it an after senseless marching bands kind of half extracurricular it's like you ought to think of marching band almost like a athletic team competitions once a week they
017have that after school practices they have a job just before school summer and the training camp you know where they all learn their bets come back mid-august with its as much more of an act together regular than it really even was a academic program thank you folks thank you and keep you yep analyzer for Policy so when we last met we talked about we continue our discussion of the 3000 series and tonight you'll see to the policies that Cape recommends with Brookfield does not yet have and there will be a lot more probably at our next meeting we will have finished that chunk of it the ones that cave has that Brookfield is not those will be sent if they haven't already to Ken Ken will review them and then we'll be coming to you
018guys for a first read in September so and we'll also be sort of plugging away at the rest of the 3000 series as well I think that was it in terms of actual policies the communications portion or communications meeting we talked briefly about potentially a future position someone who can sort of be a communication / public relations type of experts that we can we can better get information from the board from the squirrel to the public perhaps this you know could be somewhat of a of a town in school thing or maybe a part-time school thing but we just sort of tossed around that idea and kept coming back to it as something that we potentially need to to keep on our radar as a as a potential addition it's a good idea is unless
019there is any other additions might be something good to do in conjunction with the town yeah see if we can get something roll in there great thank you so much next we have facilities okay pretty much dr. birrell and mr. post took over their reporting on their facilities highlight again we are going to be getting new poles and new lights and I know it will be done before the first game that's very exciting the paving project has started at whiskey near we also discussed moving the press box at the high school Stadium and have decided to request that funds be transferred to have this done in the new press box would be installed on the bleachers and trying to thank just normal summer projects that we work on pH water project a PHS water project
020that mr. post discuss and paving again and then a floor replacement this year huckleberry is going to be having a railing installed next a handicapped ramp and that's really about it for our facilities so the prospects that's possible now because the life oh yes yes well um karma was on our side and the light pole that was an issue the macro burst took out on us okay so that kind of enabled us a terrific opportunity to be able to reallocate or relocate the press box great so so for for people at home and those people you know while the school in takes advantage of the evening lights quite a bit with lacrosse soccer and field hockey games football games at night the grounds of the school the ball fields and the lights and the bleachers
021are all actually under the auspices of being taken care of by Parks and Rec so working in concert together on that to Eve's point we couldn't update the pigs we couldn't put the press box that basically fits on the bleachers like an erector set there's a matching manufactured press box that can fit right on the bleachers because there was a light pole in the way one of the old light bulbs with the light poles after the storm one falling and the rest being rendered what's the word inoperable take it down thank you in getting now the replacement lights with four light poles it opens that area up so we don't have to have the existing poles box we can have the new press box the ancillary benefit is we also had a summer project to
022finally make the old box handicapped accessible and that project now doesn't have to occur we can allocate funds to purchasing the new press box from that project to get the new press box all set and moved on and it'll it'll meet the requirements it needs to meet so it's pretty exciting all that happening so see the sun's the sunshine after the storm it was sunshine after the storm we actually found out about one more sunshiny item after day we had damage at The Whisky near roof section I believe it was around 10,000 square feet that the insurance company had a roof roofing engineer come in and look at it and they are paying to replace that section of roof so it's a thing a little over $150,000 so we just did the purchase order on
023that so just a mechanic's question on the reallocation upon us for a new press box yes what is who are the approvers of that that's mr. Lucas and mr. Dunn submitted for the for the request and we just have to we have to have approval by the First Selectman and the town treasurer to reallocate the 2015-16 funds from not approved projects to ones that are either over so it's coming out of the 1516 five correct and it's one of those prices they kind of yes and it's that were approved but back when they were developed they're not projects that we can readily do at this point so those funds so and how long does that project take once we launch it in technology they ask to be brought up to the past box but it
024all should be happening yeah that's why getting these POS done before the men you know that this mid-july doing is important it is for sure so to the taxpayers it's costing you zero dollars to have all of these improvements done lemonade are limits okay let's keep you in the husband to solve a witness love being there um we just had a meeting tonight right before our Board of Ed meeting we discussed and we reviewed the survey results from the June 7 public forum that took place at the Burke ville High School Auditorium 487 responses to the survey were received there were 122 views of the presentation on the internet just some highlights from the survey out of 487 people who responded 350 people voted that when and if we do do something that their biggest
025concern was minimizing the disruption of education for the students during construction so that was pretty pretty interesting the rest of the stuff it was you know ups and downs there was nothing really surprising that we found on the survey tonight as a group Tecton Associates came they gave a presentation we all decided unanimously to focus on one option but we are reserving the right to look at it intrigued at it and we've asked checked and associates to go back and to look at different scenarios for option C anything else yeah you share your option C is so people know what that is specifically yes which option that is yes option C is new huckleberry Hill Elementary on existing site so well we voted on that the option was huckleberry hill school where it is now
026at the same time when the children are in classes we would begin building a brand new building on the same site what that would do was it would combine Center Elementary School and huckleberry elementary school into one school the tree went back to with the architect was whether we wanted to have pre-k through five in one building we asked them to do what projections and drawings and research that a little bit more for us or perhaps use a portion of huckleberry hill school as it exists now in addition to a new school so we're kind of weighing different options right now and this is all very preliminary they have not reported back obviously their findings for the rest of the great configuration six through eight would be a twist Kinnear and 9 through 12 would
027be at the high school any questions and we're going to be scheduling another meeting and if I don't if we don't have it before the next meeting I will let you know when that is yeah they're usually no their public forum or not until not not like yeah because really right now what what we want to do is we want to come back and we want to review what Tekken Associates has we have to decide as a committee what we feel is best in what we want to recommend as as being best you know what Park felt for the students in the community unanimously wants you know with with the public and taking a look at everything pre-k through five on one site and so the quite the the the final question that he was
028talking about is pre-k through five in one building as was proposed an option say for people to take a look at or we were talking and brainstorming as a committee today and the architects came in with some other options within that option perhaps in an idea came up that the building of a new huckleberry that could accommodate fifth grade and center school students as well as the existing huckleberry grades will be away because the bones of the existing huckleberry are very strong there's a lot of good qualities about the old school there's some good qualities and so could you leave a portion of the school up and perhaps house Kay and pre-preschool pre-k programming there maybe even central office staff and professional development learning spaces and still be able to develop the ball fields the
029parking the driveway all the things you need to do so that that's one aspect we still want to explore before we finalize as a committee what were what we're going to propose to the community and then go forward with more forums and engagement and meet and greets and all kinds of interactions with the with the community and that kind of a thing as well as a timeline a realistic timeline of when we can get all the way to referendum which we're thinking probably early spring like a March 8th of 2019 my concern with sure what that is and I like the options within options but if the next public forum is going to let's be let's say it's going to present an option that the public hasn't yet already seen they're going to be shocked
030because they're gonna say well I you know you said option C was there and this is nothing like what we were shown previously so sure I just think that the in between needs to be like communicated live in abundance I think the message is gonna get lost and that was one thing that we just didn't have enough time tonight to set up is subcommittees you know for you know tens we're getting the word out and going and meeting and really talking to the community in greater detail and trying to set up as many opportunities as we can to educate the community the TV appoint Rosa we really need to as a committee once we've you know made that decision the van we go full steam ahead on keep the communication plan and so forth so
031but right now we yeah we don't have that we just we know we want to happen we have a very say in options and students there I think the important takeaway or outcome from tonight's meeting was that we all decided that center school is now off the table we're not going to spend time anymore talking about how we can renovate it how we can modify it it's it's too inefficient and there are different efficiencies that we can realize by having even if it does end up being two schools on a huckleberry campus we can get some efficiencies with busing and maintenance and grounds right and I think really you know the goal of committee one of the things we need to do and it it's all about availability of the committee members but it would
032really be ideal if to what roses concern was that she brought up there in terms of you know those options within options and alternatives kind of thinking is the committee needs to come forward with the final final recommendation to the Board of Education and the time being of the essence if we can do it before the August 15th regular meeting that would be ideal and so that's just the next you know that's less than a month so if we get another meeting and prior to finalize this and Lisa and I'll start the schedule with Eve and taking a look at the calendar be ready for August so this way once people are excited they're back from summer break they're focused on school then we can we can move forward community would be great any other
033questions thank you very much thank you all of your work with the entire committee next we have the security task force update I can just give a very brief overview on that via the security task force met last week and essentially we reviewed protocols procedures in place for riskier principle Linda was kind enough to be the first to go at it and we asked him not to come prepared because we wanted him to be able just to answer right off the bat any questions we had in regards to protocols and procedures his responses and our questions led to many other questions and and avenues to go I think we decided at that point though that we wanted to wait until all of the schools presenter procedures are so protocols then we could take the common
034threads and use those as avenues as to where to go from there as our jumping point scheduled next week we're going to be meeting next month that's where a good any questions good idea having that him come and in the end it's great the other three principals are on board for the next meeting they're ready to yes yes okay so now we have our consent agenda someone wants to make the motion for that motion make the motion that the board approve the items in the consent agenda as recommend second okay do we have any comments questions see we have some retirements I'd like to give a shout out to seal majority and Patricia miracle for all of their work we have 20 years of service for seal and 30 years of service Patricia and that's
035amazing if you think about it's 50 years between the two of em so definitely thanks many thanks for all of their hard work and their contributions to the Brookfield schools thanks for saying that clip all right no other questions all in favor opposed okay moving on to the business we have our policy thirty five twenty point one motion is that the food policies the thirty five twenty thought one information on security breach and notification for a first reading as recommended by the policy subcommittee second okay Reza did you want to introduce this at all I'm sure and I'm so this one and the one that you'll see next has to do with we already approved a policy for I think at the last meeting or meetings good yeah that has to deal with with some
036student privacy and how we collect the data and what we do with it and what third-party vendors do with it as well this these two policies have more to do with the information that we collect from students and if there's a breach in security so the policy is pretty straightforward and yeah so I don't know I don't know if you have anything more specific to say about it but yeah so concepts or the last two policies we have had to do with the Bender's and their whim of their responsibilities to us these have to do with ours one's abilities to us or also when we felt we have to post up the holes can have a comprehensive security we've reviewed these these were also standard cave recommended policies that they thought they gave us some
037options and we selected the options that best fit Brookfield and that's what great so doing of 30 days between now in our guest meeting we do so this will come up for a second radio September so we'll have to wait till the September meeting so when would the policy Communications Committee like any questions in regards to these policies to be forwarded funnel to you with the missus - we meet just before the September meeting I think is our next schedule yeah but the next board though but we don't have a policy meeting over the second is the next policy all right we can answer questions yeah you know prior to that and still bring it for second reading at the first attempt rating okay so yes so by our oddest meeting yep have any questions
03815 - Rosa yeah okay that sounds good I'm gonna say that for this one and the next band coming up thank you okay um we have that as a recommended motion so in the did second death you so all in favor accepting policy thirty five twenty point one for a first read my mind opposed right and now we have thirty five twenty point eleven new policy committee class 2011 electronic security information for our first reading it so [Music] similar to although the previous one was talking about a security breach this is I believe just how we will manage electronic information the availability of electronic information educating staff and students about it okay also another very sharp I had this one just demands that we have procedures and methods for protecting it for the second one
039first one without feeling that breach yes okay this also talks about access to who who we allow and so forth and again we're seeing it for the first time now so if anyone has any questions Keynesian policies Brookfield currently does not have it as recommend okay okay okay all right Oh any other questions then I'm a favor entire post okay that concludes new business upcoming events we just have one day on sunset sizzler 5k is Friday on the 3rd this is the Brookfield high school all sports club they're their primary fundraiser so if anyone is interested in sponsoring or running they can go ahead and check the website for that I should leave to invite more people it's a run walk right so if people it's not a walk they can absolute like a walk
040I would probably say that they have people they're walking it's a great night it's a great event what what's the date on his third all right there being no other upcoming events now we have the executive session recommended motion that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing and superintendents goals the lawsuit filed by former superintendent of Hampton lavona and a confidential SEC okay all in favor aye host okay that concludes the open portion of our board meeting thank you everyone who are attending and have a good evening [Music] I know [Music]